Doing Port Cities on Our Own

I would first check with what is offered on land tours. It might be more cost effective to book a tour if there are a lot of attractions that you want to see. Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki are easy cities to get around by walking and public transportation. St. Petersburg is pretty easy...and you can take a boat to the Summer Palace. Mostly you want to see the Hermitage at the Winter Palace...you might be able to get past the line with tour or just book ahead. Sorry, I've not been to Talinn and Gothenburg.

If you want to do St Petersburg on your own you will need a Visa. Visa is not required for ship tours or privately arranged tours. But you will not be able to wonder on your own. Second you can do all those ports on your own BUT it requires a lot of advance work and homework so that you can make efficient use of your time. Start with good guide books for these ports -- R Steves is very good for the cities he covers. If the ship is not docking near the city center, then often the ship or the city will provide a low cost shuttle bus to the town center. Use it. Find the local TI. Often a good source for locals guided walking tours. The day or two before each port the ship will have an orientation and suggestions for that port. Go and ask questions.

The docks in Tallinn are a short taxi ride or a long walk from the center of old town. My suggestion is to get to the sweater wall or the town hall square and follow the self-guided walk for Tallinn in the RS Scandinavia book. You can do it easily in a day and you'll see most of the sights Tallinn has to offer. Tallinn was included in the RS Scandinavia book; I'm assuming it still is. So one book purchase will get you info on most of the cities you named. Enjoy!

Hugh, I have booked a similar cruise next year. Just like you I am trying to do things on my own. For Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallin I plan on using a guide, probably one from the RS book, to give us a tour on our own. Copenhagen is our departure city so we will do stuff on our own for 2 days before we leave. St. Petersburg is where we will have 2 days. I probably will book with Insider Tours or Ulko Tours a private tour. They appear to be the 2 top rated on Trip advisor. Both companies have many more options than the one size fits all tour from the cruise line.
Good luck

Hi Hugh,
We are sailing the end of the month doing the same ports. We are travelling with DS14. We are not doing any ships excursions. In Copenhagen we are doing the morning segway tour. SPB we booked a private tour with ALLA Tours. For Talinn I printed out what looks like a good walking tour. For Stockholm we plan to take the HOHO to the Vasa museum and then a boat to Gamla stan and then make our way back. For Helsinki we will take the ships shuttle to market sq and wander around before taking a boat over to Soumolina ( not spelled correctly, don't have my notes with me) and Gothenburg we will take the shuttle to town and wonder on our own. I have not looked to much into that city. When are you going? Elaine

Hi We are going on July 29th and have the same plans for St. Petersburg and Stockholm.We really need suggestions for something interesting to do in Gothenburg. Our 14 year old will be museum-ed out by then and he hates amusement park rides (the only recommended activities we have seen in our research) Something active might be fun. Any thoughts ?

We did a similar Royal Caribbean cruise last summer. We didn't do Talinn, we did Riga instead. We walked on our own all ports except St.P, we used DenRus tours. We were with a few other families, so booked a private tour and it was fine. It was frankly a long day, we wish we had free time at Hermitage to see what we each wanted instead of a 2hr painfully detailed tour of a small part of it by our guide. It was an easy 10 min walk into town to Copenhagen from the ship, lots to see, didn't to Tivoli gardens. For Helsinki, we took the ship shuttle since it was raining heavily, but still had a nice time walking around town seeing the sights. We don't mind walking, so didn't have a problem. Depending on your interests and walking ability, you could take a ship tour or do the hop-on/off busses. If you walk on your own, I'd narrow each town down to 2-3 main sights (castle, museum, etc.). In Stockholm, we had a day after getting off our ship. It was an enjoyable 20-30 min walk from Vasa Mueum around the port to Gamla Stan. Oh, we also used the DK Eyewitness Travel 'Cruise guide to Europe' which has a good run down of the highlights for both Med and Baltic cruise ports.

We took a Baltic Cruise last year. We started in Copenhagen and spent almost three days before our cruise and another three days before flying home. Our ports were the same as yours plus Gdansk and Oslo, minus Gothenburg. We spent two days in St. Petersburg. First St. Pete's. We used Alla tours. They offer a variety of tours to suit your needs. We took a two day strenous tour (no stops for lunches). The tour was $260 each ($300 with tip) for a group of ten people in a 12 or 13 seat van. It included the Visa (which is about $150 by itself), transportation, driver, guide, and admissions. Overall, I'd say it's a good value and relieved us of worries about any Visa issues (although the cruise line kept telling passengers Visas are only waived if you take their tour packages). Since we stayed longer in Copenhagen, we got a 72 hour Copenhagen card for each end of the trip. The card is equal to the cost of a transportation day pass plus Tivoli admission. Any free or discounted admissions beyond that are gravy. The first day we went to Roskilde plus the Stroget and Nyhaven (but didn't make it to Tivoli). The second day we went to Kronborg then further up the coast to a nice public beach and Tivoli at night. The third day we dropped our bags at the boat then visited downtown museums and boarded our boat before departure. The second stay included Rick's walking tour, more museums/art galleries, Rosenborg palace and park, Amalienborg palace, old ruins under Amalienborg, changing of the guard, more Stroget, more Tivoli and more Nyhaven (including a boat cruise). We could have found more to do if we had more time. We totally missed the nightlife because we were ready for bed by 11pm (when the clubs open). More...

For Stockholm we took a boat to see the Vasa museum (one of the highlights for the entire trip), then walked through Skansen (weren't really impressed, felt like we knew more about Swedish history than the costumed employees there), and finished with Rick's self-guided walk through downtown. For Helsinki, we visited the very helpful TI downtown, took a ferry to Suomolinna (?) Island for about half the day, took a tram to the Rock Church (we didn't feel it lived up to the billing, okay but really not that special), and wandered downtown and the market area. For Tallinn, we walked directly into town and roughly followed Rick's walking tour plus diversions for things we found interesting. We didn't see Gothenburg, here's a link to tripadvisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g189894-Gothenburg_Vastergotland_Swedish_Lakeland-Vacations.html Click on "all 55 things to do" and decide which interest you the most. I've been on several cruises and have yet to take one of the boat's excursions. I find I can either go on my own or book my own activity for about half the boat's price (plus no big bus crowds that keep you from moving efficiently).