Preamble

As you can tell from the places visited, this is quite a heavy schedule, but if you want a flavour of the Baltic States and Scandinavia, then this is a good way of doing it and we enjoyed it. The tour is a fairly good one but there is room for improvement. Now read on.

Travelling by Coach on the Tour

Although the actual distances between the cities is not large - between about 250 to 400km per travelling day (see mileages) - it does take quite a long time getting from one place to the next, often arriving after 7.00 pm following an 8.30 am departure - there is quite a lot of waiting around:

Border crossings. If you imagine that a car containing two people may take 5 to 10 minutes for papers to be checked and passports to be stamped, then a bus load of 36 passengers will obviously take proportionally more time. Even longer if you don't have all the right paperwork for Russia, as was the case for the British members of the party (through no fault of our own, I hasten to add). All this also assumes that the border staff are agreeable, too, and not wishing to be awkward.
Consider also "comfort" stops (usually every 1.5 to 2 hours of travelling) - disembarking, queuing at the (often) single toilet, then getting everyone back on the bus again - this all takes longer than you could possibly imagine it should do.
There was a chemical toilet on board but as there were no means of disposing of the contents during the trip, passengers were discouraged from using it except in an extreme/dire emergency.
The "get off, eat, go to the toilet then get on again" delays also applies to lunchtimes - not that I'm suggesting we should all have starved, but a thirty minute or one hour stop seldom is just that.

Some days also had a brief diversion/excursion which added to the travelling time, but also broke it up in a more interesting way. The long and the short of it is be prepared for some long days.

Itinerary/Information

Perhaps it's just us, but the itinerary as supplied was hopelessly inadequate, when trying to plan money, meals and sightseeing. I like to know, well in advance, what I am going to be doing, where the hotels are in relation to the towns, likely arrival times and what any included tours actually include, to name but a few items. The printed information didn't tell much and too often we didn't find out until the bus set off what might actually happen that day. These notes may help on that.
Bear in mind, of course, the usual travel company get out clause that itineraries can be changed without prior notice, which may well be the reason insufficient detail is given, and why this narrative may be different to the next tour.

Optional Excursions

There are far too many on offer. Some city tours are part of the tour and others are optional - ALL the city tours should be part of the tour, which "clients" can quite easily opt out of if they wish to do their own thing.

Some of the optional excursions also impose some degree of inconvenience on travellers who don't opt for them - this is unfair (See Latvia and St Petersburg). Some of this is a result of some of the hotels being a bit out of town (Finland, Stockholm and Denmark) with public transport not always very convenient and transport only being provided by the single bus.

Hotels

I wouldn't complain about any of the hotels - all were fairly modern in accommodation and facilities, though Hotel Klaipeda was the least favoured and most basic. Not all have air conditioning and most, if not all, do not have swimming pools (not that we would have had time to use it, anyway).

Summary

All things considered, as stated above, this is a fairly good tour if you want to see the countries and don't mind the travelling. If you like to chill out with a book, get a tan and have a swim then you want the summer sun brochure, not the tourama one. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have enjoyed it more.

What follows is a narrative of our experiences while taking part on the "Jewels of the Baltic and Scandinavia" tour as best remembered after the event and from exceptionally brief notes made whilst away. Hopefully you will be entertained and will find some useful information about "doing" the Baltic in a fortnight. The countries are listed and presented as we encountered them.