7 Night Baltic Sea July 19th - July 26th Cruise in Review version 2.0

Hello. This is my first attempt at a somewhat thorough review/thoughts on a cruise.

Who We Are: I'm Jason (35), My wife MJ (36) and our son, Jason (19 months)

What Cruise Did You Take: 7 night Scandinavia & Russia.

Ports: Stockholm, Sweden. Helsinki, Finland. St. Petersburg, Russia. Talin, Estonia. Riga, Latvia. Cruise was from July 19th to the 26th.

What Ship Were You On: Serenade of the Seas.

What Room Did You Book: We booked a D1 balcony. About a month or so before the cruise we were upgraded to a junior suite.

Airline: We took SAS. No complaints. Smooth flight both to and from. Each seat has a water bottle. I like that, don't have to wait for a drink.

Where We're From: New Jersey.

Why This Cruise: I love to cruise, my wife loves to travel to different countries, the perfect compromise This was a great itinerary with 4 countries we have never set foot in. Also we really loved our visit to Sweden in 2010 and wanted to see more of Scandinavia and definitely Russia.

Pre-Cruise: 2 nights in Stockholm at the Pop House Hotel.

After Cruise: 1 night in Stockholm at the Scandic Hotel Hasselbacken.

What This Review Will Cover: This cruise was a port intensive cruise and chosen for that so it will have a lot of opinion on our ports & excursions and of course the ship.

Day 1: Stockholm, Sweden. July 17th.

We stayed at the Pop House Hotel. This boutique hotel is the official hotel of the ABBA / Swedish Music Hall of Fame Museum. We really enjoyed this hotel/location. It is perfect for families because there is so much to do right outside your hotel. Options include Vatten Aquarium, Grona Land Amusement Park, Skansen open air museum and zoo, Vasa Museum, and plenty of restaurants & cafes.

The hotel also has a restaurant for lunch and dinner with outdoor seating. At night during dinner hours a DJ or live band plays outside the hotel in the outdoor seating area for the restaurant. They offer free breakfast in the morning which is mostly aimed for Europeans. American options are: scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage. I highly recommend this hotel especially if you are going with children or young adults. Plenty to do with no need for a taxi.

Pop House Hotel Pictures:

Entrance:

Outdoor Area:

Coming up: More sights from our first day in Stockholm and Day 2, which was a visit to the Skansen Open Air Museum & Zoo across the street from the hotel.

Thanks for doing a review. Looking forward to the rest of your review!

I'm looking forward to more of your review. Hope you get back to it soon :)

I'm planning a Baltic cruise in 2017 and debating between the Princess cruise or Royal Caribbean's :cool:

Looking forward to reading this, thanks for posting. :)

Is the review on another thread? Thanks!