We finally booked our Alaska cruise

(John*Sisker) wrote:

"Jeff Gersten" wrote in message
...

Our best cruise so far was on the Star
Princess in the Baltics for our 30th
anniversary.

In no time at all now, we will be on the Star
Princess, for Northern Europe and the Baltic's,
and for our 25th anniversary. Any special tips?

That's a great cruise. You two should really enjoy it. My one main tip
would be to use one of the private tour groups in St. Petersburg. We
used Allla, but they all seem to come highly recommended. The other two
biggies are Red October and DenRus. Our tour guide in 2007 has also
started her own company spb-tours and has had excellent write-ups in
cruisecritic.

My review in cruisecritic is at the following url. I'm sure you can find
some useful information there.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberre...?EntryID=33517..

We actually did our first cruise for our 25th anniversary in 2002. I
suggested Bermuda (who at the time we were first considering this in
late 2001 wanted to fly) and Pat suggested Alaska. We ended up on a
Western Mediterranean cruise on the Splendour of the Seas out of
Barcelona. We ended up in Bermuda on our 3rd cruise, and now will have
Alaska for our 7th.

On Fri, 2 Apr 2010 08:32:13 -0400, (Jeff
Gersten) wrote:

(John*Sisker) wrote:

"Jeff Gersten" wrote in message
...

Our best cruise so far was on the Star
Princess in the Baltics for our 30th
anniversary.

In no time at all now, we will be on the Star
Princess, for Northern Europe and the Baltic's,
and for our 25th anniversary. Any special tips?

That's a great cruise. You two should really enjoy it. My one main tip
would be to use one of the private tour groups in St. Petersburg. We
used Allla, but they all seem to come highly recommended. The other two
biggies are Red October and DenRus. Our tour guide in 2007 has also
started her own company spb-tours and has had excellent write-ups in
cruisecritic.

Absolutely do NOT use the ship tours in St. Petersburg. The most
important thing is to have early admission to the Hermitage. You
should do this as early as possible. Also, the cheapest way to pay is
in US$, but they have to be clean, unmarked bills. No ink marks or
tears - absolutely new bills are required. Otherwise the bank charges
them 10% extra. Get the bills now - I had some trouble because the
first time I tried, I had to reject some of the bills for ink marks or
wrinkles.


My review in cruisecritic is at the following url. I'm sure you can find
some useful information there.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberre...?EntryID=33517.


Get to Copenhagen early and stay down in the middle of town (near
Tivoli). Note that in June it may still be quite cool and maybe even
rainy. You can get a hop-on-hop-off ferry from Nyhavn as Tom has
mentioned - no narrative, but you can see the city from a different
perspective. I also enjoyed the hop-on-hop-off bus to get out to
sites like the Little Mermaid which is aways out of town. Book a
hotel early as they seem to fill up with conventions.

Tallin I also agree - not as easy for ME to walk so I just took the
shuttle into town and walked around. We also took a pedicab tour up
to see the Russian Orthodox cathedral which is an anachronism in a
medieval town. There are shops on the pier but take money as the
credit card machine they have there may not work. This was the place
I found the nicest souvenirs at the dock and didn't have money to buy
them.

If the ship goes to Berlin, the port is actually a long way from the
city. I took the ship's tour here and it was a very long day.