4 of us just completed a 10 Royal Caribbean Baltic Cruise and I'll mention a few tips here. Flight on Icelandair from BOS to KEF (Reyjkavik Iceland)/ Iclandair has been seriously effected by the Boeing 737 MAX issue and they are leasing other aircraft. We were in a cramped Europe Air plane on the first leg, probably the most uncomfortable plane we've been in in a long time. On the return flight when printing biarding passes for home the Icelandair screen said refer to AirFrance website. So we were swtitched to AirFrance and all 4 of us were in separate split up seats on the leg from Stckholm to Paris. Then we were chnaged to the second row from the back of the plane (all togther in the middle) for the long flight to BOS. Air France was great. Nice complementary small bottles of wine, beer, champagne, cognac and very nice menu. Great inflight entertainment, so all was well.
We were very glad to have arrived in Copenhagen 3 days early and we stayed in the well located First Hotel Mayfair, which was only a few blocks from Copenhagen Central Train Station. They had a nice included breakfast and prices are budget for Copenhagen. Don't forget your washcloth in Europe! An easy and cheap train ride from the airport. Good restaurants nearby and close to Tivoil. We bought the 48 hr. Copenhagen Pass, which included transportation and it was handy to not have to purchase many train tickets and separate entrance tickets. One of the first thing we did was the Richard Carpen (HC Anderson) walking tour - Copenhagenwalks.com, which was recommended by Rick and I highly recommend that to start out. It's not covered by the CCard and is $20 US per person. Meet him near the TI across from the train station - see his schedule of tours. Another highlight was the Stromma Canal tour which was on the CC.
A few tips from some of the ports we visited: Tallinn - We took a taxi from the pier to Viru Gate in the Old Town and it was well worth it and saved us a lot of additional walking. Lunch at Hell Hunt Pub on Pikko Street was about 20 Euros for the 4 of us. Our waiter recommended to meatballs (15 of them with sauce), the fried cheese balls (about 60 and the garlic bread, which was a very dark toast with garlic, 4 local Estonian beers were included for that price and it was Plenty!
If you are looking for souvenirs and I bought a winter hat & scarf (neck gaiter) at the sweater wall using a credit card for 25 E. The cheapest souvenirs seem to be at the gift stalls when re-entering the ship at the pier and you don't have to carry them around all day. Easy to see Tallinn on your own.
Warnemunde, Germany and St. Petersburg, Russia - we used SPB-Tours in both places and were very satisfied. 3 day tour of St. Petersburg - all day everyday including a high end lunch, bottled water, headsets and rain ponchos (only needed them for 15 minutes)was $349 pp paid by credit card before we left home. We wrer in a 15 passneger Mercedes van with an English speaking driver, who ownd the van and our excellent guide Elena. 5 stars for SPB. There was quite a wait to get through Russian immigration on the fisrt day bit it was breeze after that.
We opted for an SPB walking tour of Warnemunde and Rostock and were pleased we did. Andreas is a native of Warnemunde and it was a great tour -included a nice lunch, train ride to Rostock and lots of information about his growing up in East Germany. $89 pp.
Helsinki - I recommend using the public bus #14 (walk off the pier about 1/10th mile to the bus stop and you can buy a 9E all day transportation pass from the driver for the bus, tram, and ferry to Suomelinna Fortress. Lots of good souvenirs at the tents on Market Square.
Stockholm - Hotel Hornsgatan - budget (with all day breakfast bar ) great location 1 block to Mariastorget subway. Walk to Gamla Stan. Don;t miss City Hall - great restaurant to the left of the entrance around the corner of the ourtyard. 105 SKK for a full buffet lunch.
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