Warnemunde Cruiseport, Excursions into Berlin?

[Shmmr27]

Hello, first time posting- but we have a cruise in July that stops at Warnemünde (Berlin) Cruiseport which of course is not close to Berlin. But, this is the only port that me and my husband really wanted to do an excursion because initially we booked this cruise so we could see the Berlin Wall (lots of other great ports which different family members are excited for but this one we all really wanted), and then realized how far away it was, so we rationalized it by saying we'll do a cruise excursion so at least we'll be taken care of regarding length of time.

 

The only issue is that the cruise is now a couple of months away and there are no excursions on our Norwegian Dawn into Berlin. We've had this cruise booked for a year and I've read many posts and it sounds like there used to be offerings from cruise ships into Berlin that would take the whole day but at least guarantee the ship won't leave with you , I keep checking the excursion list thinking maybe it will be added, but nothing still. Does Norwegian often add excursions last minute or now that we are two months out- is their list pretty finalized and likely they aren't offering an excursion into the city?

 

Thank you very much!!

[The Traveling Man]

3 minutes ago, Shmmr27 said:

Hello, first time posting- but we have a cruise in July that stops at Warnemünde (Berlin) Cruiseport which of course is not close to Berlin. But, this is the only port that me and my husband really wanted to do an excursion because initially we booked this cruise so we could see the Berlin Wall (lots of other great ports which different family members are excited for but this one we all really wanted), and then realized how far away it was, so we rationalized it by saying we'll do a cruise excursion so at least we'll be taken care of regarding length of time.

 

The only issue is that the cruise is now a couple of months away and there are no excursions on our Norwegian Dawn into Berlin. We've had this cruise booked for a year and I've read many posts and it sounds like there used to be offerings from cruise ships into Berlin that would take the whole day but at least guarantee the ship won't leave with you , I keep checking the excursion list thinking maybe it will be added, but nothing still. Does Norwegian often add excursions last minute or now that we are two months out- is their list pretty finalized and likely they aren't offering an excursion into the city?

 

Thank you very much!!

Yes, sometimes shore excursions are available on board which do not show up online beforehand.  Also, sometimes NCL will no longer list an excursion if it is fully booked prior to the cruise.  In that case it may be shown several months in advance but not be available during the weeks just prior to sailing.  Check with the Shorex desk on board to see if there have been any cancellations or if the tour operator has added additional capacity.  If the tour you want remains fully booked, you still can ask to be added to a wait list in case of last minute cancellations.

 

In any event, I would recommend avoiding tours that require long bus or train rides.  The travel time scheduled for Berlin tours from Warnemunde is about three hours.  Traffic delays frequently add another half hour.  That makes seven hours of travel to spend maybe three hours in Berlin.  A similar case is Paris from the port of Le Havre.  You’re on vacation.  Try to spend your time more enjoyably than sitting all day on a bus.  If visiting Berlin is important to you and you can afford the time and money, schedule a few days either before or after your cruise to truly enjoy your visit there.

[njkate]

Ditto to what Traveling Man said! Try calling! 
I did a tour to Berlin with NCL because of distance and glad I did as there were issues with the train and we were two hours late getting back! Ship was supposed to depart at 7pm we didn’t get back until after 9 pm

[dexddd]

First, welcome to CC.  Lots of discussion here about to go to Berlin or not.  

 

We were there years ago and did private tour with another couple.  Check your roll call.  Not cheap but worth every penny.  

 

Yes it is a hike but experience was one of a lifetime.

[SomewhereGirl]

The generic shore excursion page lists various excursions into Berlin.  If there are none available on your sailing there must be a logical explanation.  Did you try calling the shore excursion desk directly?

 

Berlin (Warnemünde), Germany Shore Excursions | Norwegian Cruise Line (ncl.com)

[N-8]

Not sure if we are on the same cruise but we also will be in Warnemunde in July (off the Dawn). We debated if we were going to Berlin or not. There were three different excursions (guided tour, shorter guided tour with three hours on your own and just the train ride there and back). After taking a three hour train ride from Lisbon to Porto (not a cruise, just 9 days in Portugal), we decided when don't want to spend that much time on the train and will do Warnemunde and Rostock on our own (not a cruise excursion). I don't know if its related but a couple of weeks ago, they cancelled one of the Norway stops and changed it to a sea day. Also, almost every port had it's arrival time changed. When that happened, the list of excursions went from 40 something down to 13. So either they sold out or NCL may be doing some reshuffling with excursions due to different port arrival times. I would keep checking everyday or keep calling your PCC. 

[roxette]

Warnemunde is, by the way, a beautiful place by itself. It was a huge surprise to me when I was there on the Getaway.

[Travelling2Some]

33 minutes ago, roxette said:

Warnemunde is, by the way, a beautiful place by itself. It was a huge surprise to me when I was there on the Getaway.

Agree!  We enjoyed Warnemunde so much that we didn't even bother going into Rostock.  Lovely little seaside town and you just walk off the ship into it so no stress.  Given the breathtaking price of NCL's excursion to Berlin (and the prospect of most of the day wasted in transit) I would rather take that money and use it for a couple of nights in a Berlin hotel either before or after the cruise as Traveling Man suggested.

[European_CruiseGirl]

Op, just making sure. You haven’t booked yet anything from NCL to Warnemünde port have you? Kind of ”ok if a Berlin excursion won’t come available we’ll still at least have something booked”? 
 

Whenever you book an excursion to a port all other overlapping excursions for that port disappear from your view. So even if excursions to Berlin would come available you wouldn’t see them. 
 

Getting back to the topic. 3 hours one way in a bus/train just to see Berlin is not something most people would be happy to do. If you have even 1 day extra to travel just fly via Berlin to or from your cruise and truly enjoy the city. 
 

 

Edited May 10 by European_CruiseGirl

[Travelling2Some]

14 minutes ago, European_CruiseGirl said:

Whenever you book an excursion to a port all other overlapping excursions for that port disappear from your view. So even if excursions to Berlin would come available you wouldn’t see them. 
 

This is a very annoying NCL thing.  I understand they don't want people booking overlapping excursions (are we really that dumb?) but there must be a better way.  On the one hand, you feel pressure to book a popular excursion well in advance but I think most of us still want to be able to see if something we would have preferred pops up later.

[julig22]

46 minutes ago, Travelling2Some said:

This is a very annoying NCL thing.  I understand they don't want people booking overlapping excursions (are we really that dumb?) but there must be a better way.  On the one hand, you feel pressure to book a popular excursion well in advance but I think most of us still want to be able to see if something we would have preferred pops up later.

Yes, a very annoying "feature" of the software.  And I just recently found another "feature" LOL. If NCL happens to change the times of something you have booked, so that you now have overlapping excursions, you get an error message anytime you try to book anything else.  But they don't bother to let you know that they've made any changes.

 

But as to booking overlapping excursions, if they didn't limit it people would book everything, then decide later what they wanted to keep.  So I understand not allowing it BUT they certainly could (and should) allow you to see everything that's offered - especially since they now have the bad habit of adding new excursions anytime along the way.

[Asawi]

7 minutes ago, julig22 said:

BUT they certainly could (and should) allow you to see everything that's offered - especially since they now have the bad habit of adding new excursions anytime along the way.

YES! YES! YES! That ould be nice! They can still block my ability to book, no problem. But I want to see what's availble!

[The Traveling Man]

12 hours ago, njkate said:

Ditto to what Traveling Man said! Try calling! 
I did a tour to Berlin with NCL because of distance and glad I did as there were issues with the train and we were two hours late getting back! Ship was supposed to depart at 7pm we didn’t get back until after 9 pm

If that was on the Star in 2013, I was on that cruise with you.  We were back from Hamburg for hours before the train from Berlin arrived.

[The Traveling Man]

10 hours ago, roxette said:

Warnemunde is, by the way, a beautiful place by itself. It was a huge surprise to me when I was there on the Getaway.

Likewise Rostock, just a short train ride away.

[9tee2Sea]

Like folks have said, Berlin is about a 3-4 hour train ride.  I think someone recommended Rostock.  Lovely town, interesting history ( it was levels during WW2, the rebuilt to original specs).  That would still give you time to explore arnemunde when you get back ( apparently the Lighthouse in Warnemunde is the only thing to do)

[njkate]

11 hours ago, The Traveling Man said:

If that was on the Star in 2013, I was on that cruise with you.  We were back from Hamburg for hours before the train from Berlin arrived.

It was August of 2018 on Breakaway

[CruiseMH]

I know that doesn`t answer the question from OP, but as a german a very honest tip: go to Hamburg or Rostock instead of Berlin. They are more beautiful and better reachable than Berlin.

Berlin might historically be interesting for non-europeans, but it is by far not as good as you might expect.

 

[cliffy97]

We have been there a few times. If you can't get anything from the ship, stay local. We enjoyed a nice harbour tour from Wanermunde to Rostock and then the train back. Both are lovely towns.

[cruisinginmay]

Be aware that the US Department of State has issued a level 2 travel advisory for Germany. This may or may not affect your desire to visit tourist locations or transportation hubs.  We are scheduled to dock at Warnemunde and Kiel in September but have not yet decided what to do. We do not plan to go to Berlin, mainly because of the transportation time.

[cmph]

On 5/9/2024 at 4:08 PM, Shmmr27 said:

The only issue is that the cruise is now a couple of months away and there are no excursions on our Norwegian Dawn into Berlin. We've had this cruise booked for a year and I've read many posts and it sounds like there used to be offerings from cruise ships into Berlin that would take the whole day but at least guarantee the ship won't leave with you , I keep checking the excursion list thinking maybe it will be added, but nothing still. Does Norwegian often add excursions last minute or now that we are two months out- is their list pretty finalized and likely they aren't offering an excursion into the city?

 

Thank you very much!!

We did a Baltic last summer, which included Warnemunde. We booked about 10mo in advance or so, and I started planning right away since it was port-intensive. I checked myNCL on a near-weekly basis and never saw them add an excursion, but like others said above - super annoying "feature" that you can't even see other options once you have booked something with a time conflict. (Why they can't just grey out or otherwise flag things as unbookable instead, I don't know.) We did half/half NCL and OYO, but I kept an eye on the ports we did OYO in case something good was added, and that never happened. 

 

However, they definitely did add things once on-board. Not completely new offerings, but more groups/times for the originally listed excursions. Ex: I booked an NCL excursion for Hamina (b/c you can't do anything OYO there), and when we got our tickets onboard, they had changed our time to very early morning. I tried to get switched to a newly offered time, but I wasn't quick enough. So I guess it is possible that they will offer something onboard that isn't showing online, or that you could scoop up someone's canceled reservations (if the issue is that it's already sold out), but I certainly wouldn't plan on that. 

 

FWIW we had no interest in that long trip to Berlin and did a 9am-3pm excursion into Schwerin, which was lovely, and then had the late afternoon/evening free to wander through Warnemunde. It was the perfect day, in retrospect. That was the only day we saw pier runners, so we definitely had some late returns! 

[The Traveling Man]

2 hours ago, cmph said:

 

FWIW we had no interest in that long trip to Berlin and did a 9am-3pm excursion into Schwerin, which was lovely, and then had the late afternoon/evening free to wander through Warnemunde. It was the perfect day, in retrospect. That was the only day we saw pier runners, so we definitely had some late returns! 

We absolutely loved our tour to Schwerin.

[Mike B Landlubber]

I was on a Baltic cruise from Norwegian Dawn last year and did the Berlin trip. Since I’m not sure when I will make it there in a way that gives more time, and it is the site of a lot of important to me history, I really wanted to grab the opportunity. Time on the train wasn’t a complete waste, I enjoyed viewing the countryside, although there is nothing extraordinary to see, and I had a chance to go up in the cab of the train, which was interesting. No regrets from me.  But I wouldn’t be critical of someone who decided that wasn’t a good use of their time. 

[njkate]

13 hours ago, cruisinginmay said:

Be aware that the US Department of State has issued a level 2 travel advisory for Germany. This may or may not affect your desire to visit tourist locations or transportation hubs.  We are scheduled to dock at Warnemunde and Kiel in September but have not yet decided what to do. We do not plan to go to Berlin, mainly because of the transportation time.

Just need to use your head! Truth if Chicago or other cities in US were foreign countries they would be a level 3 or 4

[goldmom]

We did the train ride into Berlin many years ago.  We felt at the time that it would probably be the only time we would see Berlin and felt it was worth it.  The train ride is long but it wasn't awful.  The scenery is nice and we probably slept on the way back.

That said, I wouldn't plan to do the train to Berlin unless it's part of a ships tour.  There is too much of a chance of delays and the timing is pretty tight.

My suggestion would be to see if the tour is offered onboard and book it if it is, if not offered then just tour the areas around the port as others have suggested.

[amypintx]

Which sailing are you on? We are on the July 6 from Southampton to Copenhagen. Ours also didn't show any excursions for a long time but we found out it was because they were in the process of changing our docking port to Rostock instead. Once they made that official, the excursions showed up.