Mgugs46

I didn't notice, as we had pre booked the private water taxi and since our flight was delayed, by the time we got there we were just rushing to the taxi area hoping they'd still be waiting.

Some boats, because, well, who doesn't like boats?

Some photos of Tallinn, Estonia. Another great port to just wander around in. Very easy to walk to, and we were lucky in that our ship got to dock right next to the Old Town, apparently for the first time in quite some time. Please understand that "right next" to the town, is still roughly a 15 minute walk as just getting out of the port is still a bit of a walk. MUCH better than docking miles away though.

Following your thread with great interest and thanks. We are doing B2B on the Serenade in August of 2019. My husbands accuses me that I take of picture of everything. ;)

 

What kind of camera are you using?

I use a Canon 7ti, with either a 10mm-18mm, 18mm-135mm, or 100mm-400mm lens most of the time.

Some aerial shots from the top of St. Peter's church

Buddy Bears - every country was represented

USA

Here are some shots of Riga, Latvia. We loved Riga. A very nice place to wander around. Great food too.

Hard to tell from the cell phone pic, but this escalator goes down 100 meters to the station floor

A few random pics to tide you over ...

Sorry for the long delay ... Internet has been less than stellar. Will most likely post more later today once I am back in the USA.

Overall an amazing trip. Loved Riga and Tallinn.

While I’m at it, let’s talk food...

Specialty restaurants have been excellent. Windjammer, Park Cafe, etc have been horrendous.

Breakfast is pretty much inedible imo. Even the bananas sucked this morning. Hard to mess up a banana.

Seems like the specialty restaurants have improved, while the main “free” ones have gotten worse.

Finished up Saint Petersburg today. Waiting to sail away towards Tallinn. I’ll add some pics later.

As for SP, we toured with Alla Tours, and paid for the private, two day grand tour. Tour guide was great, and knew a ton of information about literally everything we saw.

That being said, I don’t know that SP was my favorite. I’m going to list below what we did/saw and give my two cents on it.

Day 1

We got off the ship at 7:45, and were through customs at 8:15. We could have gotten off earlier, but our tour didn’t start until 8:30 anyhow, so there was no point. Royal Caribbean did not check to see if you were on a RC tour or not, and didn’t seem to care when you got off which was great.

Our transportation was a very nice, brand new black Mercedes with very good AC, which was very much welcomed. We set off through downtown and made a few stops to take some photos at various places, like the Egyptian Sphinx on the water, etc. which I enjoyed since I love taking photos.

Our first real stop was early entry in to the Hermitage. We spent two hours plus here, and the guide was a wealth of information. However it was just too much for us. The Egyptian exhibit downstairs was great, but I am not a huge art person, and there was just too much art to see. If we were touring solo, we’d have been in and out in an hour or so. Was ok, but wouldn’t go back.

Next stop was Church on the Spilled Blood. We thought it was great. Very pretty, and interesting.

Next was St. Isaacs Cathedral. Again, loved it. Definitely worth seeing.

Took a ride on the subway, which was incredible. The escalator goes down over 100 meters to the platform. Subway is beautiful, decorated with nice murals,etc. Was really cool to get to do and see.

Last on day 1 was Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral. The cathedral was nice, and was interesting to see the tombs of those buried there and learn the history. Was so so overall for us.

Also had a wonderful lunch on Nevsky Prospekt, and got to shop a little. A long, exhausting day in the hot sun. Honestly being over tired from the day before and too hot probably made the day feel less enjoyable than it actually was.

Day 2

Started the day off with a trip to see a battleship that was in both WWI and WWII.

First real stop was a boat ride on the river Neva. Incredible experience. About an hour long ride under many bridges, and the view from the rivers was great. Great for photos.

Next up was Yusupov Palace. They had a Gregory Rasputin exposition going on. Was cool to see where he was killed, and learn some of the facts/rumors, but the Palace itself was pretty boring.

Catherine Palace and Tsars Village and the Amber Room. The Palace was pretty and the amber room pretty incredible, but none of it is original since it was badly damaged in WWII, or stolen by ****s in the case of the Amber Room. So pretty ‘meh’ overall.

Peterhof Fountain Park was awesome. Actually wish we had more time there.

While driving to and from the suburbs, we stopped at the Victory Day monument, the arch at the city border, passed where Putin stays, and some other cool sites.

Overall Alla Tours did a good job. We never waited in lines, and lines were rather lengthy. I should have done a better job asking ahead of time for things we could see that were of more interest to me (WWII stuff in particular). For example the artillary museum.

I just felt that a lot of the times being at such and such historical place in Russia was cooler than the actual place was, if that makes sense. As someone who grew up during the Cold War era, I never thought I’d be in Russia, so just being here was awesome. As a history buff, I thought the info provided was great.

Still I honestly think I enjoyed Stockholm more, though it could just be that I’m not a fan of tours and prefer to do things by ourselves.

Nothing got out of hand that we saw at all

Missed one ...