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

[mehaul]

We were planning to do most of the ports on our own as well. I just started looking into private tours for St. Petersburg. Can you share what sort of tour do they do for the White Nights?
Also do you know where does the boat dock in Stockholm?

FYI there are Ice bars in Oslo and London as well.
www.icebaroslo.no/kontakt/

 

[cindy18]

Still learning about what the White Nights tour is. All I can tell so far is that it goes out really late, 11 pm or so, and returns at 2 am. The tour guides agree that it is amazing, but they are worried that my DDs will be too tired for the full day of touring right afterwards. I think the light in the city makes things look very different, and they show you some key sights in that light, plus stuff happens with the canal bridges and things like that. We're probably going to do it, even if we're all that much more tired on the 2nd day in St. Petersburg, because really this is a once in a lifetime thing.

 

[cindy18]

The guide I think we're going to use just sent this link on the White Nights tour. She stressed that it is expensive, but she said it's pretty incredible:

http://www.bestguides-spb.com/tour-white.html

 

[ktkspider]

As far as I can tell we will be docking at FRIHAMNEN in Stockholm. Not sure where I found that... it is in my notes, so in all of my research I found it somewhere.. again not possitive.

here is the site I found where we are docking in Stockholm... http://www.stockholmshamn.se/evant.htm

 

[ktkspider]

found this sight today thought I would share...

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/places-of-a-lifetime/stockholm-walking-tour-1.html

 

[mehaul]

Nice piece of detective work.
Looking at the map on the Disney site that does appear to be the location of
Frihamnen
http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/cruises-destinations/europe/ports/stockholm-sweden/

That's unfortunate since it's 2-3 miles away from the "action"

Interesting on the link you posted it has our time shifted by 30 min ahead.
Arriving at 8:00 and leaving at 17:00

Here's some info I was tracking on Stockholm on my planning blog
www.magicalbalticcruise.com/stockholm.html

 

[ktkspider]

So you are the one who put together that awesome piece of work... Saved me TONS of time... Thank you so much!!!

Nice to see a little action on here! Thanks for posting it is nice to have sounding board for our plans! It will be here before we know it.

 

[mehaul]

Thanks, I'm glad it has been helpful. I added your NG self-guided walking tour to the Stockholm page.
Probably will be making more additons soon since it looks like I'm going to do most of the ports on my own (excluding Germany and St Petersburg)

 

[missy4414]

I'm just curious. Is anyone planning to go on the shore excursion--the Royal Ball at St. Catherine's Palace? It seems very expensive but I wonder if it's worth it. We don't have children but it sounds so wonderful. But I'm curious if many people will decide it's worth the expense.

 

[mardonna]

I have completed my research and have compiled a list for Disney excursions as well as private tours.....I am desperately waiting for dates and departure times for DCL excursions......how in the world are we supposed to know which onnes we can do on the same day......also debating on whether bring 2 5 year olds and baby off ship....thought they could handle a city tour or something and then could go back and catch excursion for museums.....thought they also might like the fountains and train......

 

[ktkspider]

we are skipping on the Ball.We were thinking about it figuring it would be $250-300. our DD is/will be 12 and she thought it would be neat... about fell on the floor at $400! Talked to our daughter (12) and she decided it wasn't worth that much. .. that we could do so much more for that kind of $$. I am sure there are many others who will pay the $$.

 

[mehaul]

I agree about the ball cost. I was guestimating a family of 4 would be about $1000, not $1500. The only other excursion that seemed pricey was the Leeds castle excursion. I thought the Berlin and other St. Petersburg trips were "fairly" priced.

 

[cindy18]

We're skipping the ball too, although when I first heard about it, it sounded amazing. We'll get to Catherine's Summer Palace otherwise and are probably going to either the ballet or a folk show plus a night-time tour. The price just blew me away. I'm guessing it costs an awful lot to rent the palace for the evening, but still...

 

[mehaul]

Nice article in New York Times - 31 places to go in 2010
#5 Copenhagen
#28 Norway

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/travel/10places.html?nl=travel&emc=tda1

Here is a fun article about a bakery in Berlin
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/travel/06bites.html?nl=travel&emc=tda3

 

[lzj21428]

Just thought I would post and let everyone know that I have booked a private tour with SPB Tours in St. Petersburg. The service, so far, has been excellant. Emails and questions answered in a really timely manner. It's more expensive than doing a Disney excursion, but I will get to see everything I want to see and I won't have to wait on 40/50 other people.

Now that I have St. Petersburg all taken care of, now I concentrate on the rest of the ports. Thanks for all the links and infor others are posting. It's really helping. The Tallinn walking tour link was great and I am giving that some serious thought.

Looking forward to more info and ideas from everyone.

Nina

 

[cindy18]

We are strongly considering SPB Tours also for our tour, and we just started talking to them about a private tour in Berlin also. I realized this morning that it would cost less to have them take us from the port to Berlin, give us a private tour for the full day and then take us back to the port than it would to do even the least expensive Disney tour to Berlin. So now we're reconsidering that day.

I'm still trying to figure out the cost of a private tour in St. Petersburg vs. Disney. I feel like it's almost the same, if you assume 2 significant tours with Disney as compared to a 2-day private tour. Is that wrong?

 

[lzj21428]

Cindy, I think the private tour in SP would be a better deal than a Disney excursion. With Disney the tours offered don't include everything there is to see. They offer one or two sights each tour from what I've seen. With the private tour, I'm seeing everything in 2 days that I want to see. Even if I chose two seperate tours with Disney the cost is over $1,000 for our party of 5. The tour with SPB is still more $, but I'm getting more, so for me it seems more cost effective. At the end of the cruise, I don't want to be kicking myself, wishing I had seen this instead of that.

On the Med cruise in 07, I did a private tour in Rome and it beat Disney by a mile. We saw everything we wanted to see and we still talk about our time in Rome and our guide, Marcello. The whole trip was fantastic, but Rome was the highlight for our family and I think it was because of the private tour.

Will be interested in what you decide.

Nina

 

[cindy18]

I agree with you Nina, and we are pretty much decided to do the private tour in St. Petes. My new thinking is whether to do that in Berlin also. The issue there is that if you do a tour with Disney, and if there's a problem with the train back from Berlin to Warnemunde, I assume they hold the ship. But if we do a private tour and there's a problem, we could wind up missing the trip. Disney's tours are A LOT more expensive than doing a private tour. So I'm torn.

 

[mehaul]

The pricing of the private StP vs dcl is negligible. I think the difference is the value you place on doing your own itinerary privately vs. The comfort of doing a tour with Disney.

 

[Yensidfan]

A private tour can be much cheaper than Disney's if you have two families do it together. The price per person goes down as more people are added to your tour. We have a total of 10 on our tour with SPB and it is around 280 per person and the kids are cheaper. You also have the flexibility to stay as long or as short as you want at each of the stops.