Europe - Northern Europe Cruise Reviews

Had higher expectations for a brand new ship.  They had some good ideas and some bad.  Loved access to NY Times - the best of the ship.  The Dutch cafe was good, too.  Everything is geared to make the last dollar out of a captive audience.

First cruise of many I have been on where they do not have laundry.  First cruise with no library - at least could offer used books passengers leave behind.  First cruise that thinks a layman can mix mediocre wines to create a great one at a high price to end up with a lousy bottle of wine.  First cruise where one could not get a pitcher of water (no pitchers, period) in the cabin.  Had to pay for any water to be consumed in cabin.

The dining room, a very noisy cafeteria, needs serious work - the staff is running around like chickens with heads cut off - very very slow service for mediocre food.  Dine as you wish is a joke.  Worst wine list ever - finally some French wines in Sel de Mer, their French restaurant, with old white wines and young red wines.  Most available wines were unknown low quality Washington State wines.  Hardly any wines from Chile, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany.  Cocktail menus, in all venues,  did not include list sparkling wines or champagne. 

No staff in pool areas to refresh towels, clean up - just barmen to sell drinks. No rules on hot tub or ping pong and other poolside venues - kids rule - they claim they can stay at each thing all day if they like, and they do.  Very poor movie selection in Pool Area "theater".  Very poor movie selection in cabins.

Ship environment food and service outstanding.

Captains announcements should be piped into the state rooms, at the option of the passengers. Also when approaching the Copenhagen-Malmo  bridge passengers should be notified by the bridge,

The itinerary was great.  Could have spent more time in Stockholm, Sweden.  Ship was clean and nice clientele.  Dinners were good but not great.  Steak restaurant was good one night and not another.  Sabitini's Italian was good and the Italian free restaurant was Great!  The shows were some of the best I've seen on cruise ships.

This was our honeymoon, but the ship experience was lacking the touch for the ocassion. I am very seasoned traveller ( 90 countries with 14 plus cruises), but this cruise only met my regular basic standards. Even though the personnel were nice and the ship was modern, there were times you felt abandoned and needed to pin point this was a special trip for us. This is the second time with princess (first was great), but will try a different company next time. Also, everything was very costly and charged for everything.

This was our first Royal Caribbean cruise and we loved it!  The ship was clean and the food was absolutely amazing!  From the buffet to the main dining room to paid specialty restaurants.  Our cruise director, Topi from Finland was amazing.  What a crazy cat.  There was such great entertainment aboard the ship, that I didn't even get to gamble in the casino.  

The only thing I didn't like was the smoking that came out of the casino while I was watching a show in Centrum.  

We had an issue with our stateroom but it truly had to do with the booking through BJ's Wholesale Club rather than Royal Caribbean.  I booked a room for 3 with a sofa couch and received a room with a pullman.  I do feel that Royal Caribbean could have done something so my 76 year old mother didn't have to climb up the pullman but they didn't.  That annoyed me some, but hopefully BJ's will make good on this.

Great cruise ports, great food, great entertainment, and amazing entertainment staff.  We had the time of our lives on it.  We loved it so much that I booked another cruise on Royal for next year!

I highly recommend this line and ship to everyone!  

This was our first time on a Princess cruise and we were very impressed. The Regal Princess is a great ship - while large, it did not feel that way!

Our veranda cabin was spacious with more storage room then was needed 9although we did have to request additional hangers, which were readily provided). Our cabin attendant could not have been more attentive!

The food choices and the food itself were very good. Our table made us feel like we were in a small dining room, not a huge one. The wait staff was superb!

We enjoyed the entertainment - nice variety and high quality!

T We chose this trip because of the excellent itinerary. We enjoyed all of the ports, particularly St. Petersburg and Stockholm. We took Princess tours to Berlin (Jewish tour0 and St. Petersburg 92 day tour). Both were excellent. For St. Petersburg, be prepared for 2 long, tiring days, but the Hermitage and Peterhof Palace are not to be missed. Be aware that if you book any organized tour with a licensed tour company, you don't need a personal visa in St. Petersburg. The entry and excellent to Stockholm have very beautiful scenery.

This was our first Cruise.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.  The staff/crew were exceptional and every one of them were experts in there job.  My only disappointment is having to pay for a shuttle bus to Riga when there is no other option of taxis or walking..  I realise that the cruise ship is 15 kms from the city and a working port so pedestrusn were not allowed to walk.  We are very happy with Royal Caribbean. 

My travel agent tried to talk me out of this cruise. I did not listen. The food never changed and was not any where near Hospital food. No flavor, small amounts and really disappointing. The Buffets were nothing more than a cattle call. Even the servers would push you out of the way to get to what they wanted. I had a few run ins with supervisors in the buffet, Alex and Girarld were uncaring throughout the trip. We had to fight to get Decaf coffee every morning, they keep it in a secret vault. 80% of the staff were ok...20% had a bad attitude. This ship trys to get a dime out of every nickle. The Cabin was adequate. On a bright note the ship doctor and staff were the best...Dr Mimovic and Rajko his nurse were terrific helping me with some medical issues. I have been on many cruises....from a service standpoint I could not recommend MSC Musica or any other MSC cruise..The food and bar manager needs to be awakened. I tried to give him a chance and he declined. Took me 5 attempts to get a key to work after waiter gave me the wrong key. at dinner. Something is not right with this ship. Should have listen to travel agent. Ports of call were good (the only reason we took the cruise). Find a different Cruise line.

This cruise had an excellent itinerary.  Don't take this cruise for the food.

This cruise had 2 tender ports and the tendering was handled very smoothly.

Interestingly, this was the land of the midnight sun, and the only time we saw the sun was between 10pm and midnight.

The chef was great and the food in both the dining room and buffet were excellent. We enjoyed the entertainment - they had quite a variety in the bars and on stage. We liked the small ship and met several people that we really enjoyed. We were in stateroom 8000 and had issues with cigarette smoke in the room and heavy in the hallway for way too many days and nights. The smoke seems to comes down the stairs from the smoking area on the pool deck because the door sticks open. The bed was really awful and there is only set seating where you sit with the same people night after night. People complained the early dining 5:45 was too early and 7:45 was too late.

I am a loyal NCL customer and this was my eighth cruise (and honeymoon) with them. The ports of call and excursions were great but pricey (as is well documented). The Norwegian Star ship is outdated compared to the rest of the fleet. The buffet offers little variety and the food was fair at best. The Internet connection was awful while also being expensive. The fitness center is poor (too small) if you are looking for resistance training. Loved the trip overall. Just disappointed with the accommodations for the first time.

The ship seemed crowded, a little dated and tired.  The room was nice, great bed and shower, plenty of room to move around.  There weren't a lot of places to sit outside, it was ok for the Baltic but I'm not sure I would book this ship if it were in the Med or Caribbean ..  The food was plentiful, but the buffet seemed low quality.  We ate in three specialty restaurants, the best being Cagneys.  It was on par with a chain steakhouse. They did a few barbecues by the pool that were fun.  The quality of the food overall was a disappointment.  The service was spotty, a few individuals stood out for great service and a few stood out for their bad attitude.  Embarkation was a bit of a disaster, we waited in line 2 hours, they only had one security line open.  It was painful.  The ports were fantastic, no issues getting on or off ship other than Russia. They make you wait until the ship tours have off loaded before your allowed to leave, this means waiting in a very long line getting through passport control.  I highly recommend this itinerary, the ports were all fantastic, Russia was a high light. The ship was fine, it felt more like staying in a budget hotel than I was expecting.  

The itinerary and the excursions that we selected.  

Also enjoyed the specialty restaurants and booked a paid wine pairing dinner..A fabulous experience with assigned  dinner  guests

ICELAND, NORWAY, KRISTIANSAND, COPANHAGEN, LITHUANIA, TALLIN

LAND TOURS WERE FINE.  SOME LAND GUIDES MOVE TOO FAST AND START BEFORE WE ARE EVEN OFF THE BUS.

CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE.  THE REQUIREMENT OF 150 WHATEVER IS OVERKILL..

COULD USE MOREE SPACE FOR COMMENTS BELOW ABOUT AIR AND STOCKHOLM 

I enjoyed all the ports of call and the excursions however the evening dining experience was a major let down, poor quality of food preparation, meals often cold and up to the standard on RCI.

Posts of Call are good choices. Needs improvement in management in the following:

1. On the 1st day on board, 1 piece of luggage was not found until 9:45 pm.

2. We booked 3 stateroom but lost 1 due to overbooking. We were informed only a few days before departure. 4 adults were cramped into 1 stateroom. TIme to take turn to use bathroom was a pain.

3.We used 1 credit card to pay all on board expenses; but the staff had problem to do that.

3. The staff for the Riga tour was very rude and the instruction to go to which gangway (front or back) was not clear. As a result, our group of 6 was separated into 2 groups.

We were a party of 6 adults who had taken this same cruise on the Vision of the Seas 5 years ago.  The ports were all still amazing, but we were disappointed in the condition of the Serenade, the over-crowded/oversold conditions, and the tired and grumpy crew.  The ship was sold as having undergone a recent renovation, but we did not see it.  Pool areas are unpainted and rusty.  Stateroom furniture is threadbare.  This particular ship was WAY oversold.  We, ourselves - were offered a HUGE last-minute discount to put 4 adults in a stateroom with bunk beds (no way!).  Many others took the deal, and it showed.  Loud announcements were made frequently to eat and then get out of the cafe area, due to insufficient seating for the number of people onboard..  All of the staff seemed very tired.  Also, this ship docked VERY far from the Riga city center (unlike the Vision 5 years ago), and we were required to pay $14 per person to get into the city and back.  This was not announced until the night before we arrived, leaving no time to make other arrangements.  We felt "nickeled and dimed", unlike our previous cruise.  All in all, we had a great time...but this was not the "luxury vacation" that Royal promises. 

The best part of the Cruise was the visit to St Petersburg.

An improvement to the cruise would be to employ a new Chef

I am not interested in your views I have submitted mine

This was the first time with princess cruises always been with royal Caribbean 

we always fancied the Baltic and the emerald princess itinerary was ideal 

Love all the ports we went to especially  Tallinn very oldy worldly great markets 

good prices , st Petersburg unbelievable and prebook your tour with 118 cruises as excellent value we had a great tour guide even went down to go on the underground which was a amazing experience talk to other people on their tours and did not do as much as us so great value for money . Stockholm visit the ice bar in the q hotel worth a visit . Our cabin 215 was great and a good balconyalso our stwert also very good ,love the afternoon tea in the  Botticelli dining room good and nice treat ,all the staff were very helpful our only moan was the theatre for the top shows if you didn't get their early no chance of a seat and as we were 8.15 dining a proplem but other than that excellent cruise and great service from all at cruise 118 also lovely touch with the champagne 

thanks again Jean brian bacon 

Favorite part:  Not having to repackage our bags for each new seaport...unpack once...

Least favorite part: That Princess Cruises partipates in allegedly deceptive Art Auctions......

Would I recommend this Cruise to others?.....the Ports of Call I would recommend, but not the Princess Cruise Lines......Food was below par....many inconveniences, too many to name...e.g.  Cruise Entertainment was....not Broadway Show Quality...what is?.....but offerings were almost Amateurish......Overall, we were comfortable, but not Spoiled....