Baltic Cruise Not Live Review--Voyager of the Seas June 15th-26th--with Pictures

[ckmommy]

Hi All—Just got back last night form an 11 day voyage on the Voyager of the Seas Baltic cruise.

Our Group:

Me—40 something—mom to 5—Admin for the NextGen Ministry at a large church in Houston, TX

Husband—40 something—dad to 5—engineer that is taking a well deserved vacay

Daughter—23—just graduated from Sam Houston with a Nursing Degree.  Starts job on July

Son #1 —21— studying to be a Math Major and plans to teach HS math.

Son #2— 19— College Freshman—Criminal Justice Major

Son #3 —19—College Freshman—Engineering Major

Son #4 —17 —Just Graduated from HS

Nana—My mom—enjoying the last cruise that all the grandkids will be able to go on together

Pops—My Dad—enjoying the ride

Sister—Mom to 3—ready to explore

Brother in Law—retiree—glad to get a break from a home remodel

Nephew #1—23—using his first 2 week paid vacation—just started working in the real world

Nephew #2—20— last summer before interning starts

 

We have a large group.   One of the cousins could not make it due to school.

We have 4 staterooms booked. Tried for a Royal Up to a suite, but that did not happen.

This will be our 4th cruise together as a family.

 

Itinerary:

June 15th: Copenhagen

June 16th: Rønne

June 17th: Warnemünde

June 18th: Gdansk

June 19th: Sea Day

June 20th: Talinn

June 21: Helsinki

June 22: Visby

June 23: Riga

June 24: Sea Day

June 25: Sea Day

June 26: Stockholm

 

So kind of crazy is this going to be?  Will we all survive?  Will the college kids drink themselves off the ship???  The adventure is just beginning…

[kitkat343]

This is exciting!  We did a family trip to the Baltics, and loved it.  That was with a 3 year old, so probably  very different adventure than yours.  I'm glad you got a different embarkation and final city.  Stockholm and Copenhagen are amazing.  I'm also very curious about the ports that replace St. Petersburg.  Tallinn was one of my favorites, so I'd love to hear what you thought of the less frequently incorporated ports on the itinerary in recent years (

Rønne, Gdansk, Visby, Riga)

Edited June 29, 2022 by kitkat343

[CruiseMelissa]

So thankful you're doing this.. taking Voyager in August, especially interested in how far the dock is from the city center as our research shows so many "you might be at dock X, Y, or Z which is 35 miles away from the city center"  😆

[ckmommy]

 

Day 1—and some explanations

 

My family decided to leave a few days before the cruise so we could stop in London for the day and then fly on to Copenhagen and explore that city for a day before the cruise.

 

I am an Admin for the NextGen areas of our church.  The week of Memorial Day was our 4-5 year old camp, followed by our Student Week Camp June 6-9th.  Both camps were at church and I was heading up the student camp.  I swear, the only thing that kept me going was this vacation. The preschool camp went off with out a hitch. The Student camp (225—6th-12th graders) was crazy.  It was a 12 hour camp each day with a lot of moving parts.  3 kids came down with Covid—yikes!!  I was doing a lot of praying that I would not catch it!  Finally, the camps were over and I could START planing our trip out—-yes you read that correct.  Between having this trip canceled 2x and both of these camps, I had not done any planning.  So, onward we go.  I was able to get 2 tours booked and then made some brief notes about the other ports.  Nothing like flying (or in this case, cruising) by the seat of your pants.

 

Friday night—T minus 2 days before flying out

 

Go to the airport to pick up my oldest college kid.  He flew in from Lubbock (Wreck’em) ready for some family time.  When he comes out of the terminal, I notice he only has one small roller bag of clothes.  When he gets in the car, I casually ask if that is all he has for luggage??  I get the—I’m an adult, Mom—I know how to pack.  That, my friends, is foreshadowing!!  We get home and I again ask about the 1 small bag he has packed for a 15 day trip that we are not planing on doing laundry on.  I once again get the—“Mooooommmm, I got it!!”  They next day, the brothers all go out shopping.  They return with nothing.  I ask what they were shopping for—my youngest says—“mom, you know K (oldest brother, who only brought 1 small bag home) did not bring any pants or long sleeved shirts or a jacket, right?” Of course he did not!!  The boys all decided that they would go on a hunt to Goodwill to buy clothes.  Oh my gosh!!  So, off to JCPenney to buy college student that knows it all a new wardrobe!

 

Sunday—start to pack!!  Iron clothes for hours.  Find garment bags and hangers that fit.  Decide that I need clothes for all seasons—from swimsuits and shorts to winter coat and sweaters—boy am I glad I brought my whole closet.  Load bags in car—and realize we have a problem.  We loaded the luggage in the car, but now only 4 people fit in the car with the luggage.  Add another car!!!  And we are finally off to the airport!

 

Parking was no problem, tram to the terminal no problem, check in no big deal.  7 people 8 bags.  Except, one bag is over 50 pounds.  No big deal in Houston, but the United baggage person says that when we fly SAS out of London they may charge us for any bag over 50 pounds.  That makes us think, but not for long.  TSA for the kids easy, CLEAR for DH and myself—super easy.  United Club bound!!  Scan in—my daughter gets the dreaded red flag.  She is over the age to come to the Club as a child of a member.  UHHHHHHH.  So, she and I go explore the airport, get a Cinnabon and water.

 

Plane ride—easy as pie!!  Overnight flight into London.  Full flight—no sleep.  But, we are in London!!

 

London Heathrow

 

That airport is huge and people speak english!!  We walked forever—went through customs—easy.  Went to get our luggage—only had 3 of or 8 bags.  Wait for more luggage to come off the belt.  Nothing of ours—go to baggage service—they are no help.  Look around the other luggage carousels—nothing.  Make one last pass before going back to Luggage service—clear on the other side of the baggage area—that is HUGE we find all of our luggage.  Head outside to find our bus—after zigzagging up and down elevators, escalators and tunnels.  Cannot find the double deckers city buses!!  No one was around to help.  I was about ready to sit down and cry.  I finally saw a worker and ran to ask for help.  He pointed to a sign saying Underground and told us to take that downstairs and the signs would directs where to go.  So after another tunnel, escalator and elevator, we found the buses.  I luckily found a nice man that helped us find the correct bus and told us exactly where to get off.  We landed at 10:45 am and got to our airport hotel at 1:15 pm—it had already been a day!!

 

Marriott London Heathrow and London

 

We chose this airport hotel because we have a 9:00am flight to Copenhagen the next morning.  Wr got off the bus and the hotel was right there.  We brought all our luggage in and was planning to just drop it off thinking our rooms would not be ready for a few more hours.  But, our rooms were ready!!  We piled into the elevator and found our rooms.  Dh grabbed a shower.  The rest of us got ourselves ready for our day in in London.  We headed across the street and got on a buss that took us to the Underground.  Got on the tube and headed to Central London (Tower Bridge).  90 minutes and 2 tubes later we got to our destination.  We found some fish and chips and started our tour.  While on the plane I made a list of all the things we were going to do—Tower bridge, Globe theatre, Bourough Market, London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square.  It was going to be a great night.  Well, I bet you can guess what happened….We saw Tower Bridge, walked to Bourough Market then to Big Ben.  By the time we got to Big Ben, everyone was drawing, felt sick to their stomachs and were exhausted.  And, we knew we had a 90 min ride back to the hotel.  I was so upset/sad (and probably tired) that I literally teared up because this first day of our journey did not go as planned—and I did not get my Harrod’s bag!!  By the time we got back to the hotel, everyone was in bed and asleep before I got out of the shower.  With a 4 am wake up it was going to be a short night!!

 

Will I get my Harrod’s bag?  Will we ever sleep?  Are we going to talk about the Cruise??  Stay tuned…

Edited June 29, 2022 by ckmommy
spelling

[John&LaLa]

6 minutes ago, ckmommy said:

Will I get my Harrod’s bag?  

 

The wife used to collect Harrods bags because of the Westie mascot.

 

Still have several left

[StanleyandGus]

Wow, I am exhausted from just reading this! With a 0400 wake-up, the Harrod’s bag seem unlikely!

[kernow]

Harrods have shops in the terminals at Heathrow so I think you got one!

[flamingos]

Wonderful story so far, I'm looking forward to more!

[sgmn]

Great blog,  looking forward to more. I'm always exhausted after eastbound overnight flight,  so well done doing what you did.

 

Just for info there is a hotel attached to T2, Hilton I think. Also 10 min walk from T3. Then a few min walk to Heathrow central area for the underground to London 

Also if your layover is less than 24 hours and it's all one ticket they may tag your bags all the way to your final destination so you just need hand baggage in London. I worked at Heathrow up to last year, and my airline did that at our hub which all our flights went through.

 

Looking forward to your next installment, its a cruise I want to do. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by sgmn

[irishgal432]

Heading out in August.  Thanks for the review. 

[Kellie in Texas]

@ckmommyJust starting to read this (we did a Baltics cruise in June 2016 for my oldest son's college graduation but it was only 7 days).  My younger son is a junior at Sam Houston. Just thought I'd throw that out there.  Go Bearkats!  😄 And congrats to your daughter on her graduation and first job.

[ckmommy]

London to Copenhagen

 

I made a mistake—our flight to CPH was at 6:45 am.  So, we were out of the hotel at 3:45 am.  Everyone was awake at 2:30 am naturally anyhow, so this was not a big deal.  We dragged our bags down the road and across the street and caught the bus to the airport.  Side note—I bought a Travelpass from a company in London before the trip.  It was a 1-day pass that could be used for public transportation in London.  I know the bus and tubes use a credit card and it is easy to use, but with our family so big, the kids not having credit cards that are contactless (the touch and go kind), and the fact you had to use different credit cards for each person, this made the most sense to buy.  

 

No problems with the bus and then the walk to the terminal was easy since we just did it 15 hours before.  We got in line for SAS and realized they did not have anyone working yet.  So, we waited, and waited, and waited some more.  Finally, at 4:45 the agents showed up.  We were finally all checked in and through security at 6 am.  We grabbed some Breakfast and walked toward the gate.  Sadly, the Harrod’s in terminal 2 was not open until 11 am and there was not time to go to terminal 3.  It’s okay, we will be back to London for a much longer trip another day!!

 

Flight to CPH—easy!!  Airport in CPH—small, not crowded, easy to get luggage.  Got 24 hour CityPass bus/train tickets—I think it was $12 per person.  Took the train to Central Station and walked to the Marriott Copenhagen.  We checked in and only one of our rooms were available, but that was perfect.  We dropped all our bags off and headed out to explore!

 

The bikes!!!!  Wow—never have I ever seen so many bikes!!!!  I loved it.  The people on bicycles and cars were so respectful.  Weird statement, but in my area, the bicyclists are either almost getting run over by cars or almost running over people on sidewalks.   

 

The food—ate at TorvehallerneKBH.  I got the Oat Porridge 1.  It was so good.  Apples, Caramel and almonds.  My kids and husband got sandwiches and a Korean taco from a stand outside the market.  We also found a delicious croissant and chai tea as well.  

 

Sightseeing—saw so much on the walking tour.  Enjoyed it all.  Although, we were exhausted and had to make a stop to get off our feet just before seeing the Little Mermaid statue.

 

Dinner and Guests—

Got back to the hotel and got some water and put our feet up.  My parents and sister and her kids were supposed to be arriving in a little bit.  I got a text from my sister saying that my parents and she and her husband were delayed and stuck in Reykjavik.  They were unsure when they would be getting to Copenhagen—and may have to meet us in Ronne.  I then texted my nephews.  They just landed in Copenhagen and were at their hotel.  We decided that my daughter would take a bus and meet them at their hotel.  Our other rooms were available at our hotel for the boys.  They got their stuff all moved in the rooms.  I grabbed a shower and DH was getting himself ready for dinner.  All the sudden, I hear the huge crash.  I look out the shower and my DH is on the ground—flat on his back!! Turns out the shower did not seal at the bottom, so all the water was spilling out the shower door onto the tile in the bathroom.  My DH was not wearing shoes and slipped.  I was like—get up—you can’t be hurt 12 hours from leaving on the cruise.  He was okay—nothing a little ibuprofen could not fix!  

 

We all did our Covid tests sometime during this time too---all negative.  E-med was wonderful.

 

We met up with my one nephew—the other decided to go shopping on his own.  We walked to Tivoli area to find a hot dog stand—but never found it.  We did find a hamburger place and filled up on good food and fun conversation.  We split ways with my nephew and told him we would meet at the Cruise Terminal in the morning—11:30 check in!!  

 

Would we meet up with the nephews?  Would the rest of the family arrive in time for sail away?  Did check in go smoothly?  Did we make the train to the terminal? Are we going to get to the cruise already!!!! More to come…

[John&LaLa]

Taking the weekend off?

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Following along.  We do the 10-day cruise on July 31.

[Ourusualbeach]

10 minutes ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

Following along.  We do the 10-day cruise on July 31.

Following right after you on Aug 10th

[John&LaLa]

@ckmommy

 

You ever going to continue? 

[Danish]

Hope there will come more. I was on the cruise before you - and am looking forward to your review 😀

[ckmommy]

1. Sorry for the Delay--my parent sold their house after the cruise and I had to go to Wisconsin to help pack them up--here is the next installment.

Day 3

 

Copenhagen and Voyager of the Seas

 

Woke up at a reasonable time today—5:30am.  The sun was out and it looked to be a gorgeous day.  We decided to go to the Executive Lounge and see what they had for breakfast.  Oh my gosh!!  If you are staying at the Marriott Copenhagen and have access to the Lounge, go for breakfast.  Such a nice set up for breakfast.  The breads were to die for.  I had the very best croissant that I have ever had in my entire life here.  I would go back to Copenhagen just for that croissant!

 

After breakfast, we got ourselves repacked and at 10 am headed to the front desk to check out.  There was a short line, but no issues.  We decided to walk to the translation and take the Metro to the Pier.  Looked like there would be a shuttle bus waiting to take us to the ship.  We started walking and my husband commented that we were going to be late for the train.  I told him that we had 1.5 hours to get to the pier and should have no problem.  It is about 10:08 am at that point.  Then, it clicked in my brain what he was saying…our (24 hour) train tickets were only valid until 10:15 am.  Ahhhhhhh.  We quickly turned around and walked back to the Marriott.  There were 5 cabs in the drive.  I asked the front doorman if the cabs were already reserved and he said no.  I then went to the first cab and put part of the family and 3/4 of the luggage in his car.  I talked to the 2nd cab in line and put the rest of our bags and the rest of our family in this cab.  Onward we went.  I had a great talk with our driver—he was very talkative and answered lots of questions:

What is the tax on a Car here: 180%—except for cabs—no tax for cabs

Do lots of bikes get stolen since I did not see any chained up?  Yes, but they get returned.  A bike has to be licensed and the police look to make sure bikes have a child license and the person on the bike is who it is licensed to…

Is it expensive to live in CPH?  Yes—50% of your pay check is taken out in taxes.  But if you lose your job, you are taken care of for 2 years.

Lot more questions and answers, but I’ll move on.

I am so glad the train did not work out.  I loved the Taxi driver, but I also looked for the train station and did not see it.  I was really happy to get out right at the dock.  Each cab was about $60, I think.

 

The SHIP!!!

 

We got out of both cabs and as soon as we got out, there was someone helping us with our luggage.  Easy, easy, easy.  It was 11:00 at this point.  We were 30 mins early to check in, but were told we could get in line.  There were only about 50 people (including my 2 nephews who beats us by 5 mins) in the area to check in.  We went through the X ray machine and then were told we could choose either side to check in.  We went to the left.  There were about 5 families in around of us.  We wanted under 10 mins to check in.  I had given everybody in our family all the documents they needed to check in. I did not want to be searching for the correct persons passport, Covid test etc.  That worked perfectly.  The gate agent lady looked at my info first.  She looked at my passport, asked for my Covid test—looked at the date and the negative result.  I believe she took a picture of my passport, but there was no photo taken of anything else.  My photo had to be retaken, but the rest of my family was able to use the photo I uploaded to the app.  That was it.  We were cleared to board.  It was 11:15 and we were walking on the ship!!!  Just as we were about to leave the check in area, I saw my parents and Sister walk in.  We were all there!

 

On to the ship!!  We have been on several ships similar to Voyager, so kind of knew the lay out.  We found a bathroom, then headed to the Windjammer.  We got our food and waited for the rest of the family to join us.  While waiting, I was enjoying people watching.  I was pretty shocked by the amount of families and multi generation groups that were on board.  This was going to be great!!

 

The whole family got reunited at about 11:45.  What a mess my parents and sister and brother in law endured, but we were all together and ready for an adventure.  We were talking and just enjoying being together.  We finished lunch and went to our muster stations to check  in and then made our reservations for My time dining for the week—then the announcement that the rooms were ready came on.  I think it was before 1 pm that this announcement came, but I am not for sure.  We all headed down to our room to see our home for the next week.  As we were walking down the hall, we saw our luggage right near the aft elevator/stairs.  Grabbed our bags and found our rooms—we had 1668 and 1672—spacious balcony staterooms.

 

These rooms were very nice and newly renovated.  We had never stayed in a balcony stateroom with more than 2 people.  This time we had my daughter with us and the 4 boys had their own room.  When sailing before with the kids we have gotten the 2 bedroom family suite.  Well, not this time.  We decided that now was the best time to unpack and then we would heck out the ship.  It took us a little wile to unpack and find room for everything.  By 3pm we started to explore.  We found my kids playing on the Flowrider.  What a perfect afternoon for some surfing.  We ended up leaving port while we were watching the kids on the Flowrider.  That was a perfect way to start our cruise out.

 

We had a set reservation for 6:45 for dinner.  When we made the reservation, we asked to see the tables what we would be at.  We were shown 2 tables on the starboard side in the middle of the dining room.  At 6:45, we all went to the dining room and checked in for our reservation.  we were taken to 2 totally different tables on the port side.  Not a big deal, but this was not what we were expecting.  My mom had also asked if we could find a table that would fit all of us together.  We were told that the biggest table they had would only fit 10 people.  So that was a no go.  Dinner was lovely and the Key Lime pie was yummy.  There was no prime rib that night (or any other night), one of my boys was disappointed, but no the end of the world.

We read that there was Karaoke that night in the Star Lounge and a game called  Majority Rules.  We had a blast doing both of those things.  We knew we would be back for more games and singing all week.

 

Best Things about the day:

CPH Croissant

Easy Check in

My whole family on the ship

Key Lime Pie

Pumkin seed Rolls

European Butter

Karaoke

 

Worst Things of the day:

 

No Table for 13

[flamingos]

Thank you! We stayed in Copenhagen for a couple nights after we got off a transatlantice a few years ago. I cannot recall the hotel, but I remember the breakfast buffet and the breads were indeed spectacular.  And I love the pumpkin seed rolls on the ship.

 

I have never seen a table for larger than 10.

 

I'm excited that your embarkation was so easy.

 

When Voyager first started up last spring, there were lots of complaints about untrained staff and disorganization. It sounds like they have solved some of those issues.

 

How is the Solarium, and is the pool temperature acceptable?

[sandebeach]

Thank you for your review, heading to Copenhagen and Voyager this September.

[ckmommy]

Staff was wonderful on the ship.  I was worried after hearing how disorganized they were in April and May.  They got their kinks worked out by mid June.  The staff is only about half what it would normally be.  Lots of bars closed--especially the outside ones.  The bars that were open only had 1 bartender.  Not a lot of waiters around getting drinks either.  

 

The Solarium was open, but the bar was not.  We spent no time in the Solarium on this ship--which surprised us because on the Symphony we spent all our time there...

[Missusdubbya]

Great review so far, looking forward to the rest

[DragonOfTheSeas]

11 hours ago, ckmommy said:

Staff was wonderful on the ship.  I was worried after hearing 

 

The Solarium was open, but the bar was not.  We spent no time in the Solarium on this ship--which surprised us because on the Symphony we spent all our time there...

We are glad to hear the staff is able to handle the number of passengers.  thank you for this review.  We cruise July 31.  

 

Was it warm enough to use the pools/hot tubs on this cruise?  We think it is crazy Royal Caribbean does not enclose the solarium on the Voyager class ships.  That is always a favorite area for us, too.

[dritan]

Enjoying the review so far - flying off to Stockholm to join the Voyager next weekend.  Really interested to hear about the options for transfer from ports to central town in Helsinki, Tallinn and Visby ( if you did those ones).

Interested in hear about the food and shows too 😉

[John&LaLa]

@Jimbo this looks promising