DCL Private Vehicle Port Adventure - Tallinn

[clten]

We are heading out on Northern European cruise is a few weeks. When we were looking at excursions in Tallinn, nothing specific really excited us. My sister has bad knees so tours that include walking we try to do privately so we don't slow down the group and it seemed most of the Tallinn organized tours (through DCL and others) had some walking portions. So thought that this might be a good port to just do a short (4 hour) private tour hitting the highlights of the area. So when Shore Excursions opened, I compared the price to setting this up on our own and decided for convenience, we'd go with DCL.

So we get a form from DCL Shore Excursions to begin the itinerary planning. Here is that section of the form:


I figure it isn't possible that they would have you book a private car with driver for 4 hours and all you would see is one site. (We were also planning on adding a tour guide which we have room for in the car - they take up one spot - and check the fee on that - still within the same cost if we did it on our own.) Get in touch with DCL Shore Excursions and yep, if we want to go to St. Mary's Cathedral and St. Olav's Church we have to extend our private vehicle and tour guide time to 8 hours.

I e-mail back and forth with DCL trying to understand the value in having a car drive me to one location and having a guide for one site. (Or even how I possibly wouldn't become bored to tears spending multiple hours at one site.) I keep getting the upsell to add more time.

Before I cancel this - I can very easily book with another vendor and get what I want for just slightly more. Has anyone used DCL's private vehicle tours (bonus if it was in Tallinn) and had a good experience? How have you gone about setting up the itinerary to suit what you wanted. I don't think the problem is with the tour operator, it's that I have someone in between in Florida who has probably never gotten on a cruise ship let alone gone to Tallinn.

 

[MaleficentUK]

My understanding is that you cannot drive through most of Tallinn. We had considered the Hop On Hop Off bus, but realised it may not get into the areas we are interested in seeing.
I understand you won't want to walk, but perhaps a locally arranged tour could help you see what you want.

 

[linetbo]

Did you check with outside companies? Try SPB tours, my friend did a semi private tour with them last year. I did a Disney tour and we did a lot of walking in that tour.

 

[clten]

My understanding is that you cannot drive through most of Tallinn. We had considered the Hop On Hop Off bus, but realised it may not get into the areas we are interested in seeing.
I understand you won't want to walk, but perhaps a locally arranged tour could help you see what you want.

I didn't say we didn't want to walk. We didn't want to be on a group walking tour where we might slow people down. Hence why we were trying to set up a private tour.

Just trying to see if this is normal in trying to itinerary plan with DCL for a private vehicle, if this is just a problem in Tallinn because it is more of a walking location or if we just have a bad cast member.

 

[aggiedog]

Pretty much anything you arrange thru DCL will be more expensive than finding a tour guide yourself thru TripAdvisor, etc. You can also try Cruisecritic for BTDT advice. I can't speak to DCL's car service, but we had a really nice walking tour of Tallinn that we arranged ourselves. A car picked us up at the port, and brought us back to the port. The old town is beautiful, but has some of the roughest cobblestone streets I've ever seen. Walking is slow going if you are not nimble, and most cars are not allowed in the old town.

 

[ralw143]

I am on the May 27th Northern Baltic cruise also. I booked a private tour through Estonian Experience for 5 hrs with driver. I booked them for Helsinki too. They were able to customize my tours and were very easy to work with. I'm visiting all the must see things in Tallinn and Helsinki. They were a lot cheaper then DCL for there private tours and I was able to cover everything I wanted to do. I'm pretty sure they have a itineraries for people with mobility issues. Hopefully you will be able to book something. I wouldn't wait long - cause we're only a few weeks out and they may be entirely booked. They are one of the most popular ones to take - check trip advisor. Good luck and safe travels!!