This post contains product recommendation links from Amazon.
We may earn commission on links you use to purchase these items. Thank you.
This summer looks a bit different for us than it has in the past decade – Jason is home!
But, we couldn’t do the entire summer without a trip abroad, so we were delighted when Jason’s folks decided the DeBode clan should all go on a Baltic Cruise in July to celebrate Jason’s mom’s birthday. Perfect! Get me out of this steamy hot swamp!
In true DeBode Way fashion, we couldn’t just sign up for a cruise and leave it at that. No, no…we read the fine print, did tons of research, and made our own plans.
Available Extras
If you don’t already know, most cruise lines only include your cabin and basic meals (in the main dining room, buffet, and snack areas) at your base purchase price. If you want anything extra, and I mean anything, you’re going to pay for it on top of what you already paid. In our case, we had to make sure there were enough Wi-Fi minutes for Jason to work (I know, I know), and we opted for cases of bottled water over the ship’s tap water due to previous water-borne illness experiences. We still need to add our gratuities (nb: you can prepay these but do the math and make sure it’s what you’re comfortable paying. In our case, the prepaid gratuity is $20/person/day), but hopefully that’s about it. So far, we’ve managed to keep our extras fairly minimal.
Once we were granted access to the cruise line’s itinerary, port locations, excursion options, add-ons, and dining options, we had all the information we needed to create a unique cruise experience our own way.
Booking Excursions
First, we hunted down the location of all the cruise ports – the actual terminals not just the port cities. This let us know whether we could walk off the boat and explore on foot, how easy it would be to grab a taxi, if we needed to arrange pickups with private companies, or if we needed to use the cruise buses to get us to an explorable location.
Now comes the hard part: what do you want to do for your excursions? Of course, you could always just go with the cruise line’s options, but on this cruise, none of the excursions were included, and the least expensive one offered was a transfer bus into one of the cities for $50 each. Those with actual tours included were between $100-$450 each, for each day. This was more than we were wanting to spend, but if your main focus is on simplicity, this might be your way to go.
We ended up booking one excursion with the cruise line for logistical reasons and one for the bus transfer. The actual excursion is an hour and a half outside of the city, and we didn’t want to get left behind trying to do it on our own on a short port day. Stuff happens you have no control over, and if you’re not on a cruise-sponsored excursion, they will not wait for you to return before setting sail! We’ve heard that if you’re on a cruise-sponsored excursion and have some kind of delay, the ship will wait for your party to return. Not something we want to test, but still good to know.
The rest of the time, we’re exploring each port city on our own! We’ve found all sorts of things to do: archery, axe throwing, brewery tour, making jewelry, eating gobs of pastries, museums, beaches, hikes, castle & church tours, and more! All for far less than the cruise line was offering, and we can do it on our own without a sea of fellow cruise goers (Ha! Do you see what we did there?!) following someone with a stick. You know, The DeBode Way! Luckily, these days, there are all sorts of ways to find things to do on your own. We used Viator, Google Maps, and Instagram to find unique things for us to do in each city. It honestly didn’t even take very long, maybe two afternoons, tops. In many cases, the vendors you work with for your private excursions are used to working with cruise passengers, so if you have questions, it’s best to e-mail them and start a conversation.
Dining Options
Now to dining, a usual challenge for us. In our case, we’re dealing with Tasha’s dairy allergy (and, once we’re with the whole family, Jason’s mom has a severe gluten allergy), so we have to be careful about where and what we eat. We can add specialty dining to our tab (steak houses, sushi, and such), but we’re hoping to eat in the main dining room, rather than the buffet, as much as we can to allow for attention to allergies and avoid cross-contamination. We do have three specialty dining nights included with our cruise package but making reservations for a group of 6 and a toddler was impossible, so we’re waiting to book them until we get on board to see if we can all eat together as a group. We’ll keep you posted on the food situation.
We also opted for the drinks package so we don’t have to worry about the unexpected surprise of a bar tab before you leave the ship at the end of the cruise. However, while our package does include alcohol and sodas, it doesn’t include bottled water. This was another reason we prepaid for cases of water, both for on the ship and to take with us on our excursions.
The Fine Print
Finally, more of the fine print I mentioned earlier: no steamers or coffee makers. I’m in a slight panic. Okay, hear me out. As we’ve talked about before, most of our clothes are natural fibers that look horrible after we’ve unpacked a suitcase due to the tight quarters of our carry-on-only travel style. Because of this, we always take a travel steamer with us, so we don’t look like we’re living out of a suitcase. The steamer is also great for a quick refresh, so our clothes don’t smell like they’ve been warn already. Since we will be traveling before and after the cruise, we decided to take our chances and bring one. The worst they can do is take it for the duration, and return it at the end of the cruise. It’s also possible they let us keep it if the screeners don’t see it as a safety hazard.
The bigger issue is the “no coffee-maker” one. What on earth would you need a coffee maker for, you might ask. If you know us, you might be tempted to think this is to enable Jason’s constant consumption of the stuff. But in this case, it isn’t so. Instead, we travel with a tiny single-serve portable water kettle that kind of looks like a thermos. It’s a pretty handy little thing that has been used for everything from brewing emergency peppermint tea (which helps settle stomachs) to sterilizing various medical devices. I’m really hoping they won’t confiscate that one from us. It could make for some rough seas.
Our favorite dual-voltage steamer and the dual-voltage single-serve kettle.
The kettle holds so many important functions for us.
Caveat Emptor
We’re excited for our cruise, as it’s not something we’ve done much before. That said, as with all things, it pays to read the fine print so you know the details about what you can and can’t do. Remember: knowing is half the battle, friends.
I think (hope) we’re all set. Stay tuned for a blog in August or September about the cruise!
