Eschew

June in Baltic is early season. We checked long term weather forecast for each port before we leave so we knew the weather is going to be cool and rainy. But what we didn’t expect was the wind. The weather did put a damper on things but the wind created more of a challenge than the scattered shower. At no point was the rainfall heavy, and we were indoor a lot of the time.

The plane ride over was rough with us strapped in most of the time. The ride was bumpy so we didn’t get much sleep, at least the movie selection was decent and surprisingly, we were served 2 hot meals.

With sleep deprivation, we arrived at Copenhagen around noon. Landing just ahead of us was an Airbus 380 that seats 460 plus 12 private suites. All those people were ahead of us at the immigration and that is not a promising start. But, we won’t let something like the line-up at immigration deters us.

Quick cab ride into town; checked our luggage at the hotel (Scandic Weber) and began to explore the surroundings. The hotel is centrally located, only 2 blocks from Tivoli Garden. Other than the expensive price, we were quite happy. The room is comfortable, the hot breakfast (included) is excellent and food selection is very good.

First stop, Tivoli Garden. Check out the scene, early dinner and relaxed a bit. We were tired, trying to adjust to the time difference and turned in early.

We walked to the City Hall but we didn’t recognize it at first. We thought we were lost. As it turned out, we were at the right place. The square in front of the city hall were all set up for some sort of Turkish festival or promotion, with the Turkish Flags and Turkish music blaring, we thought we were in Turkey.

There was a performance stage with Turkish dancers, then a singer, then more dancers, and more singers. The front of the stage was packed. The perimeters of the square were set up like a flea market with vendors selling all kinds of Turkish food and other goods. Looking beyond the vendors’ tents, we managed to get a glimpse of the city hall, and behind the tents, we spotted the semi-covered fountain. Sigh!

For the time that we spent in Copenhagen, we managed to hit quite a few places and we walked everywhere. We hit the shopping district (DW’s pick), then the canal, then the old Royal Palace (Museum). We did reach the Church of our Saviour and wanted to go up the outside staircase. Unfortunately, it was closed due to weather. Oh well. There is always a next time (maybe).

- more to follow -

Percy

"more to follow "

I am waiting

I would not have thought and Airbus would be landing in Copenhagen!!!

Leslie_S

I'm following also, looking forward to more. We were in that area in August a few years ago - during the heatwave in Europe that was unprecedented there - people dying, fires around Moscow virtually closed the city. What a difference in weather you experienced in June.

Eschew

Trip to the dock from the hotel was painless. A short line up and we were on board. The Emerald Princess was recently renovated and is pretty well what was expected, similar lay out to other Princess Ships, no big surprises except the Library. The library is small and tugged into a corner. We have always enjoyed the Princess ship’s library as it is one of the nicest place to sit, relax and read. This one is just uninviting.

By and large, the ship is smoke free. The main smoking area is the cigar room and you will be hard pressed to find it. The rear of the ship on an open deck (and only one side) and a portion of the casino and that’s about it. They have banned smoking on your private balcony which is good news as we have experienced downwind smoke and did not get much use out of our balcony on a previous voyage.

They have also changed their “coffee card” policy. You can still use your old coffee cards for espressos, latte and the like, but only the “current” card will get you free special brewed coffee and the specialty teas. They put the dates and the voyage on it now. It closed the loop-hole where people will left one hole un-punched and keep using it to get free special brewed coffee and specialty teas.

We can see cost cutting everywhere. With the price not going up and the rising cost, it was to be expected. The buffet selection is adequate and certain expensive items (such as smoke salmon) only appear on rotation. Missing is the omelette station but they did make omelettes to order if asked.

The dining room menu did not changed all that much and the portion size adequate. Unfortunately, they did not feature any local cuisine. It used to be 2 lobster tails a few years back. Recently, we have been getting only one lobster tail with 2 large scampi on the lobster night. Of course, you can always ask for more. At least it was better than the half lobster tail that we received on our last Celebrity cruise, or “out of Lobster” on the NCL.

My princess pet peeve is that they still can’t do the eggs right at the buffet so we ended up having breakfast in the dining room for my soft boiled or soft poached eggs.

The entertainment around the ship is pretty standard Princess affair with a dance band, a duo, a piano player, a string quartet and so on. They are all adequate but not exceptional. The feature headliners in the Princess theatre were mostly talent show losers (okay, they were finalist but they didn’t win) in the UK you got talent TV program.

The main stage production shows (Princess Singers and Dancers) were disappointing and subpar. I had a comment to say about a particular dancer and how she didn’t quite “fit” into the costumes. DW said if I can’t say anything nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all. So here it is:

Not that we are complaining, as we choose this cruise because of the ports and not the shows on board.

One shining star: the guest lecturer/historian is excellent with his insights into each port. He offered tips as to what you can do on your own, what local restaurants are worth trying (and inexpensive ones to boot!) what are the must see sights, some history, and things to avoid.

Percy

Eschew

Very interesting and informative.

Do you know the name of the Guest/ Lecture/ Historian.

Was it John Lawrence ?

jacketwatch

How long was the wait in line at the airport with that behemoth ahead of you?

Turkish dancers? I hope there were belly dancers. Beats the view of some old, dumb fountain.

It seems overall cruise ships of all lines have cut back. Its a sign of the times I suppose and also perhaps the Costa tragedy, at least in the short run. After this our Equinox price dripped by $400.00 pp! Then after we booked it dropped another $200.00 pp.

Sorry about the bumpy ride and the less than desirable weather.

Staying tuned.

Eschew

Hi Percy, It is John Lawrence. And did you know he can sing? What a voice! I don't belief he a staff member of the ship as he was talking about self guided tours ...

Larry, It was about 45 minutes. The line up to the immigration was into the corridors

Eschew

Oslo: Easy port to get around. Walking distance from the dock to the harbour and the Akerhus Castle and Resistance museum are right there as well. We wander into a restricted area of the Castle (okay, we knew what we were doing) and the sentry politely told us that we should not be here, in English! Although they were in dress uniforms but those were real guns, probably with real bullets …

We also made stops at the Viking ship museum and the Vigeland Sculpture Park. The Ski jump offers a great view of the fjord but I am not sure if it was worth the time spent to get up there as we only stayed up there for a very short time.

Aarhus: The wind was too strong (gale force wind, at least force 7). With consultation with the port authorities and the local pilot, the captain decided that it was too risky to navigate through the channel and cancelled the port. This is highly unusual as the pilot had boarded the ship, and the tug boats were already alongside. An extra sea day was the end result.

Warnemunde (Berlin): I wanted to go to Schwerin Castle but DW wanted to go to Berlin so we ended up in Berlin. We decided to book the ship’s tour as we felt safer with the train (less chance of missing the boat) as it is 3 hours each way to Berlin from the port.

It was an early departure so we were up early and had a light breakfast on the ship. The train ride was okay, the accommodation comfortable. We slept most the way. The train provided hot water and a few packages of instant coffee, tea bags tec. And they served shrink wrap muffin for snack. The muffin was moist and we will leave it at that.

It was a whirl wind tour of Berlin with an hour on the boat, a few hours on the bus, a quick lunch, and then a couple of hours on the bus. Stops were made at the hot spots such as the Berlin Wall, check point Charlie, Brandenburg Gate etc. We were given half hour to shop before returning to the train station for the journey home. Best name for a restaurant that we came across: "Check Point Curry", wonder what they serve...

The train ride back was uneventful. They also served some “food”. It appeared to be a “bread sandwich”. A piece of bread with something (spread?) in between 2 slices of bread so that it appears to be a thicker sandwich. We didn’t even bother to open the package. We slept all the way back and returned to ship a bit after 8:30 p.m., just in time for a late dinner. We were the first train back so we get into the dining room real quick.

Eschew

Tallinn: Booked Alla Tour and Julia, our guide was friendly, and explains things well. We really have no expectation whatsoever. We went through the old town and we had a couple hours on our own before we took the transfer back to the port. We found out about an old castle ruin that sort of became an amusement park. It was at least an hour’s drive away so we didn’t have time for that.

The ship’s guest lecturer told us about a specific restaurant that we should try and we are glad that we did. The decor is medieval, the staffs are in period costume, utensils are lacking but the food is cheap and good. 1 euro for a bowl of Elk soup or a meat pie, but 2 euros for a coffee. There is a sign on the wall in local language. It can be loosely translated as “those who don’t tip will grow hair on their back”. You are expected to clear your own table. There is a sign above a large wicker basket that read “whatever utensils you don’t steal goes here”. We tried to use the “toilet”. It was an experience as the “setting” was medieval.

Next Stop: St. Petersburg

Percy

Hi Eschew.

Yes, I knew John Lawrence could sing, and heard him sing.

I had quite a few chats with him ,as I cornered him several times for added information to some questions I had.

Ahh!! .. You had Julie for your Alla Tour guide in Tallinn.

She is a sweet little thing. We had her in St. Petersburg.

Thanks for the trip report so far. I am following

Leslie_S

I'm following also and learning. I think the bread sandwich is also known as a wish sandwich: 2 slices of bread and you wish there was something in between.

We loved Tallinn, spent a few days there so we got to see quite a lot. Never did eat at any of their medieval restaurants - I see I missed out on their good sense of humor. Hope you tipped!

Eschew

Percy, I don't think it is the same girl. My Julie resides in Estonia, live and worked there. She also liked their independence from the old Soviet Union and makes no bones about Estonia as a country was ran over by the Soviets. With that said, our Julie is a sweet girl (lady) just the same.

It appears Julie is a popular name there, as is Svetlana. We came across 2 of them on the same morning with Alla Tour in St. Petersburg. We were told our guide was Sevtlana and we approached the wrong Svetlana at the dock. Alla had 2 Svetlana working for her on that day!

Yes, I heard him sang too and he likes the Engelbert Humperdick and Tom Jones tunes. John is a nice guy but he is not agreesive enough to flock his books and DVDs. I did chatted with him from time to time.

That's what I like about Princess cruise. They always seems to have good guest lecturers. The best surprise (and I wasn't expecting it) was on a Mexican Riveria crusie and they had someone from the University of Carlton talking about geological formations and super volcanoes. I quite enjoy their Panama canal cruise & Alaskan crusie lecturers as well.

Leslie_S, I wanted to grow hair on my back. Unfortuantely, I tipped already before someone gave me the interpretation. The look of some people's face is priceless.

An older couple walked in, paid for the food and received bowls of soup in clay bowls (chipped bowls, no less) looked at the chipped bowls and looked at the cashier/server, totally speechless.

Then the man asked for spoons. The server/cashier said "Spoons? You didn't bring bring your own? What kind of place you think this is? Travelling knights always bring their own weapons!" The couple looked lost (probably stunned), turned around and look for empty seats in the crowded and very dark restaurant (candle lit only, small windows with wooden shutters that didn't transfer too much light).

They sat down by the counter and was holding the bowls to their lips. The server/cashier bursted out laughing and handed them 2 wooden handle spoons and said "you can use these if you promise you will clean your own table."

It was so hard to hold back our laughter. We actually spent an hour there watching people and soaking in the atmosphere and enjoying the show the staff was putting on.

Obviously, we refilled our soups, bought extra meat pies (the wild boar one is interesting, especially with the Elk soup) and more coffee. At only 1 euro a piece, it's good food and it is cheap! John told us about the place but he did not mentioned the price. This place was right at the town hall/market square. You can't miss it.

Eschew

St. Petersburg: That’s the highlight and the whole reason for this trip. All I can say is that 2 days is not enough. I would love to have stayed a week. We booked Alla Tour for the 2 days. Disembarkation was a breeze and we didn’t have to wait long as we were among the earliest to leave the ship. We have been warned Russian immigration could be interesting and it was.

We have seen couples approaching the “booth” and they went through immigrations together. But at our booth, I was told to step back as our immigration agent can only handle one person as a time. Never pays to argue with bureaucrats. Yes ma’am, anything you say ma’am.

The terminal is new and there were quite a few shops. Souvenir prices were reasonable, and comparable to shops outside the dock. They will accept USD for payment, roughly 30 RUB to 1 USD, which is not a bad rate, especially if you take into account the amount of service fees (gaps on the exchange rate) the bank charges.

There were securities at all the doors. The one located at the exits were “host and hostess” of the port authority. They can speak some English. The one located at the "side" entrance were in military style uniform, and speak no English. If you show your cruise card, they nod and you walk right through. As to everyone else, they had to go through the metal detector and put purses and bags through the x-ray machine.

June 12 is Russia’s Independence Day. The local thinks it is a stupid holiday but gladly takes it. Their point was who did they gain their independence from? Themselves?

With June 12 being a Tuesday, the local opted to work on Saturday and took Monday off so that they have a 3 day weekend. Needless to say, it created traffic issues that were not anticipated as we were there on the Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday, we hit rush hour traffic as people trying to make their way to work and on Sunday, on the way to Peterhof, we hit traffic as people are trying to get out of town.

Interesting to note that their work hours are from 10 am to 6 pm, at least that was what we were told. I was surprised at the income level as well. It was much higher than I expected. Monthly average of 1,500 USD for a server and up to 10,000 USD for professionals.

Alla Tour did not disappoint and we had a great guide by the name of Svetlana Shukova. There were a few Svetlana working for Alla. We were guessing that Svetlana was a graduate of Foreign Language Arts and probably destined to be an interpreter or a translator in diplomatic services (or a spy!) if the Soviet empire did not collapse. Her English is perfect Oxford, perfect diction with no accent. The choice of word is impeccable and appropriate. You wouldn’t know she’s Russian just by listening.

She was knowledgeable, quite passionate about the country and care about what she does, and goes out of her way to make our visit a memorable one. She knew the museums and all the tourist hot spot inside out. She took us through back staircases to avoid the crowds. She literally raced another guide (from a different tour company) to the door to get us through the gate first, and she made adjustment along the way because of traffic and crowd. We ended up seeing everything that was promised and more. Kudos to her!

Most of the old Tsarist Palaces were restored or in the process of being restored, and the churches almost returned to their former glory. I was pleasantly surprised that the Soviet atheists did not destroy everything.

Since we have never been there before, everything was interesting. Now that we have been there, I would have preferred to spend more time at the Hermitage and Peterhof, and maybe skipping out on some places. The 3 to 4 hours spent at the Hermitage barely scratched the surface. Mine you, that’s what I said about the Vatican too, that a day is not quite enough.

The upper fountains and the lower gardens were crowded while we were there. We would have loved to stay longer and spent time to admire the place. There was a marching band in period costume wandering through. That added to the atmosphere. We took the hydrofoil back to save travelling time.

One unexpected highlight was the subway ride. We went from the Stadium station to Admiralty. The stations themselves were interesting. I don’t know if all the stations are like this but the two stations that we were at, they were themed (Olympic theme for the Stadium station), marbled floor, and all. The train platform itself was more than 800 feet underground. It was a very long escalator and a very long ride.

The train was quite fast and packed full of people as it was a “work day”. Looking at the crowd, it was non distinguishable from any other subway. The ear bud head phones, reading newspaper, people just go about their everyday life.

We had a packed lunch on the first day and ate outside in a park while visit the church. The boxed lunch was of decent quality but there were too much food. We ended up feeding the birds, which was a nice break. We love those Russian apple juice boxes. We have to figure out how we can get them over here.

Lunch on the second day was a sit down lunch on our way to Peterhof. It was at a banquet hall. I am not sure if I get the name right but it was called the “Summer Palace”. Let just say that all of us were underdressed for the occasion. The hostess was a young lady dressed in period costumes. I can’t put words together that can explain the place properly, so you will just have to wait for my pictures on webshot.

The place can seat probably a thousand people, the ceiling is about 50 or 60 feet high and the ceiling is “painted” a la Vegas’ Venetian Hotel. The manicured lawn is as big as a football field. I was told the hall rental is $3,000 USD and $130 USD per person for plated meals.

Alla must be doing good business as there were almost 100 people from Alla tour in the hall. We also saw tour groups from other tour company including SPC. In all, there maybe 2 to 300 people, occupying probably less than half the room. There were no Princess tour groups though.

Actually, here is their web page photo link: http://www.summerpalace.ru/m3/foto
and their video link: http://www.summerpalace.ru/m3/video

I bought a “print” from the Hermitage. It is a water color on canvass. I paid about 80USD. That print put the ship‘s art auction stuff to shame.

The souvenir books are quite cheap. 7USD. Beats trying to take pictures of the place with choke full of people. I did take some pictures but not as much as usual.

Russia is a relatively young country by European standard. It is only a few hundred years old. One thing that we didn’t get to see all that much was defence of the Leningrad.

We caught a lucky break in St. Petersburg. The weather was actually seasonable in comparison to the earlier stops. St. Petersburg is quite far north. It is still bright outside at midnight and I can take pictures of the terminal building without flash.

Next up: Helsinki & Stockholm

Percy

Very nice that you had a subway ride.

I agree they are very deep underground.

They are all lovely ...

( but the one in Moscow are even nicer and are refered to as "Palaces Underground".)

That Summer Palace you are referring to , could it be the

Konstantinovsky Palace ?.

Nice report. Thank You

Eschew

We asked to ride the subway so Svetlana took us just for a quick ride, sort of along the way, but the poor driver ended up driving around as tehre was no parking near the subway. We went from Stadium and Admiralty. We got off. Looked around, took the opposite train back. Took about 45 minutes in total looking at the 2 stations plus riding the train. Well worth the time spent.

I have not seen the subway stations in Moscow but the one in St. Petersburg is pretty swanky. I have photos so I will post on webshot later.

The "Summer Palace" that I refered is the business' English name. I can't type the Russian name here unless I find myself a Russian keybaord. It is not Konstantinovsky Palace.
This building looks relatively new. I had their web link on the last post. You should click on it and see for yourself.

When you travel with Alla on your trip, what did they do for your lunches on the 2 days?

Percy

For lunches , Alla had some places planned out for us and the lunches would take about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours.

I told her that just a simple lunch at Peterhof and then again at the Hermitage is all we would need.

But I did ask her that I wanted to go inside the Astoria Hotel ,kitty corner from St. Issac's Cathedral to sample some red and black Caviar.

It was at the Hotel Astoria that Hilter was going to have is Victory Banquet after he conquered St.Petersburg.

My reason was that I did not want to waste 3 hours having meals when I had many places on the list I wanted to see ( over and above what Alla had for the tour).....even if just for a photo op.!

Eschew

Obviosuly Alla had amde adjustments.

Day 1 was a boxed lunch, picked up the driver while we were inside. It was a hot lunch and since the weather was great, we ate at the Park and took about 20 minutes to half an hour.

Day 2 we had lunch in the banquet hall (Summer Palace). It took an hour but no one was complaining about wasted time as people were taking pictures of the place in between courses, taking pictures with the period costyumed hostess and admiring the palce.

Eschew

The final installment ...

Helsinki: We also booked Alla Tour for Helsinki and it was disappointing. The guide, Michael, was inexperienced and clueless. The drivers drove around looking for parking spaces instead of letting us off real quick and drove around the blocks and pick us up later. The guide didn’t know the Orthodox church was closed and spent time walking round looking for a way to get in while mumbling to himself that the place should be open, and some people followed him trying every side door and see if they were open.

We would have been better off to take a cab to the Market Square and explore on our own. Everything is easily accessible from Market Square. The ferry to the island is right there and runs every 15 minutes. The only real place Michael took us to that were not walking distance from the market square were the church in the rock and the Sibelius Park.

A pleasant surprise was the Helsinki City Hall. It is located right across from the market square. We had lunch at the various vendors/tents/stalls at the market square trying the various local specialties such as reindeer and fried smelts. After lunch, we were looking for a place to relieve ourselves and were told by the vendors to use the City Hall’s facilities.

We ended up spending over an hour there looking around. They have an exhibit called “FLUSH”. The exhibits are gender specific so the men won’t be able to visit the women’s exhibit and vice versa, as the exhibit is located right inside the individual gender specific facilities.

I have been taking different pictures of WCs for the last little while and they have never failed to amuse. It appears WCs could be culture specific. When I get around to it, my webshot posts will have a new album entitled “WCs around the world”. Pictures taken in the Helsinki City Hall’s facilities along with the FLUSH exhibits will be part of it.

Stockholm: The Princess docked so far away from everything that it took forever to get to where we wanted to go. Traffic congestion was terrible. If we had bikes, or walk, we could probably get there faster than by car.

Vasa Museum was interesting. As the story goes, it never pays to meddle if you do not have the expertise and that sunken ship, after only 20 minutes of sailing on the maiden voyage, would be a perfect example.

The Royal Armory could be interesting if you are interested in those kinds of things. Lots of belongings from the Royal family including a stuffed horse (taxidermy), children’s toys and clothing that the Royals had worn. Various medieval and 19th century weapons etc. There is a separate exhibit with all the Royal Carriages through the years in the “basement”.

They blocked off the crowd for the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace and we were sort of trapped there, which maybe a good thing as we cannot leave and ended up watching the whole changing of the guards, which was about half an hour. For whatever reason, the port visit was cut short by 2 hours so that we can have “scenic cruising” through the channel at the ship’s departure from Stockholm. We didn’t really have a lot of time in Stockholm.

Currency: We bought local currencies before we left so we had Denmark Krone, Swedish Krona, and Euros etc. We were surprised that quite a few places accept Euros and USD; and in Russia, they accept USD quite readily in many tourist places. Almost in all cases, the shop’s exchange rate is reasonable and competitive. You have to know the going rate so you can figure out which is a better deal as deals can be had based on varying exchange rates. Sometimes Euros gets you a better deal, sometimes USD will get you a better deal. It all depends on the rate the shop is using, plus the round up and round down. Best deals, always, is using the local currencies. But then, if you add in the fee and surcharge on the exchange rate the bank charges, I am not so sure.

We have seen people paid for meals in Euros and USD in Denmark. We paid for the souvenirs in Norway with Euros, and they accept USD as well. I bought a print at the Hermitage Museum with USD. I bought souvenirs at the Russian port authority shops with USD as well. Stockholm street vendors advertise their prices in Krona and Euro. We paid for our purchases in the Vasa museum with Euro as we did not have enough Krona.

If you are adventurous, and willing to take chances with the exchange rate, you can probably get away with carrying only USD and Euros, and won’t get into too much trouble; with the exception of maybe cab fares, but most cab drivers accept credit cards though they all preferred cash.

Percy

That is too bad about the guide in Helinski.

As a guide he has to know better.

At least he took you to Sebelius Park and then to the Rock Church.

( From the Rock Church did the guide , swing over a few block and come on to Mannerheiminte Street...the main street...and point all the major places to you as he drove you to the Market Square.?)

Very interesting about the FLUSH exhibit.!! I never saw that, they did not have it then .

Re: Stockholm:

Yes, they block you off to watch the changing of the guards.

But a half hour is not bad.

I do not know why they would cut short Stockholm by two hours.
Our cruise ship was delayed almost 2 hours coming into Stockholm ( due to winds) but the ship added 2 hours more to our departure

...so that was okay.

helpful hints about the currency, Thanks.

Ah Gee !!!..is the Trip Report over

jacketwatch

We had a short cab ride to the Vasa. You could see it from the dock. Perhaps you docked at a different spot from where we did.

Have they painted it? When we were there I 2007 they said they were researching the original color schemes.

Too bad about that guide. Did you tell Alla? I would hope they would be concerned about thins.