How should my wife and I visit Scandinavia this summer - Baltic Capitals cruise or Rick Steves/Tauck land/sea tour? We have rarely cruised (Alaska Inside Passage, Greek Isles) but having a constant bedroom sounds appealing. However, we are physically fit and like to explore our destinations. We also don't want to miss the Norwegian fiords. If we did a tour I guess we could go to Stockholm a couple days early and cruise to Helsinki and Tallinn. Thanks for your input. Cheers, Tom
Posted by
Tel Aviv
15768 posts
The Baltic cruise I took started and ended in Amsterdam, with stops in Stockholm (overnight), Helsinki, St. Petersburg (overnight), Tallinn and Copenhagen. The cruises I've seen since then with a similar route stop in Germany and then only a day stop in STockholm. I glanced at the RS tour. The upside, you have more time sightseeing. The downside, you have a lot of hotel changes and you don't get to St. Petersburg (which was my favorite stop). I took another cruise subsequently that went to the Norwegian fjords and up to Iceland. The Baltic cruise time was all either in cities on on the ship. The Fjords cruise was mostly nature and small towns.
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8299 posts
I was looking at Vacations to Go a couple of days ago, and saw big brand cruises out of Copenhagen to Stockholm, Finland, Estonia and St. Petersburg for just over $1K. That's a great budget option to see the area. Scandinavia is terribly expensive.
You can also go from Oslo on a train over to Bergen, Norway to get into the fjords.
Posted by
franktown, colorado
2252 posts
I just rechecked the 2014 itinerary for this particular Rick Steves tour. My husband and I enjoyed it in 2009 and not too much has changed itinerary-wise. Not so many hotel changes-3? And several days were/are still spent in St. Petersburg. It was a fabulous experience and certainly among the top 3 of my (now) 14 RS tours. We especially appreciated the help with obtaining the necessary visa. One suggestion I might make is to plan to go on to Moscow after the tour is over. Several people on our tour did this (some by train and some by plane) and in retrospect, we were very sorry we hadn't, especially since we already had the required visa. Certainly a missed opportunity but a great reason to go again! The tour was great and I would highly recommend checking out the reviews, etc. on this website.
Andi
Posted by
Tel Aviv
15768 posts
Andi, which tour are you seeing? I looked at the Best of Scandinavia Tour - doesn't go anywhere near Russia. The only other tour I saw was to St. P, Helsinki and Tallinn - which isn't what I think of as Scandinavia. Both tours sound good though.
Posted by
Germany, Germany
813 posts
We took a repositioning Royal Caribbean cruise so we didn't have to backtrack a few summers ago. Started Oslo, Copenhagen, Riga, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, then ended in Stockholm. You could go early and hit the fjords, too. We stayed a day extra on each end to see the town, too.