Questions about northern Europe cruises

[eco-muse]

I have some questions about the northern Europe cruises (leaving from Dover or Copenhagen).

For a quick bit of backstory: My mom has been on a few cruises before, but never a Disney cruise (and she’s always wanted to go on a Disney cruise). I’ve never been on a cruise, so this will be a surprise for her and a new experience for me.

Now, as for the questions…

1. Are you allowed to switch cruises?
(There’s one I’m considering for next August. The problem: my mom works at a school district and the dates of the cruise could conflict with the dates she goes back to work. She doesn’t have the 2020-2021 school calendar, yet, so we don’t know when, exactly, she’ll be starting next year.
So, what I’m wondering is: If I book that cruise, and it turns out she’s not able to go because of work, can we switch to a different cruise and just pay the difference in pricing?)

2. Is there transportation provided from the airport to the port (or airport to hotel, or hotel to port)?
(I don’t know what our flight plans are, yet, but I’d imagine we’d arrive the day before the cruise, stay at some hotel overnight, and go to port the next morning.)

3. (Similar to question 2) Is there transportation provided from the port to a hotel, or from port to the airport?


4. What floors/areas of the ship have the quiet rooms?
(Motion sickness isn’t an issue for us, but excessive noise when we’re trying to sleep is an issue. I’m considering either an Oceanview room or one with a Verandah.)

5. The northern Europe ships are the Magic and/or Wonder, right?
(Regarding beds on the ships, what are the options? My mom has mentioned that on her previous cruises, the rooms had 2 twin beds, or a king bed that could be split into 2 twin beds. We would need separate beds. I’ve read about the rooms having one bed and a sleeper sofa-type-thing, but I’m not sure how well that would work for us, or how big the sleeper sofa is…)

6. Has there ever been concern about safety on those trips?
(I ask because, after looking at the Travel Advisories site [https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/] a lot of the countries have Level 2 alerts, due to potential terrorist threats and whatnot.)

7. What is the summer weather like?
(Warm? Rainy? Cold?)

8. For those of you who have been on a northern Europe Disney cruise: What did you enjoy most about it?
(If you've been on a couple different northern Europe Disney cruises: Which was your favorite and why?)

(I might have more questions in the future.)

Thanks

 

[fredandkell]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. I swear by floor 1 as being quietest on Magic
5. Queen bed and sofa, no option for twin
6. No
7. Cool, rainy sometimes, variable - have you been to the US far northeast or Canada? Kinda like that.

 

[Ladybugx87]

1. Yes you can switch cruises ahead of being paid in full - I have seen some people actually book both cruises of interest if they could pay both cruise deposits and then just transfer one deposit to the other cruise once they knew which they could take. This is because prices will continue to go up. I have not personally done this but have seen in recommended on the boards.

2 and 3- yes, you can choose to use DCL transportation from airport to hotel, hotel to port, and port back to airport. That said, to do so when involving hotel, you need to be booked at a DCL hotel - when you make your reservation you can ask about this and add your transfers to your reservation.

5 - Magic has been the ship to traditionally go to Europe.

6 - No safety concerns - Disney is conservative and will skip ports if the current situation happens to call for it.

7 - Pack for flexibility and layers - on our 2017 Northern Europe cruise, we were in shorts and tank tops in Copenhagen and in multiple layers plus rain coats in St Petersburg.

8 - There are many great things about the tour you are looking into - we had young kids with us so skipped the ballet in St Petersburg but many of the travelers on the ship with us did that and loved it.

I keep a personal blog of our travels - you can see my report of our 2017 Northern European cruise here: https://jmsadventure.blogspot.com/2017/06/

We are doing the Iceland and Norway cruise in a few months and I plan to report back after that too in case you are interested in some of those itineraries as an alt.

Happy planning!

 

[kiford]

4. I haven't found any rooms to be particularly noisy. It will partially depend on who is beside you. You might want to avoid near kid's clubs, under restaurants, not the top deck because of chairs being moved on pool deck. But we've not had any problems - always been on decks 6, 7 or 8 either mid-ship or aft.

5. Beds no longer split.

6. I had no concerns (we went 2015) and there were the same level of warnings. We were even in London on the 10th anniversary of the bombings on July 7 right across from Hyde Park so security services were on high alert but nothing happened. I won't go to places with very high alerts (e.g., my friends are going to Egypt with ABD and I won't consider that myself right now) but, in general, if you worry about low or mid-level alerts, you'll never leave home. And, as others state, DCL monitors and diverts if they feel it's necessary.

7. Weather was fantastic - we were there in mid-July. It was cool-ish in the mornings but comfortable by afternoon and not hot. Usually sunny. We had rain jackets but actually only had to use them one day in London. It could get cold on deck especially when moving but there are blankets on the chairs so we did sit out quite a lot and used them. It was too cold for us to swim so we never went in the pool even though we spent a lot of time around it. Perfect touring weather IMO.

8. We enjoyed the entire cruise. DH still feels that it was our best one and we'd both do it again. We loved that the ships generally dock in the city so there's not a lot of time spent on buses or trains to get to where you're going (except for Berlin). We were used to the long drives on our Med cruises so this was a pleasure. We absolutely loved St. Petersburg. We did two separate tours to the Hermitage on different days as well as a trip to Catherine's Palace. The Hermitage has been on my bucket list since I was 15 and it did not disappoint; it was way better than I could have imagined. Leaving Stockholm (I will be back to visit one day) you pass through the Archipelago with hundreds of little islands, some of which are occupied or have summer houses. We spent the entire time on deck just watching. We (and about 3/4 of the ship) took a train to Berlin. Long ride but well worth it; we will be back to Berlin one day too. Helsinki was really interesting and lovely as was Tallinn. Days at sea were nice and relaxing and the day that we passed under the bridge between Sweden and Denmark was really cool. Got some great pictures from the pool deck. The captain announced when we were close so that people could see it. All-in-all, just an amazing trip. It's not an area we ever had thought we'd be interested in visiting but when our friends suggested it (they'd been on a previous one) we decided to go. Now we want to go back to most of the places and stay for a week or so (except St. Petersburg - loved it, but I wouldn't stay there. They aren't quite up to Western standards with respect to hotels and service but coming and going from a ship was great as the city itself is incredible).

 

[Geomom]

I have some questions about the northern Europe cruises (leaving from Dover or Copenhagen).

For a quick bit of backstory: My mom has been on a few cruises before, but never a Disney cruise (and she’s always wanted to go on a Disney cruise). I’ve never been on a cruise, so this will be a surprise for her and a new experience for me.

Now, as for the questions…

1. Are you allowed to switch cruises?
(There’s one I’m considering for next August. The problem: my mom works at a school district and the dates of the cruise could conflict with the dates she goes back to work. She doesn’t have the 2020-2021 school calendar, yet, so we don’t know when, exactly, she’ll be starting next year.
So, what I’m wondering is: If I book that cruise, and it turns out she’s not able to go because of work, can we switch to a different cruise and just pay the difference in pricing?)

2. Is there transportation provided from the airport to the port (or airport to hotel, or hotel to port)?
(I don’t know what our flight plans are, yet, but I’d imagine we’d arrive the day before the cruise, stay at some hotel overnight, and go to port the next morning.)

3. (Similar to question 2) Is there transportation provided from the port to a hotel, or from port to the airport?


4. What floors/areas of the ship have the quiet rooms?
(Motion sickness isn’t an issue for us, but excessive noise when we’re trying to sleep is an issue. I’m considering either an Oceanview room or one with a Verandah.)

5. The northern Europe ships are the Magic and/or Wonder, right?
(Regarding beds on the ships, what are the options? My mom has mentioned that on her previous cruises, the rooms had 2 twin beds, or a king bed that could be split into 2 twin beds. We would need separate beds. I’ve read about the rooms having one bed and a sleeper sofa-type-thing, but I’m not sure how well that would work for us, or how big the sleeper sofa is…)

6. Has there ever been concern about safety on those trips?
(I ask because, after looking at the Travel Advisories site [https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/] a lot of the countries have Level 2 alerts, due to potential terrorist threats and whatnot.)

7. What is the summer weather like?
(Warm? Rainy? Cold?)

8. For those of you who have been on a northern Europe Disney cruise: What did you enjoy most about it?
(If you've been on a couple different northern Europe Disney cruises: Which was your favorite and why?)

(I might have more questions in the future.)

Thanks

1. Yes, you'd say that you want to change cruises vs. cancelling. If you book concierge--that is non-refundable. For 'regular' rooms, as long as you change before the pay in full date (120 days?), there are no fees to change. I think you will be paying the prevailing rate for that cruise when you switch though vs. having the benefit of the cheapest prices on opening day.

2 + 3. Yes, you can pay for Disney transportation. We only paid for Disney transport from the port to airport at the end of our cruise. (There can be a long taxi line with everyone leaving the ship at once.) I believe the cost has gone down a little, it was $40/person/1 way in August 2018. We did 3 days in Copenhagen pre-cruise. We had already purchased the Copenhagen Card (includes admission to 80+ attractions as well as public transportation.) We took the train from the airport to central station and walked to our hotel. For Hotel to Port, we got a taxi--around $40 USD for the 4 of us. If you book the hotel through Disney, you can pay for the transport to the hotel, otherwise you're on your own.

4. To find a quiet room--look at what is above your room--some starboard deck 2 rooms may be noisy due to the kitchens above them. Rooms on deck 8 may be noisy in the AM due to pool chairs being moved around. We've stayed on deck 2 oceanview, port, around the aft elevators with no noise issues. There is no noise involved with being near the elevators/stairs...other than people walking by to go to their rooms.

5. The Magic cruises Europe. The Wonder does Alaska. The beds no longer split. 1 queen bed, and a sofa that flips down into a twin bed. (Some rooms also have a bunk bed above the sofa.) The stateroom host will turn the sofa into a bed and back into a sofa every day. There is a privacy curtain between the queen bed and the sofabed.

6. Disney will change the itinerary if there are safety concerns. I would also make sure you have good travel insurance--I made sure there was terrorism coverage, as well as good evacuation coverage in case of emergency.

7. All of the above for weather--it also depends upon the season and which countries you're traveling to. We did the Baltic August 9-16, 2018. Copenhagen was in the 80's and humid. Tallinn was mid-70's, sunny. St. Petersburg had the 'typical' weather, drizzly, 60's. Helsinki and Stockholm were in the mid-high 70's, and sunny. The pools on the ship are heated if the air temp is below 75.

8. Check out my trip report in my signature! We LOVED our Baltic cruise. It was a great way to get a taste of 5 countries. We also loved exploring during the day and then going back to the 'safety' of our ship at night. It was a great way to visit Russia without getting a Visa (as long as you are part of a tour group--we went with one from DCL.) Tallinn was our favorite port--old town was straight out of a fairy tale. We also loved Copenhagen--very easy to get around with public transit or walking and so much to see, and we felt very safe. The people in the Scandinavian countries were very willing to speak English with us.

My other tip is to make sure you have a credit card with no foreign transaction fees. Many Scandinavian countries are moving towards being cashless societies--so no need to get local currency.

 

[jdb in AZ]

Since the bed doesn't split, one of you can take it for half the cruise, then switch. Check with the stateroom host about changing the bedding.

Don't miss the ballet in St. Petersburg. It's amazing!

 

[eco-muse]

Thanks for all the responses, very helpful info