Brilliance Cruise to Scandinavia and Russia, planning, cruising and LOT of photos

[Kevin's girl]

Our final stop was Oxford. I was very excited to be here.

 

 

 

 

 

Peter had managed to cram in so many places and wonderful sites for us to see. Our tour was a total of twelve full hours. He dropped us off at our hotel at 9:00 pm. I had made a couple of phone calls to let the hotel know that we would be checking in late and there was not a problem with our arrival.

[Kevin's girl]

Up bright and early the next morning we were off for a day trip in Paris on the Eurostar. I bought the train tickets long before the cruise. I just went to http://www.eurostar.com and purchased the tickets. Once the purchase is made you just print the tickets and take them with you.

 

Boarding in St. Pancras Station

 

On board, in the standard seat sections

 

 

Whizzing by at 300km or 186 miles /hour

 

At Gare Du Nord station in Paris

 

 

From the Eurostar train station in Gare Du Nord we went downstairs to find Metro train #4 to go to Sacré-Cœur.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Kevin's girl

[Kevin's girl]

Our first Metro stop

 

Open air market

 

A little stop before climbing the hill to Sacré-Cœur

 

Up, and up we go

 

Coming up on the back side of Sacré-Cœur

[Kevin's girl]

Sacré-Cœur:

I won’t go getting all churchie on you here, but Paris has some of the most beautiful churches. This is why I didn’t complain about the two beer stops before getting here, and why Kevin didn’t complain too much about the church stops.

 

 

Inside Sacré-Cœur

 

View from the stairs outside of Sacré-Cœur

 

[Kevin's girl]

Next we made our way back to the Metro and on to Notre-Dame Cathedral

 

The Metro station entry ways are pieces of art themselves. If you go to Paris, take a look and see for yourself.

 

 

A Sortie is the exit.

 

 

[Kevin's girl]

A look inside:

 

 

 

 

 

[Kevin's girl]

 

Kevin and I have both recently lost a parent. So I took a moment in each church we stopped in all through out our trip and lit a candle for them. This way there was a little candle light for them all over Europe (at least as many places I could get to).

 

Across the street from Notre-Dame

 

We set out to find a quaint little place for dinner. We walked down the block and turned down a quiet little street to come upon this little neighborhood and Le Saint Severin Bar/Brasserie.

 

 

A little food porn

[Kevin's girl]

 

 

Edited January 3, 2015 by Kevin's girl

[Kevin's girl]

Right across the street was a little church. The grounds were very pretty and we thought we would look inside once we finished dinner, but it had closed by then.

 

 

 

Yep, gargoyles all along the roof

 

 

the grounds

 

[Kevin's girl]

One of my fond memories from my first visit to France was the gelato, and I couldn’t wait to refresh my memory.

I was not disappointed, not only was it very pretty, it was quite tasty.

 

Reminding ourselves this was only a day trip, we made our way back towards the Metro and eventually back to Gare Du Nord train station.

 

Along the way we found this tiny bookstore (Canadian by the looks of it)

 

 

 

[Kevin's girl]

Gare Du Nord International Train station. You do need to go through customs here, before you can get to your train. You also need to fill out the customs form just like you do on an airplane or at the end of your cruise. They gave us quite a hard time coming through customs. They just didn’t understand that we had been visiting Paris for just the day.

 

Back in London at St Pancras International

 

 

One more bucket List item – a ride in a Black Cab. Sorry the pic is a bit blurry, he was in a hurry.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Kevin's girl

[Kevin's girl]

As I stated when starting our post cruise part of this vacation No Ten Manchester is a small boutique hotel and where we spent our final three nights in London. I saved my photos of the hotel until I was ready to review our last full day in the city because it was the focal part of our day.

Room 110 in No Ten Manchester Hotel:

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, my thoughts about the room. It was very nice; we enjoyed the outside seating area very much. You may have noticed there are no photos of the bathroom. This is a touchy point for me. It is the cause of the awful moldy smell we had in the room. DO NOT stay in this room unless they have fixed the hand held shower head in this room. It leaks whenever you turn on the tub tap. It leaks down into the wall and carpet in the bedroom. The hotel staff was very concerned about any damages we may have suffered due to the leak and kept promising to fix the problem, but no offer to move us was made. We actually spent so little time in the bedroom part of the room that it wasn’t anything more than a nuisance. I always travel with small cans of Lysol and I just sprayed them every evening to kill what mold was growing at the time. We were also very careful while using the tub tap. This was just not what I expected from a 5 star boutique hotel and this is the first I have spoken of it. The rest of our hotel experience was SO good that we were willing to overlook this.

[Kevin's girl]

This is the street view of No Ten Manchester

 

 

In the planning of this trip we had hoped that this last day would be a relaxing day. With this in mind I was excited to find the Tudor Rose Pub right on the corner from our hotel. We actually planted ourselves here of a couple of hours and just watched a very busy business crowd go by.

The food was iffy, the service polite, the Pims and lemonade cold and refreshing and the pints of beer never ending. We were very happy sitting on the picnic table and watching life go by.

 

This little cutie even posed for a pic, her owner was very proud

[Kevin's girl]

Looking down the street.

[Kevin's girl]

Now, I don’t want all of you to think that we just sat on our picnic bench all day. We did go for a walk to check out what was near by.

Our walk took us to Baker Street where we found the Sherlock Holmes Museum and then down to Madam Tussauds. We did go in, waited 45 minutes and then learned that we were just waiting to buy tickets, the wait to enter the actual display area was another hour to an hour and a half. So we said goodbye to Sylvester Stallone (who’s wax figure is in the ticket area) and on our way.

 

 

The Barley Mow started out as a pub in 1791 and was a place where farmers could pawn their goods. We had planned to visit here later this evening, but never made it.

 

While walking back towards our hotel remembered there was to be High Tea served 3:30 – 5 pm. This was yet another London Bucket List item for me, and I was not disappointed. We arrived in the hotel restaurant and requested high tea. We were promptly told that we needed to call and make a reservation. There was not another soul in the restaurant and I was very disappointed. I apologized for the confusion and said that I hadn’t noticed that in our room information. The fact that we were hotel guests seemed to make a difference. The waiter went back to speak to the chef. When he returned he said the chef has agreed to make us a High Tea but we would need to wait 15 minutes for it to be ready. This was not a problem for us. What we were served was just amazing, at least for us.

 

 

 

 

 

I just noticed, I have no photos of the Petit fores we were served for desert. They were simply perfect.

[Kevin's girl]

Following our tea, we did a bit of shopping and then back to the room to pack. The following morning we had our last BAtransfer experience as we returned to Heathrow Airport.

This was probably the worst experience yet. Lesson learned – you get what you pay for. We did arrive at all of our destinations on more or less on time and in one piece, but I will not be booking transfers with this company when we return to London nest May. Our driver was late and was not able to find Ten Manchester even with our Concierge standing outside the hotel with our luggage. The Concierge actually flagged down the driver as he was leaving and asked him what company he worked for and if our last name matched his fare. It was really sad. The driver then opened the back of the van and refused to put our luggage in. The Concierge again took care of it for us. Once on our way the driver was constantly getting personal calls on his cell phone. He then stated that there was a lot of traffic and he hoped we would not miss our flight. I saw no traffic and we had left the hotel four hours before our flight. He was very rude and spoke very bad English.

We were again flying Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy and there is a separate check in and security area making this a quick process. We waited at the gate for about an hour when there was announcement that we would need to change gates. Everyone packed up their belongings and moved around the corner to the new gate. We waited about another thirty minutes and went on board. It was an eight hour flight home and we noticed there were no little comfort packs like on the overnight flight. The food choices were less fancy while the drink choices were the same.

[Kevin's girl]

Summing it all up:

This was an absolutely wonderful vacation. We clicked off many Bucket List items and made lifetime memories. Planning and pre purchasing really helped to make all of what we did a possibility.

We did come home with a small amount of foreign money left over. Some of which I have used as souvenirs and the GBP will be used later when we return to London for our next cruise. I had purchased the Oyster Card for this trip and am happy with that idea because the money left on those cards will not expire and can be used when we return in May.

If there is any way I can help with future plans please feel free to ask. And again, Thank You to all of you that have had such patients and hung in here with me as I finished this review.

[bearette]

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading it.

 

Sent from my KFTHWI using Forums mobile app

[kftw]

Thank you so much for your review. You have added a number of places to our bucket list.

 

k

[Kevin's girl]

Bearette and kftw, I am so glad you enjoyed my review. It was actually a pleasure writing it.

[nekzaadvakil]

That was a super review, very interesting to read and really helpful. Doing a similar cruise in May, so really excited.

[Kevin's girl]

That was a super review, very interesting to read and really helpful. Doing a similar cruise in May, so really excited.

Thank you so much. I know you will enjoy your cruise :)

[Tad4irsh]

KG! Thanks for the amazing report on your ENTIRE trip!!!! I am now more excited then ever! We will be taking the same cruise this summer and you have given us a lot of ideas to explore as we finalize our prep in the coming weeks. Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed report!!!

[Missus Makkem]

So pleased that today your review came to the head on CC and I have spent a cold afternoon reading it.

We have just booked this cruise for this June so it has been great reading your experiences.

You are a very savvy traveller indeed and thanks for thr fantastic review

Home this summers cruise is a s good.

[Kevin's girl]

Tad4irsh and Missus Makkem, I'm so happy that you have enjoyed my review and have found it helpful. Our cruise was so much fun. I'm sure you will both have a great time on yours.