PHOTO REVIEW! Zuiderdam's Baltic Adventure

I just returned late last night from the 12 night Baltic Adventure on the Zuiderdam. I had the day off today and the weekend is ahead so I'm not wasting any time getting the review started.

As I usually do for my reviews, after a brief synopsis I will make entries journal-style, day by day, as I wrote them at time of occurrence [except omitting real names in order to provide anonymity]. I feel this will provide a similar effect to a "live from" thread; a type I much enjoy reading here on CC. After the daily accounts, I will provide a synopsis of thoughts at the end as well. There will be a smattering of pictures included as well!

Any questions, feel free to ask. If you were also on this sailing, please share your thoughts as well. Thank you for reading and enjoy!

Background:

This trip consisted of myself [34 y/o] and DH [49 y/o], sailing with my mother [63 y/o] and one of her close female friends [65 y/o], roundtrip from Copenhagen for 12 nights. Ports visited were Kiel, Germany; Tallinn, Estonia; St. Petersburg, Russia [overnight]; Helsinki, Finland; Stockholm, Sweden [overnight]; Warnemünde, Germany; and an overnight in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end. We stayed one night in a hotel in Copenhagen pre-cruise as well.

Day 1 [Copenhagen, Denmark]

06/09/2017 - 9.08am [GMT]

Currently on British Airways flight 214 about to land in London. I made it through the flight with the help of 10mg of Valium but still only slept for about 2 hours. They served a wonderful chicken curry for dinner. Seriously one of the best airline meals I've ever had in coach. After landing, we have about 2 hours before our flight to Copenhagen. At least Terminal 5 at Heathrow has some decent shops.

06/09/2017 - 10.52pm [CET]

Fabulous afternoon in Copenhagen to start our trip! Our hotel, "First Hotel Twentyseven", is in a great location and rooms are very clean [though small]. After checking in we went to Tivoli Gardens to look around and have dinner at Grøften. Since DH isn't too keen on rides we only did the old wooden roller coaster and the "Flying Trunks" which guides you through Hans Christian Andersen's faily tales in a manner similar to Disney's Small World ride.

Two things of note: the Danes are beautiful people and everything is expensive here. Seriously, how can there be so many attractive people in one country? And how does a postage stamp cost close to the equivalent of $3.75?

Enjoying your review

Looking forward to your thoughts & review. We also stayed at the "First Hotel Twentyseven" and loved the location.

First Hotel Twentyseven lobby

Hans Christian Andersen.

City Hall plaza

Weather Girls

Tivoli Gardens

Tivoli Gardens

All Tivoli Gardens

More Tivoli Gardens

Looking forward to your thoughts & review. We also stayed at the "First Hotel Twentyseven" and loved the location.

Enjoying your review

Thank you both for reading! I hope you enjoy.

I agree, this hotel has a wonderful location.

Thanks you for this review. I am really enjoying it. We will be on the Zuiderdam in June, 2018 following in your footsteps.

Thanks you for this review. I am really enjoying it. We will be on the Zuiderdam in June, 2018 following in your footsteps.

Thanks for reading!! You'll have a wonderful time on this itinerary. The ports are all amazing!

Loving your review via pictures.

We enjoyed Tivoli Gardens when we were there many years ago.

Day 2 [Copenhagen, Denmark and boarding ms Zuiderdam]

06/10/2017 - 11.40pm

This morning, after a wonderful breakfast at our hotel, we walked to the National Museum [Nationalmuseet] of Denmark to spend a couple of hours. They had some Viking rune stones that were pretty cool but a lot of the other exhibits were on archaeological finds like human remains and artifacts. There were not a lot of paintings and fine art. It was not awful or anything but once one has been to the Louvre and the Prado, most other "national" museums fail to impress.

After the museum we had some time so we wandered around the Strøget. It was packed! I wanted a tie bar from Georg Jensen but they were sold out. I will try again when we are in the city again at the end of next week. We boarded the Zuiderdam around 2.15pm with absolutely no wait. It's a lovely ships although I was shocked to see that there is no outdoor area on deck 10 next to the Crow's Nest. Only staterooms in that area on this ship. No forward smoking area on this ship as that area does not even exist as it did on the Westerdam.

Dinner was at a table for 8, fixed late seating. Besides the four of us, we sat with two retired teachers from Texas and two current teachers from Florida. The coq au vin was fantastic as was the chilled pear soup. Crème brûlée was mediocre. Tomorrow is Kiel!

City Hall

Rune stones at Nationalmuseet

More rune stones

Nationalmuseet

Me in Copenhagen

Strøget

Royal Copenhagen flagship store

Stateroom 4121 (Crewnews, please feel free to use this for your site as it is one of only two unobstructed oceanview category D staterooms on deck 4)

Atrium

Crows nest

Lido buffet

One of my favorite Stephen Card paintings ever.

Vista dining room

Loving your review via pictures.

We enjoyed Tivoli Gardens when we were there many years ago.

Thank you, dear!

Isn't Tivoli wonderful? I just loved it there.

Great pictures

Welcome Home and back to the Boards!

$3.75! Yikes!

I will savour your commentary tomorrow when I have the time to read all posts at leisure. Lovely photos! Appreciate your efforts!

Thanks for your review!

Welcome Home and back to the Boards!

 

$3.75! Yikes!

 

I will savour your commentary tomorrow when I have the time to read all posts at leisure. Lovely photos! Appreciate your efforts!

Thanks for your review!

Great pictures

Thank you all for reading! I'm happy you are enjoying the pictures!

I will post one more entry tonight and then I am off to bed haha. I'll continue over the weekend. XO

Day 3 [Kiel/Lübeck, Germany]

06/11/2017 - 10.54pm

We woke up a little later than planned this morning, almost 10.30am! and thus had to alter our plans a bit. We didn't even eat a proper breakfast...just a few pieces of melon, cheese, and coffee, as by the time we showered & dressed the breakfast buffet was closed. We originally planned to take the 11.44am train from Kiel to Lübeck but we ended up on the 12.44pm train instead. This means we only had about 3 hours in the city.

We went for lunch at Cafe Niederegger which had a most delicious quiche Lorraine! The service was quite slow though. After lunch we picked up some of the famous marzipan in the ship downstairs. It was all so beautifully make [and delicious]! Then we just wandered around the old town taking pictures of the architecture and the river before catching the train back to Kiel at 5.06pm.

When we got back to Kiel it was as if they rolled the sidewalks up; it was basically a ghost town so we took a few pics and went back to the ship around 7.00pm. Only N and W joined us for dinner tonight as J and E had an early dinner ashore. Pea soup has not been on the menu yet. The pan-seared veal w/ corn polenta was wonderful but the kiwi-melon soup was a bit bizarre with peppers and onions in it.

Kiel

Lübeck

More Lübeck

Love,love,love all of your beautiful photos!!!!!

Tivoli ahhhhhhhh🤗

Thank you soooo much for taking me down memory lane.

Denise 🤗