August 9, 2018 Northern European Cruise

[SorcererMickey4ever]

To everyone who booked/recommend Anastasia I am having trouble with the website-maybe it's my browser-but can't get better details without an error. Which of their packages did you go with? They sound great if we can budget it.

 

[DCSWO]

We went with the moderate tour.

7.00 – 8.00 am. Visa-free passing of the passport control
Your private professional tour-guide and driver of the modern van are greeting You right next to the passport control with the sign "Anastasia Travel Group"

8.00 – 9.30 am. City tour

9.30 – 10.30 am. Drive to Peterhoff

10.30 – 12.30 pm. Tour around the Peterhoff Lower park. Lunch (optional)

12.30 – 1.30 pm. Drive to the down town

1.30 – 3.30 pm. the Hermitage visit

3.45 – 4.30 pm. Saviour of the Spilt Blood visit

5.00 – 6.00 pm. St.Isaac's Cathedral visit

6.30 pm. Back to the ship

 

[Mermandy]

Hello everyone! We are sailing with a group of 19 (!) and potentially still counting! My family is myself, my husband, son and daughter. My kids will still be fairly little (9 and 7) at the time of the cruise. We've decided to go all out...four days in the Netherlands beforehand and at least 3-4 days in Copenhagen afterwards. Thankfully we have points that will cover the hotels or the majority of the hotel stay. We have booked the Copenhagen Admiral Hotel for the night before the cruise. We are going to fly in from Amsterdam on Wednesday and stay one night at the CAH. It's right next to the Amalienborg castle, so we can tour that before we get on the ship.

I'm so excited! I can't wait to start booking everything!!

We are coming with our 8 and 9 year old boys! Should be a blast!

 

[Mermandy]

Welcome Everyone!
This is a thread to talk about all things for our August 9, 2018 Northern European Cruise

Cruise Info:
Disney Magic
August 9, 2018 - August 16, 2018 Northern European Cruise
Day 1 Copenhagen, Denmark 4:00 PM
Day 2 At Sea
Day 3 Tallinn, Estonia 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM
Day 4 St. Petersburg, Russia 8:15 AM to 11:30 PM
Day 5 Helsinki, Finland 11:15 AM to 5:30 PM
Day 6 Stockholm, Sweden 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM
Day 7 At Sea
Day 8 Copenhagen, Denmark 7:30 AM

We are a family of 5 coming from Baltimore, Maryland. (Technically 4 but we are bringing our 25 year old babysitter who has become part of our family.) Our boys will be 8 and 9 at the time of the cruise. We will have been in Italy for 2 weeks prior to this and in Paris (including Disneyland Paris) the week before that. So this is the culmination of our European vacation. It is also our FIRST Disney Cruise! We could not be more excited!

 

[SorcererMickey4ever]

We went with the moderate tour.

7.00 – 8.00 am. Visa-free passing of the passport control
Your private professional tour-guide and driver of the modern van are greeting You right next to the passport control with the sign "Anastasia Travel Group"

8.00 – 9.30 am. City tour

9.30 – 10.30 am. Drive to Peterhoff

10.30 – 12.30 pm. Tour around the Peterhoff Lower park. Lunch (optional)

12.30 – 1.30 pm. Drive to the down town

1.30 – 3.30 pm. the Hermitage visit

3.45 – 4.30 pm. Saviour of the Spilt Blood visit

5.00 – 6.00 pm. St.Isaac's Cathedral visit

6.30 pm. Back to the ship

Thank you! Sounds great

 

[SleepingRebecca]

We are a family of 5 coming from Baltimore, Maryland. (Technically 4 but we are bringing our 25 year old babysitter who has become part of our family.) Our boys will be 8 and 9 at the time of the cruise. We will have been in Italy for 2 weeks prior to this and in Paris (including Disneyland Paris) the week before that. So this is the culmination of our European vacation. It is also our FIRST Disney Cruise! We could not be more excited!

Sounds great! Would love to eventually go to Disneyland Paris!

This cruise will be my second but the first was awful. 3 night Disney Castaway Cay that was incredibly choppy as we were avoiding storms the entire time. So hoping for a much better experience.

It will be my friend's first. We are celebrating 31st birthdays.

I just couldn't see how else to see all these countries/ports any other way but a cruise as I am past the backpacking stage

We booked our private tour with TJ Travels after also hearing great things about them and they were a bit more accommodating.

 

[Wei-Lin]

We booked through Anastasia too (group of 7 people). Catherine’s Palace, Peteroff Foutains, Hermitage, and Church of Spilled Blood. Our littlest one is 2 1/2 years old.

Thanks for the great recommendation. I will contact Anastasia.

 

[Wei-Lin]

Thanks for the post. I’m booked with Anastasia based on all the positive reviews I read here and on other travel sites. Looking forward to the trip.

Thanks! Great information. I will contact Anastasia.

 

[Hubie]

As I noted in my trip report (Twenty thousand steps or more per day) we did this cruise last June and are returning this year. You will have a great time! This will be our 6th cruise with DCL and it is by far the best one. The 2014 WBPC was great too and so was the 2016 to Norway. But there is so much to explore and do on this cruise, you will love it. Hopefully we'll have as good weather as we enjoyed in 6/2017. The only rain we had was in the afternoon while in Stockholm.

As far as flights, we fly out of Chicago. We flew SAS for our Norway cruise, which serves great food for free but our tickets were over $1,072 each. Last year as I indicated in my report we flew Iceland Air ($795 each), which is great because they allow you to stop over in Iceland for 3 - 7 days on your way or on your return on the same round-trip ticket. Although CPH can be expensive, Reykjavik is crazy expensive. Burger and a beer was $50 there at Hard Rock Café. This year I got tickets on Vayama.com for Swiss Air for $730 and we get into CPH around 1 PM on 8/5.

For lodging, in 2016 I found the Avenue Hotel through Orbitz. We stayed there for three nights prior to our cruise for $218/night, which included a wonderful buffet breakfast. The hotel doesn't have AC but, with windows open and no bugs, the temperature in our room was bearable. Noise from traffic on the wide avenue out front wasn't noticeable either since I requested a room in the back of the hotel. A Metro stop is located only two blocks away and with 72-hr. pass we had easy access from the hotel to the airport and to the city.

On our way home we stayed in the Crowne Plaza for one night for 25,000 IHG points. In 2017 for our Northern Europe cruise we paid $250/day to stay there for three nights prior to the cruise. Breakfast buffet wasn't included, but it's worth paying for. This year we are staying there again and we're paying $860 plus 75,000 IHG points for six nights. Three nights before the cruise and three nights afterwards. Yes, we love CPH! The Crowne Plaza is such a wonderful hotel and has a shuttle to and from the airport. The hotel now also offers a shuttle to the Magic, but it's expensive. A cab is also. We just use the train/metro combination I discuss in my report.

Our bedroom w/bath at the Avenue Hotel in 2016.




This is the normal room in the Crowne Plaza. I don't have a picture of the very large attached bathroom.

 

[Geomom]

Woohoo! We got our cruise booklet (with luggage tags) in the mail today!

 

[DCSWO]

Yep, got mine yesterday.

 

[Hubie]

We got ours last Friday. Let's hope the weather is as nice as it was for us last year.

 

[nicole ronchetti]

Hi - I see that a lot of people have booked the Anastasia Tour. I have been trying to look into their packages but their website seems to be down for a few days. Did you all book online or over the phone?
I have also been looking into an all day tour with Viator. Does anyone have any experience with them?

 

[DCSWO]

I booked online. Perhaps try a different browser? I am able to pull them up now.

 

[Hubie]

Hi Nicole,

We've used Viator twice. The first time was for the Canal Tour in CPH in 2016. Our tickets also included free entrance into Tivoli and its small aquarium. The second time was for the Golden Circle Tour and Hidden Lagoon in Iceland last year. We were very satisfied with them both times.

 

[SorcererMickey4ever]

Hi - I see that a lot of people have booked the Anastasia Tour. I have been trying to look into their packages but their website seems to be down for a few days. Did you all book online or over the phone?
I have also been looking into an all day tour with Viator. Does anyone have any experience with them?

I had the same problems with their website. I just used the contact us to ask for information and they are so helpful and respond quickly! Definitely recommend them on their customer service.

 

[Geomom]

1 week until our cruise! I wish you all safe travels!

We're leaving Massachusetts on Sunday, change planes at JFK, and then landing in Copenhagen Monday. We're looking forward to our 3 pre-cruise days in Copenhagen AND our 1 week Northern European cruise!

 

[angie7911922]

Hey everybody!

Just about a year away! Has everyone/anyone started planning yet? We've got complicated plans because 19 of us will be meeting up on the cruise!

As for my family, here are our plans so far:

Leave DC on Friday night/Saturday morning to land in Amsterdam. We will spend Saturday to Wednesday in the Netherlands, touring Amsterdam, the Hague and Zuiderzee. On Wednesday we will fly to Copenhagen. Has anyone ever flown Norwegian Air? If so, do you have any concerns, tips, etc? They seem to have the best times to fly between AMS and CPH. We are spending Wednesday night at the Copenhagen Admiral Hotel. They allowed me to already book a room and they will hold our bags during the morning while we explore. Plus, they are located next to the Amalienborg Castle.

Obviously on Thursday we will board the ship. So ready!!

Tallinn: Part of our group is going to paint marzipan and part is going to tour the KGB room at the Viru Hotel. I also found a place to have novelty pictures done in medieval dress (this is a family quirk--we try to have funny photos done everywhere we go). I'm hoping we can squeeze in Kadriorg park as well.

St. Petersburg: We are doing a private tour through the Anastasia Travel group. They've been amazing as our group has swelled to 19 and the ages run from 7 to 70. They are taking care of everything and were more than willing to customize an itinerary for us. I've been impressed with their responsiveness.

Helsinki: we are considering doing the Reindeer/Nuuskio Park tour through Disney. This is the only tour we are doing through Disney. It will be the only tour we do through Disney.

Stockholm: We are going to tour the Vasa Museum and the Skansen Open-Air Museum. My husband is angling for the ABBA museum, but I don't think we will have time.

Copenhagen: We are going to stay there another 3-4 days, so we will pack in as much as we can! Kronborg, Tivoli Gardens, day trip to Roskilde, who knows!

Any tips you have? Any comments or questions? I'm ready to start booking things as soon as they come open!!

We have used Anastasia’s Travel in the past as well. Good choice. They really took care of us!!!

 

[angie7911922]

Hi from South Dakota! Good choice in Anastasia’s Travel. We've used them in the past (and of course will be using them again this trip) and they were fantastic!! They have set up an entirely different agenda for me this time so I won't see the same things that I saw last time! So excited to be going back again!

 

[Hubie]

Hi Angie,

Tips I have are included in my two trip reports for the 2017 and 2018 Northern European Cruise titled, "Twenty Thousand Steps Per Day" and "Another Look at the August 9 - 16, 2018 Disney Northern European Cruise (Completed)". Have great time!