Copenhagen. We spent a day before our cruise in Copenhagen and we stayed at the Best Western Hotel. The hotel was conveniently located near the Nyhavn area and the accommodations were fine. The Nyhavn area is lovely with many restaurants but 25% of the people in Copenhagen smoke so be prepared for lots of second hand smoke in the restaurant district.

Eurodam: Pros: Both embarkation and disembarkation went very smoothly. The Eurodam was clean and the on-board decorations and artwork were beautiful. We enjoyed our stateroom with a balcony and the bathroom was larger than most with a tub/shower combination. We felt that the entertainment was very enjoyable. We were pleased with the cruise itinerary with visits to Tallinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden; and Warnemunde and Kiel Germany.

For us the highlight of the cruise was our tours with the independent excursion company SPB Tours. We,and and our travel companions, were extremely pleased with the quality and value of the SPB tours. The SPB itinerary in Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Berlin, the tour guides, the cleanliness of their vehicles, the size of our tour group (only 14 people), the restaurant selections, bathroom and souvenir shop stops, and adherence to schedules were all exceptional. The tour guides spoke English very well, were very easy to understand and were passionate about their cities and teaching us about the local culture and fantastic sights. HAL stated that unless your took an excursion with them in Russia, you would be required to have a Visa. This is not true because by touring with SPB in Russia, we were not required to have Visas--just the SPB tour ticket that was e-mailed to us before our cruise. In St. Petersburg we were able to use US Dollars, Euros, and Charge Cards in most places. Read more