Baltic Cruise August 8/9-8/18, 2019

[MN'smom]

We recently booked an August 2019 Baltic cruise on the Getaway (yes, I like to start planning early). I assumed that we had 2 full days in St. Petersburg but have now noticed that this particular cruise goes from straight Germany to St. Petersburg with a 6pm arrival time in St.Petersburg. Does anyone have any experience with tours leaving in the evening? Or experience with this arrival time? Unfortunately, these are the best dates for us with getting vacation time, it is what it is. I just would hate to be in SBP for an evening and remain on the ship.

[ElaineKeagy]

Check SBP Tours and Alla Tours.

A lot of people take their evening excursions to the ballet or concerts.

 

I did that on my first evening in StP but I purchased my tickets directly from the Mariinski Theatre Box Office and the CD arranged for a taxi to and from. We were on a river cruise and had three days there though. It was AMAZING if that interests you.

 

And, those two tour groups may have other types of tours other than theatres.

 

 

 

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[MN'smom]

Thanks, I'll look into that!

[Sauer-kraut]

There's an evening river tour that happens when all the bridges go up ... its supposed to be something to see. There is a thread over on the PORTS OF CALL forum for the EUROPE board there is a whole sub forum for the Baltic ports. I was just reading it yesterday ... sounded fantastic AND you can also take a food tour and have a Russian dinner.

[kitkat343]

The drawbridge tour is supposed to be lovely, but it starts at 12:30 and the round trip boat tour I saw lasts 90 minutes. If you are returning to the ship after 2 am, it might be a bit hard to put in a full day of touring the next day. I’d email spb, alla and best guides to see what they recommend doing because you need to bear in mind that it isn’t unusual to take over an hour to depart the ship in St. Petersburg on day 1 which means you need to bear that in mind when you try to plan out your first night.

[MN'smom]

Thanks. I'm going to do just that .

[kitkat343]

And do also bear in mind that on a Baltic cruise the destination is most important, not the ship. NCL waited until after final payment for 2018 season to announce a change in docking to no longer dock directly in Stockholm. Cruisers this year will miss the sail in to Stockholm (which is lovely) and need to travel over an hour each way to reach Stockholm since they will be docking in Nynashamn. I understand your work schedule isn't flexible, but there are a lot of nearly identical Baltic itineraries on a lot of different ships. I'd talk to the private tour companies to see how much they think you can visit in 1.5 days, but you also might want to search https://www.cruisesonly.com to see if another line has a cruise at this time.