OnVacation11

Our favorite place for breakfast in our balcony !

On the sea days we always eat in the MDR as the menu usually has a few items we like and it is a nice, leisurely way to spend an hour followed by coffee and desert at IC.

Another plus is that the Ocean docks right in the center of St. Petersburg. Getting off the ship for independent excursions was a non-event.

At night you can sit on deck at 10pm with a drink, getting a tan and watch locals stroll by the river. Some people on our cruise stayed up late enough to watch the bridges being open at night.

Great sense of humor ! Thanks for the pictures. Now I have to find a toy puffin to take on my Iceland cruise...

We really enjoyed our Alaska cruise on the Pacific Princess in 2009 when she did an extended 14 day itinerary.

I am not sure if there will be as many kids sailing on her as there will be on larger ships.

St. Petersburg - Day 2

 

 

We then boarded the bus and were given hot sandwiches to eat on the way to our next stop. She called them "pancakes" - I would call them thick crepes stuffed with a nice big chicken breast and they had mayonnaise or some such dressing inside. They came in a foil pouch to keep them hot and were quite good. You had to cut them up with a fork and knife. We saw this same brand of sandwich all around the city - a chain restaurant for carry out food. I wished we had these on day one, much better than the sit down food! We also were given a bag lunch with an apple, an apple juice box and a chocolate bar. All of the chocolate bars were different and we shared and swapped pieces.

I definitely agree about the lunch at the restaurant. Last year our group was very late to the restaurant because of traffic and they run out of food for about 1/3 of the people. They had to wait for about half hour while the kitchen scrambled to fix them a meal. We all agreed that another "fast food' lunch would be better than wasting so much time at the restaurant for a mediocre meal.

Reykjavik was listed as 1 of the 8 best coffee cities in the world.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/travel/best-coffee-cities/index.html?iref=allsearch

We just received an upgrade on our upcoming Ocean cruise from Obstructed View to Ocean View.

We did have 4 upgrades on some of our 20 previous cruises from Obstructed View to a Balcony. Some of them were very last minute.

We usually stay at the Hampton Inn Plantation before our Christmas cruise. As soon as we get in, we sign up for the 1st shuttle departure at 10:30am or 11:00am as the later departures are sometimes delayed due to the traffic at the port. They do have 2 shuttles running on busy days.

Interesting - think I will use Alla so am wondering if anyone has had a discount for cash. Do American Express travellers cheques count as cash or are they too old of a way of payment. I have at least up to 2 yrs ago cashed them on board ship.

We used Alla in SPB last June and paid in cash on 2nd day. We did not get a discount for paying cash. We enjoyed our 2 days very much despite the horrific traffic jams on day 2 which delayed our lunch until 2pm and rushed the last stop at St. Peter and Paul fortress.

We were on the same cruise. Thanks for bringing back great memories. It indeed seems like the cruise was months, not weeks ago !

I also have bucket list of longer cruises (3 weeks +) for retirement. Right now the top spot would be the new 3 week Japan cruise offered by Princess followed by a cruise around South America (FLL to LA).

We will be disembarking from Ruby Princess on February after our 5-day Eastern Caribbean. We will be in a suite so I think we get some priority for disembarking, and we will carry our own bags. Our flight from FLL is at 9:45 a.m. - when I booked it I thought that would be sufficient time to get to the airport but now I'm getting concerned. The flight back to YVR is not direct so I would hate to miss the connection in ATL. Opinions and comments, please.

We just disembarked Emerald on Dec.19 as Walk-off #2. There were 2 other ships in port. We walked off the ship at 7:10, cleared immigration in 10 minutes, grabbed a taxi and were sitting at our gate at FLL at 8:30am for 10:15am flight.

Your milage may vary :)

I was looking forward to trying the roasted veggies, but I love beets and the couscous sounds good too. I'll try just about anything and will wait to make up my mind until I've tasted things.

 

Thanks for the updates. Haven't been on a ship with an IC yet, and am looking forward to it.

They had the couscous salad on the Emerald this past week and it was very tasty (for us). The traditional chicken salad was there too but no shrimp salad.

I think that Generoso is now on board...

Yes, Generoso was the Maitre'd on this cruise.

Thanks for such detailed trip report. We are leaving in 1 week for very similar itinerary on the Ocean Princess. Can't wait !

Hello,

Can anyone recommend a good resturant in central Copenhagen for lunch that serves herring and/or open face sandwiches?

Thanks.

Eva

Had a very nice visit from the upgrade fairy this week. I had booked an obstructed view on Emerald Deck. I received an upgrade notice, which now has me in a aft balcony cabin on deck 11.

 

Has anyone got experience of cabin B755 on The Ruby?

 

Thanks

:D:D

Gotta love those OV cabins ! The only time we received true upgrades where when we booked OV and got assigned a balcony (some at the last day before the cruise started).

Our 1st Princess cruise was on the Fair Princess in 1995 - 10 days round trip from San Francisco to Alaska. I still remember sailing under the Golden Gate bridge on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

On all of our previous visits to SF, the bridge was fogged in all day. We got lucky on that cruise !

Is this a perk or is it available to all passengers in their staterooms?

It is an Elite perk but many of the food items are available at the buffet and you can order room service tea so you can assemble your own afternoon tea.

I found a picture of our balcony afternoon tea set-up from Emerald Christmas 2011. Scones are missing as they did not fit on the table.

Looking forward to doing this again in couple of weeks.

For example, you can have the following on your plate:

 

Compare that to scones at Claridges in London...

Of course there is a bit of price difference ;)

Out of curiosity, what do they bring you for afternoon tea when you order it from room service (we are in a suite next year)? I know I have asked this before but I can't seem to remember.

We are Elite so we also can and do order afternoon tea in our cabin. You can order the whole enchilada: tea, scones, sandwiches, pastries and cookies or just the select items you like. We usually stick to sandwiches and scones as the pastries and cookies are just OK and not worth the extra calories to us.

But we chose to buy the Princess transfer for our upcoming British Isles cruise. Sure, we get in at 8am and will probably have to wait till 9:30am for the first bus out. But whoa nelly I do not trust myself to drive on the left hand side all the way down to Southampton. And the private car fares were more expensive than the cruise line transfers. And taking the Tube and rail was an option but not thrilling with luggage.

 

You may not have to wait that long... Last year your flight got into LHR at 6am and the Princess rep was there with a minivan for us and other 2 couples. We were in our hotel shortly after 8 am !

They purchased the decorations at Walmart.

There are all sorts of designs; letters of the alphabet, flowers, wreaths, santas, snowmen.

There is an adhesive attached to the back. Just peel off the plastic covering and slap them up on the wall. It is only when you peel them off that you notice that the dye from the adhesive remains behind.

 

I'm afraid that we are going to find many more this week. Some of our passengers are going to have some very expensive Christmas cruise memories.

On the Emerald, our next door neighbors had plastic rubbery letters spelling out MERRY CHRISTMAS on their door. On the last day after they took them off, the cabin steward spent 1/2 hr trying to remove the red residue from Ms and Rs. He was not able to remove it as it was still there when we left the ship. I did not realize that they would be charged for the damages :(.

My 1st cruise in 1987 was also on the Celebration. I saw her originally docked in Nassau while I as there on a loand vacation. At that moment I decided that the next vacation will be a cruise... and have not stopped since then.