Baltic Highlights Tour

Hi Daina,

It was such a good trip. We both really enjoyed it. Our guide- Janus- was excellent. It is hard to pick a highlight as I loved it all- Villnius, Trakai, The Hills of Crosses, the palace, the history of the countries, the Museum of Occupation in Riga - and then the beautiful Tallin. It is a very well put together tour. I will be recommending it to others.

Also I would like to thank you Daina- you have been so helpful with any questions that I had about the trip.

I will be recommending to others the service that you have provided.

Thank you

Mary

Hi Nikola

It was a great trip, thank you. We thought we'd love Tallinn, which we did, but were also blown away by Riga and loved Vilnius. I've already recommended it to a friend who is considering it for next September.

The guide was very good, but I did think a couple of the excursions were pricey for what they were.

Kind regards

Frances

Good afternoon Daina

Firstly, congratulations to you on Baltic Travel Company’s 20 year anniversary!

Steve and I both had an amazing trip to the Baltics and it certainly fulfilled my life long dream of visiting my ancestral homeland.

Vilnius old town was delightful as was the Lithuanian dinner we attended with authentic cuisine.

Inga; our Latvian tour guide made the trip extra special for me as I was able to truly identify with her passion and knowledge of Latvia, its people and history of conflict.

For me, Riga Doms Cathedral was magical as we opted to go to the Organ Recital. My mum was confirmed in this Church in 1938 and I brought an original black & white photo of this event with me. Seeing the Freedom Monument was also very special

For Steve, he loved our visit to the Ethnographical Museum and the authentic Latvian lunch on site. He also thoroughly enjoyed the Organ concert & the excellent Organist Ilze.

We loved both Jurmala & Parnu resorts and not only was Tallin beautiful our room at the Radisson Olumpia on the 21st floor was stunning.

We both want to thank you so much for your kind attention in helping us plan this very special holiday.

Denmark is next on my bucket list!! ??

I will forward some photos to you as well.

Best, Ingrid

Hi Daina,

 We've been home 12 days now and thoroughly enjoyed our Baltic tour.

All three capital cities had lovely old centres and the guided walking tours round all of them were excellent.

Tallinn is lovely, but a bit crowded with tour groups everywhere, so perhaps we enjoyed Riga and Vilnius even more.

The coach journeys between cities were comfortable and we had an excellent driver.

Also, we were lucky with the weather - shorts and sandals on two or three days and very little rain.

Our main tour group organiser, Leons, was great - well organised, extremely knowledgeable and gave us many insights into the culture, history and politics of the Baltic states.

 Thanks for your help organising our holiday,

John

Hi Julija

Thank you for your email.

Marilyn and I had an awesome time in the Baltics and Copenhagen, Denmark.

The history is unbelievable, the buildings are beautiful, the people just amazing, very friendly and  oh! very strong, when we heard their lives explained. 

The guide was just so good and very informative, friendly and interesting with all the little facts.  Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have had such a tremendously difficult history, which I knew nothing about ...

Estonia invented marzipan for depression.......how good is that! I love marzipan(especially chocolate covered).

Estonia invented Skype......Wow......

I want to thank you for all the planning, the emails, making sure everything was correctly done, you did a  superb job, everything went smoothly.

We had one big problem, you asked for double/twin room, so when we arrived we had a double bed with twin mattresses!  Not good.......we were moved to other rooms....which was not what we anticipated doing.

Few comments; which we took as an adventure so didn’t spoil our trip.

Ryanair was a joke of an airline.. Disorganised chaos, the Priority probably saved our sanity....

The best hotel was by far THE GRAND POET, absolutely one of the best hotels I’ve stayed in. ( I was in Zanzibar last year and thought that hotel was awesome).

We had champagne for breakfast, the food, service and well being of the guests was paramount and they are just awesome at what they do.

In Copenhagen, The Admiralty Hotel...well what a location, the hotel was so quirky, we loved every minute of it, they upgraded our room because of bed mix up and we overlooked the Opera House,  (designed by same Architect as Sydney Opera House, but certainly not as aesthetically good as Sydney, I attach photo from our twin room), the service, food and of course location was superb.

In Lithuania, unfortunately hotel was not as 5 star as the other 2, service was acceptable, no one to bring bags inside on arrival, staff certainly not as friendly, food was good.

Tallinn Radisson was really good, service, food and helpfulness, enjoyed staying there.

Our transfers were excellent and on time, although arriving in Lithuania and taken to hotel, he unloaded our bags in the street and went, and of course as it was late arrival, no one from hotel came out.....

We thoroughly enjoyed the Baltics and now we will keep a look out for all news from there, we hope their future is free and the economy excellent, we of course,  will tell everyone they must go. 

I’ve been to most countries now, but there was something special about this trip, I certainly learned a lot of sad but people power history and it’s unbelievable towns, cities, churches, cathedrals.....

This experience would now have been possible, if the planning had not been so good...and that comes down to you....so Thank you.

Sandra

Thank you Michael for your message and support. We did enjoy the holiday , despite the long delay and lack of sleep on the first night. I'm not sure what I had expected from the group. It was pleasant but a bit amoeba like in that it kept changing shape, groups coming and going, not really gelling. It was interesting however as the people came from most parts of the globe. I had no idea if the political history of the Baltic lands and found it interesting and sometimes moving. The couriers were good, the girl particularly , as she was Latvian.

Don't know if Myrtle will send her own thoughts. I was glad I was not on my own because of the various schedules.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Joan

Hi Saija,

Had a great time on the tour - first of all we were so lucky with the weather, I was a bit worried going so late in the year but the skies were blue and it was really warm right through to Friday. The hotels were very good although in Vilnius and Tallinn a little way from the centre.

Sightseeing highlights were the Hill of Crosses and the Art Nouveau district in Riga which was also my favourite city of the 3 - beautiful parks, squares and walking. 

Through Facebook, 2 American ladies on the tour have kept me updated on their continuing travels in Helsinki, St Petersburg and Moscow.

Finally, please pass a big thank you onto our tour guide Alina Osmolina.

Thanks,
Ian

Hi Inga,

Thank you for your email. Sorry for the late reply, I've been very busy last week and didn't get a chance to reply earlier. The holiday was very enjoyable indeed, the guides were very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable, the hotels I stayed in were very nice and well located, and the coach we travelled in was very clean, modern and comfortable. The size of the group on the tour was also a good size that was not too big. The flights you helped to arrange were also great, departing/arriving at confortable times that weren't super early in the morning or late a night.

One thing I would have liked is if we could have spent a little more time at some of the sites (especially the beahces at the resort towns of Jurmala and Parnu) but given the schedules and the time required to drive between sites I'm not sure how practically feasibly this would actually have been.

Kind regards,

Younan

Hi Daina

Thanks for getting in touch and yes we are back and settled and all went very well except I picked up a cold half way through but then got back to London and everybody seems to have one here as well!  We had a very enjoyable time and were really impressed with the efficiency of you and your colleagues because everything went very well – flights on time, taxi driver waiting at the airport, transfer yesterday and the hotels and internal travel.  We were particularly impressed with our regular guide, Lamya (not sure I have spelt her name correctly) who had a great personality and organised everybody so well and our walking guide in Vilnius and Riga, Yanis (not sure that’s right either) who was really informative and also answered lots of questions so we learnt a lot from him.  The only minor criticism was it was a shame we couldn’t have got an earlier flight out because we ended up getting to the hotel in Vilnius about midnight so we missed the welcome meeting and then of course were both very tired the next day as we were up early for breakfast before the walking tour so had very little sleep and it slightly lessened our enjoyment of the day. 

However we have both agreed we would very much like to do another Baltic Travel tour so will be checking out other options for future trips in due course.

Thanks very much for organising and have a good week.

Best regards

Helen M

We just got home last night from our wonderful trip to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland!  We have been lucky enough to have traveled all around the world but this was the only trip where things worked perfectly. We were accustomed to queuing up for taxis at airports and feeling uneasy about whether the meter was fair, to accidentally taking the wrong bus, or to being disappointed because the hotel that looked so great on the internet did not look great in person.  We have stayed in towns that literally closed down on Sundays and there had been no mention of that on-line.  We ate dinner from a vending machine because no restaurants were open.  Those glitches didn't ruin our trips - we just figured they were part of traveling.  Now we know better!  On the trip Baltic Travel arranged for us we were picked up at and delivered to every airport or bus by our own drivers.  What a luxury!  And in each city we enjoyed local tour guides arranged by Baltic Travel.  We learned so much from them.  The hotels were clean and beautiful and all were located within walking distance of art museums - something important to us, and they all served fabulous free breakfasts.  We were traveling on my 70th birthday and the reception clerks all wished me a happy birthday and some hotels even had a treat waiting for me in our room!  Everything was first class.  We will definitely recommend you to our friends.  We can't thank you enough for all the wonderful memories!

Very best wishes!

Hap and Jo

We had a great Baltic holiday. Everyone in my family really enjoyed it!

We don't have any negative comments. The Radisson Blu hotels were all excellent. The tour guides were all very good. The tour was very well organized. And we loved the various cities that we visited, especially Riga.

The only small comment we do have is regarding the lunch stop on the journey between Vilnius and Riga. We stopped for one hour or so in a quiet, dull shopping mall. Perhaps it would be better to stop at a nice village restaurant, or provide a picnic stop in a nice park?

Anyway, thanks again for a great holiday. Keep up the good work!

Ed

I would like to compliment Daina on her excellent organisation of our holiday to the Baltic.  It was perfect.  When there was an odd hiccup she responded immediately with all the necessary information.  The fault lay with the guide and not Daina.  She will be the reason why I wil be booking further holidays with your company.  Please complement her on our behalf.
janet

Dear Inga

We have just returned from our Baltic Highlights Tour (with Helsinki addon) booked through yourself. As with our previous trip to Iceland arranged by Baltic Travel Company the service was once again exceptional and an example to other travel companies of how to provide clear and excellent customer service.At every point in our trip arrangements were as specified and we thoroughly enjoyed our holiday, knowing that we were being taken care of by a company who is clearly an expert in their field.Many thanks once again for all your patience and assistance. We would not hesitate to recommend you to others planning the same trips and indeed have already done just that.Should we be looking at any of the other destinations you offer, we will definitely use your company again.Other organisations within the travel industry should take note of the work that you do.