7N Baltic Cruise Stockholm, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Copenhagen Royal Caribbean cruise

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Stockholm Sweden

After visiting the Vasa museum, we walked towards the Amusement park, but not to enter the park but to find the ferry stop to take the ferry to the old town of Stockholm. Walk was very pleasant.

In this video, I show you snippets of the ferry ride from the Amusement Park stop (near Vasa museum) to Gamla Stan (Old Town) of Stockholm, Sweden. Earlier, we had visited Vasa Museum. It was a beautiful day to be riding on the ferry. We had to buy tickets from an automated machine. A kind local taught us how to do so. I used my credit card, which required a pin.

The ferry staff checked our tickets at the point of boarding. There was a group of English-speaking tourists who tried to board the ferry. When asked for their ticket, they claimed that somebody said it was free. They weren't too happy when the ferry staff did not allow them to board.

 

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We arrived at Gamla Stan and started to walk around, using my phone GPS. We explored the old town on foot. Nice place. Came to this delightful square and saw the Nobel Museum. We didn't plan on entering the museum today. Maybe one day if I win the Nobel Prize, I could come here for dinner, but until then....

We made it to the Royal Palace and there was already a very large crowd at the best area to watch the change of guard. This looked to be a popular attraction and due to the crowds we could get into the parade square proper. Anyway, we stood outside and waited, since people were waiting. I guessed we could hope to see some type of march past of the guards. Am so glad we waited. The procession was very impressive. A military band on horseback! Awesome. Check out the video. After watching the parade go past, my kids were tired and wanted to go back to the ship. So we decided to do just that, even though it was still quite early. Plenty more to explore, but no matter, we'll leave that for another trip. We found the public bus and took it back to the ship.

The bus ride was pretty quick, though it would have been too far to walk. After we got onboard, we put down our stuff in the cabin and headed to the Windjammer for lunch. Didn't take much of lunch, other than this footage of getting some stir-fry. Yummy!

 

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Ship in Stockholm

After lunch, it was time to walk around the ship and look at the port. Spotted this red Stockholm bus bringing cruise passengers back to port. Didn't research about them but it sure is convenient for the bus to bring you all the way back here. Also caught the Silja Symphony in the distance - she was a cruise-ferry and is almost 60,000GT. Not small.

While walking around deck 5 outside, I take a closer look at this container ship opposite us. This was MS Heluan, a container ship, about 16,000GT. Plenty of container movement. This is not a dedicated cruise port.

And docked right behind the Serenade, was another ship! This was the Celebrity Eclipse, the 3rd Solistice Class cruise ship belonging to Celebrity Cruises. She is bigger than the Serenade. (around 122,000GT versus 90,000GT for the Serenade). Look at the two crew doing some painting work from a small boat. A lot of effort is required to maintain such a large ship.

 

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This footage taken from the Diamond Lounge, Serenade of the Seas, evening cocktail hours. The weather was rather warm outside and the main pool was well utilized. I was in the lounge to get some food and a beer. Nice.

After the drink and food from the Diamond lounge, I headed outside to watch the ship sail away from Stockholm. We were the third ship to leave, at around the same time. The Celebrity Eclipse had departed earlier, she was docked just behind us. Behind the Eclipse, there was a cruise ferry, couldn't get its name. And then there was us. Busy. It would take about 5 hours to sail out of the fjords!

 

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Main Dining Room Dinner

So, it was time for dinner. Tonight was one of the few nights (or maybe the only night) that we had dinner in the Main Dining Room. Well, since we bought the $100 speciality dining package for 5 dinners, that wouldn't come as a surprise. Still, we enjoyed the MDR, though we didn't stay for dessert. The menu items were very familiar as we have had meals in MDR many times in the past. This video shows you snippets of what we ate. My shrimp with rice wasn't too bad.

After dinner, I was chilling out the Centrum, listening to the live music for a bit. I was enjoying our 3-drink Diamond perk and got myself some whiskey on ice. Very nice.

 

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MDR

Mentioned earlier that we did not stay in the MDR for desserts as my kids wanted to head to the Windjammer to get their favourite waffle with ice-cream. When I got there, I discovered that tonight they had a live fruit skewer with white chocolate or dark chocolate station. This was awesome - the first time I have seen this on all my Royal Caribbean cruises. Had quite a few of these fruit sticks, though not all with chocolate. Then, I checked out the Scandinavian food section (this is the section of the Windjammer that they change the food every evening) and the selection was most interesting. For the live station, it was Pyttipanna. At that time I had no idea what it was, but tried it anyway. Now that I'm home and did some research, I know that Pyttipanna is Swedish for 'small pieces in pan'. A hodge podge type of dish, and often has a fried egg. Cool!

And for my final video while the ship was will in Stockholm waters, we go outside to the helipad after all that food and drink to admire the scenery. The time was about 2000hrs local time and it was still so bright! Come out to enjoy the views. Awesome.

 

[chimpchimp]

We DIY for the holiday, so here are the major components.

Airfare for the 4 of us via Turkish was under SGD$4K.
My parents flew SQ, so they paid more per pax, I think around $1.2K.

One pre-night stay in Copenhagen Hotel Bethel Family Room - 1,642DKK or SGD 330. Family room sleeps 4. My parents took a separate double room.

Cruise fare for 6 of us - US$5K or about SGD 6700. Note you can't just divide by 6 because the way they charged for this cabin was the first 2 pax was steep, but the next 4 pax was much cheaper. So it evened out.

Gratuities for cruise was USD13.5 per pax per day = USD 567 or SGD 770
You can say that this is compulsory.

We took a speciality dining package at US100 per adult, but this is optional.

For the land component, the most expensive was St Petersburg because we hired a guide and driver for the day. Cost was USD800.

For the other ports, we DIY-ed, using the Rick Steves guide. Didn't cost too much, well at least I didn't feel the pinch haha.

The above gives you an idea of the cost. Of course, you got to budget for other smaller items, but I would say generally food and drink are taken care of because we eat a lot on the cruise ship. When we go on land, we 'ta bao' food (oops, don't tell people), but we are almost like a plastic bag brigade. So we spend very little on food and drink when we are on shore, because there is already so much food on the ship you don't feel like eating (and paying) for the food anyway!

PS: I didn't include the London component - after cruise ended, we flew to London to spend a few days there, before flying back to Singapore.

Wow! Guess my road trip was cheaper than this... How did you find Tallinn? Nice place right? There were so many cruise ship passengers all over the place when I was there the last week of June. One even asked me the way to the cruise ship terminal.

 

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Wow! Guess my road trip was cheaper than this... How did you find Tallinn? Nice place right? There were so many cruise ship passengers all over the place when I was there the last week of June. One even asked me the way to the cruise ship terminal.

Yes, Tallinn was nice and well worth visiting. Which cities did you cover for your road trip?

 

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Tallinn, Estonia

TALLINN, ESTONIA
Today, the ship was docked in Tallinn, Estonia. There were at least 2 other cruise ships in port. Our plan was to walk, and walk some more. We relied heavily on Rick Steves Northern European Ports guide for how to walk, as well as navigated with my smartphone GPS. In this part 1, I show you how we walk from the cruise port all the way to the Fat Margaret Tower, which houses the Estonian Maritime Museum. We didn't visit the museum today. The walk took about 15 minutes, max. It felt good to walk. The weather was gorgeous.

We continue our journey. Using the Rick Steves travel guide, we start at Fat Margaret Tower and walk along Pikk Street. Fat Margaret was built in the early 16th Century. Called fat because she was the largest part of the city wall's fortifications, and also built to impress visitors coming by ship. So we just followed along Pikk Street till we came to the town square. It was early, around 1000hrs, and many shops were only starting to open.

 

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Tallinn, Estonia, continued

Continued from the previous video, from the Tallinn old town square, we headed in the direction of Olde Hansa, which is a restaurant featuring the medieval way of eating. This was a restaurant recommended by the cruise ship, so we came to take a look, though we decided not to eat here. Just outside the restaurant, there was this lady selling some spiced sweets/nuts, at 4 Euros per packet. She said it had medicinal value! Well, it tasted like sweet stuff to me. We followed the walking directions in the Rick Steve's guide and headed up this smaller and narrow walkway, towards the upper part of the Tallinn. This would bring us to a place called the Danish King's Garden (with plenty of shade) and we took a rest near the flower bed. Then, we headed towards the Orthodox cathedral, called the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, went inside briefly to take a look. And we walked on. To be continued in the next video.

Near the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, there were several very good viewpoints to see the lower city. We visited two of them, and to get there, you walked past many foreign embassies. This area was near the Parliament and the Government center of Tallinn. After taking in the sights, we started to make our way back down to the lower city center. We found a cafe that we walked past earlier this morning, and decided to stop there for some coffee and beer!

The Tallinn Old Town, including Toompea, is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. Her old town is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe.

After doing the walk (as per Rick Steve's guide), we returned to the Old Town square and went to an info counter to figure out how to take a tram to the Kadrioru Park. At this time, the old town square was much more bustling, as compared to earlier in the morning.

We managed to find the train stop and we paid for the tram ticket with cash (Euros). It was an interesting ride, and not far. Kind people on board the tram told us where to stop. And we walked around the park a bit. There was some large playground with amusement rides, but we didn't ride any. The plan was to take a taxi back to the cruise port but we had difficulty finding one. So we ending up walking all the way back! It was a rather long walk, I think almost 3km, but we made it. All that exercise was good! Was the park worth going? Well, probably not. May be better to spend more time wandering around Tallinn old town. More charm.

And we reach back to the port gates after a long, long walk from the Kaidrioru Park. Plenty of sun to go around. There were three ships in port, and ours was docked closest to the port gates. Walking is good, stretch the legs. Be mindful of the sun though. It was very bright. Bring a cap and sunscreen if needed.

 

[chimpchimp]

Yes, Tallinn was nice and well worth visiting. Which cities did you cover for your road trip?

Mine was quite extensive. I started my road trip in Krakow, Poland and ended in Tallinn, Estonia. So that means I travelled 4 countries throughout, including Latvia and Lithuania. Eastern Europe was actually quite cheap to travel about, quite surprising.

 

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Mine was quite extensive. I started my road trip in Krakow, Poland and ended in Tallinn, Estonia. So that means I travelled 4 countries throughout, including Latvia and Lithuania. Eastern Europe was actually quite cheap to travel about, quite surprising.

Sounds like a fun trip. I assume you rented a car to drive? Was it difficult to drive? Also was language any problem?

 

[chimpchimp]

Sounds like a fun trip. I assume you rented a car to drive? Was it difficult to drive? Also was language any problem?

Yes rented from local companies as they were much cheaper than big-name ones.

Surprisingly not that difficult to drive, but maybe when driving in the Old Towns, you need to be more alert and aware so that you can react quickly and be more quick-thinking.

Was given Tomtom GPS which did not work as well as my own pre-loaded Here maps so good to have backup GPS devices.

Road names are all as is, it is only when you encounter road signs like whether cars are allowed or not for example, that you will face a problem with because they are written in their own language. If really drove wrongly, just go ahead and then find some place to do 3-point turn.

No worries about being the only foreign driver there because there are bound to be many people like you, especially those coming from the Schengen area countries.

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