Scandinavia and Russia Cruise

Not sure what insight you want. We are big fans of Holland Am and have done the Scandinavia area cruise with them that include your ports. Unless you get a separate Russia visa you will have to use the ship excursions for St Petersburg. All the the other ports are very easy with a little advance research to do on your own. Skip Berlin as it is a long bus ride from the port.

I took a 13 day Baltic cruise on Royal Carribean last year and would recommend that line for a mid-priced option. There are many other cruise lines that do the Baltics cruise as well. A few general things to consider:

1) Ideally, try to find a cruise with an overnight in St. Petersburg. There is so much to see there it really helps to have at least two days. You do not need a visa for a cruise visit but you must arrange with a registered tour guide. You do not need to stick with the cruise line excursions. It's often cheaper and more personal to arrange tours independently. There are many reputable tour operators in SPB and other ports.

2) For Stockholm, try to find a boat which docks in Stockholm itself and not in Nynashamn which is about an hour outside Stockholm. Some cruise lines provide a longer day in port to accomodate the additional time but it's still a hassle.

3) Compare port times between cruise lines. Some have longer times in port or earlier/later port times.

4) Consider the departure or arrival port. Most cruises begin in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Germany, or London giving you the opportunity to spend more time in those cities pre/post cruise.

5) Sometimes the itineraries refer to Berlin as a port. The boats actually dock at Rostock or Warnemunde which are about a 3 hour train ride from Berlin. Many people do a day tour to Berlin but it is a long day and there are also several shorter excursions available closer to the port cities.

5) Keep in mind some of the Baltic cruises are very port intensive and tiring so entertainment and/or food on board may not be as important as on cruises with more sea days.

If you haven't already selected a specific cruise, try using Vacationstogo.com. I have no experience using them as a travel agent but they do have a great search engine which will show you all the cruise options. Simply enter your date parameters and then select Baltic or Northern Europe as the Cruise Region. You can sort by price per night to find the least expensive options and by clicking on a specific cruise, you can see all the cruise ports visited.

In the mid-price range, I can personally recommend Royal Caribbean or Holland America. I thought the food better on Holland America but the entertainment/activities better on RC. Norwegian is another lower cost option if you are price sensitive. I have had good luck using Cruisecompete to get the best prices on a number of cruises.

Definitely, check out the cruise critic forums. There is a wealth of information on Baltic cruises and tours on that site.

elissabi: Thank you SO much for all the great information!

Elissaby,
Thank you for your post - it's like pages and pages of Cruisecritic wisdom -and more - condensed into several concise paragraphs!

I've been to St. P on a river cruise, but when we do the ocean, I want to see Kaliningrad, because of its history as Konigsberg. Pay attention to visa requirements for both Kaliningrad and St. P. In some cases, the ship's excursions might include a supervised landing permission without the trouble of a real visa. But then you could not go around on your own. And I suppose you'd need a multiple-entry visa to do both on one trip. Note that the ship's pricey excursions are likely (?) to skip over some major entry lines for independent travelers. Sometimes hiring a private guide can skip the line, in today's VIP-favoring Russia.

I'm not flogging the river cruise (Moscow to St. P and reverse), especially since a major highway (or is it a train line?) has been built that wasn't there when we went. But for Russian and Orthodox history, there are some neat river stops.

We cruised out of Copenhagen on the Star Princess (Princess Cruise lines) I selected that cruise because it was the only one that included Oslo. Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, St P (overnight), Oslo and back to Copenhagen. Not many include Oslo

I took a 12 night cruise out of Copenhagen that stopped at Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg (2 days/nights there), Tallinn, Gdansk, and Oslo before going back to Copenhagen. I stayed three nights before and after the cruise. The fact that I could fly direct to Copenhagen played into my choice. I'm glad I went that route because I felt Copenhagen, and it's environs, offers more to see and do than the other capitols.

Berlin takes you near, I think, Rostock, and isn't really close to Berlin. Since Berlin is such a big city with so much to do, I'd skip it until you can spend more time and travel to a smaller town within striking distance of the port.

It was on Princess lines. The only problem I had was their insistence that you couldn't get off in St. Petersburg unless you took their excursion. I had booked a private tour with Alla tours (much better and cheaper than a ship excursion) and the ship wasn't being honest. The food was only average (not spectacular) which I chalked up to the higher price of food in Scandinavia.

I liked the itinerary. The Scandinavian capitols face the sea because that was the primary transportation for a long time so a cruise is a great way to get around. Most Scandinavian cities are small enough to get a good taste of in one day. The price of a cruise compared favorably to the combined cost of hotel, food and transportation in the region.

Edit: Our ship docked right in town in Stockholm, so it was a short walk to catch a boat to Djurgarden to see the Vasa (our favorite in Stockholm). In Helsinki, however, we docked a bit out of town. I'm big on using local public transportation. One of my suggestions is to use Google to identify ATM's near where you dock. Each country uses different currency (Helsinki is euros). ATM's aren't as ubiquitous around cruise ports as they are in airports. You can either bring a little cash to get around, buy some at an exorbitant rate from the ship, or identify where the nearest ATM will be once you get off the ship.

Now there is an Orange vacation SIM for your smart phone that you can get at any Orange boutique in Europe. I've only used it in France but it might be worth looking into for a trip around the Baltic.

One last thing. My cruise started the end of July and ended in early August. We had generally good weather with one stormy day at sea. I would only plan this cruise for July/August as that's when you will have the most reliable weather. I think it's good to be in Scandinavia for the summer solstice, but I'm not sure I'd plan a cruise around it.

Brad - not sure why Princess told you you couldn't get off the ship if you didn't take their excursions? We booked a private 2 day excursion using a local tour guide (we was 18 of us that met on Cruise Critic). While it is true you must be booked on AN excursion since that is how you obtain your visa it doesn't need to be a ship sponsored excursion.

Donna, Exactly. I didn't think Princess was being honest because we didn't take their excursion and had no problem. I think they would say you can't just get off on your own and walk around (without a host) but didn't want to acknowledge that many private tour options are available, with smaller groups and lower prices.

Brad, sadly - when you read the Princess information it certainly does make it sound like you must book through them. Had I not found the group through the Roll Call on Cruise Critic I'm sure I would have just booked via Princess and been done with it. I LOVED STP and would not hesitate to return but I love fell in love with Oslo and Copenhagen.

If you haven't already done so, the RS Northern European Cruise Ports travel guidebook has some useful information regarding the destinations covered on Baltic cruises.

A few years ago, we very much enjoyed a Princess Cruise departing from Copenhagen in late August and ending back there in September. The ship's crew told us this was the best weather of any of their Baltic cruises that summer - 12 perfect days.

Definitely choose a cruise that has two or three days in St. Petersburg. Rather than taking a long train ride to Berlin we opted to spend a beautiful day on our own at the German seaside town of Warnemunde, where the ship docked. Tallin and Helsinki were also easy to explore on our own.

IMHO, I would select a Baltic cruise based on your preferred destination ports AND the size of the ship. As a Baltic cruise is port-intensive, ease of disembarkation each day is more important than all the new "bells and whistles" of a mega-ship.

Thanks for posting Sharon. I too am interested in taking a Baltic cruise someday.

I have a question for Brad - Did the Princess staff try to prevent you getting off the ship at St. Petersburg? How much did you have to push?

I have a question for Brad - Did the Princess staff try to prevent you getting off the ship at St. Petersburg? How much did you have to push?

Not Brad but basically you cannot enter Russia without a travel visa and you get a travel visa by booking a tour - either with the ship or privately - your travel visa is necessary to get through Russian customs at the ship port. You can leave the ship you just can't get into Russia without the travel visa.

We also took a Baltic cruise in 2011 with NCL. We left from Copenhagen but didn't go to Olso. Our cruise was 10 days. My cousin arranged everything and we had a private tour guide in St. Petersburg both days. I believe he booked the first one through American Express and the second day through the ship. We were 10 people and it was cheaper then the ship excursion. We opted to hire a tour guide in Warnemunde and to tour Rockstok, which was part of the east. Vasa museum was worth seeing. In Stockholm we had to take the bus for one hour into the city. Tallin is walkable, no need for a tour. Along the pier they have tents where people sell their crafts. The weather was cool in July, never needed shorts, wore a light jacket each day.

No they didn't. We got off the ship at the gangway as soon as it was in place. The crew there didn't seem either bothered or surprised. I've done that at virtually every port on every cruise I've been on. The number of passengers at the gangway is surprisingly, to me, small. I think because ships always tell you to do it differently.

The ship's instructions were to form up in some big room (where I'm sure they would say the people on ship excursions get to go first). Our tour told us to go straight to the gangway and get off as quickly as possible, so we could get started. We had a little problem the first day because 2/3 of the people in my group followed the ship's instructions. We could have departed the port 40 minutes earlier if they had gone straight to the gangway. Still we left while they were still loading the buses.