Baltic Sea cruises

We're taking a Royal Caribbean Baltic cruise next spring but I have no experience to share now. I suggest you look at Cruise Critic for a wealth of information from experienced cruisers. It includes reviews of recent cruises, which may be searchable by itinerary so you can learn more about prior versions of the cruise you're considering. It also has specialized message boards, including one for Disabled Cruise Travel that might be useful.

If you post specific questions on Cruise Critic you'll probably get more good answers from more experienced cruisers than you will here (with due respect to the RS crowd).

I have taken two cruises, a Med cruise on Oceania and a Baltic cruise on Azamara. Crystal is a luxury cruise line, and Oceania, which incidentally has superb food, is just a notch below.

It depends on the type of experience you want, how much you can pay, and how much you are willing to pay.

I can advise that the Oceania and Crystal ships will have far fewer passengers, and a cruise is a good way to see St. Petersburg and the Baltic cities.

I took a 12 night Baltic cruise with Princess back in 2010. It started, and ended, in Copenhagen and included Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg (2 days), Tallinn, Gdansk, Oslo and back to Copenhagen.

What you get when you pay more for with the higher priced cruise is more service (higher crew to passenger ratio), smaller ships with less passengers and somewhat better dining. The ship may be quieter, which might be a plus for your cousin. I'm not a big luxury person, so the added comfort is virtually worthless to me. The cabins are more than adequate, as is the service, on Royal Carribean. Other people feel completely opposite, they avoid the bigger (cheaper) ships like the plague. I also don't focus on the ship's entertainment. For me what Royal Carribean offers is more than I want, whether the other ships are better I can't say.

I'd suggest looking at vacationstogo.com and using their search engine. Their prices are consistent with every other online travel agent that specializes in cruises (better than prices I've seen booking directly) but I haven't found a better search engine. I've booked at least three or four cruises with them and never had an issue. I'm not planning on another cruise soon but would use them if I did.

One thing I'd recommend, regardless of line you sail with, is booking your own port excursions. If anything is likely to bother your cousin it will be the cattle-car like process for running the large tours (maybe somewhat smaller on the more expensive cruises). I always look at what the ship offers, decide what interests me, then figure out how to do it on my own (or with a local guide) rather than use the ship's options. In St. Petersburg, for example, I hired a local guide company for a ten-person, two-day tour. The price was less than half the ship's excursion on 60 person busses and covered more sights, more efficiently.

Thanks for the input! I think we will have to do the Royal Caribbean, it's just too good a deal to pass up. As lovely as a luxury liner would be for all of us, the cost is thousands more. The good news is that apparently RC will work with people with autism to help with possible issues, ie will allow early boarding. And I appreciate your suggestion about not booking tours through the ship, Brad. Wasn't sure you were able to book with a local tour in St. Petersburg, thought that had to be done with whatever cruise line you are on.
Marcia

RCCL is a good choice. We cruised the Baltics on Princess mostly because I wanted to see Oslo. We started in Copenhagen. We did book our own excursion in St Petersburg - use your Cruise Critic and the Roll Call for your specific cruise to assist with your excursions. Our St Petersburg two day excursion was a small group that got together on our Roll Call and it was great. The rest of our posts I used the RS Scandinavia tour book and we did our own exploring.

We have cruised a great deal, though never with Oceania or Crystal. I am certain you will have a great experience on RCCL. The other lines are indeed luxury cruises and would be impossible for me to justify based on their price. Also, we’re not posh guys so there’s little to no appeal for us to consider such luxury lines. RCCL will offer a range of options, amenities and activities that will be more than satisfactory I think. We have cruised with RCCL a great deal, though not as much recently. They were the industry standard bearers for some time and they offer a good product. Have a great time!

This book might be a worthwhile purchase. (No, I don't get a commission.) I just read a library copy to prepare for our cruise next spring, and I'll buy it if the new edition, due in April, comes out before we leave. (That's April 11 if the RS folks are interested in selling to me!) I'll cannibalize it for the ports we'll be visiting.

As they point out, this book isn't really about the ships themselves, though a couple of chapters discuss the various cruise lines and the "how-tos" of cruising. It's mostly about the ports, with valuable info about what to do on shore, where you can sightsee on your own vs. taking one of the cruise line's pricey excursions, how to connect to nearby places, eating recommendations, etc.

As much as possible, you want to hire directly local guides for your excursions--especially in SPB--rather than sign up for the ship's excursions.

Cruise Critic is your friend. You can go to a forum where passengers on your cruise are looking to join others for independent excursions.

I wonder if you have considered smaller ships? The chance for a quiet dining room that is mostly deuces and four-tops might be very suitable. And the line-ups for shore excursions are not as frantic when there are only 130 to 300 people on the ship. I'm referring primarily to WIndstar (both power and computerized-sail ships.)

This are often discounted, but not a year-in-advance. Either price is your primary decision maker, or the cousin's needs are.

One thing you can learn from Cruise Critic might be how many of the ports are TENDER rather than PIER, and how many cruise ports are FAR from the actual attractions. Is your cousin comfortable on a 49-passenger bus?

And when comparing the costs of different cruises, you do need to add in gratuities, alcohol, specialty restaurants, and other expenses that might be part of the base fare on the more expensive cruise line. Also, there may be more substantial discounts or savings on the more expensive cruise lines with the right travel agent. Admittedly, even when considering these other expenses, there is going to be a price differential between, say, RCCL and Oceania. But the differences can shrink.

The biggest disappointment with Princess cruises was related to St. Petersburg. I had to listen to an ungodly amount of PA announcements, "If you aren't taking the ship's excursion, you won't be allowed to enter St. Petersburg." I ignored them and followed the directions from our tour exactly - no problem at all.

In St. Petersburg (it's getting hard to recall after 7 years), I looked at two tour companies that both had very good reviews - one was Alla and the other was Red October. I ended up going with Alla and it was as good as I could possibly want. I signed up for a ten person, 2 day, Grand tour. You can choose different sizes; the smaller you choose, the higher the price. Ten seemed like a good balance of cost and size. With your cousin, you may want to schedule a smaller tour with just your group in a car. At Catherine's palace, they let groups of six or less enter without standing in line so it's worth considering going a little smaller. Our guide had us all sneak in with a large Italian group, at the front of the line, so we wouldn't have to wait (it was funny).

They put us with other people from our ship. You can, but don't have to, form your own group. Our tour was in a twelve person van and included a driver, guide and all admissions (including giving you a token to ride the subway). You could end up with less than a full van and still pay the ten person tour price, but our van was full. I scheduled an "active" tour because we can walk with no problem. I'm not sure if they offer them any more? I thought the tour was perfect, but some complained there wasn't a lunch stop. I prepared snacks from the ship (like I do at every port) and ate them on the van. I bring snacks primarily because of the limited shore time. The ship had also made a point, ad nauseum, that no food would be allowed into port. The Russian immigration/customs didn't seem to care at all about what we had in our little daypack. The second day of our tour, everyone followed our example and brought something to eat with them.

An inside tip that is useful in every port is to go directly to the door where they are setting up the gangway. The ship announces that people going ashore should meet in a large assembly area. That's nonsense, go to where they will let you off the ship, stay out of the way until they're ready, then be one of the first off the ship. If you follow the ship's directions, they'll make you get off after the ship's excursions. Port days are only about 8 hours, so if you have sights you want to see, you really shouldn't waste an hour or more getting off the boat. In St. Petersburg, it was part of the guide's advice. Not everyone followed it perfectly but we were still rolling long before the big bus tours were off the ship.

Another inside tip is on your first day in St. Petersburg, they will stick a piece of paper (as I recall red about half the size of a post it) inside your passport. We didn't misplace ours but I heard that people who did were fined (something like $20) for not having it. On the second day, they didn't give us a piece of paper and didn't ask for it on the way out. Somewhat bizarre and seemed more like a scam than anything else.

Every museum has a bunch of very stern-faced older women in charge. My guide taught us "I love you" in Russian sounds like "Yellow Blue Bus". She said if you say that you will get a Russian smile. I wanted to use it with the beautiful lady at immigration, but was afraid they'd throw me in jail. I used it after I got home at a Russian restaurant in DC and the waitress smiled first then looked at my ring and said, "Oh, you're married." We then discussed whether it was disrespectful to say and she said no, it was just a compliment.

https://alla-tour.com/

I know two companies and can recommend them for cruises between Scandinavia (Ystad, Nynäshamn near Stockholm and Copenhagen) and Poland (Świnoujście near Szczecin and Gdańsk)

1) Polferries http://polferries.com/
2) Unity Line https://www.unityline.pl/

I have spent the last several months researching Baltic cruises and finally settled on RCCL. Another website (besides those already mentioned) that I found helpful was cruiseline.com. You can see the layout and lots of pictures for ships from many different cruise lines. I found it helpful to determine which ship would suit us the best.

The Cruise Critic site indeed has a lot of information, but it's very hard to navigate.

Here's their introductory article about Baltic Sea cruises: https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1341

Here is the link to their Northern Europe And Baltic Sea Ports Forum: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=192

Here is a link to their Disabled Cruise Travel Forum, where autism spectrum cruising is discussed: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=190

Here is the link to their Roll Calls, where you can meet others on your sailing. This way, you can set up a private tour with others, reducing your cost while still getting something more personalized (and smaller) than the ship's tours: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34

And, something I learned from reading their Baltic Ports Forum. While Rick's Northern European Cruise Ports book is great, he omits something very important about Russian shore excursions. There are not two ways to do these (as he indicates), but three. You can go with the ship's excursion, and with this option you do not need to get a Russian visa. You can go on your own, and with this option you do need to get a Russian visa. Or you can go with an approved agency, and with this option you do not need to get your own visa. Brad talked about Alla Tour; there's also SPB Tours, Red October Tours, and others. When going with one of these, you submit your information to them at the time of booking, and they get you a "visa equivalent"; that's not what it's called, but in effect that's what it is. All of these companies have set excursions for small-medium groups, and will also do custom tours at a higher price (this is where the Roll Calls come in handy; if you have a special interest, you can join up with others and split the cost of a private tour).