How to do Baltic ports on your own

[AEGBRG]

Hi everyone,

 

We have excursions booked with SPB tours for St. Petersburg and Berlin, but were planning on doing Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin, and Copenhagen on our own.

 

For those of you who have done these four ports on your own, can you give any instructions/advice/tips on how to get to the main parts of the cities and attractions? What transportation to take? Are any of the ports to the city walkable? Any can't miss sites that you would recommend?

 

We are on the Celebrity Constellation if that helps give you an idea on where we will be docked in proximity to the city.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Cornishpastyman1]

Hi everyone,

 

We have excursions booked with SPB tours for St. Petersburg and Berlin, but were planning on doing Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin, and Copenhagen on our own.

 

For those of you who have done these four ports on your own, can you give any instructions/advice/tips on how to get to the main parts of the cities and attractions? What transportation to take? Are any of the ports to the city walkable? Any can't miss sites that you would recommend?

 

We are on the Celebrity Constellation if that helps give you an idea on where we will be docked in proximity to the city.

 

Thanks in advance.

This is how I did those 4 on my own http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1666677

All the best, Tony

[Desdichado62]

Hi everyone,

 

We have excursions booked with SPB tours for St. Petersburg and Berlin, but were planning on doing Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin, and Copenhagen on our own.

 

For those of you who have done these four ports on your own, can you give any instructions/advice/tips on how to get to the main parts of the cities and attractions? What transportation to take? Are any of the ports to the city walkable? Any can't miss sites that you would recommend?

 

We are on the Celebrity Constellation if that helps give you an idea on where we will be docked in proximity to the city.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

read the advice threads to start with and if you have more questions just ask and there will be many who will try to answer them.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1017275

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1772831

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1606720

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1661563

[CoralReef]

The Rick Steves Scandinavia guidebook has detailed walking tours, lists of attractions, transportation schedules, and other DIY advice for all these ports. Great resource for self-touring!

[Giantfan13]

All four ports are very easy to do on your own. As has already been stated, you need to do some reading up on these ports. there are several excellent threads on this page alone which will give you great insights into each port.

After that go to your local library and take out any and all books on the Baltics. If they have Rich Steve's books, tapes, DVD's take them out and read them. They are a wealth of knowledge for the cruiser.

last, you should email all the tourist bureau's in each port and ask them to send you whatever literature they can, along with maps and walking tours.

We got wonderful maps from Copenhagen and Stockholm.

 

As was said, all these ports are very, very easy to do on your own.

 

Just a few sites that should not be missed

Copenhagen--the Little Mermaid and the Canal boat tour from Nyhavn

Stockholm--The Vasa Museum, Gamla Stan

Helsinki--Market Square, Church in the Rock

Tallinn--the entire old city is a joy to walk thru

 

Here are a few pixs of some of these places, so you can see what I am talking about

 

IN Copenhagen, the Nyhavn section is a wonderful place to stool around and catch the canal boat tour

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/baltics/europe248_zps07b56845.jpg

 

In Tallinn, part of the walking tour will take you to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/baltics/europe566.jpg

 

In Helsinki, Market Square is the sort of Hub of the city. Everything happens around here

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/baltics/europe1133.jpg

 

The Church in the Rock is an amazing things to see

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/baltics/europe1103.jpg

 

In Stockholm

Once you get to Gamla Stan, try and catch the Changing of the guard ceremony

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/baltics/europe1306.jpg

 

And The area know as Gamla Stan, the old city, with narrow cobblestone streets, is a wonderful place to eat, stroll, or explore

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz267/Giantfan13/baltics/europe1306.jpg

 

Hope this helps some, but do some reading on your own

 

Cheers

 

Len

[hazeleyez3]

Try and do a search for Tallinn on this board. There was someone that created a really nice walking tour (website and pdf), which we used.

[Ergates The Ant]

We were on the Eclipse in May / June this year, and walked into Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn and Copenhagen from the ship. Didn't have any problems, we are fairly active in our early 60s.

Got lots of info from cruise critic port reviews, google maps and tourist information sites, plus free maps and advice in the port terminal tourist information when we docked.

[We're The Groupnors]

Here's a response I wrote for a previous post:

 

In Russia we used Anastasia tours, and used Rubles for snacks and our awesome Red Line subway ride, and as a tip.

 

For other tours, or self tours we did:

 

Bruges: the Bruges on your own tour through Celebrity, which is really just a coach into Bruges, then you're on your own until you meet the group to take the coach back. No tour needed for Bruges; a map and a good pair of walking shoes was all we needed.

 

Warnemunde: we walked the beautiful little town in the morning (literally all of it!), had lunch back on the blissfully empty ship, then took the train to Rostock for the afternoon, which was also lovely.

 

Helsinki: we took the Celebrity shuttle into the downtown and did a self guided walking tour. Beautiful city and an easy walk.

 

St. Petersburg: tour with Anastasia as noted. We originally booked their basic group tour, but we're the only people on our ship that did, so we ended up with a private tour for the same price, just us, a guide, and a driver in a sedan. It was awesome!

 

Tallinn: there are shuttles available into town, but we did the 15 minute walk to the old city water gate instead, and did a self walking tour that we found on the Internet. We did the tour in the reverse of how it was printed, and missed all the crowds.

 

Stockholm: we got in the first HOHO bus on the pier, and got to the Vasa Museum just as they opened. We toured it and we're leaving just as the first tour group arrived, then got back on the HOHO into the downtown and took advantage of the many convenient stops.

 

Copenhagen: we did a self guided walking tour, which started at the Little Mermaid statue a 10 minute walk outside the gates from the pier. Walked around the city back to the ship for a late lunch and then took the Celebrity shuttle and Tivoli ticket combo out to Tivoli Gardens for the evening and dinner.

 

Enjoy your trip! If you're interested in any of the walking tours we did send a message through Cruise Critic and we'll be happy to share.

[lynncarol]

Used the visitor center's city bus tour but on our own took a ferry from the port to Suomenlinna Islands which we loved.