Scandanavia/russia july 6-17 royal review starring florence the tiny zebra

[Sea Day Cruiser]

Thank you so much for such a great review. I'll be on this cruise next month and you've really helped with all your information.

[rdsqrl]

Zdrastvutye, Marla. I'm just loving your review and it's fantastic to see photos of places I know so well (except the CTAPbAKC: that is definitely new since my time. How I would have loved that . . . ).

[canadarocks]

Loving your review as it brings back such good memories. We booked 4 tours with SPB TOURS, great company!

[bluenoser2]

Thanks everyone, for your responses! Glad my ramblings are of some (questionable!) help to some of you! Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel? We're getting close to the end now....here's another installment before I fall asleep tonight!

 

What I Learned on Royal Princess: Don’t wait for the chicken waldorf salad at International Café. It won’t always be there. It’ll be there and you’ll say – oh yes, I must try that, but not now…I’ll do it when I’m hungry later. And then, later, it will be gone. And it might not be back before you have to leave. And you’ll be sorry. So sorry.

 

Helsinki was at first glance, a bit of a let-down after the wonders of St. Petersburg. However we, being the glass half-full kind of family we are, looked at it as a well-deserved respite from all the knowledge we had soaked up, and the beauty we had seen for the past two days. After an attempt at sleeping in – no mean feat in this land of White Nights, where sunrise is at 3:45 a.m. and the sun sets after 11 p.m. and the sky never really gets dark (Yes, I know – binder clips for the curtains – but we LIKED the light…) - we enjoyed breakfast in the MDR. They ran out of chocolate Danish this morning!!!! Horrors! Alas! One for DS, one for DD1, and ….none for DD2. I consoled her by taking her to the IC afterwards where she discovered the donuts, and after that we never saw the girls for breakfast again.

 

We walked off the ship around 9:15 and chose to get our exercise physically today, if not mentally. We were the only people choosing to walk into town, everyone else was using shuttles or taxis. It was about a 30 minute walk to the downtown area, and the weather was fine and we enjoyed it. The first part of the walk isn’t beautiful, but it’s very well-marked for pedestrians and safe (unless you’re wearing flipflops in which case some of the walkways get slippery when wet, as it did on our return….I tried to tell them…).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First stop – free Wi-Fi at the tourist information centre, and then a lovely leisurely walk through the open air market. The produce was arranged artfully, and the crafts and souvenirs were a pleasure to browse through. It was a little unfortunate that after we had gotten through half of it, a light rain began to fall and some of the vendors had to cover their goods to prevent them from water damage, so we wandered off. This rain did not phase us. Why? You know why. We had survived the Rain of Oslo. This was nothin’.

 

 

 

 

 

We sauntered through the streets, and stopped in at Stockmann’s (Helsinki’s version of Macy’s) to browse their wares, and of course, test their washrooms. They use an updated version of the roller towel (think back to c. 1965 gas stations….) that was very modern and clean. The kids had never seen such a thing, so it was a learning experience for them.

 

We were back at the ship by 12:30 to unwind, eat, and enjoy the day. So, Helsinki wasn’t amazing to us – I did hear some who went on tours say it was a beautiful place, and they had high praise for it. To us, it was a city, a break, and pleasant, but not mind-blowing.

 

 

The girls enjoyed Nutella gelato at Gelato (duh…couldn’t remember the name of the place…) and pronounced it marvelous and heavenly. DH and I remembered to get our FCCs as we usually forget and are reprimanded by our TA at home for doing so. She’ll be so proud of us now.

 

Here are my questions for the day. Why is it that there are always TWO people missing at “back on board” time. Not 3, not 9, not 12, but two. Different two every time, but two nevertheless. (I’m not losing sleep over this, but just thought I’d throw that out there.)

 

And….the seagulls. Ah, yes, The Seagulls of Helsinki. I’m sure Stephen King could do something with that title. Yes, it says in the Patters not to feed them. Do people feed them? You bet. We tried viewing our sailaway from the open portion of the Promenade deck, but found it perilous to do so, and retreated back to our room. They kept with us for some time as we headed on our way out of Helsinki’s waters.

 

 

 

 

Another formal night to get ready for – DS was seriously missing being able to just show up at the table in a NASCAR t-shirt and particularly casual shorts for dinner, but he handled the whole suit and tie thing admirably. For the record, I didn’t see hardly any tuxes, there were lots of suit jackets for guys, and I think that night I looked as we were leaving the MDR and saw 5 guys without jackets. On the scale of dressiness, women were dressed nicely to dressed fabulously. Considering this trip was the celebration of our 30th anniversary, we found it amusing in a disturbing way when photographers insisted on taking pictures of the 3 children with one parent.

 

As we entered the MDR at 6 as we always did, being the creatures of habit that we so are, Narin waved us over to a chorus of “ooooooooooh…Jackie Chan!” from the other waiters. THAT’s who he reminded me of! The guys had their lobster, I had my beef wellington, and we all had soufflé for dessert, because we’ll never get it at home if it’s up to me to make it.

 

We watched a bit of the acrobats – they were actually fairly disappointing – they performed often, but repeated the same 2 acts each time, sometimes in different costumes. We valiantly attempted to make it through Showtime with the female vocal stylings of Rebecca Roberts, but this time we all had to get up and leave, she was so boring. We’re becoming snobs! Oh no! We opted to finish watching yet another movie in our room that had taken a few nights to complete (and this is the reason we never got to do a whole movie at MUTS….), and succeeded in finishing Last Vegas. Clocks were to go back again this evening, which was a nice decrescendo to the cruise – not that our bodies had any idea anymore what time zone we were in, and sunrise would be at 3:47 again the next morning.

[Rosethorn40]

I'm really enjoying your review and photos. Thank you for sharing. Your comments about early, early sunrises and late, late sunsets make me SUPER happy that I booked an interior room for next year. I have heard that the Baltics can be very expensive and I had to save money somewhere. Booking an interior is one cost saving move I don't think I'll regret.

[Pia1913]

Dobroye Utro Marla. And Spasibo again.

[GolfMom321]

Marla, having been on the same voyage as you, I am SO enjoying reading this! Many of the same experiences (LOVE SPB tours!), and some different (we skipped most of the big shows). I'm looking forward to the next installment!

[Grammyluvs]

Again, your weather in Helsinki brought back memories. We had a lovely discussion with a young woman and her husband who were making some jewelry for my girls when she said, “I am so glad you are having such good weather today...you are very lucky." It was drizzling rain and we were under umbrellas. LOL Maybe for them it was good weather, especially compared to what we also experienced in Oslo ;)

[bluenoser2]

dobro pozhalovat Pia!

 

 

What I learned on the Royal Princess Today: There is a point when a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar on top is JUST right for breakfast, and one can pass by the rest of the buffet items. Except for the chocolate Danish. There’s always room for the Chocolate.

 

Our last port. The final harbour. The closing excursion. Sigh. Cries of anguish. Moans of despair.

 

 

Yes, well. Chin up and on we go. 3:45 sunrise, clear sky, we’re on the east side of the ship. There’s the reason for my sleepiness later in the morning. But I do love being able to see the sunrise from our balcony! Today’s port of Nynashamn was a tender port, so we were allowing plenty of time to get to shore for our last (final, concluding) excursion with SPB. We trooped bravely to the dining room for our tender tickets, and as always when presented with the ticket system, our group (all together and ready to go) always gets behind one man trying to get tickets for himself and his wife who is still in the stateroom, but will be here right away! As persuasive as he attempted to be, we eventually got our tickets without sighing too loudly (we ARE Canadian, and polite to the end – ack! There’s that word again….end, finale, conclusion….). Our tour was to meet onshore at 8:45. We left our rooms at 8:00 and were on shore by 8:30. No worries. Don’t look for a lot of legroom in those tenders! While it might have been a great time for some icebreaker games as we sat knee to knee with strangers, we refrained because of the early hour and the grumpy passengers across from us. (They REALLY needed some icebreaker games, but we didn’t have the nerve to present them with some.)

 

 

 

 

 

Once shore side, we were shepherded to our coach after perusing the small gift shop (ok if you totally forgot that souvenir you promised someone and then forgot totally about before realizing at the end of the day that this was your LAST stop, the FINAL excursion….oh, unless you were doing more AFTER the cruise…I’ll just get on with it shall I?)

 

 

After waiting for 10 minutes past departure time for three people who weren’t there yet, and then realizing they were already on the bus….we departed. Stockholm is about a 40 minute drive from the port and you know what that means! Loads of time for a nap, once I determined that the scenery was much like the topography of our homeland (while the port’s rocky coastline reminded me more of my west coast roots). My dozes were interrupted occasionally by my aborted topples into the aisle. I remembered to nab the window seat on the return trip. Alicia, our sweet guide, pointed out various things along the way. My favourite was, as we were approaching the centre of Stockholm, we passed a building that used to be a prison, and now was a hostel where you could buy striped pajamas, stay in a cell and have bread and water for breakfast. Aside from the pjs, I think I’ve been in some hotels like that.

 

 

 

 

First stop, City Hall. Looking at it, I wondered why we had to bother with this stop.

 

 

 

 

By the time we had concluded (finished, wrapped up, ended….) our tour of the building, I knew why. After seeing buildings hundreds of years old in our previous cities, touring this building that was a mere 100 years old, and in Sweden, was quite a contrast. Still very impressive. The Blue Hall (there is no blue in it by the way) is built in the style of an Italian piazza and is the home for the Nobel Prize banquet. It’s big, but packing over 1000 people in, means that each person is allotted 60 centimetres per place setting, except the honoured guests/prize winners who get a whopping 70 cm. (Sorry, that’s about 23” vs. 27”.)

 

 

We passed through a room where many couples get married – the LONG ceremony is 3 minutes. The short about 3 seconds. They do 60 weddings a day on the weekends there. Alicia had so many memorable stories to tell about each room – you could sense the pride she had in her city. I was surprised at how many immense rooms there were in this building, complete with the Gold room which almost looked Egyptian in style, and the City Council chambers, where all the members of government sit once a month in the evenings to make municipal decisions, and are all VOLUNTEERS. Hmmm.

 

Then it was off to the Vasa Museum, the jewel of our Stockholm tour.

 

 

 

 

I had heard about the lineups for those who weren’t with a tour group, but hadn’t imagined how long that lineup is in reality. And how easily we got in being in a tour group. If you are considering doing Vasa on your own, don’t! You’d spend most of your precious day in the lineup. Alicia had worked for Vasa for 3 years, so she knew everything about anything there, and was a great storyteller, making the tale of the Vasa ship come alive. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a museum that just housed an old ship (shhhh, I was just exaggerating, stop sucking in your breath, and looking shocked and horrified at my blasphemy), but it was very impressive and well worth the time we spent there. We could have spent even longer, if we didn’t have to keep finding washrooms for members of our family who couldn’t seem to all sense the need at the same time. There’s a large gift shop there and free Wi-Fi. Once we departed, with strains of “Pirates of the Caribbean” theme music sneaking into our heads, we were off to Old Town.

 

 

 

Alicia took us past a few noteworthy spots, including “Boy Looking at the Moon” – the smallest statue in Sweden. Florence was quite excited about this statue, but we made her come along with us.

 

 

Then we were given instructions of where to meet and given 1 ½ hours free time to shop or just get jostled along in the crowds. Finding a side street was the best way to enjoy these lovely streets – the main pedestrian street was clogged with tourists. We tolerated that street for only as long as it took for the girls to find their souvenirs, and then strolled some of the less travelled lanes.

 

 

 

 

In the square, we treated ourselves to “French hot dogs” with the last of our Swedish currency. Because you can put pretty much anything in a baguette style roll and it will taste amazing. While we were munching, we observed the busker entertaining the crowd, then realized we had actually seen him last year in our own cities of Halifax and Saint John at home. We parted with Alicia once she had all her charges safely on the coach, and it was a quiet and quick ride back to port. The line-up for tenders was huge, but it moved very quickly and we were back on board in no time.

 

 

Dinnertime in the MDR was the Chef’s Dinner. We had explained to the kids that sorbet would be brought before the main course to cleanse the palette. We were greeted with looks of confusion, eye rolls, and disbelief. When the rosemary infused strawberry sorbet arrived as we had promised, those looks turned to amusement – imagine having dessert before supper. Sweet. And then they tasted it, and while I was enjoying the unique flavour, DD1 commented “It tastes like Canadian Tire”. So once she said that, it tasted like our favourite Canadian home and car chain store smells, and I couldn’t get that out of my head. Way to ruin the moment DD1! The rest of the meal did not taste like a garage, and my scallops with citrus sauce scored 4 stars in my book. The peanut butter chocolate ice cream was yummy too. Following dinner we warmed up for the comedian we would see later by looking at our formal pictures. The background we had thought was so classy (dark with the chandelier in the centre) turned out hilariously atrocious – we were all wearing dark clothing, so in one pic DS was nothing but a head and one hand floating in mid-air.

 

The comedian, Mike McClean, was excellent, and super funny. He made up for the last few nights of less than impressive Princess Theatre performances and we had a great time. We ended the evening back up in Horizon where I had a piece of apricot pie, because really, I can’t pass up apricot anything. Apricots. Chocolate. Heaven.

[tequilasunrise]

Really enjoying your awesome review. Thanks for taking the time to share! Say hi to Florence from her fans! ;)

[loma linda ca a & j]

enjoyed every installment and photo - so wish we could do the baltics !!

 

thanks for sharing everything !!!:)

[westendgirl]

Enjoying your journey tremendously! We visited these ports in May and I am really enjoying re-living all the wonderful experiences. Hope you stay in CPH post-cruise because I hate to see it end. Please use those FCC's quickly! :)

[Woobstr112G]

Fabulous pictures. Keep them coming.....:):):)

 

Bob

[bluenoser2]

Second and last sea day for us – an interesting feature of this cruise, is that while we are with the many who embarked and debark in Copenhagen, the rotation of different ports of origin means that there are others who are mid cruise, having boarded in Warnemunde, and others who embarked in Russia. Which means, oh how they can chuckle discreetly when we have to put our suitcases out in the hallway tonight.

 

We 3 girls attended the culinary show in the theatre with Chef Dave. Thankfully, he did most of the talking in the show and was witty, charming and held our attention fully, even though it was much longer than I remember other shows being. But the girls had never been on a galley tour and I wanted them to get to see that. Why thankfully? Well, I just didn’t have an appreciation for our CD on this trip. She was good, but a little goes a long way as far as I was concerned. Same with the Assistant CD. But that’s just my humble opinion.

 

 

Anyway, we filed through the galley along with just about everyone else on the ship and managed to find the men afterwards somehow, even with a stop at the Disappointing Dining Room Sale. That’s my title, not Princess’s obviously. Because who would go to a DDRS? After convincing DD2 that she did not need to take a $20 ceramic dolphin home in her luggage, we decided to try Alfredo’s for lunch. In spite of it being a sea day, a table for the 5 of us was easy to get, and we had a nice lunch there. The girls chose pasta, which was a nice luncheon size, and then they were off to try dessert on Lido. DH tried the calzone, DS the Hawaiian, and me the vegetarian. It certainly was much better than the Lido deck pizza, and one pizza is a nice size for one person, especially if you have an appetizer or salad first. And it was hot –the first hot pizza of the trip. But it was NOT as good as the pizza my DH makes. His is the best (and was our first meal upon returning home!).

 

 

 

There was the packing time, the returning library books time, and tea time. Oh, those scones! Or is it the cream? The cream AND the scones? So good.

 

We prepared for our last supper, trying to figure out what to keep out of our luggage, and what we could do without, so we would be ready to put the luggage in the hall later. DD2 ordered the chicken and sweetbreads in puff pastry appetizer – we never did tell her what sweetbreads are, but it didn’t matter – she was just in it for the chicken anyway. While the rest of the table had The Love Boat Dream for our final dessert, I had the cheesecake, which Narin added a dash of chocolate sauce to as he had for DH another night when requested. Mmmmmmmm. We completed our meal with thank yous to our waiters, and a unanimous vote to NOT attend Showtime.

 

While DH assisted in the jamming of things into suitcases for the kids, and checking for lost items in their corners of their room, he sent me above to Deck 17 for a walk. (Isn’t he just the sweetest?) What a beautiful night. When I got up to the walking track I noticed that we would shortly be going under a huge bridge that I hadn’t heard of – it was one of those great surprises and treats that you’re so glad you lucked in to find! And that’s WHAT I LEARNED ON ROYAL PRINCESS TODAY: You can phone your stateroom from one of the yellow phones on the walking deck. They’re not just for emergencies. So I told DH about the bridge so he could take pictures from our balcony (did I ever mention our balcony?) while slaving away at the packing, since I had no camera with me and was NOT going to go down to 8 and back up again and miss the whole thing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did 15 laps (7 is a mile) before the guys found me and then, just to say we did, we watched the end of a movie on MUTS. We walked around the upper decks – this would have been around 9:00 pm and you would never have known there were 4000 guests on board. There wasn’t a soul anywhere! Kind of eerie really. Here it was a warm, sunny evening, and no one was above decks! Were we the only ones to not go to the ShowTime, or were most people just weeping quietly in their rooms and packing?

 

After meeting up with everyone in Horizon Bistro for a eeny weeny teeny piece of mud pie (after all that walking…), we retired to our rooms, except the girls who decided they’d like to stay a little longer and people watch (what people?) at MUTS We attempted Draft Day in our room, but between it not being all that interesting (yes, even WITH Kevin Costner….) the TV seized up one last time for us and we decided it was a sign for us to have one LAST sleep in our cozy comfy Princess bed.

 

 

 

[cdngrl]

is there more? and where are 'we' off to next?!

[2pbears]

Marla, Thanks so much for an enjoyable read. We were on your cruise so I have been reliving the experience as I follow along with you. We actually boarded in Warnemunde (yes, we were one of "those people" who were saying "neener-neener-neener" as you were putting your bags out the evening before Copenhagen) so our experience varied slightly. We missed the torrential rain in Oslo thankfully. I wish we had had the opportunity to meet you and your family (and of course, Florence) on board but maybe on another cruise. Thanks again for the great review and pictures.

 

Happy travels.

[Working 2 Cruise]

Marla, spasiba!

 

My mother was born in Kiev, UKraine... We have a very interesting history there... My great-grandfather was the tzar's banker but my grandparents, with my mother, had to flee during the revolution. We still have family there.

 

Thank you so much for your review and photos!

[nisky]

bluenoser2 - Regarding Nynashamn... It sounds like Would they only give tender tickets to a husaband & wife if both were present, correct? How early did your group assemble before the announced start of Princess providing tender tickets?

 

Thanks again for an informative report.

 

nisky

[Working 2 Cruise]

Nisky, in tender ports, you must have your party together and ready to go before getting your tender tickets.

[bluenoser2]

Marla, spasiba!

 

My mother was born in Kiev, UKraine... We have a very interesting history there... My great-grandfather was the tzar's banker but my grandparents, with my mother, had to flee during the revolution. We still have family there.

 

Thank you so much for your review and photos!

 

Wow! My mother was the first of her family NOT to be born in the Ukraine, as they also fled during the revolution, to the prairies of Canada!

[bluenoser2]

bluenoser2 - Regarding Nynashamn... It sounds like Would they only give tender tickets to a husaband & wife if both were present, correct? How early did your group assemble before the announced start of Princess providing tender tickets?

 

 

 

 

We just went to the assigned area when we were ready - which was a little after they made the announcement that we had clearance. It was no big deal. Just go all together, each one gets a little card with a number on it and wait til they call that number. It didn't take hardly any time at all.

[bluenoser2]

Zdrastvutye, Marla. I'm just loving your review and it's fantastic to see photos of places I know so well (except the CTAPbAKC: that is definitely new since my time. How I would have loved that . . . ).

 

LOL...I had to look up CTAPbAKC! Good one! Thanks!

[Working 2 Cruise]

Wow! My mother was the first of her family NOT to be born in the Ukraine, as they also fled during the revolution, to the prairies of Canada!

 

It appears we have a lot in common! My family fled to Germany and then went to France where my grandfather became a pretty famous movie producer... Of course, then they had to deal with World War II, and were Jewish... They all had to go into hiding...

[caribill]

LOL...I had to look up CTAPbAKC! Good one! Thanks!

Just need that кофеин

[bluenoser2]

Sniff. Sniff. Blows nose. Wow, this has been such a great time. Thanks for letting me ramble on and on and on and on about my trip. I love to relive it as I go back through all the pictures and paraphernalia when I’m back in the real world.

 

So does Florence (this one's for those of you concerned that she wasn't eating enough on the trip...)

 

 

We were up early out of habit more than necessity on the last morning. (More blowing of nose….maybe it’s just allergies.) So DS, DH and I breakfasted at Horizon Bistro one last time, with all the other sad people (except for those not disembarking – they were the ones with smirks on their faces). In the time that we had breakfast, Elrich our room steward had already gotten our bed ready for the next people (really? Next people? Other people in our room, on our balcony? Harumph.) So we vacated the room since we had nothing left to prove there, and found our girls had abandoned their room as well and were sitting like waifs near the stairway. We had a 7:40 disembarkation time, but when we got to the meeting area, we were just waved off the ship since apparently of the 700 that should have already left the ship at that time, only 70 had. So we left. One last ping of our cards as we left. Gosh, I’m getting teary just thinking about it….

 

So after reading on CC about the madhouse that is trying to get a taxi in Copenhagen, we were a little concerned about getting one for our whole family, and the cost that it would entail, and the long line-ups, and the congested roadways, and …….

 

 

We walked off, got our luggage, and there were taxis aplenty, even 6 or 7 van taxis, just waiting for someone to take. Did we take? Nah, that would have been too easy. A beautiful sunny day, loads of time before our flight was due to leave (sob, tantrum on floor…) so we decided to walk to the train station. And by “we” I mean 2 of us….I know for a fact that some of our group were not on board with this decision. Off we went, rolling our suitcases behind or beside us, and it was actually a really nice walk. An hour long leisurely walk, but a nice walk nevertheless. (The roads were not congested at all by the way, possibly they would have been later, but from 8-9 they were almost empty, and this was a Thursday.) When we stopped to rearrange some things, another couple came by, doing the same thing. We did pass right by the Bus #26 stop, a stone’s throw away from the terminal, which would have also taken us to the train station. We figured there would be enough sitting in our day later, so why not walk. We found the station easily (the trains going by on the tracks were a fairly good clue), DH got our tickets, and we boarded – still found this whole Danish thing confusing – had it been German I could have dealt with it better, but no matter, a real live person had told us what to do and we did it. Got off at Central station, and made the switch to the train that took us back to the airport.

 

 

 

I had no idea how big Copenhagen’s airport is when we arrived there at the beginning of our journey! First there was the lineup to drop off our baggage – longest lineup I’ve seen – even longer than the Heathrow customs lineup! Then the lineup for security! I was actually glad we had all that “loads of time” as we used much of it standing in lines. Once through security, I was amazed by the size of the “mall” we were in! We had the most expensive lunch in the history of lunches, and played cards for a while before heading to our gate, where Florence met her new buddy Vlad, the Moose of Finland.

 

 

 

Then it was the flight to Iceland again, (a humble airport to be sure....)

 

 

 

 

which was uneventful, we all used the wonderful washrooms there, played more cards, ate some food, and waited for our flight, and then an uneventful flight back to Canada, a 1 ½ hour drive back to our home sweet home, and that was the end of the 30th Anniversary Getting Funky in the Baltics 2014 Tour! (It’s a bit unwieldy for a title, but it’ll do.)

In the de-briefing that followed upon re-entry, here were the port favourites:

DD2- Estonia, 2nd place Germany

DD1- Stockholm, 2nd place Germany

DS – Berlin, no 2nd

DH – St. Petersburg, 2nd place Berlin

Me – same as DH – one of the secrets to 30 years of wedded bliss!

 

Where next you ask? Even we do not know the answer this time…perhaps Florence knows, and hasn’t told us – I have a feeling there are a few islands in the Caribbean that she has a hankering to visit, so that may be next on our list, but we’ll just wait and see. I’ll let you know.