Owing to new high-resolution radar technologies and to new high-inclination satellites, satellite altimetry is finding more and more applications in high latitudes and in near-coastal waters. SWOT especially will address both. The community is well aware that tide models are less accurate in coastal and high-latitude regions. Especially Cryosat-2 and GRACE have now highlighted serious tide-model problems in high latitudes. For these kinds of applications the GOT4 series of ocean tide models is unsatisfactory and in need of updating. From tests done so far, the FES2014 model is an impressive advancement in near-coastal waters, and it's becoming difficult for purely empirical approaches to improve upon it, at least in the T/P latitudes. The main data source for refining tides in polar seas is currently Cryosat-2, and I will discuss work done with these data (including with colleagues Ed Zaron and Ole Andersen). Cryosat has very long alias periods for sidereal tides (K1 and K2), and these and lunar tides do benefit from the sun-synchronous Envisat and SARAL data. I will also discuss some minor constituents which are not so critical for tide prediction purposes but which are of interest in their own right. This includes several constituents in the terdiurnal band.