Cruise lets you 'Sea' Northern Europe
SET SAIL | A cruise makes a lot of sense -- financially and logistically -- for hitting the highlights in Scandinavia and Russia
BALTIC SEA -- "Welcome to the best restaurant in Copenhagen," the silver-haired maitre d' said, taking a small bow.
Funny. The night before, he'd welcomed us to the exact same restaurant -- in Oslo.
(Courtesy)
BOOKING YOUR CRUISE: Many cruise lines -- including Crystal, Regent Seven Seas, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America, Norwegian -- travel to this part of the world, usually on seven- to 14-day trips. Crystal Cruises has eight northern European cruises scheduled next year, starting at $3,615 a person; www.crystalcruises.com. For a free copy of Crystal's 2009 Cruise Guide, which details all of next year's 61 itineraries to 185 destinations, call (888) 799-4625 or download it at www.crys talcruises.com/form_order brochure.aspx.
GETTING THERE: Crystal Symphony's Baltic Sea & Russia cruises either start or end in Dover, England, and Stockholm, Sweden. Crystal can arrange for a transfer between the port and airport, but it's easy enough -- and cheaper -- to take the train. Our one-way ticket from London to Dover cost $41 each and the trip lasted less than two hours; www.britishrail.com. In Stockholm, the high-speed train Arlanda Express whisked us between the airport and downtown in 20 minutes. One-way tickets cost about $30. Buy them at the airport or at the central train station; www.arlandaexpress.com.
CLOTHES MINDED: Don't overpack. Crystal Cruise ships are outfitted with complimentary washing machines and dryers; they even provide detergent. And if you book a cabin on the penthouse deck, your butler will press your clothes for free.
DINNER ON BOARD: Both of Crystal's ships have two alternative restaurants: Prego, the Italian eatery, and Silk Road, featuring chef Nobu Matsuhisa's Asian cuisine. The sushi and Kobe-style Wagyu beef are musts at Silk Road; you can't go wrong with anything on the menu at Prego, where we liked it so much, we ate there twice. Make your reservations as soon as possible, but don't despair if they're booked. The maitre d' often can squeeze you in if you're willing to eat after 9 p.m. Crystal doesn't charge extra to eat at Prego or Silk Road, but it's recommended that diners each tip at least $7.
The restaurant, where my husband and I would be unapologetic regulars for the near future, was aboard the cruise ship Crystal Symphony. This 940-passenger luxury vessel was our home this summer during an 11-day cruise around northern Europe, stopping at ports that had long lingered on my must-see list: Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, St. Petersburg.
On this particular evening, our 50,000-ton ship wasn't pulling out of Copenhagen until midnight. But after interrupting our sightseeing in the Danish capital to shell out $15 for a sandwich and $2.50 for tap water -- you heard me: tap water -- we decided to enjoy a four-course feast back on board rather than drop two C-notes for an equivalent meal in town.
Food, lodging, entertainment, transportation -- it's all part of the package with a cruise. And you get to pay for that package in U.S. dollars, which, compared to most currencies, are faring slightly better than Monopoly money these days.
All of this means cruises can pack a lot of bang for your vacation buck, particularly in pricey parts of the world like Scandinavia and Russia.
Touring this slice of Europe on a cruise ship made sense not only financially but logistically.
Traveling by water, we could see a lot -- in not a lot of time. Granted, a big knock on cruises is that passengers are nothing more than parachute tourists, dropping into port for a few hours and never really getting a sense of place.
I buy that argument in cities like Venice and Barcelona. But for me, eight hours in Oslo, Helsinki and Tallinn, Estonia (where the medieval Old Town blew me away as one of the prettiest parts of the trip), seemed like the right amount of time to soak in the scene and hit the highlights. And in St. Petersburg, Russia, the port of call with the most to see, we had three full days -- an unusually long layover for most cruise itineraries.
Crystal Symphony traversed the Baltic Sea six times this year from June through August, when the sun stays up way past its usual bedtime in these northern latitudes. Trips lasted seven to 11 days and started at $3,395 a person, going up -- sometimes way up -- from there, depending on your cabin class.
Readers of Travel + Leisure magazine have voted Crystal the World's Best Large-Ship Cruise Line for 13 years in a row. Both of Crystal's two luxury liners, Symphony and Serenity, boast higher space- and staff-to-guest ratios than most ships in their class. The majority of cabins have private verandas. Selling points like this, along with the high-caliber cuisine and consistently attentive service, seem to instill a cult-like loyalty among passengers.
"One woman just left the ship after being on for five months. She will be back soon, and next time she's coming for nine months," confided our butler, Teodor, a tall, tuxedoed Romanian who sounded like a friendly Count Dracula when responding to each of our requests with, "The pleasure is all mine."
Butler service is one of the many glorious perks bestowed on the 65 cabins located on Symphony's penthouse deck, where we were upgraded to after a last-minute cancellation. (Yes, being a travel writer has its benefits. I'll remember that during my next life as a chicken cage cleaner in Calcutta.)
As an ultra-luxury line, Crystal's prices skew higher than your typical ship. Industrywide, the average cruise costs $282 a day, according to Cruise Lines International Association, or CLIA. The trade group's 24 cruise line members represent 97 percent of all cruise vacations taken by North Americans.
Despite a sinking economy, the popularity of cruises continues to grow. This year, an estimated 12.8 million passengers took a cruise on a CLIA ship -- more than twice as many as a decade ago. By the end of 2008, more than 100 new ships -- many of them behemoths -- will have hit the water since 2000.
The Caribbean still ranks as top dog when it comes to cruising destinations. But Europe remains a strong segment of the market, especially in the Mediterranean, where demand is white hot.
"Cruises are a great way to see Europe affordably," said CLIA vice president Bob Sharak. "When people start doing the math ... there's hardly anything that compares to a cruise on a per diem basis. If I wanted to do a seven-day European vacation and visit four different cities [on land], I can't imagine what that would cost today."
While cruises can be a comparative bargain, it's all too easy to rack up a hefty bill on board.
A massage or pedicure can cost twice as much as it does on terra firma. Staying connected doesn't come cheap, either; it cost us $50 for 200 minutes of computer time. Your food may be "free," but alcohol is extra. (Although Symphony's prices looked like a steal next to Norway's $10 beers.)
Cruise lines can really rake it in on their land-based excursions.
More than a few of our deep-pocketed fellow passengers signed up for Crystal's "Overnight in Moscow," a new offering this year. They jet-setted from St. Petersburg to Moscow, went sightseeing, stayed one night in a five-star hotel, and got access to places normally off-limits to visitors, such as the Grand Kremlin Palace. Price: $3,040 a person. Gulp.
Crystal also offers guests the chance to fly on a MiG fighter jet, zooming over Russia's landscape at twice the speed of sound. That one'll cost you a cool $38,695.
Most of Crystal's excursions fell in the more down-to-earth $50-$200 range, but we opted to go the DIY route in almost every port.
In Copenhagen, we hopped on a canal cruise (highly recommended), perused the paintings at the New Carlsburg Museum (free on Sunday) and checked out the 165-year-old amusement park that inspired Walt Disney: Tivoli Gardens (rides are a rip-off).
Along our leisurely 1.3-mile stroll back to the ship, we stopped to take the requisite photo of Copenhagen's famous landmark, Little Mermaid. In my opinion, this sculpture edges out the Alamo for the title of Biggest Sightseeing Disappointment, but other tourists can't get enough of her.
It was just as simple and convenient to explore the port on our own in Oslo. Our ship docked so close to the city's medieval Akershus Castle, I felt like I could touch the fortress walls from my cabin's balcony.
Norway's capital is enormous at 175 square miles, but half of that is forest. The compact city center makes it ideal for walking.
On this hot summer day in Oslo, tourists like us mingled among sun-bathing locals at the popular Frogner Park, home to roughly 200 of Gustav Vigeland's whimsical sculptures (each one better than Copenhagen's over-rated Mermaid).
Inspired by the impressive number of runners and cyclists we kept seeing in Scandinavia, we opted to jog our way around Helsinki, stopping for a sweaty, self-guided tour of the Olympic stadium that hosted the 1952 summer games.
Scandinavia's omnipresent vibe of health, fitness and palpable happiness -- a University of Michigan survey this summer dubbed Denmark the happiest nation on earth -- came to an end when we arrived in St. Petersburg.
In Russia's second largest city, people don't jog; they smoke. Gone were the balconies lined with flower boxes and smiling dog walkers that were so conspicuous in previous ports of call.
It's not that St. Petersburg is a bad place to visit. On the contrary, it's fascinating. But I couldn't shake the sense that its 4.6 million residents are somehow hardwired to suffer. It's probably a survival skill picked up after spending nearly three years under brutal siege during World War II followed by life under an oppressive Communist regime.
"That's just a church babushka," our Russian tour guide, Catherine Volodina, explained as an elderly woman in a headscarf pushed past her in St. Nicholas Cathedral, one of the few houses of worship that remained open during Soviet times.
I gathered that "babushka" is code for grumpy old lady.
"You'll see museum babushkas, too," Volodina warned us. "Don't be offended. They're like that to everyone."
We hired Volodina to be our guide during our three-day stay in St. Petersburg, the one city on this cruise that isn't easy to see on your own.
In flawless English, Volodina led us around this history-rich metropolis made up of 42 islands and a sprawling network of canals and bridges modeled after Amsterdam by the city's founder, Peter the Great.
The small size of our group meant that while we were sightseeing, we could leapfrog to the front of the queue past busloads of tourists (including some familiar faces from the ship). That's a real bonus when visiting places like the State Hermitage Museum, whose long lines are almost as famous as its exhaustive art collection.
As we wandered the aisles of a local food market, Russian women handed us the occasional sample of pickles or wild strawberries. The prices, listed in rubles on hand-drawn signs, made Whole Foods look like Aldi.
The biggest case of sticker shock happened, not surprisingly, at the caviar counter. Cat-food-can sized containers of these delicious fish eggs were selling for as much as $600. No samples here.
Seeing all that caviar kicked my taste buds into high gear.
Back on the ship that night, I asked our waitress, Sofka, if it might be possible to get some of that salty goodness -- even though it wasn't on the evening's menu.
A smiling Sofka reappeared with fresh-made blinis, chopped red onion, sour cream and a few heaping spoonfuls of caviar.
"I told you," she said. "Anything you want, we can do."
We had a great dinner that night at the best restaurant in St. Petersburg.