A Day in Berlin

While we had sailed all day Friday through fog and showers, the skies began to clear in the evening and we sailed into Warnemunde under clear, cool skies. The port of Warnemunde is part of the former East German city of Rostock, located on the Baltic coast. It is a very large port facility and is the closest port to Berlin, which is a three hour drive away. So, after a hearty breakfast, we boarded the buses and set off promptly at 8:30 for Berlin, highlight number two of this trip.

In total there were seven tours to Berlin, ranging from the Panoramic Berlin tour we were on to special tours such as the one to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which, surprising many people, is located in the suburbs of Berlin. Each bus had an escort from the local ground operator who was responsible for keeping everyone “fed and watered” on the drive to Berlin. Ours was Lisa, a young lady from Rostock who is working on her medical degree at one of Berlin’s many universities while polishing her English language skills during the summer as a tour escort.

After a comfortable three hour run down the Autobahn, and after passing under the runways of the international airport in a v-e-r-y long tunnel, we picked up Eva, our Berlin tour guide. Eva was old enough (Larry was too polite to ask how old) to have lived through the fall of The Wall and the reunification of Germany and, as we discovered, was a virtual walking encyclopedia of Berlin’s history from the rise of Hitler to the fall of The Wall. As we drove into the centre of the city Eva told us our first stop was not on the tour, but we were making it because “it’s the first question everyone always asks”. And with that, we stopped in front of a parking lot with a sign reading “Mythologie of The Fuehrerbunker”. We were stopped over top of the place where Hitler killed himself.

Eva explained that the Russians had dynamited the bunker, along with the remains of the Reich Chancellery, in 1950 and dynamited what was left again in the 1970’s. When in the early 1980’s an excavation project hit another part of it, they filled it full of concrete, sealing it forever. Her comment was “so what these tourists are looking at is a parking lot.” With that question answered, we moved on to the rest of the tour. And the first stop was the Holocaust Memorial which, ironically, was right around the next corner!

The memorial itself was designed by a New York architect and, above ground, consists of 2711 granite blocks of varying heights and elevations. Eva said the architect never explained the significance of the number 2711, but the Torah does have exactly that many pages. Probably not a coincidence. Below ground is a museum and documentation centre, but we did not visit there.

From the Memorial we continued on our walking tour toward the historical centre of Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate. The city of Berlin has both a north/south and an east/west axis consisting of two wide boulevards. The east/west boulevard is the Unter den Linden and passes through the Brandenburg Gate. Or at least that was the original layout. In fact it stops there and then continues on the other side under a different street name. The gate itself is a monument to some long ago Prussian military victory and as you can see from the picture, is a very impressive structure. The gate survived the war, although it was heavily damaged both by Allied bombing and by the Russian invasion of the city, and the figure of Victory and her chariot was virtually destroyed. During the Cold War, the Gate stood in the middle of a “no man’s land” just behind the Russian side of The Wall, which ran across the west side of the Gate. Eva showed us aerial pictures from the 1970’s and it looks like an “island” in the middle of an empty field of rubble. Today it is, of course, a major tourist stop.

Continuing on from the Gate we proceeded a few blocks to the Reichstag, which is the seat of the German Parliament. Eva explained how in 1933 Hitler was, quite legally, made Chancellor of Germany in the Reichstag, and then a few weeks later, had it burned down, allegedly by a Dutch anarchist, as a pretext to dissolve the parliament and declare marshal law. And the rest, as they say, is history. Curiously, while it stood in the same “no man’s land” as the Gate, it was the only building in this part of Berlin associated with the Nazis that the Russians did not dynamite in 1950. Of course they also did not use it either so it stood as a scorched, heavily damaged shell until after reunification in 1992, when it was restored and rebuilt.

Re-boarding the bus, we spent the next hour or so on a slow-speed driving tour around the central part of Berlin, crossing back and forth over “The Wall”. The route of the wall is marked as a double row of cobble stones along the roads and sidewalks, so while only a few sections of it still remain standing, as monuments, it is possible to get a real understanding of how it divided the city, sometimes running right down the middle of a street or sidewalk! Here are some pictures from this part of the tour:

A memorial for people who tried to escape from East Berlin

The Siegesalle or Victory Column

A view of the River Spree as it winds through Berlin

The first part of the tour ended with lunch at the Westin Grand Hotel, located in what had been the heart of East Berlin and where we met an old friend from Crystal, Reka Nehls. Reka was the former Shorex Manager on Symphony and she was also on Serenity with us for the “Family Cruise” in 2007. Daniel, our Shorex Manager, had told us a couple of days before that Reka had left Crystal and was now working for the ground operator Crystal uses for the Warnemunde/Berlin tours “so you will probably see her”. We bumped into her in the hotel lobby, and once she got over the shock of seeing us, she ran over and wrapped us both in big hugs, much to the surprise of our guides/escorts, Eva and Lisa! “Old Home Week” Version 2.0!!!

After lunch we continued with our driving tour through much of what had been East Berlin. Along the way we passed many fine examples of 1950’s “Stalinist” and 1960’s “Communist German” architecture in the form of long rows of apartment buildings that looked remarkable only for their bland sameness. Eva explained that in the “socialist paradise” of East Germany everyone was equal and everyone got to live in equally drab and boring apartments. Much has been done to spruce up and brighten the exteriors in the last ten to fifteen years, but there is no getting around the “cookie cutter” appearance of entire neighbourhoods.

Larry at 'The Wall' art gallery

After a stop at the longest surviving section of The Wall, now turned into an art gallery, our final stop was Checkpoint Charlie, the only “legal” means of crossing from East to West Berlin during the Cold War. This was the site of the first major confrontation between Russia and the Western Powers when the Russians first physically divided the city with barbed wire fences in the late 1950’s. The post-war agreement gave the troops of all four “occupying” powers free access to all areas of the city. When the Russians denied access, the American Commander called in the tanks and an 18 hour standoff ensued, with Russian tanks lining the road on one side and American tanks lining the road on the other. The end result was that troops from each side could only cross at this checkpoint, which was essentially turned into an armed camp on each side. Nowadays, as you can see, it’s a tourist attraction. The original checkpoint buildings were moved to the American Museum in another part of Berlin and what’s left has been pretty much “Disney-fied”!! There is, however, a series of “billboard” displays across from the checkpoint detailing much of what went on there during the Cold War, some of which was pretty frightening and tough to look at. Later, we visited the American Museum, which included displays from the early days of the occupation as well as the Berlin Airlift.

Airlift Memorial at Templehof Airport

After driving through the former American Sector of Berlin, which includes the most upscale residential areas of Grunewald and Zehlendorff, we ended at the Charlottenburg Palace where we said goodbye to Eva and headed “home” to Serenity, arriving about 8:30. Our overriding impression of Berlin is of wonder. According to Eva, 80% of the city and over 90% of the buildings were heavily damaged or destroyed during the war. Large tracts of it, almost entirely in the East, were left to “rot” for almost 10 years after the war, and still more were bulldozed to make way for The Wall and the 1000 metre wide “no man’s land” around it. Today, 23 years after The Wall fell and only 17 years after Germany was reunified, many of its historical buildings have been re-built, many from the original plans, which survived the war, and it is a fully built-out modern city. All in all another very long day, but a tour we are both really glad we took.

Poppies in the field on the way back to Rostock

Windmill farm - one of many along the way

Sunset over Warnemuende

Tomorrow, Copenhagen and our LAST full day tour of this segment.

Surviving Helsinki and Getting a Little Rest

After three very busy days in Russia, we were looking forward to a shorter tour so we could relax a little. Sure, it was only a 4 ½ hour tour, but it was Sea Kayaking! And Larry wasted no time, or breath, making sure that everybody on board, save Captain Glenn, knew that ‘She’s trying to kill me!!’ And of course, the Lido guys had to give him one last handshake – just in case.


After a short ride outside of Helsinki to where the kayak company was located, we got suited up. Not as severely as that time in Alaska where Larry thought he looked like the Michelin Man, but we still had the splash skirts and life jackets to get into. Then we were assigned our kayaks. Larry was a little iffy about going by himself originally, but when we found that most of the two-man kayaks were a little short to fit his legs comfortably, he decided to try paddling by himself. As you can see, he got the hang of it pretty quickly…

Our start and end point - looks like Georgian Bay with fewer waves

We paddled a total distance of about 5 km over the 3 hours, with a stop on an island for a snack break – homemade sandwiches and juice boxes. The only person who got wet was our head guide who deliberately rolled his kayak so we could see the wrong way and the right way to turn back right side up. Nobody wanted to test their abilities after that since the water was only (a balmy to the Finns) 10 degrees C.

All in all, it was great fun and Larry had to admit at the end that it wasn’t as scary as he thought it might be. That just means he’ll be up to the challenge next time we have the opportunity to go kayaking….maybe in Antarctica?

Oh, and when we sat down to dinner that night in the Dining Room, Ross from the Lido stopped by, stuck out his hand to Larry and congratulated him on his survival. It made Larry’s evening.

The next day, Friday, was our final sea day for this cruise. The time seemed to have flown by so quickly, that we decided that if we were getting off in Copenhagen, we would have felt gypped out of a proper Crystal cruise. We were so busy every day, and even when we did get some breathing room, we didn’t have enough time to relax. We know, tough life!

We did have a visitor, though.  As the weather was quite nice, we had our balcony door open for a while in the afternoon, and look who decided to stop by:

We didn’t do much – morning lecture, Cuisine of the Sun buffet for lunch, an afternoon lecture on Larry’s schedule but a trip to the Salon for Monica. After all, we had to look particularly spiffy for the formal evening, since we were being presented at the Crystal Society Party for our 20th cruise. That’s why we had gone down to visit Jane earlier in the cruise. Here’s the official photo:

Who knows, we’ll all have to keep our eyes open for the next edition of Passport; maybe the photo will show up in it!

After the party we had dinner with our officer – who had changed after the first formal night as the Chief Accountant went on holiday – and discovered that our officer host was the Chief Accountant we had sat with on two separate cruises before. It was really nice to renew acquaintance with Yvonne.

So much for our relaxing day at sea. Next up is our full day trip to Berlin, the second highlight of this first part of the trip. But we'll finish off with another sunset on our way toward Warnemuende at around 9:45 p.m.

To Russia on Serenity – June 6 - 8

After a VERY slow and stately sail (at 7 knots) from Tallinn, we arrived in St Petersburg, Russia very early Monday morning. When we were here in 1996 we were docked in the industrial harbour and a favourite balcony game was playing “guess which ship will sink first” and “look at the pretty colours floating on the water”! Since then the Russian government has built a beautiful new port facility that can accommodate as many as six large cruise ships at a time. There were five ships docked when we arrived, which when combined with the three ships docked “in town” near the Hermitage, made for a busy day.


As we had been here before we decided early on to “do things differently” this time. One of those different things was the 18 hour day trip to Moscow on Tuesday, so we started off slowly on Monday with an afternoon tour to Peterhof, the Summer Palace of Peter the Great. The advantage to this is we got to sleep in and then have breakfast served in our cabin by Neil, our Butler. Such a relaxing way to start the day.

Promptly at 1:45 we set off on the bus expecting an hour’s drive to Peterhof. And five minutes later, after a brisk 200 yard drive, we got off the bus and boarded a hydrofoil for the 20 minute ride to Peterhof! Our guide told us along the way that to drive would take “one hour there, but two hours back. If we were lucky!”, so this was definitely “the better way”! As the name would imply, Peterhof was the summer palace built in 1710 by Peter the Great, who succeeded (we think) Ivan the Terrible as Tsar of Russia in 1703. We think. The line of succession and the timeline gets very confused and gives us a headache. We can’t remember now if Peter the Great was succeeded by Peter the Merely Okay, or was it Catherine the First, or Catherine the Second, whose real name was Martha and who was the Polish Cleaning Lady. As we said, it gets very confusing. Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, it is a very beautiful place, especially considering it was virtually destroyed during WW 2!!!

Monica outside Peterhof Palace, complete with RadioGuide receiver and 'ears on'

Dinner with Jane that evening was really nice, good food and conversation. She has the same sense of humour as we do so there was quite a bit of laughing going on…

We would say that Tuesday morning dawned “sunny and bright”, but since the bus left the ship at 5:30AM, after five hours sleep the night before, neither of us (or anyone else on the bus actually) is really sure whether the sun was shining or not!!! It was so early even the native St Petersburgers (?) were not out of bed yet, so it was a quick ride to the train station where we boarded the high speed train for Moscow. Even at an average speed of 200 KMH, four hours is a l-o-n-g time on a train in seats that don’t recline even a bit! It was, however, an interesting experience and the scenery along the way varied from flat to flatter, with occasional flat areas and lakes thrown in for a change of pace. The odd time we would run past a little “village” of what looked like weekend cottages with gardens. One of our tour guides explained that these are dachas, very small houses where the city-dwellers could go for the weekend and holidays.

Russian countryside and a larger home

Unlike many cities, the Moscow train station is not “downtown” so we really didn’t realize we had arrived until the train stopped. Then the fun started. There were six groups from the ship, numbering about 200 people, give or take a bit, all being shepherded through the very busy Moscow Station by our Moscow guides. Whoever coined the phrase “controlling tourists is like herding cats” must have had cruiseship passengers in mind! Fortunately we had one of the Shorex people as our ship escort and a head guide who we think took lessons at the “Joseph Stalin School of Tourist Guiding” so amazingly we all made it to the buses without losing anyone! After being introduced to Mikhail, our individual bus guide, we set off. For a coffee break! We had been sitting on a train half asleep for four hours! We’re not sure if the break was for the guides or us!

The first stop on our tour was a walk through Red Square, the very HEART of the Evil Empire (in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan)! We really weren’t sure what to expect, but this wasn’t it. The first thing our guide did was set us straight on the name. The original Muscovites called this the “beautiful square” and the Old Russian word for “beautiful” is “krasny”, which for reasons unknown, in “New Russian” came to mean “red”. So the name Red Square had NOTHING to do with Communism. Such a disappointment. Another myth shattered! In reality, Red Square is an enormously wide boulevard, with The Kremlin on one side and the GUM Department Store on the other and St Basil’s Cathedral one on end. About in the middle along the Kremlin Wall is Lenin’s Tomb. From what we could see of it, this is an impressive red (what else?) marble structure, but unfortunately we couldn’t see much as it was covered in (wait for it) SCAFFOLDING! So what else is new for us?? But not just any scaffolding, but scaffolding for a stage for a rock concert. By Shakira of all people! As Larry said “for a Cold War kid with memories of Walter Cronkite reporting on May Day Parades, of rockets and tanks on Red Square while the grey, grim Politburo watched from atop Lenin’s Tomb” a Shakira concert seemed somehow sacrilegious!!!! As an aside, we were travelling with another couple from our table and Brian served in the US Air Force in Germany before 1992. Larry asked what his thoughts were after seeing Red Square. His comment was “if I had known it looked like this I would have been a lot less worried.”

Red Square - the red building is the Russian Historical Library and the long one on the right is the GUM (formerly government workers only) Department Store

Lenin's Tomb

The famous St. Basil's Cathedral

From Red Square, our next stop was THE KREMLIN!!! And another lesson in Russian. The word “kremlin” actually means “palace” in Old Russian. As our guide put it, there are kremlins all over Russia! Entering through the main gate the first building you see is the former headquarters of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This is a squat, grey concrete and glass building that fairly screams “COMMUNIST ERA” and in fact looks terribly out of place. Our guide, who has been a guide going back to the days of Communism, even commented that building it in the grounds of the Kremlin was probably not a very good idea. Over the next three hours we toured all around and through the various buildings. Surprisingly all but a couple are open to the public, and even more surprising, are the SEVEN churches inside the grounds! While they were used as museums during the Communist era, they were not destroyed (as so many were) and are once again active congregations. Our final stop in the Kremlin was the Armoury Museum, the only building in the Kremlin complex that still has a Red Star on top.

The only building where we could take photos inside was the Kremlin Palace, which was the Moscow home of the Tsars and rulers going back into the 15th Century.

Clocktower on the Kremlin wall

The building housing the offices of the President and Prime Minister

One of the older churches within the Kremlin

Inside the Kremlin Palace

After leaving the Kremlin we were taken to The Writer’s Club, one of Moscow’s best restaurants, for dinner. Let’s just say that after that meal we are really glad they didn’t take us to Moscow’s WORST restaurant, and leave it at that. We then returned to the train for the four hour trip back to St Petersburg, getting back to our cabin shortly after sunset at 12:30 AM!

A long day, hard on the feet (didn’t have a pedometer so we’re not quite sure how far we walked) and the backside (in the train) but worth it to see what the Russian city that had the worst reputation for the longest time is truly like. And really, it is just like any other big city, but with more old buildings. Yes, we did see at least one McDonald’s, a Subway and any number of western clothing and shoe stores…So it isn’t as different any more as you might think. Actually we both commented that it looked just like any other large city we have ever visited. Except for the Cyrillic alphabet names on all the buildings, of course! Still haven’t figured out if the character that looks like this, 3, is an R or an S or maybe something else entirely. We just know it is NOT a number!

Our last day in St. Petersburg was spent at two locations of the Hermitage. We were very fortunate that Crystal is able to arrange some tours that are not usually open for cruise ship tours – this one was to the Repository, the location of much of the climate controlled storage of items not on display. It is also where much of the lab and restoration work on these pieces is done. There is quite a plan for expanding the Repository to include administration for the 3 million items they have, and they are funding it in part by holding tours, mainly for school children and a few other groups.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside of the Repository since it is under high security and some of the items are not even catalogued yet. Most of what is on display in the Repository is of Russian origin, while the Hermitage showcases western European artwork. We saw 15th and 16th century icons from Russian Orthodox churches, statues, paintings and sculptures from the 18th century to present day, and even a sultan’s tent that had been presented to Catherine the Great. The tent is quite interesting, as it had been given to the Tsarina but since she had no space to put it up, it was folded and put into storage – where it stayed for about 300 years. The Repository has it on display over top of a glass roof and walls so you can actually stand inside of it. A truly interesting exhibit.

After the morning tour, it was off to lunch in a restaurant by the river, close to the Admiralty Building. The menu was very similar to what we had had for dinner in Moscow, but a little more substantial. It seems that the Russian cuisine served to tourists is a little short on inventiveness… Who knew there was such a thing as Chicken Stroganoff??

After lunch, we arrived at the Hermitage Museum just in time for our 2:30 timeslot. With quite a number of ships in port, you can imagine how busy it was at the tour group entrance. We had thought that 2 hours wouldn’t be enough to see all the exhibits on the list, but, as we discovered, it was basically the same tour we had done on our previous visit with a couple of minor changes: Some of the priceless artworks are now a little better protected (i.e. all the Rembrandts are now behind special glass) and the little old ladies who provided “security” in all the rooms were a little younger and better dressed. And wearing shoes instead of bedroom slippers!

We haven’t mentioned the plainclothes security force yet, although we noticed it in every room of every museum we were in. One of our tour guides told us that, since in Russia the old age pension is a flat sum per person, not based on time worked or income level, many people have to work an extra job to augment it so they can live above the poverty line. And since there are very many more women in Russia than men (about 13 to 1), there are a lot of widowed ladies who need the money, hence they are working in the museums, making sure that the tourists don’t break the rules – or the exhibits.

At the end of the tour, we headed back to the ship and our first dinner at Silk Road. After the show we spent a little while in the Sunset Lounge where the sun finally went down after 11:00 (we even got photos) then headed for bed. After all, our morning of kayaking was coming up in Helsinki!

A Day at Sea and Return to Tallinn

Yesterday (Saturday) was the first of our two days at sea for this first leg of the cruise. Of course, it ended up no less busy than any other day. Three lectures were lined up, all of them interesting, but Monica’s spa appointment conflicted with the astronomer’s first presentation. We’ll have to see if we can pick it up later on the TV.


Since there were major upgrades done to a few areas of the ship during the drydock two weeks ago, here are a few photos of the new stuff:

Pool Deck new furniture, same as Symphony

Looking through the end window of the 'new' Apropos

Penthouse Stateroom from the verandah side

From the entrance way

It was also formal night and the Captain’s Welcome Aboard Cocktail Party. Unfortunately, Captain Glenn couldn’t give his usual greeting – earlier in the afternoon, we noticed that we had sped up considerably from the 8.2 knots we needed to travel to get to Tallinn on time. That was because we were suddenly doing the full 22 knots to get there earlier to offload a medical emergency. We had received the okay to dock earlier and stay overnight, so we arrived at the pilot station just about the time the captain would have been making his speech. In the end, they cleared the whole ship early, giving the passengers permission to go ashore and visit town in the evening. (By the way, the person who had to be evacuated is now okay.)

We didn’t leave the ship. It was formal night, and the Crystal Ensemble was performing one of our favourite production shows, Million Dollar Musicals. So we dropped into the Avenue Saloon after the show and ended up sitting with Jane, the Crystal Society Hostess, for a little while. She has invited us to dinner with her at Prego on Monday.

This morning, we had our walking tour In the Footsteps of Peter the Great. Along with a visit to the old town, we also went to his original cottage and the palace he built for his wife, Catherine I. The building containing the Estonian President’s home and offices stands right between the two, and is surrounded by parkland that used to be the estate Peter the Great bought (yes, bought, not took) when he first came to Tallinn.

Peter the Great's original cottage outside Tallinn

Catherine's Palace that Peter built for his wife

And to finish it all off, we noticed these sheep grazing just off the pier, and couldn't resist the photo op.


Returning to the ship, we prepared for our crazy-busy evening. Captain’s Quarters for cocktails at 5:15, followed by the show at 7:00, the Cruise Critic cocktail party and 7:45 and dinner at Prego (yes, we’ll be there two days in a row!) at 8:30. We’re actually looking forward to the next three days in St Petersburg to get some “rest”!!!

Stockholm and the Swedish Countryside

As expected, we woke early after our first night on board. Even with getting some rest on the plane, it had been a long day and we weren’t quite past our jet lag. So, even though we had set the alarm for 6:30 in the morning to be ready for an 8:45 tour, we found ourselves awake not long after 5:30 and at breakfast at 7:00.


Pretty much all of the regular Lido and Pool guys are here and were more than glad to see us. And they all asked how everyone is at home, in between making sure there was absolutely nothing else they could do for us.

Our tour today took us into Stockholm from the port, where we passed some of the important buildings, including the Royal Palace, where, according to our guide, Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding last year drew 500,000 people to watch the ‘balcony scene’. That’s not a bad turnout when you consider that the population of greater Stockholm is only 1.2 million.

Our first stop was Sigtuna, a town dating back to 980 AD (a number none of us is likely to forget given the number of times one of our tour group had asked about it and confused it with 1980), and the first Christian capital of Sweden. It still holds the ruins of the first church, and still standing is the Church of St. Mary that was erected around 1200.

It is a picturesque town, and not only for tourists. It is not very far from the main airport for Stockholm at Arlanda, and many people working at the airport live in the area. They must be extremely well-paid, though, since the house prices we saw in the real estate office windows seemed almost ridiculous even given the current exchange rate is 6 Krone per Dollar.

After leaving Sigtuna, we headed for our lunch and visit to Skolkloster Palace. This palace is quite large and was built by a very wealthy nobleman (not royalty) on the shores of Lake Malaren as a summer home, one of 11 he had all over Europe. It seems he had one too many houses, since he apparently only ever stayed here for 30 days all together before he died. In fact, when his descendents donated the building, contents and grounds to the Swedish government they made quite an archaeological find – it seems that there was one very large unfinished room upstairs that was still under constructions when he died. The workmen, believing that they would no longer be paid, left all their tools in the middle of their work and walked out. The family had locked the door on this room and never mentioned it again – for about 300 years. So when the Swedish cultural authorities came to look over the place, they found this room exactly as it had been left, so they knew precisely what kinds of tools and building methods were being used on the building. By this time, of course, a lot of repair was needed, so they were able to do these exactly the same way as the original building was done.

Unfortunately, although there was a lot to see, including a very complete armoury (rifles, pistols and even suits of armour and chain mail), there were no photos allowed inside the building, so we had to be content with a few shots of the outside.

The old convent on the grounds

The view up Lake Malaren

It was a nice day out seeing the Swedish countryside. We got back to our stateroom in time to change for dinner and find an invitation to visit the Crystal Society hostess, Jane, at her desk. By the time we finished talking to her, we had already started out sail out from the harbour. Stockholm itself is 13 connected islands, and the whole archipelago is about 1,100 of them. The sail in and sail out are among the most picturesque in the world and take just about 5 hours to complete. Here are a few photos:

After dinner we went to the Welcome Aboard show and had our first chance to talk to Rick Spath, the Cruise Director. He sends his regards to everybody, too. Later in the evening, we also met Captain Glenn who was quite pleased to see us again and happy that we will be staying on for the North Cape trip as well.

Tomorrow’s a sea day – spa appointments and lectures. Since we only have two sea days, there’s a lot to be crammed in. More on that tomorrow.

A Very Long Day 1…

The first day of every cruise adventure is a long one, and this was no exception. We left the house at 4:30 Wednesday afternoon (10:30 Stockholm time) and as we type it is 9:30 Thursday evening Stockholm time. After a busy day, we’ve unpacked, unwound and are sitting on our balcony with a glass of wine – well, some of us have a glass of wine – watching the sun set over the port of Stockholm. According to Reflections, the sun will set at 9:58 tonight; of course, it will rise again at 3:41 in the morning, so there WILL apparently be some night tonight. The nights are starting out short, and will get shorter as we go along.


Our flight to London was uneventful, although different from usual. Because we were on the late flight, we were served a buffet dinner in the Business Class Lounge before boarding to allow us more time for sleeping. Nice idea. The flight is just under 7 hours, and we managed to spend about 3 of them in some sort of sleepy state. Our second flight, from London to Stockholm, took about 2 hours and was also quite nice. It was amazing to see just how narrow the separation between the North Sea and the Baltic really is. No more than a few miles (at least from 39,000 feet up). We landed at 4:00 this afternoon and once all the luggage was collected, boarded the bus for our 45 minute drive to the port.

Once on board, the rush started up again. We got into our stateroom in time for our Butler, Neil, to come and introduce himself, followed almost immediately by our cabin stewardess, Vesna, and then the luggage. Our doorbell doesn’t ring anywhere near this much at home! While we were unpacking (after 5:00) we realized that it wasn’t open seating dinner but regular seatings, and our dinner was at 6:00. So we stuffed our clothes in the closet and the drawers and ran off to the Dining Room.

Our tablemates are all very nice; one couple from California, and the other from Virginia. If we have a fourth couple, we didn’t see them today…We’re the most seasoned Crystal cruisers at our table. It looks like it will be a good group and we should have some fun.

As to staff we’ve seen so far (and of course, we haven’t been to the Lido or the Pool yet), there’s Victor (the Food and Beverage Manager) Natalia (bartender in the Avenue Saloon), Giuseppe (the Maitre d’ in the Dining Room), and, although we haven’t talked to him yet, we’ve caught a glimpse of Lorinc (former bartender, now sommelier). We have seen Raymond from the pool deck in his ‘other job’ serving canapés in the bars before dinner, so we’re sure that by tomorrow breakfast, all the Lido guys will be looking for us.

Well, it’s been a long day (or two) and we’ve got an 8:45 tour in the morning. We’re signing off now and hitting the hay. Not only do we have an all-day tour, but we lose an hour of sleep tomorrow night. Good thing Saturday is a sea day…

Gearing Up for the 30th Anniversary Cruise - Baltic and North Cape

We're back again, in the midst of packing for another adventure.  This one will be in celebration of our 30th anniversary (May 30).  We'll be gone for 26 days in June on back-to-back cruises with Crystal Serenity.  So along with packing for weather ranging from 4 degrees to 25 degrees C according to the latest weather forecasts, we've also had to finish the gardening and make sure a number of other things are taken care of.
It looks like everything's on track so far.

Of course, we can't start a trip without Thomas's input, and we got some flack the last time that the photo didn't have him anywhere near a suitcase, so - here's the latest:

We'll be leaving on June 1 and getting back on June 27.  As usual, we'll post to the blog as often as we can, although we'll be quite busy on the Baltic leg with only 2 sea days out of 11 and lots to see in all of our ports of call.  According to Crystal, we'll be incommunicado for a few days during the North Cape voyage, due to the position of the ship vs. communication satellites, but there will be fair warning before that happens.

We're getting really excited about this trip, especially as Serenity has just gone through a major drydock that included upgrading a lot of the decor in the staterooms and shops.  She just left Hamburg yesterday on her way to Stockholm, where we'll join her on June 2.

As usual, we hope you'll enjoy following along with us.