Interested in Baltic Sea cruise 2019 - never been on Celebrity before

[rakesh]

I have been on Princess Alaska cruise and Disney Caribbean and Mediterranean cruises.

 

Want to take a Baltic Sea tour next year - on a dialysis at sea cruise (my father receives dialysis treatments).

 

My travel agent said only option is 2 week cruise from Southampton, leaving July 14, 2019.

I wonder if there are other cruises. We wish to see St. Petersburg and Scandinavia as a minimum.

 

What differences in amenities and service are there between Celebrity versus the 2 cruise lines I have sailed with?

[cobeck]

We did this cruise on Celebrity Eclipse in 2016. While we have never been on Disney, we loved our Princess to Alaska cruise. That was in 2005 so things change but I wouldn’t hesitate between the two to find the itinerary we want. We do tend to favor Celebrity as it is a good fit for us.

[HelenREMfan]

We did this cruise a couple of years ago in June and loved it. Celebrity is our cruise line of choice as I like to holiday away from families - as a teacher I don't mind children but I am averse to some parenting "skills". Unlike Disney Celebrity does not have slides, dodgems, climbing walls etc. So in effect you don't see too many children. Celebrity does have an area and activities for the children who do sail. Most British school children probably won't have broken up by that date - start of school summer holidays is Friday 19 July generally. I presume the ship will be the Celebrity Silhouette as the Eclipse which used to do that itinerary is sailing out of Dublin. The Eclipse is a lovely ship and the Silhouette is a comparable class though a little younger than the Eclipse.

 

The Baltic trip we did was quite port intensive but that was fine. We organised ourselves with 3 other couples to do a 2 day private tour of St Petersburg with SPB tours. They were excellent and I believe they cover quite a few of the Baltic ports. WE had exclusive use of a 12 seater minibus with driver and excellent tour guide. The bus also had (free) wifi which was great for catching up on emails etc as we journeyed between the sites. WE structured the visit entirely to suit our group and we were a mobility impaired group so that was great. SPB will liaise with you and work out the best schedule for you. Our guide was brilliant and we got early entry to the Hermitage. We fitted in St Catherine's palace, the Winter Palace, the palace where Rasputin was murdered, as just an example of what we saw. We even were taken on the underground which was amazing as one of the 2 escalators took 3 minutes to descend, as the Underground is so deep in the city. I can highly recommend the company anyway and they took care of visas etc also. (You have to have a private company nor take Celebrity's tours to take care of the visa situation)

My one regret is probably that we didn't do a trip to the ballet on the overnight stay evening.

We were in such with other people on the cruise via the roll call site and so could arrange the private tour. We did our own thing in Tallinn just taking the shuttle bus from the port to the town and the ship's excursions in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The sail into Stockholm was breathtaking and was almost worth the whole cruise.

If you weren't tied to flying into London you could have a look at the Eclipse sailing from Dublin as it will probably be doing the Baltic sailing a couple of times - probably in June - and there is near 24 hour daylight at that time. It would give you alternative dates.

[ABoatNerd]

I would suggest you examine Oceania cruises. Oceania Baltic cruises offer greater variety of itineraries and more stops than Celebrity cruises in the same time period. Take the Marina in particular.

 

Last September I did the Oceania Viking Homeland cruises from Copenhagen and returned to Amsterdam - it was totally fabulous. The smaller size of Oceania vessels allow a much easier cruise on and off and local officials came aboard at most of our stops to greet us guests and provide information.

 

Oceania is a premium cruise line with higher end food, service, destination guest speakers than Celebrity. It is a one class ship meaning all guests enjoy the same food, service, access to restaurants etc.

[Hydrokitty]

I have been on Princess Alaska cruise and Disney Caribbean and Mediterranean cruises.

 

Want to take a Baltic Sea tour next year - on a dialysis at sea cruise (my father receives dialysis treatments).

 

My travel agent said only option is 2 week cruise from Southampton, leaving July 14, 2019.

I wonder if there are other cruises. We wish to see St. Petersburg and Scandinavia as a minimum.

 

What differences in amenities and service are there between Celebrity versus the 2 cruise lines I have sailed with?

 

We did this cruise last August with a B2B for 7 day Norway on Celebrity Eclipse. I haven't sailed on Disney or Princess because our first cruise was with X and we loved it so we've kept booking and booking...anyway, Baltic Cruise from Southampton was fantastic!!! We visited Stockholm, Copenhagen, Talinn, St. Petersburg overnight, Warnemunde (Berlin) and then back to Southampton for a wonderful day in a delightful port and moved on to Norway, which is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Celebrity does have cruises with dialysis available and I think Baltics was one of them. I don't need it, but we met some people who do as well as the doctor and everyone was very happy with their treatment.

[Jack Staff]

We did a Baltic Cruise on Celebrity Eclipse - we do favour Celebrity - and the only issue we had was that on a sea day when the weather was poor an Art Auction was held in one of the lounges , this did reduce the space available to customers as most were inside the ship. Other than that could not fault it.

[upwarduk]

If you weren't tied to flying into London you could have a look at the Eclipse sailing from Dublin as it will probably be doing the Baltic sailing a couple of times - probably in June - and there is near 24 hour daylight at that time. It would give you alternative dates.

 

 

Eclipse only has 5 sailings from Dublin in 2018. It is then transferring to Amsterdam to do the Baltic.

We are sailing out of Southampton 23.06.18 and Eclipse is with us in Stockholm, so I assume the Baltic sailings startany day now.

We sailed on Eclipse in 2015 and used SPB for the De Luxe 2 day tour in St Petersburg. I was in the ‘Special Needs van, ’ due to being Lactose Intolerant. There were others who had different dietary needs. Luba our guide was excellent, making sure we were appropriately catered for. We also had a couple with us who had mobility issues, but they could walk, they were not wheel chair bound.