Constellation Baltics Trip Report and Lots of Pictures!

[Cindy]

Café al Bacio

 

The Daily Latte!:)

 

Café al Bacio

 

Foyer/Grand Staircase

 

Guest Relations

 

[Cindy]

I was going to put a picture of the Photo Gallery here, but it brings back bad memories (explanation later) so I decided to leave it out. It wasn't very exciting anyway!:p

 

Foyer looking towards the casino.

 

 

 

 

 

[Cindy]

Library

 

Shops

 

The Future Cruise area was big enough for three agents, and there was usually a wait!

 

Thalassotherapy Pool

 

Thalassotherapy Pool

 

Thalassotherapy Pool

[Cindy]

 

 

 

 

 

[Cindy]

Last post for tonight...I teach an on-line graduate course for principal certification. A new cohort just started, and I've been on the computer for hours. My eyes are burning so it's time to call it a day!

 

 

The view from our balcony.:cool: I will never get tired of this!:D

 

How we ended our night...:eek:

[Cindy]

One more post tonight!

 

Forgive me. I was inquiring about your camera and just found post #36 where you answered my question - which I have now deleted! Thank you for a wonderful review AND wonderful photos! Am looking forward to the next installment. Also saw your photo of Marko at the Martini Bar!! He is wonderful!

 

This is a fabulous review so far, Cindy! We are sailing Celebrity for the first time next summer, and I'm so glad to hear you liked the new cruiseline! Thanks for taking the time to write this review. It is very helpful to many, I'm sure.

 

By the way, we sailed with you on the Mariner many years ago. Still one of our favorite trips! Still one of our best roll calls, too!:D

 

 

Thank you! I love writing these, and it's nice to have people following along!:)

Edited July 15, 2014 by Cindy

[Cindy]

I found a couple pictures I forgot to post last night, and I wanted to do that before I move on to spectacular Stockholm. The first was walking around early in the morning before the sun flooded the pool deck..

 

 

 

The next one is a prom picture from formal night on Saturday!:rolleyes: I had pre-purchased all our photos and the disk because I thought that having a 19 year-old with us she would probably want to get her picture taken at every opportunity -- and she did! Jess and Jim wandered off for a while before dinner and found this backdrop. We thought they looked like prom pictures!:D Sadly, the quality of a lot of the pictures is about like prom pictures.:(

 

[Cindy]

Sunday, May 25 -- Stockholm, Sweden

 

 

 

What a spectacular city! We immediately put Stockholm on our list of cities to return to. If we take another Baltic cruise, we would definitely look for one that departed from there!

 

I woke up once in the middle of the night…I guess it was around 4:00. I could see light peeking in around the edge of the curtains, and when I looked out I saw we were already in the Archipelago. We were incredibly close to land, and the water looked like glass. I grabbed a camera and took a couple pictures, but decided sleep was more important!:rolleyes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was awake, dressed, and ready for the day by the time we reached port, and Captain Tasos kindly turned the ship around so that this was the view from my balcony for the time we were in Stockholm:

 

[Cindy]

The view from my balcony...I couldn't stop pressing the shutter button! The air was crisp and clear, and the light was just beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorites of the whole trip!:)

 

 

 

 

[RM]

Loving your review! Can't wait for my turn next month

Edited July 17, 2014 by RM

[Cindy]

Loving your review! Can't wait for my turn next month

 

Thank you!:)

 

I have some stuff to do this morning, but I'll get Stockholm finished early this afternoon.

[Cindy]

Safely docked, it was time to tear myself off the balcony and meet our tour. The good news from the morning is that the weather was absolutely glorious. The temperature was in the 70’s and the air was clear and refreshing – just like Houston in the summer…NOT!

 

 

 

 

The bad news is we took a Celebrity tour today and it was a mixed bag. We had decided to take a Celebrity excursion in Stockholm for a variety of reasons – I wanted to throw a couple shorter days in the mix, it was a Sunday and I didn’t know how that would affect things, and how bad could a land & sea tour be?

 

 

 

The “Sea” part of the day was excellent with a super boat ride and great narration, but the “Land” part was painful. Let’s start with the boat tour of Stockholm and the surrounding areas…

 

 

 

[ecslady]

Enjoying your well done photo review. Brings make memories of my Baltic cruise.

[Cindy]

Stockholm Boat Tour

 

 

Stockholm Boat Tour

 

 

Stockholm Boat Tour

 

 

Stockholm Boat Tour

 

 

Stockholm Boat Tour

 

 

Stockholm Boat Tour

[Cindy]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately all good things (the boat part of this excursion) must come to an end...

[Cindy]

As for the “Land” part of the excursion, I know booking ANY tour, whether it’s through the cruise line or independently is taking a leap of faith unless you know exactly who your guide is going to be. What I didn’t expect was to be treated to the unintelligible, monotone public speaking skills of our terrible, terrible guide, Hector from Mexico. We were all nodding off on the bus with his endless drivel! It seemed like important or interesting sights were pointed out after we had already passed them. To add insult to injury, we stopped at City Hall -- for a LONG time -- everybody was more than ready to depart, then whizzed past other interesting sites such as Old Town.

 

City Hall

 

 

I think Hector finally realized we had been at City Hall way too long, and he told the driver to step on it so he could get back on schedule. We did have the option of getting off in Old Town and walking back to the ship, but we thought it would be too much for my mom so we stayed on the bus and looked wistfully at the fascinating sights outside the window.

 

Old Town -- Sadly taken from the window of a moving bus.

 

 

More interesting sights taken from a moving bus.

 

 

View of Riddarholmen Island and Old Town from Fjaellgatan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh well, you pay your money and you take your chances. We’ll have to go back, and next time I’ll do a better job of taking charge of the day!

[england1]

Cindy, these pictures are stunning. Stockholm is even more beautiful from the water. Thank you for sharing them.

Mary Jo

[Cindy]

We grabbed a few souvenirs, and then went and sat out at the Sunset Bar with our lunch. We had a perfect view and perfect weather for dining al fresco!

 

 

 

 

After lunch, Jess, Jim and I ventured back down to the port to see if we could get on the free wifi. It was almost comical…tons of people went over to Jess and asked her how to get connected to wifi. She ended up giving lessons out there!:eek: Unfortunately the limited bandwidth meant that the whole thing was really an exercise in futility, but Jim and I got a chuckle out of watching the teenager teach the old folks how to use their mobile devices!:rolleyes:

 

We were getting close to departure time, and I was still a little annoyed at how poor our tour had been. Little did I know we were about to experience one of the highlights of the cruise, and one of the most memorable things we've done in 20 cruises...

[LSEA]

This is a great review. Thanks for sharing!

[Maligator]

Fellow Houstonian following. This itinerary is on our short list.

[Cindy]

We received this invitation on Saturday evening and really didn't think too much about it at the time:

 

 

It ended up being a FANTASTIC experience! The crew served champagne and mimosas, the CD and entertainment staff mingled with the passengers, and the scenery was just unbelievable!

 

We never did figure out who/why we and the other invitees got an invitation. There were lots of people from our roll call, so maybe it was a CC thing, but there were others invited too...Elites? Suites? We'll probably never know, but we're glad we were invited!

 

Here's a link to a time lapse of the sailaway from our Cruise Director JC's You Tube page:

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jess with JC at the Sailaway Party in the Swedish Archipelago

[Cindy]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving the party/secure Helipad area.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Cindy

[Du vent dans les voiles]

Thank you so much Cindy for sharing this great review, your photos are beautiful. This itinary is now on our bucket list! :)

[Cindy]

After the party, we went through our usual routine of drinks, dinner, and show.

 

View from our balcony.

 

 

View from the Martini Bar.

 

 

View from the Martini Bar.

 

 

After the show (a guest entertainer named Jim Walker who was excellent!) we decided we probably needed to call it a day since the clocks were going ahead an hour. This was the view from our aft balcony before we closed the curtains and said good night to beautiful Sweden:

 

 

 

[TroubleT]

Cindy, your story and the pictures are amazing! Please keep posting!