Land and Sea in N. Europe?

[sunshine nana]

We are looking at a land trip (Budapest to Copenhagen) with a cruise from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg. Has anyone done this? We have been thinking about a Danube River cruise from Budapest to Vienna to Prague, but the river has been too low to travel and the river cruises are expensive especially if they end up being a bus trip.We have done the Baltic cruise and loved it and have wanted to go again. This seemed like a good way of combining both, but there is little information. It is on the Regal for next spring and summer. I am wondering how the hotels are and also if the food on land and excursions on land are included in the price. Can anyone help? Thanks

[CruiserBruce]

We just did 7 days in Australia before we got on Dawn Princess for 17 days.

 

 

There is little info because, really, the two parts of your vacation are independent of each other. It doesn't really matter if you do a land vacation or a river cruise, or any other trip before your Princess cruise. The two things have nothing in common. Plan and book each separately, just be at the right place at the right time to board your ship. That is the only connection.

[reedprincess]

I am assuming you're meaning one of the Princess cruisetour? Looks like it would be a good way to do it altogether, with the planning mainly handled for you. When you look at the cruisetours, the itineraries show which meals are inckuded with the tour. The ones I've looked at for Copenhagen, Budapest, etc inckude some breakfasts, some dinners and some lunches - not everyday by any means, but usually at least one meal a day is included...

Can't speak to your hotels as they don't list then, but I would expect them to be at least 3-star properties, ie clean, comfortable, full service but not heavy luxury, etc..

If it fits your travel plans, I'd go for it. Why not? It may work out less expensive to do the land portion yourself (likely), but then you have the added stress of planning, choosing, research, etc. If you're willing to pay more for someone else to do it for you, then the cruisetour looks great.

[sunshine nana]

Thanks for the replies. One reason for taking the land part with Princess rather than the train on our own is the problem right now with the train stations being overwhelmed with people trying to get to Germany etc. from war torn areas. The price seems reasonable and we did do one bus tour (WWII) from Paris to Bavaria which was ok except for one hotel that was dirty. Also, none of the hotels had a/c. I wish I could find out which hotels Princess uses. Anyone?

[Griller]

There may be refugees you don't want to mix with on the trains right now, but your anticipated tour is not right now, it should have settled down by the time you travel.

Also the reason hotels often don't have AC is that you really don't often need it in Northern Europe, good heating in the winter is rather more important.

If the only problem you had in WWII going from France to Germany was one dirty hotel you had a better experience than most military vets did.

[rdsqrl]

. . . If the only problem you had in WWII going from France to Germany was one dirty hotel, you had a better experience than most military vets did.

*snort*

[Dietemann]

We looked at this cruise tour a year ago, but then something else came up and we did not go. The information we had about the land tour indicated that it was run by Globus Tours. If you go on Globus' website and find a comparable land tour you can see which hotels they use. They looked perfectly acceptable to me. Of course I don't know if the same tour company will be providing the land tour next year. But I would not hesitate to book this package with Princess.

[sunshine nana]

I will check out the Globus Tour. We might end up using them for the land part. As for the previous remark about the WWII vets, we had a whole bus load of family of a man who landed on D-Day. Everyone was in tears when he was given the US flag at Normandy. We are all well aware and grateful for the service of all our vets including my Dad and two uncles in WWII; one uncle was a Marine in many landings in the Pacific who never recovered from malaria. My Dad was 30 and the other uncle 35 when drafted. All served without complaint.Thanks to the helpful posters.