You Are Not The First To Pass This Way: 2nd Magic Baltic Cruise, 6/24/2010

[mehaul]

The excursion are now posted for our cruise (no prices posted yet)

 

[macassi]

We're still planning on going! My inlaws are up in the air due to some health issues with FIL. If they are definitely going, I will need to figure out how to get insurance. Is it too late?

 

[lzj21428]

The excursion are now posted for our cruise (no prices posted yet)

Thanks for the info. Gonna go ck them out.

 

[ldconley]

The excursion are now posted for our cruise (no prices posted yet)

Thanks for the info. I checked this past weekend, but they were not up yet. I will have to look again when I get home tonight.

Looking forward to seeing more traffic on this board as we get closer to departure date. Can't wait to meet everyone.

 

[TDC Nala]

The excursions are up now. Still no prices, but you can check another line like Celebrity or Princess to see some prices on similar tours. Some of them look like the exact same tours.

 

[mardonna]

We just made final payment on our June 24th Cruise.....we are a cat 2 waitlisted for cat 1.....since deadline has passed I guess I won't be able to get cat 1.....but probably to much anyway.

Family of 6, 4 children ages, 9, 5,5, and 2 1/2 at time of sailing......airfare is booked and we have rented a home in Belgravia for a week prior to cruise.

Trying to budget for Excursions has been tricky not knowing prices and times...I am supposed to be allowed to book Feb 23rd or something so I guess I just research and wait.......am investigating private tours for Russia and germany but just started the process.

Would love any information.....I have read this entire thread and have gotten lots of information.....

 

[mardonna]

I was told by DCL Conciergae that prices go up Monday.....we will see.

 

[lzj21428]

I was told by DCL Conciergae that prices go up Monday.....we will see.

I was just cking on the DCL site and my cost today would be over $500 more than what I'm paying. I booked thru DU and got the awesome OBC, plus the OBC that DCL just sent a letter about. We should be able to pay for an excursion or two with all the OBC. And our cruise still has quite a few stateroom cat. available.

Waiting patiently for June to get here.

 

[mardonna]

I wish Disney had a printable list of excursions.....I hate going back and forth on website.....makes me nuts.

 

[ktkspider]

I wish Disney had a printable list of excursions.....I hate going back and forth on website.....makes me nuts.

I so agree... do you think, once the prices and times are announced, we will get anything from Disney (snail mail) about the cruise?

can't wait.. I have been doing lots of planning and I feel like I have been doing a major research paper! oh the planning involved.. But i love that part so it has been fun!

Can't wait. and it is nice to see a little action on our cruise thread.

 

[mehaul]

Prices are posted!

 

[mehaul]

Do you think there is a way you can find out the times the excursions leave as well as which day the St. Petersburg excursion take place?

 

[lzj21428]

Have any of you taken a look at the excursions? Any ideas of what you want to do?

Following are my first choices, subject to change of course.

Copenhagen
City Highlights & Open Air History of Denmark

Oslo
Hadeland Glassworks & Viking ships

Stockholm
Ice Bar & Old Town OR Royal Palace & Waterways

Tallinn
Old Town Walking Tour OR Town & Country Life OR Tallinn Highlights

Warnemunde
Warnemunde & the Little Train OR Rostock's Regional Highlights

St. Petersburg
Catherine's Palace & Hermitage Museum (Probably Day 2)

Peterhoff Parks, Fountains & Train Ride (Probably Day 1) OR Walking Tour of St. Petersburg (again Day 1)

My other option for SP is to arrange a private tour and customize it to our liking. There is so much more to see in SP and Disney tours don't seem to cover what a private tour company could. I have sent an info request to SPB Tours and will wait and see what I find out.

Would love to hear what others are considering and what info you all have found.

Nina

 

[cindy18]

We're seriously considering doing the ports more or less on our own, with the obvious exception of St. Petersburg. Everything I read suggests that it's easy to get around in all of the cities, and I think we've decided not to go to Berlin. That way, we can save a fair bit of money and be ready to splurge in St. Petersburg.

We are also definitely leaning towards hiring a private tour guide for our family in St. Petersburg. It's probably more money than doing a combination of Disney tours, but I don't think it's a lot more money, and this way we can see exactly what we want to see, for as long as we want to (for example, I know my DDs are going to be good at The Hermitage for two hours max). We're considering a white nights tour which goes out at about 11 pm (the downside to that is how tired we will be the next day). We've emailed three private tour companies this weekend and have heard back from two already. They are all so highly recommended that I think it's just a question of which personality suits us best, as much as that can be guessed from email exchanges.

 

[ktkspider]

We are doing our own thing in Copenhagen and Oslo as they seem to be very easy ports to manuver.
Germany- we are not going to Berlin.. we are either going to do the Molli train with Disney or on our own.. not totally decided yet. But seems like it shouldn't be too difficult on our own as I have found very detailed directions to do this.
St petersburg- private tour with Anastasia
Tallin- again on our own.. I have found a fabulous walking tour of the city all done for us.
Stockholm- haven't really gotten to that one yet. Maybe one of the Disney tours because I think we dock pretty far from city center. either Panaramic Stockholm or Skansen and Vasa..
We are lucky enough to have a good chunk of OBC and Disney Dollars so we have to do a couple of Disney excursions to use that money.

We are so excited for this trip but the planning is exhausting! not to mention a bit overwhelming!

 

[cindy18]

I forgot about the Molli train. You're right, we may do that.

We're docking far away in Stockholm? That's a bummer. I read that there were two ports, and I guess I just assumed we were docking at the one that was really close to the city center. If we're docking at the one that's far away, we may wind up doing a Disney tour there too.

Can you share the walking tour you found for Tallin? That sounds great.

 

[ktkspider]

here is the Tallinn walking tour I found..
http://www.brentjes.com/tallinnwalk.html

I can't find the other one at the moment but will post it when I do..
The only reason I say that about Stockholm is taking clues from the descriptions of the Disney Excursions.. I could be wrong.

 

[cindy18]

Thanks for the walking tour link. It looks great! Also, that's a terrific website. It looks really helpful for almost all our ports. How did you find it?

 

[ktkspider]

Cruise critic is where I found that link. LOTS of great info on there. But lots of reading.

Here is the other one... http://www.euroaudioguide.com/eng/?q=node/15 thought I had lost it! It looks like this is where that gentleman put his tour together from.

 

[cindy18]

Thanks again. Very cool. I continue to be astonished at what you can find on the internet if you know how to look and you are patient!