May 19 2017 Silhouette Baltic (+ Berlin) Photo Review Silhouette Photo Review

[Keith1010]

Great photos and narrative.

Keith

[afto]

BTW any tips as to your favourite MDR dishes?

 

We are really not very picky about food and opinions about favourite dishes are so subjective. Apart from the Indian dishes and salmon mentioned earlier, and the stellar crème brulée, I often enjoy the appetizers more than the main course; DH always always enjoys the soups. I think my favourite main course in the MDR this trip was the mushroom risotto that was offered on one of the evening chic nights.

 

You might be interested in this older thread about favourite dishes:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2047565&highlight=favourite+dish

[afto]

May 26: Day Ten (Helsinki, Part Three)

 

While we were at Suomenlinna,“we” also took some pictures of the local birds — bonus! Barnacle geese were everywhere.

 

 

Apparently the Finnish arctic terns are slightly blurrier than the ones I had seen previously in Alaska. Or perhaps I just need to spend a little more time figuring out the settings on the new camera. Oh dear, I have just been interrupted by DH who reminds me that this is CRUISE Critic and not BIRD Critic. Sorry, I forgot. Moving on.

 

 

One encounter at Suomenlinna has become a story that we have now shared with all the friends and family who will listen. We were walking in a fairly quiet area, off the main path, when two Finnish boys (ages 7-ish and 11-ish) came running up to us.

 

Finnish Boy the Younger (excitedly): “Series of words including lots of As and Ks! Series of words including lots of As and Ks!”

 

DH and afto: Blank looks

 

afto (embarrassed by her limited education): “Sorry, we only speak English.”

 

Finnish Boy the Younger (excitedly): “I found a nest! Come!”

 

Finnish Boy the Older (calmly): “Be careful. Seagulls are territorial animals and they can be aggressive.”

 

Ornithologically speaking, this statement is a bit dubious, but we were just floored by the ease with which these children switched from Finnish to perfect English. Here and elsewhere in the Scandinavian countries, we had no problem conversing with local residents. We followed the boys, carefully. Mama did return, and the four of us high-tailed it out of there.

 

 

We wanted to see a bit of the city as well, so after we escaped from Mama gull we caught the next ferry back to Kauppatori. The skies were darkening and we saw some threatening clouds gathering, but the views were just as great on the way back as on the way out. Funny how that works. Finnish coast guard vessel, Uspenski Eastern Orthodox Cathedral, and a ferris wheel: an odd combination.

 

 

We picked up some shrimp and chips from a market stall and ate lunch on the edge of the harbour, keeping an eye on the avian ne’er-do-wells who were poised to take advantage of an unguarded chip.

 

 

As we finished lunch, we had a surprise visit from a marching band and drill team who quickly disappeared in the direction of Senate Square. That was where we were headed next.

 

[afto]

May 26: Day Ten (Helsinki, Part Four)

 

Based on a tip from roll call member Jay, we thought we might pop into the newly restored National Library at Senate Square, just for a quick look around. I spend a lot of time in libraries and I like to visit interesting ones when I travel. We were turned away because of an unspecified special event. We had a quick walk around the beautiful square.

 

 

At one point we considered renting bicycles. Sorry, that was a lie. Renting bicycles was never under consideration, but they do look very nice and yellow, don’t they?

 

 

A bell began tolling and a slow procession started to make its way out of the library and up the hill towards Helsinki Cathedral. We had no idea what was going on until a local man explained to us that this was the convocation procession of the University of Helsinki. PhD students were dressed all in black, including very snazzy hats, and they carried swords. Convocations — and even weddings — in North America would be so much more fun with swords!

 

 

Master’s students wore a laurel wreath; women dressed all in white and men in black.

 

 

They were going to the cathedral for a prayer ceremony, we were told. It was nice to be in the right place at the right time to witness this event. We did see a woman dressed in white earlier in the day, and had thought that her garb was not quite right for a wedding, so it was good to have that mystery solved.

 

 

Last bird shot of the day, I promise, is this fieldfare looking for lunch:

 

[afto]

May 26: Day Ten (Helsinki, Part Five)

 

Next stop was the Church in the Rock. We walked down the hill and caught a #2 tram, getting off at Sammonkatu (not to be confused with Simonkatu). The church is just one block up the hill from the bus stop but approaching from this direction the entrance is not obvious. Wandering around the building looking for the entrance gave us an opportunity to fully appreciate the, um, rockiness of the rock the church is built into. Yup, it’s a great big rock, no question.

 

 

As of this year, there is a fee of 3 euros to enter the church. It was interesting to see, but it’s not somewhere that you will want to spend a great deal of time. We went because it was the only site in Helsinki that I had actually heard of before I started researching this destination.

 

 

We walked back down the hill from the rock church and caught a bus to Töölön kirjasto stop near the monument to Finnish composer Sibelius, which is located in a lovely leafy park. There were birds in the park, but I am not posting pictures of them because I did promise you that the fieldfare was the last of the bird shots for today. There was also a choir of tourists (singing “Edelweiss” of all things) in front of the monument. They were well-rehearsed and they sounded great, but it was something of a surreal moment. Like when the brass band from Berlin set up and played outside the Fram Museum in Oslo.

 

 

I believe that this is one of those mandatory shots, akin to the one of the seven bridges in Amsterdam. At this point, you can still see blue sky through the pipes that make up this monument.

 

 

Despite the mostly blue sky, we started to feel a few rain drops, although it was only a brief light shower. When we returned to the ship, we realized that we had been very lucky with the weather in Helsinki; there were localized heavy downpours in the afternoon and many people reported being soaked through.

 

From the park, we took a bus and then connected to tram #9 to take us back to the port. Heading in this direction, we didn’t really need the green line to help us find our way back to the Silhouette.

 

 

 

We had thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing low-key day in Helsinki. We sailed away from the city and its bird life at 6:00pm and it remained light throughout the evening. Sunset: 10:18pm. We were very excited about our arrival in St. Petersburg the next morning.

 

I have room for one more photo from Helsinki, so here is a shot from Suomenlinna of something that is made of wood and is therefore NOT actually a bird.

 

[beach spring]

Thanks, afto, for such a delightful review. Really enjoying your photo recap. And I might add that I have not laughed so much during reading of a review since I read the TA review by "loritweety." Also of the Silhouette. We sailed on her in January and I fell in love with the ship, so reading reviews will help me pass the time until I can go again. Enjoy your weekend. :)

[afto]

Setting levity aside for this post, here are “our” thoughts on shore excursions in Russia, and our rationale for booking what we did. I will suggest that you skip this post unless you are as hyper-analytical as I am.

 

I think that most passengers on the Silhouette expected Russia to be the highlight of their cruise, and the idea of a two-night stop in St. Petersburg was a major reason for booking this particular itinerary. So, what to do with those three precious days in Russia?

 

For me, the significant thing about having two nights in Russia was that it would give us an opportunity to travel to Moscow on the second day. It is, of course, a very long day, whether you travel to Moscow by rail or by air. On the surface of it, it seems like a crazy idea to spend 8 hours (round-trip) on a train just to spend 8 hours in Moscow. We considered spending all three days in St. Petersburg and having a more leisurely and more wide-ranging or in-depth experience there. But in the end, I just really wanted to go to Red Square and the Kremlin, and I don’t think we will be back in Russia again, so the decision was made. DH thought for a while that he might opt out of the second day of the tour and enjoy a “sea day” at the dock in St. Petersburg, but by the time we made final payment for the cruise, he was looking forward to Moscow as much as I was.

 

We briefly thought about doing DIY excursions in Russia, because there were a couple of things that I wanted to see that would not be on any of the tours. But applying for independent visas is expensive and a pain in the neck, the logistics of getting to and from the cruise port (and Moscow) was a bit daunting, and we knew that we would see more if we were in the hands of a competent tour company. Now all we had to do was find the right tour.

 

Knowing that we were looking for a tour with 2 days in St. Petersburg and 1 day in Moscow, we weighed our options. We did not seriously consider any Celebrity shore excursions because in our experience it is much more pleasant to travel with a smaller group and because local companies are usually less expensive. (We do occasionally book Celebrity excursions, but there has to be a really good reason for doing so. None that we have taken have been awful.) I did not take into account that Celebrity excursions are guaranteed to be off the ship first; there were conflicting reports about that and, sitting at home a year and a half before sailing, it seemed like a minor detail.

 

I read many many many reviews of 2-day tours offered by all the well-known St. Petersburg tour companies. There was very little negative feedback on any of them, and they all sounded equally reliable. I could not find any reviews of 3-day tours because I think that this season was the first time that these 3-day stops were offered by major cruise lines; not quite sure about that. I studied the tour company itineraries and the content was very similar: all the tour companies would take us to the same places, but the order of the itinerary differed. I studied this TOO closely, really, and I chose Alla Tours because their sample itinerary included Catherine Palace on the first day. I was less comfortable with tours that visited Catherine Palace on the last day, because the palace is located so far from the ship. I knew that the Alla itinerary was subject to change — and in fact it did change, so that the Catherine Palace WAS the very last site that we visited on the third day. So much for careful planning!

 

We booked the tour over a year before departure and we would be part of a group of 16. I was impressed by how responsive Alla was to my e-mails, and I appreciated the careful attention they gave to offering alternatives when I had some questions. But from what I have read any of the well-known local companies would provide a very similar experience ... in other words, there may be very little point in trying to find exactly the "right" tour for this destination.

 

When we travel our experience is shaped to a large extent by our expectations and I have found that doing as much research as I can before I go helps to keep my expectations reasonable. I also accept that no amount of research will ensure that a trip will go entirely according to plan, so I try to go with the flow when the unexpected happens. I am not always successful at going with the flow, as demonstrated by the unfortunate squawking incident at Rosenborg Castle. But I do try. There were one or two times during our days with Alla when things did not go exactly as planned, which I will explain later. But overall, it was a good tour and we came home with great memories of our three days in Russia.

 

I'm finding it difficult to post this with no photos at all, so here’s the Eclipse following us into the cruise port at St. Petersburg in the early morning of May 27. For obvious reasons, I do not have any shots of the Silhouette sailing in, so this is a reasonable facsimile.

 

[Keith1010]

Enjoying the review.

 

Keith

[reader8855]

Great review. Thanks so much for sharing.

 

 

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[upwarduk]

I will read about Alla tours with interest, as we used SPB, who we thought were superb. We went to St Catherine's Palace after lunch on the first day.

 

Here is a photo that I took of Silhouette in St Petersburg, on 1st August 2015 at 5.08am.

I'm an early riser on a cruise, I don't want to miss anything.

 

 

 

And later when we returned from our tour, prior to leaving ( the weather had improved then) Notice she had moved around!

 

Edited June 30, 2017 by upwarduk

[willma]

I am enjoying your writing very much. Thank you. We just did a similar trip on Serenade of the Seas, chosen as it went to Fredericia, Riga and Klaipeda in addition to the other ports (not Oslo). We were very pleased with the whole experience. Can't wait to hear your Russian experiences!

[petsgalore]

I love, love, love your review. We will be doing a similar cruise next year and it is so helpful to read about other cruisers' experience. That's one reason, but the other reason is that YOU WRITE SO WELL ( and of course there are the photos!!!). Thank you for taking the time to post, much appreciated.

[CruiserFromSC]

Can't wait to compare your opinions to my own! I wrote a very long (27 page!) journal of our trip but decided not to post it.

I enjoyed meeting you on this wonderful vacation!

Kim

 

Kim,

 

We are on this cruise in July (with one small change). Would love to read your journal as well if you ever decide to post it.

 

Thanks

[afto]

Thanks very much to all those who are reading along and especially to those who have taken the time to provide such encouraging comments. Much appreciated.

 

upwarduk, thanks for the shots of the Silhouette! I will even this out at two apiece by including one more shot of a very dark Eclipse. This was taken after we returned from Moscow on our second day. As you can see, it was well after "lights out" for the Eclipse's passengers. This was one of the few occasions on this cruise that we were actually up late enough to see a truly dark night sky.

 

[afto]

Deleted

Edited June 30, 2017 by afto
garbled text

[afto]

Before I go on, I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the best way to see St. Petersburg is probably by private tour, as recommended by scubacruisersx2 and others in their reviews. Because we were going to Moscow on the second day, this might not have worked out well for us anyway, but we did not seriously investigate this option. We presumed that it would have been much more expensive than a group tour, but I am now convinced that the difference may not have been all that much and that for some people this would be worth it. The advantage of a private tour would have been that we could tailor it to suit our own interests, fitting in the sites that we particularly wanted to visit. And it would have allowed the flexibility for this shutterbug to take the time to move around a bit more (to find better angles) rather than keeping up with the group, or to stop for photos rather than driving by a point of interest. I might have dropped the Yusupov Palace from the itinerary and spent more time at the Hermitage. Personal choices: you can make more of them on a private tour.

 

But there are advantages to a group tour as well, and we were happy with our decision to book the Alla tour, in part because travelling around with our fun group of 16 really enhanced our experience in Russia. You know how there are always one or two annoying people in any excursion group? We didn’t have any! Hmm ... maybe the annoying people were DH and me. I can also attest to the fact that this was the best-looking excursion group I have ever encountered. I would love to post a photo, but I have not asked everyone for permission, so please just take my word on that.

 

We were awake very early in St. Petersburg. In addition to the Eclipse, the Aida Cara and the Koningsdam were berthed nearby. We knew that this would be one of the busiest weekends of the summer. The Sihouette was scheduled to dock at 7:00am and our Alla tour was to start at 8:30, so our group had agreed to meet on the ship at 7:30am and disembark together. We received a notice from Celebrity the night before advising us that the clearance process “may take up to 45 minutes from arrival.” That turned out to be wishful thinking. The ship itself was delayed in clearing, but finally passengers were permitted to disembark. To avoid a mob scene leaving the ship, we were politely herded in a sort of lazy conga line all around the public rooms including even the dining room. It was a way to keep people moving and therefore prevent them from getting restless, but I don’t think we really needed a tour of the ship at this early hour. Someone in our group said that whenever we had a choice of going left or right, we should go left, as this was usually the shorter line; I was at the front of our group and for some reason we always ended up going right instead of left. To make a long story short, we ended up being one of the last groups to eventually clear Russian immigration. It was after 10:00am when we met up with our Alla guide and driver who were patiently waiting for us outside the terminal. I don’t know that lining up at 6:30am would really have made much difference, so I can’t really pass along any advice for other cruisers other than, wherever possible, “Go left!”

 

Once we were actually off the ship, we stood in line for about an hour and a half, or perhaps longer. At least it wasn't raining.

 

 

Alla guide and driver, Olga and Sergei:

 

 

Tour van:

 

 

Our first stop was the Yusupov or Moika Palace, once the home of a noble Russian family, one of whom helped to plot the killing of Gregory Rasputin in 1916. Here he is, Prince Felix Yusupov and canine companion. As far as I know, the dog was not involved in the plot, but the conspirators did have to poison, shoot, and then drown Rasputin before he actually died, so there may at some point have been a dog bite or two thrown in for good measure.

 

 

The saga of Rasputin’s long-drawn-out death begins in the basement of the Yusupov Palace and today the scene is populated by creepy wax figures, including one of Rasuptin himself. Not my cup of tea. But most of the tour of the palace takes you through extravagantly-decorated rooms full of gorgeous furnishings and many works of art.

[More about the palace here: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/palaces/yusupov-palace/ ]

 

 

My favourite item in the Yusupov was this painting of monkeys painting cats, because it really made me ponder the question, “What is art?” I wish I had made note of the artist’s name — and I am assuming here that it was painted by a human rather than by a second monkey. I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time to remember if Olga had anything to say about it; I can imagine the painting as wry commentary on the status of an artist who must earn a living from commissioned portraits. I wonder what the artist would think if he or she had lived long enough to see the cat-centric fantasy universe portrayed here actually come into being with the arrival of the internet.

 

 

It’s going to take me a while to finish sorting my photos from Russia, but I will try to get a few more up later today. Thank you again for following along.

[luvtravel88]

Hi Anne,

I'm really enjoying your review. It's so interesting to me that we took the same cruise and yet our experiences have been so different. We had a wonderful time, but in seeing what you did makes me want to go back and do it again!

I would like to chime in on the experience of getting off the ship to go through Immigration in Russia. We also did the Alla tour that spent 2 days in St. Petersburg and a day in Moscow.

I arranged our group of 16, so as the group leader, I requested, cajoled and begged for our group to meet at the Martini Bar at 6:30am on our first morning in St. Petersburg. We all did meet then and immediately got in the line to leave the ship. At that time there were 8 people ahead of us and by 7:00 the line had begun to snake down the hallway and out of sight. We were not cleared to leave the ship until 7:45 and we left within a few minutes.

When we got into the Immigration building, there were already 100's of people in line to go through. They were some of the groups on the Celebrity tours.

We were at the back of the room with very long lines in front of us and were prepared to wait. Somehow we got very lucky and someone directed us upstairs to a second floor where there were more Immigration booths. The lines here were long as well, but not as long as down stairs.

On the first day, it takes a minute or 2 per person, to go through Immigration, so the lines move really slowly.

All 16 of us were through Immigration by 8:45 and headed outside, where the Alla representative was waiting. Our group found our leader and we left the parking lot by 9:00. So once we were allowed to leave the ship, it took us an hour to get through Immigration.

I heard from some other groups that had decided to line up at 7:45, that at one point, there were so many people in the Immigration line, that the ship stopped allowing people off for 30 minutes to allow the lines to shorten, and they weren't off the ship until after 10:30.

So..... for those of you planning an itinerary into Russia, I would plan to line up well before the ship is supposed to dock on the first day, to try to get ahead of some of the crowds.

The second and third days were much faster.

Since we went to Moscow on Day 2, we had to be off the ship at 6:00am, so we missed the crowds and got through pretty quickly. On Day 3, the look at the passport was perfunctory, and it was very fast.

Kim

It would be nice if Celebrity would take all of their tour groups through one Immigration area and let those doing other things go through another.

[afto]

Kim, thanks very much for sharing your experience. Glad to hear that your advanced planning paid off and that meeting at 6:30 am DID make a difference! Getting up that early, you deserved to have your day get off to a good start. I was thinking myself that if I were ever to do this again, I would arrange to be picked up at something like 11am the first day in order to avoid the entire mess. Oops ... I really should NOT be thinking about "again" but really, there was so much more to see and do in all of these ports that if I had an unlimited travel budget I would gladly book a Baltic cruise again.

[Pushka]

Thanks for all the immigration info. Guess I will experience it myself this time next week. I'm touring with SPB tours but I don't know who else is on my booking. I just hope they are reading this but I doubt it.

[holsagain]

Thanks for all the immigration info. Guess I will experience it myself this time next week. I'm touring with SPB tours but I don't know who else is on my booking. I just hope they are reading this but I doubt it.

 

 

 

See you next week in the queue but we are with alla. All a bit worrying this disembarkation problem.

 

Thanks to the op giving some very useful information on transportation in ports. Looking forward to our trip even more although I don't know how OH is going to cope with standing in a queue for 3 hours!

 

 

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[upwarduk]

See you next week in the queue but we are with alla. All a bit worrying this disembarkation problem.

 

Thanks to the op giving some very useful information on transportation in ports. Looking forward to our trip even more although I don't know how OH is going to cope with standing in a queue for 3 hours!

 

Eclipse 31.07.15

We managed to get down to the disembarkation deck as they were setting up, so we were in front of the Ship's tours, as they came down the stairs. They were guided to another room and we were pointed to a short line.

[Pushka]

Eclipse 31.07.15

 

We managed to get down to the disembarkation deck as they were setting up, so we were in front of the Ship's tours, as they came down the stairs. They were guided to another room and we were pointed to a short line.

 

 

 

That's helpful. Thankyou. What time were you due to berth and what time did you start your process to get off?

[upwarduk]

I think we went down to Deck 4 approx 6.45 am, but cannot remember what time the ship was due to berth. I think our tour was due to start at 8.00. However, as this was 2 years ago and we have done tours since I cannot be sure. I just know that we were downstairs before the disembarkation process had been set up! I was afraid that we would be holding others up.

 

 

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[Pushka]

I think we went down to Deck 4 approx 6.45 am, but cannot remember what time the ship was due to berth. I think our tour was due to start at 8.00. However, as this was 2 years ago and we have done tours since I cannot be sure. I just know that we were downstairs before the disembarkation process had been set up! I was afraid that we would be holding others up.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

 

 

That sounds like a great plan. Actually Day2 will have more ships in - Silhouette and Eclipse plus 2 Holland ships.

[afto]

I wish everyone with pending visits the very best of luck with the immigration process at St. Petersburg. Fingers crossed that the line-ups will be shorter for all of you than they were for us.

 

May 27: Day Eleven (St. Petersburg, Part Two)

 

From the Yusupov, we proceeded to the Fortress of Peter and Paul. We were playing catch-up at this point so we did not have time to see anything here other than the Cathedral. I really appreciated Olga’s efforts to ensure that we still saw everything on the itinerary over the course of our 2 days in St. Petersburg, despite the immigration delays that caused us to start our tour almost two hours later than scheduled this morning.

 

 

The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul is the oldest church in St. Petersburg, and until 2012 it was also the tallest building in the city, thanks to its spire.

[information on the cathedral: http://www.saintpetersburg.com/cathedrals/peter-paul-cathedral/ ]

 

It was the first of five churches that we would visit in Russia, each one interesting in its own way. This cathedral houses the tombs of most of the Russian tsars, including Catherine the Great and Peter the Great. The potted palms seem oddly out of place.

 

 

The remains of the last of the Romanov tsars, Nicholas II, and those of his wife and children finally found a home in one of the cathedral’s chapels in 1998.

 

 

The iconostasis that separates the sanctuary from the rest of the interior is a standard feature of Eastern Orthodox churches; our tour guide pointed out that the style of this one is more western than eastern, as is much of the architecture and decoration of the building. Not sure whether the potted palms qualify as eastern or western.

 

 

Lunchtime! Tomb-visiting can really give a person an appetite.

 

 

We were one of the day's last groups to arrive at this banquet hall near Peterhof, where they handled us quite efficiently. No choice of dishes, other than for those who had indicated special dietary needs in advance, so staff were able to start serving the first course as soon as we were seated. My sense is that this establishment aimed to avoid any offense to overly-sensitive tourist taste buds; I don’trecall exactly what we ate, but it was fairly bland. Nevertheless, we were all more than ready for lunch by then and I don't recall hearing any complaints about the meal.