Baltic cruise

[batkaplan]

I am taking a Baltic cruise next April/May. Is it better to book excursions through the ship or private companies?

[CruiserBruce]

Define "better".

 

If you look around Cruise Critic, you will find dozens of discussions on this. What it boils down to is your comfort level. MANY people book independent tours. Many others don't. There is no one, right or wrong, answer.

 

You will see many people state that the ship will wait for you if a ship's tour is late. This is true most (but not all) of the time. These people want to imply there is some significant chance a private vendor will make you late, and you will miss the ship. Yes, it could happen, but after many years on Cruise Critic, and many independent tours, I have yet to see one report of a private vendor causing a passenger to miss a ship. Their rep would be ruined. It just hasn't happened.

 

Doing independent tours is almost always a far better use of your time and effort. It is far better than getting on a bus with 45 of your newest friends, at least 2 or 4 of which can't, or won't, be back to the bus on time.

 

Don't forget your option to simply DIY. Take a cab, a bus, a trolley, or just walk. We do that almost as often. We also do ship's excursions from time to time.

[ontheweb]

I am taking a Baltic cruise next April/May. Is it better to book excursions through the ship or private companies?

 

Do your research, and I think you will find you can do most of the ports on your own.

 

The one exception is St. Petersburg. It is not really a do it on your own port, plus getting your own Russian visa will cost you as much as a tour, more if you consider the time and effort you have to put into it. I think you will find a consensus that you are better off with a private tour.

 

Check the ports of call section for the Baltic region, and should find many posts about the different tour providers. Also you might want to check your roll call to see if anyone else is considering a specific private tour and is looking for others to join. Or, if you find a tour that you particularly like, post on your roll call and see if others will join you. That is what we successfully did.

Edited September 10, 2018 by ontheweb
added last two sentences

[klfrodo]

My wife and I just completed this sailing in July of this year.

We did all ship excursions.

If I had to do it all over again, I would go with private (or smaller group) excursions.

 

Ship excursions went something like this.

 

* Go down to the theater, show them your purchased excursion ticket, get a group sticker number that sticks to your shirt, sit down, wait.

* They call your group number and all50 people get up and try to follow a ship crew member to the deck to exit the ship. (The crew member does not know that they can only walk as fast as the slowest person) , The group gets strung out.

* You exit the ship and the tour guide takes your ticket and herds everyone on the bus. Yes, out of 50 people, someone misplaced their ticket, or someone wants a "special" seat that someone else has already occupied.

* The tour is going well, you get off the bus, visit your site, then on to the next one. Back on the bus. Hold it,,, we only have 46. Where are the other 4?

* Next stop includes a lot of walking, tour guide hands out head phones and receivers. Okay, everyone test. Can you hear me? Opps, someone can't figure out what that On/Off switch is. They need help. Off you go. Follow the guide, hurry up,, Why did that person come to a dead stop in front of me and cause me to trip over them? Hurry, hurry, hurry to catch up. Get back on the bus. Head count,, guess what? We only have 45 people now.

 

Join your roll call

I can say that Alla Tours is very popular in the Baltic region and they give discounts if you book more than just 1 or 2 excursion from them.

[Heidi13]

The question of whether ship tours or private tours are better is very subjective and you will receive many opinions on both sides. We have cruised for about 40 years and I also worked aboard cruise ships, so have experience with the number of pax that miss the ship.

 

Personally, we use ship tours, private tours and also in some ports just wander or catch a taxi/ho-ho bus. We base our selection on the risk factors at each port - security, distance from the ship, traffic conditions, etc.

 

We completed a Baltic Cruise last Autumn and our preference in every port, except Berlin was a private tour operator - we selected Alla Tours. We ended up having excellent tours with Alla in St Petersburg & Tallinn, but were unable to meet min pax in the other ports. In SPB we had 10 pax + excellent guide & driver and in Tallinn it was 5 pax + guide & driver. The other ports, we used the ship and ended up in 50 pax buses.

 

So in the Baltic, we definitely suggest using a private tour operator. In addition to Alla, SPB has at least 3 other tour providers that are equally as good. Many of the SPB tour operators provide discounts in all other Baltic ports. Note - in SPB you do not require a Visa, provided you use the ship or an approved tour provider.

[CruiserBruce]

The question of whether ship tours or private tours are better is very subjective and you will receive many opinions on both sides. We have cruised for about 40 years and I also worked aboard cruise ships, so have experience with the number of pax that miss the ship.

 

 

Perhaps some clarification would be good here...how many were on private tours and missed the ship? As opposed to how many were consuming adult beverages and missed the ship?