Baltic Cruise on MS Rotterdam Report/Photos

[AndrewM]

I've put up a website with photos and diary of my recent cruise on the MS Rotterdam to the Baltic Countries. You can click here if you are interested:

 

http://www.hwired.com/baltic/index.html

[tclowe]

Thank you so much for sharing your journal with the board. I LOVED, LOVED it! As the Baltic cruises high season wind down, there are fewer and fewer postings until next year May. We are not leaving until August 2006 and so live vicariously through reports like yours. I especially enjoyed your detailed impressions of the fellow cruise passengers that you met along the way. (wonder what they thought of you and Janet).

 

Reads like a wonderful picture book. We are tentatively booked with Denrus tours as well. It will be interesting if we have Ludmilla as a tour guide. We are traveling with two small children. It may drive her nuts with their random questions!

 

Hope we get lucky when we bid for Marriott at Priceline.

 

Thanks again.

Cynthia

[AndrewM]

Thank you so much for sharing your journal with the board. I LOVED, LOVED it! As the Baltic cruises high season wind down, there are fewer and fewer postings until next year May. We are not leaving until August 2006 and so live vicariously through reports like yours. I especially enjoyed your detailed impressions of the fellow cruise passengers that you met along the way. (wonder what they thought of you and Janet).

 

Reads like a wonderful picture book. We are tentatively booked with Denrus tours as well. It will be interesting if we have Ludmilla as a tour guide. We are traveling with two small children. It may drive her nuts with their random questions!

 

Hope we get lucky when we bid for Marriott at Priceline.

 

Thanks again.

Cynthia

 

Hi Cynthia,

 

Thanks so much! How flattering that you actually read that much of it too. I don't think I'd want to know what they thought of us! We don't really fit the cruise passenger demographic and thus sometimes find it an effort to fit in. I sense sometimes that we might come off as a little dim. I guess we'll have to wait and see if anyone writes about us in a travel report!

 

Your children are so lucky to be taken on such a grand adventure and you've picked the perfect ship for them. You probably already know that on Princess, children can stay onboard while you tour should you wish a day alone. Somehow I think your Den Rus tour guide may be a little more patient with the children than Ludmila was with me. I look forward to reading your trip report and particularly your childrens' reactions.

 

thanks again, andrew.

[soraya]

Hi Andrew

 

I really enjoyed reading your review, we were on the Westerdam and saw quite a lot of your ship, so it was interesting to hear what you guys thought of the trip.

 

I had to chuckle at the reception your wife got in Estonia. I'm of Indian descent and my husband is Scottish and we got a similar response in Estonia and Finland. We found Estonia pretty friendly, but Finland significantly less so. We ended up counting non Finish looking residents and got less than your Iron Maiden tshirt count!

 

We also found that after StP, we were exhausted and would have been grateful for a sea day to rest. But we loved the StP tour with DenRus and the Yusopov palace excursion too.

 

Thanks again for the review.

[AndrewM]

Hi Andrew

 

I really enjoyed reading your review, we were on the Westerdam and saw quite a lot of your ship, so it was interesting to hear what you guys thought of the trip.

 

I had to chuckle at the reception your wife got in Estonia. I'm of Indian descent and my husband is Scottish and we got a similar response in Estonia and Finland. We found Estonia pretty friendly, but Finland significantly less so. We ended up counting non Finish looking residents and got less than your Iron Maiden tshirt count!

 

We also found that after StP, we were exhausted and would have been grateful for a sea day to rest. But we loved the StP tour with DenRus and the Yusopov palace excursion too.

 

Thanks again for the review.

 

Thanks so much for reading it! How interesting that you got a similar response. I assume these countries have been incredibly sheltered in the past and that it's still such a rarity to see any other race. thanks again, andrew.

[sunprincess]

Andrew,

Thanks so much for sharing your very detailed review & photos.

Brought back fond memories of my recent Baltic Cruise on the Star Princess last month.

I wrote my first review, had inserted loads of photos in it, only to discover that the site does not include photos. Oh well. I too use Webshots.

I did like the format you had your review very much.

 

Happy Cruising :)