Birthday Baltic Boating June 2010 - Pre-Trip Report

[wickesy]

Cast:
Me: David – 38
Dad: Ray – 62



Since Dad and I got bitten by the Disney bug in 2007 I have always wanted to do a Disney cruise but neither of us really fancied the Caribbean and I have always been put off by the short length of the three, four and even seven day itineraries. That together with the high cost of flying out to Florida just for a short cruise, or a land-sea tour meant that it was something that we have never got around to.

Everything changed in October 2008 when I found out that the Disney Magic was going to be sailing from Dover for a cruise to the Baltic ports and once I checked the dates and found that the first cruise was on my birthday I knew that we had to take the opportunity to take our first Disney cruise.

Bookings opened on 14th October 2008 and I put in a request a few days before with Dreams Unlimited for them to give me a quote. I got home from work on the 14th and because I hadn’t heard anything from Dreams Unlimited I made a direct reservation with Disney and, although I couldn’t choose a specific stateroom number, I did manage to get a guaranteed Category 6 stateroom so at least I knew we had a place on the cruise.

The following day I had an e-mail from Dreams Unlimited giving me a quote also for a guaranteed Category 6 so I ended up transferring my direct reservation with DCL over to Dreams Unlimited to get the benefit of the onboard stateroom credit of $600 they were offering. So the reservation was secured for the following itinerary:

June 12th – Depart Dover
June 13th – At Sea
June 14th – Oslo
June 15th – Copenhagen
June 16th – Warnemunde (for Berlin)
June 17th – At Sea
June 18th – St Petersburg
June 19th – St Petersburg
June 20th – Helsinki
June 21st – Stockholm
June 22nd – At Sea
June 23rd – At Sea (my birthday)
June 24th – Dover

Fast-forward from October 2008 to this weekend and it was time to get some planning done. A fellow DISer (TammyAlphabet) posted on our Cruise Meets thread that she was looking for people to share a private tour of St Petersburg that she had arranged – the only way to tour St Petersburg without having to get a visa is to do a tour arranged by the cruise line or with an officially approved tour company. Tammy and I swapped a couple of PMs and e-mails in which she sent me a sample itinerary that the tour company had sent her and as it looked good to us Dad and I will be joining her for the tour.

When I was looking at details of the ports I found that the journey from Warnemunde to Berlin is about three hours each way and as neither Dad nor I wanted to make that sort of trip I looked into staying closer to the port. While I was looking on the Cruise Critic message boards I found a recommendation for Friends of Dave tours, which is a company that does guided tours of Warnemunde and the surrounding area. The first person to book for a specific date gets to choose which tour Dave will do so, as I was first for June 16th I decided to book the tour which takes in Warnemunde plus a train ride to Wismar and a tour of that city. Although it’s only Dad and me booked on that tour for now I have put an open invitation up for others to join us so there might be a few others joining us on that one in due course.

At the moment we intend to just do the other cities ourselves so that we can just have a general wander around and see what we fancy seeing on the day but any suggestions of ‘must-dos’ will be welcome.

Our parking is arranged - £150 for 12 days parking at the cruise terminal itself so the only thing we’re left wondering about at the moment is formal night – do we go for the full Dinner Jacket or just a suit and do we rent or buy?

I’m really looking forward to this cruise – not least because I have always wanted to do a cruise to the ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’ and, although we don’t quite make it on this cruise (the latest sunset time is 11:25pm), there’s no better way of doing it than on the Disney Magic.

I’ll update as and when plans change but in the meantime, roll on June 2010!

[lmhall2000]

What a wonderful way to celebrate your birthday! Hope you get lots of pixie dust on the 23rd!!

Tara

[Andrew DEREK UK]

Nice report..

Doing one at the end of July.

Quick point I paid far less for parking at the terminal at Dover think £108, was that a typo.

Hows Sydenham, cold and wet on the hill???

[wickesy]

Originally Posted by Andrew DEREK UK

Quick point I paid far less for parking at the terminal at Dover think £108, was that a typo.

Hows Sydenham, cold and wet on the hill???

Not a typo just bad memory. It was actually £110.50

It was very cold and wet yesterday but not so bad today. We're not on the hill though we're down the bottom end with the common folk.

[Andrew DEREK UK]

Originally Posted by wickesy

Not a typo just bad memory. It was actually £110.50

It was very cold and wet yesterday but not so bad today. We're not on the hill though we're down the bottom end with the common folk.

It will be a great cruise, enjoy.