Ho hum: yet another Baltic Sea review

[FitchburgWIFamily]

Oh, my! I forgot the most exciting part of that day.

 

Our escalating war with our grumpy German neighbor:

 

OK…so we are back on board in plenty of time for sail-away, enjoying our little balcony.

 

Our lovely neighbor comes out on his balcony and lights his lighter. Three times. But no cigarette. He says something to us in his heavy German accent about using our little phone and calling in. We roll our eyes and ignore him.

 

All of a sudden, he turns on something on his lap top: some sit com in German at full volume with canned laughter and all. And then, he goes back INSIDE his cabin because no one, even a German, could stand listening to that echo off the metal roof and walls. We shoot each other are you kidding me looks and stubbornly stay in our seats.

 

He comes back out and turns off his TV. I head to the pool bar to order a drink. He follows me, and as I am standing at the bar kind of body checks me into the bar. I shoot him a nasty excuse me for living look, change my order to a double and head back to the balcony.

 

We are just pulling away from shore, and all of a sudden Mr. Grump starts throwing bread to the seagulls. Not just out his balcony, but throwing the bread out and around his to try to get the birds to come on our balcony. He draws in about 3 dozen swooping seagulls and has to go back to stock up on more bread to keep them coming. I am livid. Hopping up and down angry. We tell him to stop feeding the birds NOW, but he doesn’t.

 

So, I am over it. I call our concierge and tell her we want another room: another suite with a balcony. We paid extra at the last minute for a balcony, and some cranky German is harassing us to the point we can’t use the balcony. We have bread crumbs on our chaise lounge and deck floor to prove he was throwing bread our way, and the ship can do nothing. They don’t’ know if they have another room available and I am so over dealing with the worst neighbor ever.

 

Our concierge tries to convince me that from his perspective since he only smoked “the one time” we were harassing him by reporting him for smoking. OK…first of all…reporting someone breaking ship’s rules that are designed for safety is NOT harassment and second of all…he TOTALLY smoked more than once. There is NO other place that smoke could come from.

 

We head down to Five O’clock somewhere before dinner to help my find my happy in the bottom of a salt rimmed glass and I have to wait to hear what rooms, if any, they can offer us to move to for our last few days of the cruise. We don’t want to have to be exiled from our balcony for the last two days of the cruise, especially since one is a sea day.

[Badger-Badger]

Waiting to hear how the story ends! And I'd love to see the rest of your photos.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[FitchburgWIFamily]

OK..so it is feast or famine with the photos.

 

Here are some of the 100s of photos we took in Russia.

 

Just a little bit of the wonderful artwork in the Subway Stations:

 

 

And then we headed down to see the turning on of wonderful gravity fed fountains at Peterhof:

 

 

We headed to Pushkin (or Tsar's Village) and donned our little protective booties:

 

 

And toured Catherine's Palace to see all things gilt and wonderful:

 

 

Here we are with our wonderfully knowledgeable guide:

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

The second day of touring kept us closer to downtown.

 

We did a canel boat tour and then ended up on the Peter and Paul Fortress as the sun was starting to come out:

 

 

Niece happy to be at the Hermitage:

 

 

Where we spent a wonderful afternoon looking at wonderful art:

 

 

Before our last stop at the church of the spilled blood:

 

 

Whose interior (every inch) is covered in wonderful mosiacs:

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

The next day, sunny and bright, we were in Finland, which was serene and wonderful.

 

 

Organ in the Stone Church (a little different than the Church of the Spilled Blood):

 

 

Lutheran Church in Helsinki's City Center:

 

 

Farmers/Craft Market in the City Center:

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

OK...now I am getting ahead of myself...but let me get a few more uploaded:

 

Another sunny Scandinavian Capitol:

 

Stockholm's centeral historic district:

 

 

I spent some time going through the narrow streets going in an out of little shops:

 

 

Nearby, I caught the tail end of a musical changing of the guard horse parade:

 

 

Before we headed to the Vasa museum:

 

 

The sailaway through the Swedish archipelago is one of most spectacular I have ever seen...hours of scenic cabins on hillsides and cabins at the water's edge:

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

OK...these will make more sense when I post our daily updates...but we had a wonderful sunny day at sea and then back to Copenhagen for an overnight.

 

We used the day we disembarked to see Tivoli Gardens by day and by night:

 

 

 

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

My niece and I also took advantage of our day and walked up to Nyhavn.

 

 

Which was of course every bit as wonderful as I thought it would be.

 

On such a lovely day, it was fun to see all the Dane's out enjoying the weather:

 

 

The next day, we headed out on the train to Elsinor:

 

 

And took in the wonderful maritime museum:

 

Edited July 5, 2016 by FitchburgWIFamily

[FitchburgWIFamily]

After we left Copenhagen, instead of flying straight home, we took a quick flight to Oslo.

 

We then did the fantastic wonderful amazing Norway in a Nutshell tour.

 

Train through the countryside:

 

 

Over the mountains to Flan:

 

 

The Flan railway stops for photo ops:

 

 

And we ride it down to catch our Ferry:

(which is literally a ferry...like a car ferry with no cars:

 

 

But you don't care because you are looking at stuff like this:

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

I wished I would have counted how many waterfalls we saw:

 

 

Even after you get off the boat, it still just kept going: the bus that I thought was just to take us to the train took us on the most amazing curvy step road:

 

 

We kept seeing wonderful things all the way to our AirBnB in Bergen...this picture is from the end of our vacation, our last evening...

 

[FitchburgWIFamily]

Before I get to Sweden, a couple more ship board notes:

 

Laundry: twice during the cruise they had a bag of laundry deal for $20.00. Directions said if we left the full bag of dirty laundry in our cabin by 10am, clean laundry will be back by 7:00pm two days later. The first time they left us the offer, it was our first day in Russia. It was too soon and we didn’t have enough laundry to be worth it. Second time they left the note, the day the guaranteed the laundry back was the last night on board, when you have to have all your luggage packed and in the hall if you don’t want to carry it off. So neither time worked really well on paper, but by the time the second slip came around, we had plenty of stuff to add to the bag, so we did it.

 

Between three women, we had plenty of underwear, three pair of pants, four tops, and a few pair of socks and there was still plenty of room in the bag. Despite them saying they needed days to get it done, it all came back to us the next morning by 9:00 a.m. I highly recommend this service: it was great not to have to make room in the luggage for bags of dirty laundry. Everything we sent in came back: t-shirts and pants (including blue jeans) carefully hung on hangers.

 

Different from Caribbean:

Non-musical entertainment: I commented already about the musical entertainment. The non-musical entertainment on this port intensive cruise was pretty…em…non-existent? I bring a highlighter with me when I cruise so I can go through and highlight the daily of the things I want to do: a dance class here, and exercise class there, morning trivia, afternoon trivia, napkin folding, scrapbooking, etc. On this cruise we didn’t hardly do anything with the cruise director staff. I don’t know if that is because they didn’t bother to hold much with all of us being off and about on the ports or if I just wasn’t the target demographic for them. My niece got conscripted once to play ring toss on the pool deck, but that was it. And I am sad, because our three generation team is a killer at trivia.

 

And, I thought of something else to add about Finland: the shops close to port were really pretty good quality and reasonably priced: not the enclosed store but the open air booths you could walk through. Most had handmade or at least Finnish made goods: linen and wood crafts that were less expensive than I had seen down town in the open air market. I didn’t go to the enclosed flea market to compare, but you can’t beat the convenience of buying a souvenir you only need to carry a few yards to your ship.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

Grumpy Neighbor situation:

 

I had called and said we wanted a different room, but our concierge said there was not anything with a balcony available. I said we would stay in our room but if we couldn't use our balcony because of Mr. Grump especially on our last day (a sea day) I would NOT be paying the extra we had paid for the balcony we couldn't use.

 

Our captain on more than one occasion on this cruise opened up the forward balcony on deck 8 (the one that crew uses when we are at port) just so there would be enough outside places to enjoy the beautiful weather and views. Our concierge said they would set up some chairs on that deck if we needed to get away from our neighbor.

 

OK..back to the travelogue.

I have one more port (Sweden), and then disembarkation and post cruise travel to cover.

 

Sweden:

 

Captain advised us to get up early and watch the sail in…but we didn’t. By the time we woke up we were just about in port. My mother and I were booked on NCL’s Scenic Stockholm, Skyview and Vasa tour. Niece was going to try HOHO after having such a good experience in Finland.

 

Because mom is disabled and takes more time to get on and off the bus, NCL had asked us to come down to the theatre entrance on deck 6 a few minutes before the scheduled meet time. They escort us off the ship a little early and have the front seat of the bus reserved for us so Mom doesn’t have to try to navigate through the bus. This worked really well for us on all most all of our tours, including this one. Mom and I got on the bus for our tour, which stopped for a few photo stops on its way to the Skyview tower. Skyview ride is interesting…but not probably worth the money or time unless you are really into how they engineer things to go up the outside of a spherical building. Yes you get to see a lot of the city, but you are so high up, you are really just looking at roofs. And, you are taking pictures through Plexiglas so the quality of the photos isn’t that great. Gift store at the base of the ride was very expensive. It took a bit of time to get our whole bus up and down, as there are two trams that hold maybe 15 people a piece, so there was a bit of a wait there. There was a large group on our bus of couples that knew each other, and in conversation, I learned that their tour in Helsinki the day before was kind of a flop because they had stopped to use the restroom at the Stone Church and missed the rest of their tour. They had to take a cab back to the ship. This didn’t seem relevant until later in the day.

 

Next stop was to the historic center of Stockholm. Busses have to pull into an area let everyone off, and then pull out as there is not enough room for all tour busses to park in the old part of the city. Mom and her walker are not crazy about walking on cobble stones, and she was fighting a bit of a cold. So, I skipped the guided part of the tour that was offered and just escorted mom to the city center to have her wait in the sun on a bench. I used my free time to go in and out of stores and take pictures (it was just beautiful). There were quite a few “Antique” stores and I got some vintage Swedish glass for me and my mother on one of the streets that spun off the central square. Mom and I were both hot, it was more than 80 degrees and my north Baltic Sea wardrobe of jeans and a ¾ length tee was more than I needed. I wanted shorts and flip flops. I bought an overpriced ice cream cone and some bottles of water from a vendor on the square and we both sat and people watched while Mom ate her ice cream.

 

We wanted to have plenty of time to get back to where we needed to meet our bus, so I walked with mom back up to the same place we had been let off. Once up there, we heard the sound of a live marching band, so I went over to see what was going on. I think what I caught was the tail end of a changing of the guard presentation, but I got to see the band, playing their instruments atop their horses go through a precision drill while performing. Very very cool.

 

Mom and I made it back to our bus, and watched as everyone except two women from the large group also make it back. Five minutes late, ten minutes late, fifteen minutes late. At fifteen minutes, one of the husbands gets off to go see if he can find them. Every ten minutes or so, the police come and harass our bus driver for being in the loading/unloading zone too long. Twenty minutes late and the other passengers and the driver on the bus are egging the guide to just leave them. At twenty five minutes after our appointed meet time, after conferring with someone on her cell phone, the guide makes the call to leave them behind. Second husband grabs their bags and stuff and exits the bus as well. Same group as lost a few people to the tour in Helsinki. Don’t know if it is a lack of a watch thing or a total disrespect of rules thing, but you would think they would learn.

 

We headed off to the Vasa museum which was well worth seeing. Lots of history, great interpretive displays, fascinating. I could have spent much more time there. When it is time to all get back on the bus, I kid you not, another person in the same large party was late getting back to the bus. She only made us wait about 5 minutes, but I thought to myself if I can get my mom and her walker back to the bus on time, what is preventing you? Mom moves at a snail’s pace on smooth ground and manages to slow down on cobblestones: but we never make the bus wait.

 

Anyway, a few more scenic sights and we are taken back to the port. This tour was fun, and informative, but very pricy and I am not sure that I would recommend it. Niece made it back from the HOHO and had mixed reviews as well. Unlike Finland where everything you hopped off to see was free or shopping, most of the stops on the HOHO in Stockholm had an admission charge. And, the HOHO was almost twice as expensive. So I don’t know if I could recommend the HOHO either.

 

I can say that I loved the city of Stockholm: I don’t know that I could navigate my way around it with all its bridges and islands, but it was one of the prettiest cities I have ever seen. I would love to go back some day and spend some more time.

 

Since we slept through the sail in, we wanted to watch the sail out, which was, as promised spectacular. Picture perfect red homes nestled in the pines on rock ledges that go down to the fjord, pairs of swans floating on clear blue water, and hillsides dotted with colorful farms. Best of all, no interference from our irritating neighbor.

 

My niece and I grab a cocktail and take a soak in the hot tubs while mom takes her cold to bed for a nap. We have dinner in Aqua and watch the show that night: The Barricade Boys: four men who do a few numbers from different Broadway shows and other popular numbers. Pretty standard cruise entertainment: enjoyable but not spectacular. That night was the White Hot Party night, so we headed down to Spinnaker to take that in.

 

Different from the Caribbean:

White Hot night on my Caribbean cruises has been on the pool deck with ice sculptures, special cocktails and tons of people. White Hot Night on my Baltic Sea cruise was maybe 20 people on the dance floor a fourth of whom were the cruise director’s staff. Just not the same. We had a few cocktails, danced to a few songs and talked about how other cruises had been different.

[FitchburgWIFamily]

Sea Day:

 

We had next to nothing planned for this day: another gorgeous bright sunny day. We took in the Latitudes party in the Spinnaker, started the process of packing, and lounged on the deck.

 

We played Elevator Roulette with the Cruise Director’s Staff (which was surprisingly fun and unpredictable) and took in the very entertaining staff talent show that ended in a bring down the house rendition of Proud Mary.

 

Instead of Elements as the end of cruise show we were used to, the show on this cruise was Paradis. No Mermaids from swings flipping above the audience, but a nice combination of song, dance and some reprised acts from the week. And, the staff comes out at the end (except for the captain who has a taped video recording …. Hmmm)

 

We had our luggage in the hall to be picked up the next day, and enjoyed a few more cocktails in our favorite haunts.

 

Last Day:

Copenhagen:

 

We were staying the night in Copenhagen and were in no hurry to get off the boat. Last breakfast at Moderno’s, last check of all the nooks and crannies and we headed down around 9:30am to meet concierge to get off the boat.

 

She escorted us off and we got into the most spectacularly long line for a taxi I have ever seen. It took us almost an hour to get our cab. People taking the bus were much better off, but Mom was under the weather with a cold, and not up for the short walk to the bus or the slightly longer walk to our hotel from where the bus would leave us. But if you don’t have an 86-year-old with a cold with you Take The Bus.

 

Alternately, stay on the boat another hour. After the cabs get done taking kids to school and dropping off business men, they come to the port in greater frequency. The line went down to almost nothing behind us while we snaked through a maze of switch backed queues.

 

We had picked our hotel based on location: the CabInn City: right by the train station and an easy walk (moderate for my mom) to Tivoli, which was what we really wanted to do that day. The lobby and common areas of the CabInn City hotel are very nice, and our room (a family room so all three of us could fit) was not yet ready, so we took our luggage downstairs to a locker off the parking garage.

 

Free from our luggage, we walked the few blocks to Tivoli and waited for it to open (at 11:00). Tivoli Gardens during the day was full of kids on end of year field trips: but they headed off to the rides area almost right away. It took us a bit to figure out where we could pick up a free wheel chair for my mom, but we found it. We enjoyed the gardens, the buildings, and the warm beautiful day. We bought an overpriced lunch in one of the restaurants, and all in all had a great time. We went back to our hotel to see if our room was ready, and it was.

 

Before we sailed we stayed at the Adina Apartments which I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone. Our after sail room at the CabInn was a bit more hostel than hotel. I have had bigger rooms on trains. As a family room, it had two bunks and there was just enough room to walk between them. The bathroom was one of those where the sink is the water source for the shower and the whole bathroom is the shower stall (again, like a train). But mom was ready for a nap, so she got into one of the bottom bunks, and promptly fell asleep.

 

Niece and I headed out on a walking tour: we walked along the canal and saw Danes in droves out on the piers sunbathing and enjoying the gorgeous day. It wasn’t too far to Nyhavn, which was unbelievably pretty on our sunny afternoon. Cafes and restaurants there were packed, and we weren’t in the mood for a canal boat tour, so after taking some pictures, checking out some stores, and buying a cold bottle of water, we cut through the scenic town back to our hotel. We cut across the palace grounds, and struggled a bit with following our map (lots of horseshoe shaped streets)…but we eventually found our way back to our hotel.

 

We used a nearby market to get some snacks, and then went back to our hotel. We used some of the common space (we had to, there was not enough room for 3 people to sit in our room, let alone a table) to enjoy some crackers and spreads.

 

Mom was not up to dinner, but niece and I wanted to see Tivoli at night. We had paid the bit extra to have reentry privileges and headed back. Because it was so close to the solstice it took forever to get “dark” but the building and landscaping at the Gardens did look lovely. Not all food vendors were open (the nice restaurants were, and were bustling) but we managed to find a hot dog stand and had some fries and dogs.

 

When we left the park at close, the streets outside by the train station were hopping with young presumably drunk people. Lots of shouting and laughing and posing and a little bit of puking and snoozing. Nothing threatening, but much more lively than anything we had seen so far. We got back to the hotel and tucked ourselves into our little berth like bunks.

 

Breakfast the next morning at the hotel (we paid extra for our room to have the breakfast) was loud and chaotic, but pretty good. Not as good as our first breakfast of Danish and Strawberries, but enough to have us start our day.

 

The next day, Friday, we had a full day before we were due to fly out. So, we gathered up our luggage, checked out of the hotel, and had them call a cab for us to go the very short distance to the train station as mom did not want to have to walk.

 

We knew we didn’t want to have our luggage for the full day, so we asked to be dropped off at the train station close to where the baggage check was. MISTAKE. Cabbie drove us down and around and behind the train station to the seedy underbelly of Copenhagen. People sleeping on the street, tons of garbage, a woman obviously passed out baking in the sun…and the smell….oh my goodness…a combination of hot garbage and urine soaked concrete. Eeeeeewwwwwww. We hurried into the train station as fast as we could with our luggage and my mom and her walker and dropped off our luggage (for a fee, and not a small one).

 

We wanted to take in a bit of North Zealand while we were there so I could tell people I went there just so they would say “Really? I always wanted to go there, did you see where they filmed The Hobbit?” North, New, it all is the same, right?

 

We took a very nice train up to Elsinore (you know…of Hamlet fame). The town was lovely with a small farmers market and a few shops. Mom was still not her best, and it was a long hot walk from the station to the museum area around the castle, so we went into the community/civic center there and set her up at a table with a view. The whole area around the castle is a park/campus of museums and open space, and there were again a lot of kids on end of year field trips doing mock sword battles and being challenged to scavenger hunts.

 

Niece and I walked the rest of the way to the castle, walked around it on the outside (didn’t bother to pay for admission to tour the inside) and loved the view. Well-fortified castle with extra moats and walls. Places to sit on the walls and enjoy the views of the castle and the water. Great way to spend a bit of time. We went back to where we had left mom, got some reasonably priced ice creams from one of the food carts, enjoyed our ice cream cones with mom, and then headed out to the maritime museum that was on the grounds. That museum is an award winner for design, and well worth a visit. Denmark’s relation to the sea is documented throughout the ages in easy to understand displays.

 

We took a city bus back to the train station (wish we would have done that on way to the castle so mom would have had enough puff to see the castle grounds) and headed back to Copenhagen proper. We got our luggage out of hock at the train station, and took a train to the airport for the next (and last) leg of our journey.

 

We made the mistake of getting food on the outside of the security area, later, when we went through security, we found a lot more (and better) choices of food.

 

We really really enjoyed our time in Copenhagen and the area. Easy to get around by foot (unless you are my mom), good reliable public transportation and lots to see for little (Tivoli and the Maritime Museum had a moderate fee) or no charge.

[FitchburgWIFamily]

The next part of our trip was not part of our cruise, but something we added on the end. I wouldn’t normally mention it in this forum, except it was so spectacular I want to share what we did in case anyone else has some time to burn at the end of the cruise.

 

Oslo:

 

We had a 7:00 pm flight to Oslo from Copenhagen. Norwegian Airlines is very easy to work with and very affordable. We had arranged for handicap help at the Oslo Airport for my mom, but they had made room for her walker on the airplane. So, when we landed, and the attendant met us at the door of the airplane, we said we didn’t need the wheelchair they had there. I was assuming the wheel chair was there to help her up the ramp and to wherever we would meet the ubiquitous golf cart. However, I was wrong…there is no golf cart. We walked and walked and walked. Ooops. We finally picked up our luggage and checked it into the baggage claim at the Oslo Airport.

 

There are two ways to take a train from the Airport to the city center: regular train (cheaper) and bullet train (faster)….we chose the bullet train. Wow, what a ride, smooth as glass, clean, and wonderful. The train is not really as handicapped accessible as some, but mom was able to manage the few low steps required. We got to the main train station in Oslo in next to no time.

 

I had some business to do in the train station: I needed to pick up our Norway in a Nutshell tickets. This tour, sold through the state train line I believe, is a combination of transportation that takes you from Oslo to Bergen. We would be leaving early the next morning, so I had picked out the CityBox Oslo Hotel for its proximity to the train station.

 

Despite it being only a few blocks away, Mom did not want to have to walk, so we headed out of the train station to take a cab. The minimum fare was more than the fare there, even considering the fact that the cabby had no idea how to get there. I had a printed map I had to keep showing him. If you stay here, walk, it will be much faster.

 

CityBox has automated check in (no front desk) and our room had two twin beds pushed together and a bunk bed. It was twice or three times the size of our CabInn room and had a much bigger bathroom with a real shower.

 

Mom didn’t even want dinner, so niece and I headed back out. Niece had been there before and wanted me to see the Opera House: it is a wonderful building on the water that invites you to climb the outside and see the views from the top of the multi-story building. We got some food to go at the train station and went outside to eat it on the patio area around the station. We found a much better way to walk from the train station to our hotel (cabby had gone really really really wrong), and headed back after getting a bite to eat. There is a lovely street turned pedestrian mall that leaves out of the end of the train station. Follow that for about a block, turn left, and follow that for about a block. Easy peasy.

 

The next morning, we left the hotel, walked to the train station even with mom and headed out on our adventure. We picked up some food at the station for breakfast. Outbound train had assigned seats and cars. We checked with a conductor about what end of the platform to be at, and he indicated the far end. As the train rolled in, our car whipped by and was at the near end. We left mom somewhere in the middle and tried to figure out what was going on. Turns out the digital car numbers were not correct, and the conductor was. The train ride east is a long one, and it starts out pretty ho hum, but once you get in the mountains the scenery is spectacular.

 

There is food and beverage service on the train in a car a few cars away from ours. I went forward to get my mom coffee, but the train was so jouncy, I spilled a portion of it on my shirt and on some poor passenger. The would do well to invest in closed cups instead of cups with lids with holes in them.

 

High up in the mountains, we reached the end of the line for our tour, and got off the modern train and waited for the Flam railway line. This is a short train ride down a very very steep hill in an old fashioned train car. The train stops so you can take pictures of waterfalls and other scenic views. Just that short ride was worth the tour alone.

 

At the bottom of the hill, you get off the train and wait for your boat. There was a new ferry option and an old ferry option offered as part of the tour. The time worked better for us with the old ferry option, so we chose that. It was exactly what it said, an old ferry…a car ferry with no cars. There was no way my mom could walk up the two or three flights of stairs necessary to get you off the car deck, so we rode on the car deck. There were no seats with backs at the level (just two wooden octagonal picnic tables) and the walls of the ship were too tall for my mom to see over except in one place. On the other hand, the top deck of the ship was crazy crowded with people. Sun and heat were a problem. I hate to complain about the weather when it was so gorgeous out, but man was it hot.

 

The ferry ride through the fjords is spectacular. I can’t think of enough adjectives to describe how wonderful it was and how gorgeous the scenery was….especially in the second more narrow fjord.

 

After an hour or two on the water, we got off the ferry and got on our bus. The whole way the bus works is a bit odd: there were three bus waiting when the ferry docked. We got on the third one. Instead of leaving when full, he had to wait until a fourth bus showed up. Fourth bus showed up, filled half way up and he got to pull away. Third bus had to wait to see if there were any stragglers. (sigh).

 

I thought the bus was only to take us to the train station, but it took a wonderful scenic detour to take us on an extremely steep crazy windy road. And then it took us to the train station.

 

We got to the train station last, but in plenty of time to catch our train. If there was a train to catch. Unfortunately they had to do track maintenance and we had to take a bus the rest of the way. (sigh). So, we go from the track side of the station to the street side of the station, and there are two bus pulled up, but they are both full. We wait for a third, and when it pulls up, we get in. It is getting late in the day by now and we are a bit impatient. Other two bus leave, and we wait. Finally, the train conductor gets on our bus, sits in the jump seat, and off we go. We are on the “train” bus, the one that needs to stop at each and every station on the way into Bergen. (sigh).

 

Anyway, the bus driver was friendly, told us a few of the sights along the way, and we made it into Bergen about an hour late. Because we were so close to the solstice and so far north, we had plenty of daylight left. We took a cab from the station to our AirBnB apartment which was a good thirty minute walk from downtown. Cab drove us through downtown and Bergen, on a warm and sunny weekend evening was alive: every restaurant and bar had crowds spilling out into the streets, parks were full, it looked like a festival was going on, but our cabby said it was just the sunny day. Bergen only gets about 60 sunny days a year, and when one is a warm summer day, it is like a festival.

 

We got to our apartment (which was absolutely wonderful) and then my niece and I took the 30 minute hike back downtown to get a sandwich and a beer. We wished we could have had longer in Bergen, but Sunday, the next day, was the last day of our vacation.

 

Our last day was a bit of a logistical fiasco. Our bags were in storage in Oslo’s airport. Because we were not flying the same airline from Bergen as we were out of Oslo..we knew we wouldn’t be able to check our bags through to our destination from Bergen, and we were afraid we wouldn’t have enough time to get them off our Bergen flight and checked into our Oslo flight. So, we left them in Oslo. But, we still had to get them out of storage and checked in for our return flight, and we were afraid our hour layover would not be enough time, especially with mom.

 

So, we split up. Before 6:00am, niece heads out from our apartment to catch a city bus to where she could catch the airport bus. She flew out at about 8:00am, and got to Oslo, got our bags out of storage, and checked them in for our Oslo flight (which allowed them to be checked all the way through). There was a little drama of whether she would have to pay for two of the bags as excess bags, but they let her check in one on each of our tickets.

 

About the time she was all done with that, I was trying to figure out how to get my mom and me a cab for the long ride to the airport. Our AirBnB hostess didn’t respond to emails, and I couldn’t find an open business to beg a call from. So, I went out of our apartment, looked across the way, and saw a couple on their balcony enjoying breakfast on a sunny day. I asked if they would be so kind as to call us a cab, and they said yes. Easy peasy and we were off on our (long) way to the airport on our (expensive) cab.

 

We had no problem checking into the Bergen airport, our Norwegian Air flight was on time and we met niece in Oslo when we landed around 1:00. We had an hour to kill before our flight to Stockholm (Yes, I know we are flying backward), and we got some sandwiches and things to eat…using up the last of our Norwegian currency. Flight to Stockholm was no problem, and we used assistance for mom to make sure we got to our gate for our flight home. There is extra security at the gate, so you have to do all your shopping and stuff before you go into your gate because it is hard to get out once you are checked in.

 

At about 4:00pm, we finally took off on our last leg and flew home.

[FitchburgWIFamily]

We loved loved loved this trip. It helps that we had sunny gorgeous days in Finland, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo and Bergen.

 

 

We loved the cruise, and appreciated the differences between this cruise and our carribean cruises. If you only ever cruised this cruise, I don’t think you would recognize the carribean cruise as the same cruise line. Food was pretty much the same (pool side barbeque not as good on Star as Dawn) but almost everything else was different:

 

Entertainment: more on the mellow background vibe

 

Nightlife: pretty much over by 11:00, bars not crowded, Spinaker kind of dead.

 

Captain and Crew: not as “present” I never saw senior officers on shore to greet us when we came back, Captain was in receiving line for Suite Reception but did not pose for pictures, Captain didn’t come to CC Meet and Greet or show up in the Grand Finale show.

 

Ship: never felt crowded except for a few theatre shows. Never a struggle to find two open loungers together. Always able to find a hot tub that wasn’t full to the brim with tourists.

 

Destinations and Excursions: absolutely excellent in every way

 

Let me know if you have any questions,

[EllieinNJ]

Really loved your trip report. We are thinking about this trip next year on the Getaway but have two cruises already booked, one coming up in September. But really loved the idea of going to Norway after the cruise.

[hun]

Enjoyed your report - thank you! We're going on the Getaway Baltic next year. We haven't picked our shore excursion company yet (and would use same one for additional ports beyond SPB) but I was curious as to whether you think Stockholm could be done as DYI? we'd like to go to Vasa for sure.

[FitchburgWIFamily]

Enjoyed your report - thank you! We're going on the Getaway Baltic next year. We haven't picked our shore excursion company yet (and would use same one for additional ports beyond SPB) but I was curious as to whether you think Stockholm could be done as DYI? we'd like to go to Vasa for sure.

 

My niece did it using the HOHO bus. Vasa museum is one of the stops. The HOHO in Stockholm is a bit more pricey than Helsinki ( I think it was 20-30 euro each...Helsinki had a deal for cruise passengers where it was only 10).

 

I don't know where Getaway will be docking...so I don't know what access you will have to HOHO or to other land based transportation. If you can figure out how to get to where the smaller ships dock from whereever the Getaway is going to dock, Rick Steeves Baltic ports book was invaluable to me in planning the ports I did on my own.

[Go Go Go!]

Loved your review and wonderful pictures. And Mom is amazing! Thank you...Baltic next year on the Getaway!

[hawkeyetlse]

the very entertaining staff talent show that ended in a bring down the house rendition of Proud Mary

Thank you for reminding me of this! One of the highlights of the cruise for sure! :D

[Painy]

Thank you FitchburgWIFamily, an entertaining and informative review. I'll be traveling in your footsteps next July.

 

 

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[stp108]

Awesome review and I loved your pictures. Thank you for taking the time to do this review.

[lpops]

We loved loved loved this trip. It helps that we had sunny gorgeous days in Finland, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo and Bergen.

 

Thank you very much for a really good review. My wife and I are considering a similar cruise with out two oldest (teenage) granddaughters, possibly next year. Your thoughtful commentary and photographs have just made us more sure that this will be our next destination. We sailed on the Star a number of years ago and liked the size and feel of the ship. Sorry you had issues with your neighbor. Some people are not happy until they have made everyone else as miserable as they are.

 

Thank you again.

Edited October 18, 2016 by lpops
corrested spelling

[signora]

Thank you so much for your detailed, informative review. We are thinking of going next summer (2018) on the Breakaway. You gave me a lot of great ideas!

[jimbri]

Enjoying your review and photos!