Cost of Baltic Excursions?

[Noliboli]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and have only taken one short (3 day cruise) on Disney. We are considering a 12-night Baltic cruise in 2016 because RCCL is currently having a great sale until the end of April. My question is this, has anyone been on this cruise and what is the average cost of the excursions. I certainly don't want to stay on the ship while in Europe, but cost is a factor. I can't find any cost info on the RCCL website. Thanks for any advice.

[hubofhockey]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and have only taken one short (3 day cruise) on Disney. We are considering a 12-night Baltic cruise in 2016 because RCCL is currently having a great sale until the end of April. My question is this, has anyone been on this cruise and what is the average cost of the excursions. I certainly don't want to stay on the ship while in Europe, but cost is a factor. I can't find any cost info on the RCCL website. Thanks for any advice.

 

You will spend more in St Petersburg and not regret it, but maybe use a private excursion for lower price and better quality. Some ports can be done with no excursion at all. It's a great itinerary. You should go to the ports of call boards and do some research on the ports your itinerary includes.

[Velvetwater]

We did a Baltic cruise that was 12 days and only booked 1 excursion for all our ports. Not sure which ports you visit but this is what we did.

 

Tallin, Estonia - small city with beautiful old part. Get off ship and buy a Hop off and on ticket....excursions are not needed as its great to explore.

 

St Petersburg - You have to have a Visa here but most excursions you book have it included. We bought a 2 day complete tour that cost us £150 ($225) inc lunch. We also bought a Vodka tasting night tour that cost £30 ($45) with TJ travel and can highly recommend them.

 

Warnemunde/Berlin - Stayed in Warnemunde and everything is near port. Berlin sightseers took a private booked train and this cost them £90 ($135) with of a tour and Berlin is quite a way from the coast!

 

Helsinki -Easy hop off ship and onto a Hop on hop off bus and did sightseeing for the cost of the bus plus our own wandering around. We found it easy to find local markets and such.

 

Copenhagen - Easy hop off ship and onto a Hop on hop off bus again and did sightseeing for the cost of the bus plus our own wandering around. Tivoli tickets are priced on the website if you want to see that too but theres too much for one day and some people did tours of a brewery which can also be bought on site. The famous harbor is very near the dock too.

 

Amsterdam - As we are frequent visitors here we jumped off the ship and easily walked to the centre. Buy tickets for famous museums (Anne Frank etc) to avoid long lines and this can be done without booking excursions.

 

 

Hop on hop off buses are all over Europe and offer top deck views with earphones giving you a tour and facts about the city....they cost around $20-30 per person depending on route and city and you can use them all day. However if you really feel like you need to do excursions then the ship ones will be more than what I quoted above. If you book with private companies there are quite a few that offer a 'Baltic package' meaning if you book 3-4 packages with them you get a bit of money off.

Edited April 12, 2015 by Velvetwater

[lost4sure]

Hello Velvetwater,

 

Thank you for the detailed info. Very much appreciated. I am planning to cruise the Baltic with my elderly mobile challenged parents. My sister and I are bring their wheelchairs along. I do know Europe have a lot of cobblestone street, how about the Baltic ports? Is it possible to wheelchair them at these ports? Also, in SPB, how wheelchair friendly are the sites?

 

Thanks,

Grace

[Essiesmom]

Get a copy of Rick Steves' Northern Europe Cruise Ports and see how you can do many of the ports on your own. EM

[Velvetwater]

Hello Velvetwater,

 

Thank you for the detailed info. Very much appreciated. I am planning to cruise the Baltic with my elderly mobile challenged parents. My sister and I are bring their wheelchairs along. I do know Europe have a lot of cobblestone street, how about the Baltic ports? Is it possible to wheelchair them at these ports? Also, in SPB, how wheelchair friendly are the sites?

 

Thanks,

Grace

 

Like a lot of European cities the Baltic ports are generally a mixture of cobbled and normal pavements.

 

St Petersburg is actually very easy pavement wise and all the main sites have disabled access (Catherine's Palace, The Hermitage, Bolshoi etc) however the Hydrofoil did not have disabled access and everywhere was quite crowded. Copenhagen is relatively flat so easy walking but had some cobbled streets scattered in places and main streets were not....same with Helsinki. Tallinn's old part was cobbled everywhere as you might expect but other parts of the city were less so (the old part is the only good part though in my opinion). Amsterdam is packed full of cobbled streets also. Unfortunately many places of interest and beauty are next to or near cobbles.

 

I wish I could remember more cobbledness but being British I do have a certain tolerance for cobbles and may not notice them as others do. However what I would say is in a lot of cities in Europe a lot of cobbles are worn and some streets will make a bumpy ride and some more pronounced ones will need a good bit of navigating.

 

If you do decide to go for it I can really recommend it as a cruise. Very calm Baltic sea with interesting ports and wonderful scenery and I am sure you will enjoy it.

 

Good luck on choosing!

[FTLcruisers]

we have done the Baltic twice.

 

For St Petersburg, both times we used Alla Tours and were very pleased with the tours. Actually the 2nd time, the ship stayed 3 days so we were able to go to Moscow on the high speed train.

 

Berlin - we docked in Rostock the first time and did a ship's tour (which wasn't that great) but the 2nd time, we used Alla to get to Berlin and we were really glad we got to see that historic city.

 

Tallin - as most said, can be done on your own.

 

Helsinki - we used the ship's shuttle into town and then explored the markets, churches, etc on our own. Went into the supermarket and got some things to eat and ate in a nearby park

 

Copenhagen - We did a 'free' walking tour with Sandeman's New Europe (we used them in Amsterdam also). The tours are fabulous and you tip at the end whatever you feel the tour is worth. They are in about 15 different cities - check out their website.

 

Enjoy!

 

Marianne

[EGG]

Here is the link to the excursions page for RCCL. I hope it works. http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/destinations/shoreExcursions/ports/view.do?DestinationCode=EUROP If not, click through the cruise you want and look for excursions. You can get prices there. We always start by looking at the ships excursions so that we can decide what we want to do, and then find out if we can do it ourselves.

 

I loved the Baltic Cruise we went on and one of the reasons was we did the cities by ourselves (with the exception of St. Petersberg where we did a private tour with people from our roll call). At the time we were in our fifties and loved to walk and just experience the ambiance of the cities. So we took the shuttle into the city and planned a few inside stops at churches and museums.

 

I also suggest you go to the roll call for your cruise. A popular thing to do in Europe is to join private excursions with people on your cruise who you can meet on your roll call. The private excursions are generally less expensive and the smaller vans can get you closer to the tourist sites. Two people will be much more expensive, but as you join more people, the cost goes down considerably.

 

Hard to say what an average excursion is because they are often based on the length of the excursion and what you want to do. Browsing the ships excursion will give you a better idea since you can choose what you want to do. Personally, we avoid lunch, because it takes up a large chunk of time, usually at a mass market place that can handle multiple people. We would rather buy food on the run, or we bring packaged granola bars from home.

 

You should also go to the Ports of Call Boards to get more information on each individual port. You can search on the Port through the search feature towards the upper right. If you can't find it start a new thread and ask for help with the search feature.

 

I believe there is also a board for disabled cruisers. Lost4sure, you may be able to get more information there. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=190

 

Finally, a word of advice. We always make sure we leave the ship as early as we can and we plan to get back to the ship an hour before all aboard (which is usually 30 minutes before the ship is scheduled to leave.