Europe - Northern Europe Cruise Reviews

Ship too big. Too many people

Not enough elevators.

Stairs missing mid ship

Breakfast buffet – serving mostly different kinds of meats, almost no dairy products

Going on a cruise to northern Europe and have to ask a waiter for lox/nova at breakfast?

Dining room food had very few vegetarian choices.

We made a mistake of buying the cruise from Cruises Only. We bought the excursions from the site provided not realizing that this site has nothing to do with Norwegian. We ended up with getting poor quality excursions in every city.

St. Petersburg: on both days we lost time sitting in traffic for hours. That caused such delays that we were rushed through Hermitage museum. Both meals were awful. The bus was very small and packed to the last seat.

Helsinki and Stockholm: the instructions for the buss and boat hop on and off were incorrect. The staff didn't recognize our tickets. We waited for 1.5 hrs on the bus regardless of the instrutions on the tickets.

We will never use Cruises Only in  the future.

The food was better than on other cruise ships i have sailed. The service was good but not as good as on some other ships.  Getting on and off was a dream.  Port calls were very interesting.  The only problem was the cold weather, sideways sleet is not my idea of June 20. I would recomend it.

As noted above we really appreciated St Pete.  One needs at least two days to appreciate The Hermitage, Peterhoff Palace, Church of the Spilled Blood and St Peter and Paul's Church..  Didn't have time to include the Palace of Catherine. Taking the hydrofoil from Peterhoff back to St Pete was a thrill.Traffic in the city was terrible.  Best take a tour with someone else driving.

We would question the time required to get to/from the port to see Berlin.  It was at least a  two hour train trip each way.  Unless one had a specific desire to see Berlin I think time would be better spent seeing another day in Stockholm.or Helsinki.

Copenhagen was very nice and for those entertaining  taking this cruise I would suggest spending a complete day there prior to or upon returning.  We stayed at a Raddison  right accross the street from Tivoli Gardens. The Gardens are  quite nice and worth the time .Taking the Hop Off/On Buss and Boat tour was another plus.

The ship was o k.  Service in the dinning rooms( excluding the buffet) was good but not terrific. Food itself  was o k but not great . The specialty resturants were good especially La Cuchina. Some areas  on the ship such as metal on the veranda needed attention as rust was evident.

We enjoyed our two previous two cruises on Holland America better.The ships and food were better. The cruise out of Venice to Greece,Turkey and Dalmatia were was our best, especially seeing Istanbul and Ephesus.

The tours were expensive but worth it.  I would especially recommend St. Petersburg and Berlin.  The palaces in St Petersburg were spectacular.  Seeing the Berlin wall and check point Charlie were interesting.  The tours we took of Stockholm and Helsinky were nice but nothing fabulous.  I did enjoy the town of Tallin.  We had unseasonably cold weather but it was sitll beautiful.

This was an exceptional experience which I truly loved and constantly think of.  The crew were friendly and professional.  The sanitation was constant and I never worried about being sick.  I felt safe personally, as well as with my property.

 The food was good, though at times pretty bland.  Eating at the Speciality Restaurants was great.

I've traveled on one other cruise which had exceptional food, though that got tiring as well.

I, very much, liked the organization of the cruise when letting people off the boat.  In the past, I've 

experienced people crowding into each other to get off.

I have a tendency to get sea sick and did not experience that on this trip.

When I schedule another cruise, I would definitely choose Norwegian Cruise Line.

Thank You!!

You can be sure by traveling with Celebrity that you will enjoy first class service, food and experience.  I would not recommend however to ncessarily book your excursions with Celebrity.  Groups are too large, excursions too traditional and quite expensive.  It''s recommended to search some alternatives on Internet. We had an excursion in St Petersburgh with another supplier (SPB) which was outstanding.

This was a fantastic selection of ports.  We had wanted to visit Amsterdam so this was he perfect beginning of our cruise. Although Berlin was a 3 hour bus ride from the port, we probably would never traveled to just Berlin.  The next stop was Talinn, Estonia, a charming town.  Of course, the highlight of the trip was 2 days in St Petersburg.  What a fantastic city.  The art and architecture was overwhelming.

To round out the trip. was Helsinki, Stockhom and Copenhagen, all delightful stops.

I prefer ships the size of the Constitution.  Its large enough to have the amenities I want and small enough that we could meet new friends and see family.  I found the food good and varied.  As a Captain Club member, I was pleased with the "goodies" that you have as a member.  We did have a plumbing problem, our shower leaked.  This was corrected and we were sent a bottle of wine as an apology for our inconvenience.  We had booked our bus from the port to the airport and were delighted to learn that our luggage would go directly to the airport where we would reclaim it. The departure was as easy as had been our embarkation. 

So many wonderful things to see and do on this itinerary!  Our stateroom stewardess was wonderful.  The food and service in the dinning rooms was not as good as previous cruises.  The two shore excursions we booked through the cruise line were very good.  We found a lot of value for the price!

Regular dining menu brand new - big improvment in food variety and taste.

Buffet food was also good with variety and good taste.

Great entertainment - better than any cruise line I had experience. I had 8 cruises with Princess, 1 cruise with RCI, 1 one Carnaval, This was my 2nd NCL cruise.

Room was spotless with supply of ice and nice surprises of great towel art.

Everything exceed my expectation!

The cruiese was great! We loved all of the ports. The staff was excellent. We had a problem with noise above our room but Holland America changed that for us. The only negative was the Lido dining room and the movie theater was like sitting in an ice box. Also, I don't think it is fair the way either your site or Holland America does things with the freebies. It should be the same for all guests. It shouldm't be that those who have time to go on the computer everyday and check for price drops and extras get the benefits. For example, a couple sitting at oor table paid about $600 less per person for their cabin which was a balcony and they got a beverage card for $50 per person a day for alcholic drinks and other beverage cards. This is not equitable. From now on I will book at the last minute.

Food:The food was better than some- more fresh seafood, and nice beef dishes. The  Eurodam has exact hours for restaruants to open and close (at 9PM!). The only 24 hour food is a very limited in room service. Princes has a 24 hour cafe-which I loved.

Entertainment:  The lounge  entertainment was not very good, but the crowd was 60+ so rarely was anyone up after dinner anyway.   The off broadway shows were predicatable, but good.  

Education and tours: I had been on the same Baltic-St. Petersburg cruise with Princess cruise line 9 months ago, and the commentary was much more informative on the other ship, so if you use Eurodam be sure you have your own educational material about the cities you will visit, as the ship "lectures" seem to be only a sales attempt for you to take the HAL excursions. As far as the HAL excusions they are quite expensive.  We used an independent land tour company (AllaTours)  and were very happy with the small groups (8-12) and excellent guides with headsets. We ran into a HAL group and there were  41  people per group with no head sets to hear the guide.  

Ship: The Eurodamn Atruim was smaller, basically just a staircase, whereas on the Princess, the Atrium was like a meeting place with entertainment all the time- a good hang out place.  The Eurodam does have two nice  pools- one enclosed and one open pool. 

Staff: The customer service on the Eurodam was excellent.  

Great ports!  Ship is older, but well-maintained and clean.  Crew was friendly and helpful.  Shows were good with a wide variety of entertainment.  Dining rooms did a super job of seating and serving 15 of us every night, typically without a reservation at around 2030.  Did eat one night in La Cuchina (Italian) as a group, very good.  Entertainment in the bar areas was excellent, fun and easy listening. 

Difficult to find and get to the new cruise terminal in Copenhagen... taxi driver was lost within the port area, but we eventually followed another taxi and found the new entrance to the terminal. 

Check in and load aboard went very smoothly with little time waiting in line. 

Luggage was in the room after we had lunch at the buffet... very efficient! 

Underway was on time and provided some great views departing Copenhagen. 

Bought train tickets in Wannermunde for a ride to Rostock.  Returned and wandered around the port city of Wannermunde, had dinner on a canal and enjoyed the evening. 

Tallin was very easy to walk to the old city from the pier and spend time wandering around and shopping in the old city shops. 

Shore excursions in St. Petersburg required if you are US citizen or you can get your own visa with a letter of sponorship, but costly and takes time to process.  Norwegian sponsored shore excursions were well worth doing. 

Helsinki was easy to buy buy hop-on-hop-off bus passes at the pier and a boat tour at the center market of the city/port. 

Stockholm was overwhelmed with cruise ships the day we visited, 7 in port.  The Vasa museum tour was a must as a shore excursion since as an individual the line to buy a ticket was a kilometer long!  Even in the group the Vasa was still worth seeing for the one hour alloted... more time would have been better. Also, visited an ice bar for the experience and enjoyed vodka in an ice glass dressed in cold-weather gear in the bar. Having signed up for the shore excursion probably allowed us to bypass some lines and maximize our time in port in Stockholm. 

All the ports were very beautiful, with incredible scenery on arrivals and departures.  Sunrises were very early and sunsets were very late allowing for great views. 

Very good bargains onboard the ship... save your money in Russia, spend it on the ship at the Russian Bazzar on the last at-sea day.  You'll get better quality and a better price for the same merchandise the tour stops were offering. 

All in all, the cruise met expectations and the Baltic capitals are definitely worth visiting. 

Enjoyed the cruise, very busy with only 2 days at sea. St Petersburgh was awesome as was Stolkholm, could have skipped the Helsinki stop though. The Norwegian Star wasa okay, not great, nor real bad, but is in need of more public seating space in the common areas of the ship. The ship was not at capacity yet it seemed crowded, can't imagine what it would be like if it was full.

The cruise started out a little rough in that they had very long lines at boarding.  It seems that passengers on the previous cruise booked London excursions and they returned to the ship as a good number of us new ones were boarding.  They had two security checks for the returning passengers and only one for the new passengers.  Since there were more new the returning passengers it created a massive back up.

I do have to recommend the ships customer service once boarded.  They excelled in my opinion.  My brother lost his luggage in New York and the ship (through no fault of their own) went out of the way to help him.  They gave him clothes as well as a voucher for free laundry service.  They kept on top of the airline for the recovery which occured on the fourth day in Stockholm.

I had a good experience as well.  I injured my ankle while on the equipment in the gym, at first there was no problem until later in the day when it began to swell.  I visited the ship's doctor and was given a cane and ankle brace which helped a lot.  They did not charge me.

The ship, " Brilliance of The Seas" was everything promised in all reviews.  

Food exceptional with all countries represented in menu.  Staff, the finest.  Entertainment, entertaining.

Activities, you couldn't  keep up.  Something for everyone.   The Tours were the best.  

We were late boarding due to spraying whole ship for a virus.  All during the cruise, we were very much aware of the attention to cleanliness.  

This was my seventeenth cruise with Royal Caribbean, and total of 25 cruises counting all our other cruises.

We are loyal to Royal Caribbean, for it is the tops in cruise lines as far as we are concerned.  

Great cruise...Sad when it ended and now we are planning our next one. 

Have been on the one to Alaska, and if you haven't taken it, you are really missing out on a great trip.

although I had a good time I felt there were too many ports and too little time. The Royal Princess is beautiful and the cruise experience was wonderful ( except for the elevators). 

The cruise itinerary was exactly as advertised, no complaints other than many of us would have like 2 nights in more ports.

The ship itself is showing its age. We had an outside cabin and there was visible rust on the window framing.  The bathroom tile was wiped clean but had not been deep scrubbed in a long time.  One day I took a rag,soaped it up and applied some muscle to cleaning the tile and sure enough, I was able to remove the "gray area".

We find the layout of the theatre area to be cumbersome.  Entering on the lower deck you must still walk down steps to the main seating area.  There are handrails, but they do not extend as far as they should.

Stay away from cabin 2023.  There is a wierd whistling noise at night that kept me awake for hours.  The room steward said it was the sound of the stabelizers.  Other cabin residents said they did not hear these noises.

One last word about Celebrity service.  We were bothered by fruit flies in our cabin and reported this.  Housekeeping sent a crew to more thoroughly clean the cabin.  Our steward left us a bottle of wine to apologize.  The next day another fruit fly landed in a drink as we entered the cabin.  The following day Guest Services called to ask if our cabin was now satisfactory.  We related the latest fruit fly story and said it appeared to be the final fly.  Guest Services treated us to a specialty dining dinner of our choiceto make up for our bad experience.  That was taking responsibility and we appreciated it. 

All Cruises are great.  Please don't get me wrong, but this Ship, really caters to U.K. citizens, in most every way.My travelling companion, noticed how we were treated, once they realized we were Americans.   From the Shore Cruise Desk, and especially the Pursers Desk, to most every contact with personnel working on the ship.  Exceptions were my Waiter, Avish and assistent- Natalia, and my Cabin Stewards, Rey and Raul.  The ports were great,and interesting.  All places I had never been, and am glad to have seen, on this cruise.  The Queen Elizabeth is a Beautiful Ship, with that old-time British understatement of luxury. All in All, a very nice time.  I have been on many cruises, with many Ship Brands, and for a rating of 3, on a 6 star level, this was adequate.

The ship is in excellent condition, constructed around the Royal Promenade, an unusual and excellent idea for a center of a ship. Overall, the crew were excellent with a minor exception. The folks in the excursion department could use some training as far as people skills are concerned. The food was excellent with the exception of deserts which did not match up with other cruises we have taken. We rate the entertainment very highly, particularly the production programs in the evenings.