Wow! Ultimate Scandinavia/Russia on the Serenade Review 7/24-8/6/16

One thing before I get to Helsinki....wherever we travel I always enjoy shopping for local items. One of my favorite places to look is the grocery store. I'll always check out the chocolates and jams and I look for unusual potato chips to bring back for Courtney (of Tim & Courtney fame). I also buy a Christmas ornament, a magnet, and sometimes a print/small painting if I find one I like for me. My daughter collects dolls and snow globes. And we usually pick up the local alcohol for gifts. The specialties from Stockholm included: Dala Horses made of wood (most were pretty expensive), Dammsugare (or punschrulle) – marzipan, clogs, and ligonberry jam (also whiskey ligonberry jam).

Now that I've covered the all-important shopping we can move on to Helsinki!

After turning our clocks forward an hour and going to sleep relatively (for us) late, we still woke up very early. (By the way, for some reason my phone was not setting to local time so I used the ship's wake up call every day.) We had breakfast in the Windjammer, which was busy as usual. We were docking by 10 a.m. and since we only had until 5:30 in Helsinki we wanted to get off the ship as soon as possible. That didn’t work out so well. The line was snaking up from Deck 2 up to the 4th floor where it was wrapping around the atrium. All the people on RCI excursions were being let off the ship first. In Helsinki this was most of the ship! We finally got off the ship at 10:50. (Just a note – there is NO ATM at the port. If you need Euros, hit the ATM at Guest Services first. Another note - the casino ATM has US dollars.)

We originally considered taking a taxi into Helsinki and doing the Happy Helsinki free tour but after emailing back and forth with them prior to the cruise I realized that we would never make the 10:30 tour. We decided to do the port on our own. We’re not really good at that – winging it. We walked out of the port and caught the bus. We bought day passes for the 3 of us for 24 Euros (total) which included the bus, tram, and metro. The RCI shuttle was 12 Euros for each adult but the timings were very, very limited and there were only 2 drop off/pick up spots.) We took the #14 bus to Kampii and walked the couple blocks up to the Church of the Rock, also known as Temppeliaukio Church (Lutheran church). It was built underground, directly into solid rock and was completed in 1969. The dome is lined with copper and an ice-age crevice serves as the altarpiece. Due to its excellent acoustics the church is a popular venue for concerts. I can imagine how pretty the organ music must be. Be forewarned it is one of Helsinki's most popular tourist attraction and even though you can visit in less than a half hour, it will be very crowded with tourists.

We left the church and walked to the Kampi metro station - almost back to where we got off the bus. The metro system is fairly new (1982) and it is the world's most northern metro system. The Kampi station is the deepest of all the Helsinki stations and the escalators were soooo long. Just looking down made me dizzy and made my hands sweat a bit. :) The trains themselves were clean and frequent. The Kampi station is integrated with the bus terminal and a shopping complex, which included a grocery store where we bought water and ice cream for my daughter. We hopped on and took the the metro 2 stops to the University Stop. The escalator up looked as bad as the one at the Kampi station so my daughter and I decided to take the elevator up....only to find that the station had an "unusual glass-sided funicular-style elevator, operating along the slope parallel to the escalators, rather than a conventional vertical liftshaft design"....which was almost as bad as taking the escalator! :eek:

We walked a bit and ended up at the Helsinki Central Railway Station. It's a very cool building made mostly of granite with a clock tower and two huge pairs of statues holding spherical lamps on each side of the main entrance. The station is used by almost 200,000 passengers each day, making it Finland's most visited building. We stopped inside and found a visitor's information booth with maps and info. We took a map and walked around the area a bit - lots of restaurants and shops. We walked down to Market Square, a waterfront market - and famous market place and tourist attraction. The open-air market sold local foods (lapland food such as moose), fruits, vegetables, flowers, and handicrafts and souvenirs. My daughter bought blueberries (she said they were very good) and I bought a few souvenirs including a couple of prints. It was a big market and we could have easily spent more time here but we were mindful of the short amount of time we had left before we had to be back on board.

We were so pressed for time (not to mention hungry!) that we had to decide whether to see the Uspenski Cathedral (Eastern Orthodox Cathedral) or the Helsinki Cathedral (Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral). We decided on the Helsinki Cathedral. First we stopped to have something to eat at Kaffeehaus Röntgen Pâtisserie across from the Cathedral in Senate Square. My husband had a coffee and strawberry tart, I had sausages, and my daughter had....ice cream. It was nice to take a break and sit for a bit after walking for hours. We walked across the Square and up the stairs to the Cathedral. I have to say that neoclassical style building is stunning from the outside. The inside....not so much - actually rather plain - so much so that I wished we'd gone to the Uspenski Cathedral!

We left the Cathedral and walked a bit somehow finding a bus that would take us back to Kampi so we could pick up the bus back to the ship. It was a fairly easy trip back to the ship. We stopped at the shops at the cruise terminal. The shops had a great selection of souvenirs – trinkets to nicer things. The prices were very reasonable – actually cheaper for the same goods that I bought at the market! There is also a post box and the stores have postcards and stamps, if you didn’t get them in town. There is also free WiFi. :)

Previous to this cruise I had been to the other Scandinavian countries multiple times. This was my first time in Finland and I wasn't a huge fan of Helsinki. It's not someplace I'd return to, although I'd consider northern Finland.

Shopping specialties in Helsinki: Fazer Chocolate, Salmiakki candies (salty black licorice), Soft black licorice with caramel (yum)

We sailed from Helsinki and you will be surprised to know....we didn't eat dinner in the Windjammer! We went to Giovanni's Table. It was...good, not OMG, but good. The waiter forgot my appetizer and it took a while to track him down. For the main course I had the beef tenderloin, which was good (the Gorgonzola butter was delicious!). I had tiramisu for dessert, which was also good. It seemed the best choice for dessert and sadly, this was the night that my daughter found out that the Windjammer closed at 9:00 p.m. so she couldn't get any ice cream! Anyway...our waiter told us to come back the next night and he'd give us 20% discount. The restaurant was almost empty the entire time we were there. The meal didn't convince me to return or to try any of the other specialty restaurants.

Next up....St. Petersburg finally!

Donna_In_India · August 17, 2016

Arriving in Helsinki

The line to get off the ship - running up from Deck 2 to 4 and around the Centrum

On the bus into the city center

Kasha and a new friend

Donna_In_India · August 17, 2016

Entrance to the Church of the Rock - also known as Temppeliaukio Church

Church of the Rock - Mustn't have seen the sign :)

Inside Church of the Rock

The Altar - Church of the Rock

Donna_In_India · August 17, 2016

Kampi Metro Escalator

Great Metro

Shopping Underground

Ice Cream AGAIN (on the Metro)

Langley Cruisers · August 18, 2016

Probably the worst thing we saw (actually my daughter saw it!) was a woman drop the tongs on the floor and then put them back up in the bread...

I witnessed that once and I promptly took the tongs to a crew member who happily exchanged them for clean ones.

Enjoying your review, thank you. :)

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

Tram in front of the Helsinki Central Railway Station

Helsinki Central Railway Station

Street Musicians

Scandinavians LOVE to be outside

Near Market Square

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

Market Square

Uspenski Cathedral

Strawberry Tart & Coffee at Kaffeehaus Rontgen Patisserie

Ice Cream at Kaffeehaus Rontgen Patisserie

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

Sparakoff Pub Tram - Bet this is a lot of fun!

Helsinki Cathedral

Sailing out of Helsinki

One of the many ferries we passed during the cruise

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

Looking down to the Centrum

Kasha's favorite place to look down to the Centrum to see if anyone was dancing :)

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

I witnessed that once and I promptly took the tongs to a crew member who happily exchanged them for clean ones.

Enjoying your review, thank you. :)

Thanks Karen!

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

subscribing

Thanks. :)

Mamacane71 · August 18, 2016

WOnderful report so far. Great pictures. Thanks for the details of things. Love the pics of your precious daughter.

Donna_In_India · August 18, 2016

WOnderful report so far. Great pictures. Thanks for the details of things. Love the pics of your precious daughter.

Thanks Barb! She's a sweetie. :)

Yorkvillain · August 18, 2016

I'll always check out the chocolates and jams and I look for unusual potato chips to bring back for Courtney (of Tim & Courtney fame).

Haha!

Donna_In_India · August 20, 2016

Day 4:

St. Petersburg...finally! It has been on my travel bucket list for as long as I can remember. When I booked this cruise my original thinking was that we could spend 2 days in St. Petersburg and spend a day in Moscow. It took little research to realize that it didn't make much sense to try and go to Moscow. The travel time - even flying - would make for a VERY long day. What really killed my plan though was that on the best day to make the trip (Thursday) the Kremlin was closed.

My next thought was that we could do the 3 days in St. Petersburg on our own - not go through a tour company. I figured it would take a lot of planning and logistics and since we only had 3 days, it didn't seem to make much sense. The fact that we'd have to get our own visas - the cost associated with that and the hassles my husband has getting any visa - made it even less appealing. In hindsight, I made the correct decision regarding both options. I will also say here that 3 days is nowhere near enough time to see all there is to see in St. Petersburg and if I go again, I would definitely either try to do more/all on our own or hire a private guide. But we saw so much and traveled with the best group of people! (Just a note here: you MUST either have your own visa or have confirmed bookings with a tour company - with a receipt.... in order to get off the ship in Russia. No exceptions.)

The people on our roll call started forming groups and booking excursions early. Most of us booked the 3 day excursions with TJ Travel. There were several groups of about 10-12 people. We had 12 people in our group. This was the first of many excursions that a lot of us would be on together. Most of the excursions over the next 9-10 days were many hours long and required a very good amount of walking. I am sure that people on the excursions with us were concerned about being out all day with a 7 year old! I know I would have been. :) My daughter is a well-seasoned - and happy - traveler (this was her 11th cruise, she's taken 103 fights, been to 33 countries, etc.) and she did fine. As long as she knew there was ice cream and a pool at the end of the day she was good to go!

Before we arrived in Russia we receieved 2 notices from RCI.

Here is the one we received when we first boarded:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hwptwivgdv3plsc/St%20Petersburg%20Letter.pdf?dl=0

It is an outright lie - there is NO division inside immigration for those on RCI tours - NO separate lines nor did anyone from immigration ask anything about the tours. Apparently, other cruise lines say this as well and all of them seem to try to scare people into taking excursions with the cruise line.

If you read this line "Russian immigration officials have advised that priority processing will be given to guests booked on Royal Caribbean International excursions" you will see that if called out on it RCI can say that the word BEEN was left out changing the sentence completely "Russian immigration officials have BEEN advised that priority processing will be given to guests booked on Royal Caribbean International excursions'. Or maybe I am just overthinking the whole thing. :)

We received this one the night before we arrived:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/goig163gk54er3c/St%20Petersburg%20Warning.pdf?dl=0

I have to say that the information here is pretty standard for most places in the world. I've never been overly-cautious or 100% on guard. I usually carry a backpack with my camera/extra lens, some snacks for my daughter, and on this trip our ponchos and umbrella.

I got tired of constantly having to take out ID at airports so I've bought this - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AAV63MM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 - which is great. It's comfortable, holds all of our boarding passes, passports, money, credit cards, my phone, and more. It has RIFD blocking and best of all it keeps my hands free and all of my important "things" close to me. On this trip - even in Russia - I was no more careful than I usually am although my husband did move his wallet to a front pocket. There were signs at ATMs (in a few cities) about covering the machine with your hand so no one could see your PIN. We did hear about one person's cc being compromised in Russia to the tune of $6,000. Two week's prior to our cruise my daughter-in-law's debit card was hacked on her honeymoon in Italy and they took over $2,500 so it wouldn't hurt to be an extra bit careful.

We were up early and watched the ship dock. From the cruise terminal St. Petersburg looked a bit dreary. The fact that it was very early and overcast did nothing to help that. When we docked we were the third ship in. There would be 5 ships total in St. Petersburg that day! (Each of the next two days there would only be us and another ship.) The ship was cleared by 7:30 while we were having breakfast in the Windjammer.

Since we had already heard prior to the cruise that the cruise lines had been letting passengers who booked excursions with them off the ship first we decided to all meet before the excursion and leave the ship as a group, charging the crew if necessary. Just kidding. :) We were scheduled to meet our TJ tour guide at 9 a.m. so our group of 12 planned to meet at 8 a.m. in the Schooner Bar. We were all prompt and ready to go so we went down to the the gangway and were off the ship pretty quickly. There were two duty free shops on either side of the entrance to the terminal building which weren't open yet. Earlier (when they were letting the RCI groups off) the lines for immigration were outside the building! By the time we got there we were able to just walk into the building.

Everyone needed to go through separately (they were less strict coming back through and going out on subsequent days) so my daughter and I went through. We had a young woman agent who was nice and even smiled when my daughter had to face a mirror so the agent could see her. We had to show our passports, sea pass card, and our tour tickets provided by TJ (which were considered our visas). It took our group (separated on 3-4 lines) about 20 minutes to get through immigration.

On the other side of immigration were several small shops, an ATM, bathrooms, a postbox, and free WiFi. The next day I tried to a few rubles but I couldn't get the ATM to cooperate. I couldn't find an English translation option - if there even was one. I mentioned that there was a postbox but there wasn't any place that sold stamps. By the end of the second day I hadn't found any stamps so our guide was so kind to go out of her way and pick a few up for me since she wasn't sure I'd find any. It turns out the next day the shop we stopped at sold stamped postcards. I was happier with mine - picked the cards I wanted and didn't have to waste precious shopping time writing postcards! :)

That first day there were a lot of guides and a lot of passengers trying to find each other. We quickly found our guide, Dasha, and she led us to our nice Mercedes van (it was a 19 seater). My daughter took the back seat - her favorite - and had plenty of room to spread out over 4 seats. Everyone else was comfortable and there were still 4 seats to spare. It was great to be having the same van for the next three days. We were able to leave our stuff - backpacks, purchases, etc. in the van whenever we go out. The van had WiFi and there were fresh bottles of water for us each day. We were each given audio headsets which we used so we could hear Dasha whenever we were in museums, churches, basically any very crowded place. They were particularly handy if I wandered off out of range to take a photo or two. I just kept walking unti I was back in range of Dasha's voice and found the group.

So we were all on the van before 9 and were able to get a headstart on our day sightseeing in St. Petersburg!

Edited August 20, 2016 by Donna_In_India

easyboy · August 21, 2016

Enjoying your review and photos.

Donna_In_India · August 21, 2016

Enjoying your review and photos.

Thank you!

Donna_In_India · August 21, 2016

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703. It has also been known as Petrograd and Leningrad. The city has a fascinating and sometimes bloody history but I will save that for your guide to tell you about. The 40+ islands of St. Petersburg spread across the delta of the Neva River, although you are likely to see more than a handful during your visit. It is nicknamed "Venice of the North" because its 400+ bridges and numerous canals. The Historic Centre (with its stunning architecture) and Related Groups of Monuments is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Our first stop was to see the Sphinxes. They are located on the University Embankment in front of the Academy of Fine Arts. At approximately 3,500 years old they are considered among the finest examples of Ancient Egyptian colossal sculpture outside of Egypt. One of the superstitions around the sphinxes is if you touch one, you will be protected and have good luck. There are some guys selling cheap souvenirs and tons of tourists on the sidewalk around the sphinxes. It wasn't one of my favorite stops in St. Petersburg.

Our next stop was at the Rostral Columns on the Strelka near the former Stock Exchange. The columns were designed as lighthouses and are decorated with protruding ship's prows. From the Strelka we could see the top of the Cathedral on the island of Petrogradskaya. It was another stop with lots of tourists and guys selling cheap souvenirs.

Next we stopped at a TJ recommended shop. I didn't mind that it was a shop they recommended. The downstairs had some very nice items including jewelry (many very expensive). Upstairs the prices were more reasonable and there were more souvenir type items. Things to buy in Russia include: matryoshka nesting dolls, wine/vodka, filigree box, chess set, caviar, and Faberge eggs (knock-offs, of course :)). I suggest that if you are going to purchase the dolls or a Christmas ornament pay the bit extra and buy ones that were made - and painted - locally. I wouldn't have wanted to buy something like that if it was made in China. I do think the quality of items was better in this shop than on the ship. My daughter got her 10-dolls matryoshka doll here. My only other comment about shopping in St. Petersburg - we had very little time to shop! We really were on a whirlwind schedule but on most stops (museums/churches) we didn't even have time to look at the shops. It became a bit of a joke among our group that I always wanted to shop, which is pretty funny considering I HATE to shop at home. However, there were certain things I wanted to buy in Russia (including gifts) so the lack of shopping time was just a bit disappointing.

We drove the 40 minutes or so to Catherine Palace, definitely one of the highlights of St. Petersburg. We had timed tickets and arrived just a bit before our entrance time. We waited the few minutes the enter the gates. Amazingly there was no one inside and we were able to get pictures without a single person in them! Catherine Palace was designed for Tsarina Elizabeth who named it after her mother, Catherine I (the wife of Peter the Great).

Later Catherine the Great would have the Baroque interiors redesigned to suit her more Neo-Classical taste. We entered the Palace and went to put paper shoe coverings on in order to protect the floors. (We would do this in other places in Russia as well.) The palace itself is amazingly almost 1km in circumference. Restoration continues and there are a few dozen state rooms open, although you will only see a very few of those on your tour.

We went up the Great Staircase and entered the Great Hall, so aptly named. It was my first "wow" of the cruise and the first of many in St. Petersburg. There were so many mirrors and so much GOLD! Also known as the Hall of Light it is 1,000 meters square and and occupies the full width of the palace. This allows for beautiful views on either side. The entire ceiling is covered by a fresco, The Triumph of Russia.

The Great Hall was simply stunning and....it was getting very crowded. They controlled how many people left the room to continue through the palace. We were all packed in together and it was HOT! We were blessed with beautiful weather for almost all 3 days in St. Petersburg. However the temps were 10+ degrees more than the average high for that time of year and...there wasn't any air conditioning. Those narrow hallways with all those people and no ventilation.... :(

Donna_In_India · August 21, 2016

The Sphinx on the University Embankment

Shopping in St. Petersburg

Entering the Courtyard of Catherine Palace

Beautiful Catherine Palace

One of the many gates at Catherine Palace

Donna_In_India · August 21, 2016

The booties to protect the floors in Catherine Palace

At the bottom of the Great Staircase in Catherine Palace

The Great Hall in Catherine Palace

Wow! Ultimate Scandinavia/Russia on the Serenade Review 7/24-8/6/16

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