Scandinavian and Russian Cruise on the Serenade of the Seas - LIVE(ish) Trip Report

On board the ship!

Our first beef on wick

Check in took less than 5 minutes. Extremely fast. Ship looks good, what we've seen of it so far.

Staying in a JS, so now just waiting until 1pm local time when the rooms are ready to go.

Room looks great!

Some better pictures of the room with my actual camera ...

:')

Should mention these are or JS 1076

And yes, I will drink all that water

Thank you for your interesting review. Following with pleasure, much appreciated.

We had a JS in Radiance, and it was hilarious that there was no power socket near the kettle.....:(

Following your great review we will be sailing on her in January

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:')

...

And yes, I will drink all that water

You brought all those water on board? How?

Really enjoying your posts. We will be taking the same cruise next July and have the same cabin.

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You brought all those water on board? How?

It's the ships water package. We bought two water packages. So 48 bottles.

Just got back on the boat from Helsinki. Crazy day with Trump and Putin in town.

Wound up seeing the 3 churches (Rock, Lutheran and Uspenski) as well as wandering around town and hanging out in Senate Square for a bit watching the protests.

A little too long as we couldn't figure out how to get back to where we needed to be, but thanks to a friendly local, we took an impromptu subway ride and made it back to the area where the shuttles were in plenty of time.

Had some lunch and a beer and re-boarded.

Great review!

Overall I thought Helsinki was great. Very nice town to walk around - despite the crowds today.

On a side note, the sail away yesterday through the archipelago was absolutely amazing. I probably took 1,000 photos, and that's not an exaggeration. Haven't offloaded from my camera yet, but here's some cell phone pics:

Missed one ...

Thank you very much for this review! I'm sailing Serenade in a few months and like what I see in the pics so far!

On serenade in december. Lack of food from midnight is dissapointing after allure/oasis/freedom cruises

Finished up Saint Petersburg today. Waiting to sail away towards Tallinn. I’ll add some pics later.

As for SP, we toured with Alla Tours, and paid for the private, two day grand tour. Tour guide was great, and knew a ton of information about literally everything we saw.

That being said, I don’t know that SP was my favorite. I’m going to list below what we did/saw and give my two cents on it.

Day 1

We got off the ship at 7:45, and were through customs at 8:15. We could have gotten off earlier, but our tour didn’t start until 8:30 anyhow, so there was no point. Royal Caribbean did not check to see if you were on a RC tour or not, and didn’t seem to care when you got off which was great.

Our transportation was a very nice, brand new black Mercedes with very good AC, which was very much welcomed. We set off through downtown and made a few stops to take some photos at various places, like the Egyptian Sphinx on the water, etc. which I enjoyed since I love taking photos.

Our first real stop was early entry in to the Hermitage. We spent two hours plus here, and the guide was a wealth of information. However it was just too much for us. The Egyptian exhibit downstairs was great, but I am not a huge art person, and there was just too much art to see. If we were touring solo, we’d have been in and out in an hour or so. Was ok, but wouldn’t go back.

Next stop was Church on the Spilled Blood. We thought it was great. Very pretty, and interesting.

Next was St. Isaacs Cathedral. Again, loved it. Definitely worth seeing.

Took a ride on the subway, which was incredible. The escalator goes down over 100 meters to the platform. Subway is beautiful, decorated with nice murals,etc. Was really cool to get to do and see.

Last on day 1 was Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral. The cathedral was nice, and was interesting to see the tombs of those buried there and learn the history. Was so so overall for us.

Also had a wonderful lunch on Nevsky Prospekt, and got to shop a little. A long, exhausting day in the hot sun. Honestly being over tired from the day before and too hot probably made the day feel less enjoyable than it actually was.

Day 2

Started the day off with a trip to see a battleship that was in both WWI and WWII.

First real stop was a boat ride on the river Neva. Incredible experience. About an hour long ride under many bridges, and the view from the rivers was great. Great for photos.

Next up was Yusupov Palace. They had a Gregory Rasputin exposition going on. Was cool to see where he was killed, and learn some of the facts/rumors, but the Palace itself was pretty boring.

Catherine Palace and Tsars Village and the Amber Room. The Palace was pretty and the amber room pretty incredible, but none of it is original since it was badly damaged in WWII, or stolen by ****s in the case of the Amber Room. So pretty ‘meh’ overall.

Peterhof Fountain Park was awesome. Actually wish we had more time there.

While driving to and from the suburbs, we stopped at the Victory Day monument, the arch at the city border, passed where Putin stays, and some other cool sites.

Overall Alla Tours did a good job. We never waited in lines, and lines were rather lengthy. I should have done a better job asking ahead of time for things we could see that were of more interest to me (WWII stuff in particular). For example the artillary museum.

I just felt that a lot of the times being at such and such historical place in Russia was cooler than the actual place was, if that makes sense. As someone who grew up during the Cold War era, I never thought I’d be in Russia, so just being here was awesome. As a history buff, I thought the info provided was great.

Still I honestly think I enjoyed Stockholm more, though it could just be that I’m not a fan of tours and prefer to do things by ourselves.

While I’m at it, let’s talk food...

Specialty restaurants have been excellent. Windjammer, Park Cafe, etc have been horrendous.

Breakfast is pretty much inedible imo. Even the bananas sucked this morning. Hard to mess up a banana.

Seems like the specialty restaurants have improved, while the main “free” ones have gotten worse.

Beautiful pictures. Now I'm thinking about changing itinerary on the next cruise.

While I’m at it, let’s talk food...

 

Specialty restaurants have been excellent. Windjammer, Park Cafe, etc have been horrendous.

 

Breakfast is pretty much inedible imo. Even the bananas sucked this morning. Hard to mess up a banana.

 

Seems like the specialty restaurants have improved, while the main “free” ones have gotten worse.

Thanks. Good to know. Sad that RCCL is allowing (new business model???) this. The windjammer, mdr, and other dining is part of what we are paying for as customers.

Sorry for the long delay ... Internet has been less than stellar. Will most likely post more later today once I am back in the USA.

Overall an amazing trip. Loved Riga and Tallinn.