Serenade of the Seas 7N Baltic Cruise Review Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallin, St Peter

[rene1103]

great work, very nice videos! Is it possible to get a short clip of the windjammer outdoor seating on serenade? Thanks a lot

 

 

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[Iluvcruising2]

great work, very nice videos! Is it possible to get a short clip of the windjammer outdoor seating on serenade? Thanks a lot

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I posted this clip earlier, while the ship was sailing into Stockholm. Much of this clip was taken while I was in the outdoor aft section of the Windjammer. You can catch glimpses of the outdoor seating. Let me know if this is what you were looking for.

[YOUTUBE]jFx-LiHm8ik[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

After doing the walk (as per Rick Steve's guide), we returned to the Old Town square and went to an info counter to figure out how to take a tram to the Kadrioru Park. At this time, the old town square was much more bustling, as compared to earlier in the morning.

 

We managed to find the train stop and we paid for the tram ticket with cash (Euros). It was an interesting ride, and not far. Kind people on board the tram told us where to stop. And we walked around the park a bit. There was some large playground with amusement rides, but we didn't ride any. The plan was to take a taxi back to the cruise port but we had difficulty finding one. So we ending up walking all the way back! It was a rather long walk, I think almost 3km, but we made it. All that exercise was good! Was the park worth going? Well, probably not. May be better to spend more time wandering around Tallinn old town. More charm.

[YOUTUBE]lDSsENqQMGY[/YOUTUBE]

 

And we reach back to the port gates after a long, long walk from the Kaidrioru Park. Plenty of sun to go around. There were three ships in port, and ours was docked closest to the port gates. Walking is good, stretch the legs. Be mindful of the sun though. It was very bright. Bring a cap and sunscreen if needed.

[YOUTUBE]GC0oKd5xWxk[/YOUTUBE]

Edited July 4, 2016 by Iluvcruising2

[irishgal432]

Thank you for all of your hints and videos. Your trip looked great!

[Iluvcruising2]

Thank you for all of your hints and videos. Your trip looked great!

 

Thanks! We had a blast. This is an itinerary I would want to do again in the future.

[Iluvcruising2]

Back on board the ship, I didn't take any video of the lunch we had. Must have been too hungry! We probably had our lunch in the Windjammer, I can't remember. Anyway, the next video footage on my camera was this footage from the Park Cafe in the Solarium.

[YOUTUBE]0nXU_t6Co-8[/YOUTUBE]

 

And then I stand on the sun deck looking at the port of Tallinn, and I decided to give you some commentary on how easy and convenient the port of Tallinn was to do, by foot! This angle gives you an idea of how near (or far, it is all relative) the old town is. Many cruise passengers do it on foot, as you can see the lines of people walking back to the ships.

[YOUTUBE]ZpNHUzDYXqc[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

Opposite us, in Tallinn, was the Holland America Zuiderdam. On closer look, her hull paintwork looked to be in a rather bad shape. I am not sure why they didn't paint the ship more professionally. It certainly did not look good in the sun!

[YOUTUBE]U1FSOzDCa-0[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

On the day the ship was in Tallinn, there would be a short introduction to Russian language by cruise activities manager, Ms Azzy. It would be held in the Safari Club, which is beyond the Schooner Bar. This video shows me walking through the Schooner Bar to get to the Safari Club.

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And here we were in the Safari Club, Ms Azzy started her class by going through the Russian Alphabet (there are 33 letters). This video shows her talking through the entire Alphabet. I figured that I would not be able to remember so I kept my video camera recording for future reference. Here you go.

[YOUTUBE]0BscUbhIo0I[/YOUTUBE]

 

If you have little time but still want to pick up useful Russian phrases, watch this video instead of the previous one. Ms Azzy did a very good job in putting this very useful list of phrases, including good morning, how are you, and thank you!

[YOUTUBE]jqhdTKEbJLs[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

Just before dinner, I was taking a walk outside to watch the ship sail away from Tallinn, when I spotted this cruise ferry coming into port. She looked pretty, with her bright blue paint and musical notes. This was the M/S Finlandia, owned by Eckero lines. I gather that this cruise ferry plies between Tallin and Helsinki. I don't know the story behind the musical notes but it certainly looked cool!

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[Iluvcruising2]

Dinner! Tonight, we continue to use our speciality dining package (we have 5 nights' worth) and we will be trying Giovanni's. This wasn't our first time at Giovanni's Table, so we already knew what to expect, more or less. We ate early as we wanted to catch the aerial show at the Centrum so we asked the waiter to speed things up, and they kindly obliged. You can see in the video that we pretty much tried most of their mains, including the beef, shrimp, veal and chicken. There was no poor dish, just good or better, depending on your taste. Desserts were fantastic. They pull a trolley up and introduce the desserts to you. The greedy us tried everything, well, you can ask for multiple desserts, no sweat, they are happy to oblige. So between our family (there were 6 of us), we tried everything, and more!

 

If you watched the video carefully, you may have notice in front of me I had a glass of red wine and another drink (which in fact was the long island iced tea). We got that using our Diamond perks. How? Well, the bar is just outside. We get our drinks from the bartender, then bring them into Giovanni's. (We do the same with Chops). Are we allowed to do that? Well, nobody stopped us. Was Long Island iced tea included in the Diamond drink package? No. But I asked nicely and the bartender gave it to me and counted that as a drink against our Diamond 3-drink allocation. Very nice of him. I gave him a nice tip in return. Hey, it's all about 'win-win'.

[YOUTUBE]HXvDDg_a2tI[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

We completed our Giovanni's Table dinner very quickly indeed, and there was even time to check out the Windjammer before heading off to Centrum show. On this cruise, we would almost always get a surprise when we visit the Windjammer during dinner hours, and this visit was no different. For the dessert station, they were doing smoothies tonight. I have never experienced this during a Royal Caribbean cruise - a live smoothie station. It was gorgeous. They had some Italian food as well as a live pasta station. I was stuffed from dinner so I didn't try any of those. But the smoothie was certainly very good.

[YOUTUBE]LfaeaFimNy0[/YOUTUBE]

 

Now, the Centrum aerial display. Well, we have watched similar displays before on Royal ships, so I wasn't particularly impressed with this one. However, it was still good fun and the atmosphere was great too. Fun to see the artists flying around. I made the video go a bit faster, else it would take too long to complete. I don't think I was in the best position for the performance, but still, it worked.

[YOUTUBE]5BY08lMUNQ4 [/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

Today, we were in St Petersburg! This port was certainly the highlight of our cruise. Usually, most cruises would spend at least 2 days here (i.e. one overnight), however, our itinerary was a bit rushed so we only had one day, albeit a very full one. We arrived at 7am and all aboard time was 730pm, so we had the entire day. We booked our own private tour through the Internet for the 6 of us. The tour guide, Natalia, met us at the exit. Payment was collect upfront (USD 750) before we started on the tour. This is the first of many parts, so enjoy!

 

We left the ship and was brought to a very nice Mercedes Van, and we were introduced to our Russian driver. Then we took a nice drive into St Petersburg, with lots commentary along the way. The first spot was to stop at a place to take photographs, and then another stop at the Nicholas I monument to take more photographs. There were many other cruise ship tourists at these spots.

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[Iluvcruising2]

After the first two stops for photos, we stopped for about 15 minutes at a gift shop, called Pushkin Art Gallery. Ok, there were some very expensive stuff here so be careful not to break anything. There was no compulsion to buy anything, which was good. The purpose of the gift shop stop was also to use their toilets, which were clean. We bought some fridge magnets. Then, we set off to Catherine Palace. The ride would take about 45 minutes. On the way, I saw a Mahan Air plane plane landing. We must be near the St Petersburg Airport.

 

We were dropped off about 400M from the gate and had to take a leisurely walk to the gate where groups entered. There were many people waiting. Apparently there was a long line for the group leaders to get tickets, so we just waited a bit. This was the group entrance, not the individual entrance.

[YOUTUBE]YmcWToGZRxo[/YOUTUBE]

 

Perhaps they knew that large groups had to wait outside the gate before we could enter, so they sent a band to entertain us! It was good fun. The band played interesting stuff, including the famous Italian classic El Sole Mio. There were many other tourists waiting as well.

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[Iluvcruising2]

Now, one of the highlilghts of our St Petersburg trip, the Catherine Palace at Pushkin. This was the summer palace of the Russian Tsars. This place was almost destroyed (80%) during World War II, before the Germans retreated after the seige of Leningrad, now called St Petersburg, (yes the Germans controlled this part), they burnt the Palace. Restoring it has taken decades, with work still ongoing. Description of the Palace from Wiki:

 

The residence originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia hired German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to construct a summer palace for her pleasure. In 1733, Empress Elizabeth commissioned Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Kvasov to expand the Catherine Palace. Empress Elizabeth, however, found her mother's residence outdated and incommodious and in May 1752 asked her court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to demolish the old structure and replace it with a much grander edifice in a flamboyant Rococo style. Construction lasted for four years, and on 30 July 1756 the architect presented the brand-new 325-meter-long palace to the Empress, her dazed courtiers, and stupefied foreign ambassadors.

 

More than 100 kilograms of gold were used to gild the sophisticated stucco façade and numerous statues erected on the roof. It was even rumoured that the palace's roof was constructed entirely of gold. In front of the palace a great formal garden was laid out. It centres on the azure-and-white Hermitage Pavilion near the lake, designed by Mikhail Zemtsov in 1744, remodelled by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1749 and formerly crowned by a grand-gilded sculpture representing The Rape of Persephone. The interior of the pavilion featured dining tables with dumbwaiter mechanisms. The grand entrance to the palace is flanked by two massive "circumferences", also in the Rococo style. A delicate cast-iron grille separates the complex from the town of Tsarskoe Selo.

 

My own take of the place? It is gorgeous. Worth a visit, most definitely. Makes more sense to have a guide to tell you about the palace. I enjoyed the commentary. Recommended!

[YOUTUBE]XFxcM9LqBqk[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

After the visit to the Catherine Palace (Pushkin), it was time to get some lunch before continuing our journey. We had to walk out of the Catherine Palace back to our ride. The Russian driver was waiting for us. Along the way, we saw many tourists going to visit Catherine Palace, including children. We asked our guide to bring us to a McDonalds for lunch. She brought us to a convenient McDs at a shopping mall where we had a quick lunch (time was quite tight). So all of us had burgers, a drink and some fries. The cost wasn't too expensive, about 1,400 Russian Roubles (abt 22 USD) for all of us. Then we were caught in heavy traffic as we made our way back to St Petersburg, to the Hermitage Museum.

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We visit the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg after lunch on our day in St Petersburg. We entered the museum at around 2pm (the allocated time on our group ticket - all taken care of by our private tour guide). We spent about 2 hours in this museum on a whirlwind tour. Our guide brought us to see all the interesting exhibits (well at least the more famous ones), and it was indeed quite a whirlwind tour because the place was big and there were many people. That said, thanks to our guide, we got to see many interesting exhibits including the Peacock clock, several paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, an unfinished sculpture by Michelangelo, and a vase from 4th Century BC, and even an Egyptian Mummy. There was certainly more to see in the museum but we didn't have the time. I didn't know what to expect before coming here, but it was cool. A crowded place, so be careful of your belongings.

[YOUTUBE]uNE01ifXLn8[/YOUTUBE]

[stefanny28]

Amazing reviews... Thanks for doing this. We are leaving in less than 2 weeks for our 14 days Baltic cruise so these videos really help.

 

How hot does it gets in these palaces and museums with all the people ( I don't expect AC inside the Hermitage...)?

Edited July 10, 2016 by stefanny28

[Iluvcruising2]

Amazing reviews... Thanks for doing this. We are leaving in less than 2 weeks for our 14 days Baltic cruise so these videos really help.

 

How hot or cold does it gets into these palaces and museums ( I don't expect AC inside the Hermitage...)?

 

Hello,

 

The temperature was alright inside the museums. It wasn't hot, neither was it cold. I do think they had some type of temperature control. If you watch the videos, you can see how the visitors were dressed.

[Iluvcruising2]

After our 2 hour whirlwind visit, we had time for one more stop before the end of our day in St Petersburg, and that would be the Church of the Savior on Blood, or Spilled Blood Church. The Church was build on the site where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded in March 1881.

 

The church is prominently situated along the Griboedov Canal, with paved roads running along both sides. The church is embellished with topaz, lazurite and other semi-precious stones, making it a striking contrast with the cobblestones of the road. On March 13, 1881, as Tsar Alexander's carriage passed along the embankment, a grenade thrown by an anarchist conspirator exploded. The Tsar, shaken but unhurt, got out of the carriage and a second conspirator took the chance to throw another bomb, killing himself (aka like a suicide bomber) and mortally wounding the Tsar. The Tsar, bleeding heavily, was taken back to the Winter Palace where he died a few hours later.

[YOUTUBE]Qo_Y0AkHlyo [/YOUTUBE]

 

The Spilled Blood Church was our last stop. After this, it was time to get back to the ship. As we were pretty tired by then (both adults and kids!), we decided to go back rather than spend another hour or so walking around. Our guide was prepared to let us spend all the time allocated (since the ship was only about a 15 minute ride away) but we decided that we should head back to rest. Back on board the ship, we had dinner at the Windjammer. I headed outside to watch the sailaway and noticed that our ship was still re-fuelling. So our sailaway was delayed by a bit. Goodbye St Petersburg!

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[Cruiserbarbie]

Lady--I was there for 5 days prior to the cruise and bought a Copenhagen Card for the 5 days. Check it out and see if it is of value for what you want to do for 2-3 day card. Mine paid for itself twice over-great, great deal!

[Iluvcruising2]

Lady--I was there for 5 days prior to the cruise and bought a Copenhagen Card for the 5 days. Check it out and see if it is of value for what you want to do for 2-3 day card. Mine paid for itself twice over-great, great deal!

 

5 days in Copenhagen. Cool. What did you do for the 5 days? I don't recall that being so much to do in Copenhagen.

[Iluvcruising2]

HELSINKI, FINLAND

Our final port of call for this cruise was Helsinki, Finland. The port visit was quite short, ship arrived at 7am and would depart at 2pm. The plan was to disembark once we arrived and make our way into town via public transport. We got to the Rock Church too early. The church opens at 0930hrs, and we were there around 0830hrs. We didn't want to wait, and there wasn't much around that place (very residential), so we couldn't find a cafe to wait either. So we just took some photos from the outside, checked out the top part (all rock!) and began our leisurely walk to the town centre. It didn't take too long, at most 1 hour to walk to the train station. A very pleasant walk. Check out our video.

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We noticed a Nespresso Boutique which just opened that morning! So we went in to take a look and bought some coffee pods, since the prices there were less expensive than Singapore. 4.2Euros for a sleeve of 10 pods of Arpeggio. It was a very nice boutique and the store manager was very nice to offer us complimentary Nespresso coffee for the entire family. A nice touch that morning. I'm a loyal Nespresso coffee drinker these days and I consume on average 2 pods per weekday (I put a machine in my office).

[YOUTUBE]EQ789vtYY0U[/YOUTUBE]

[Iluvcruising2]

After the coffee stop, we wandered around some more. Followed the Rick Steves guide and found our way to the Esplanade Park. Not very large, but very pleasant. We had a good time walking around. Take note the large shopping center called Stockmann had clean (complimentary) toilets plus free (and strong) WIFI! Walked arouund the shopping center a bit before taking the public bus back to the ship. Our day in Helsinki was quite short.

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[Iluvcruising2]

The public bus is number 14. The driver accepted cash (in Euros). This video shows us alighting near the cruise port (we alighted one stop early), but no biggies, as the walk to the ship was very easy.

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Back on board, it was time for lunch! Today, the Windjammer did a very cool Poolside BBQ. Check out the video footage. Fortunately we went early. Later, the lines were very long!

[YOUTUBE]5BeOxLh8S64[/YOUTUBE]

Edited July 30, 2016 by Iluvcruising2

[Iluvcruising2]

After lunch, it was time to walk around a bit. The thing with cruising is that I really eat too much. To compensate, I try my best to keep more active by walking around. Might as well make more videos. In this video, I found my way down to the sun deck area for suite guests. Nobody was here. I then went into the gym to take a look. The gym was rather large. Not many passengers were working out. As this was a port day, most had gone onshore.

[YOUTUBE]fJmWbHvAUxM[/YOUTUBE]

 

And then, I caught sight of this Patrol Boat. At first I thought it was a navy vessel sailing out. But when my camera zoomed in, I could scarcely believe what i was seeing - a hot rub? Wow, that is not something you see everyday. When I got back home, did some googling, and found out that this PT boat belonged to this leisure company - http://www.vartiovene55.fi/in-english/ This Patrol Boat began her life as a minesweeper.

[YOUTUBE]6JkB6rDXwRo[/YOUTUBE]

Edited July 31, 2016 by Iluvcruising2

[Iluvcruising2]

Been a while since I posted on this thread. In this video, you can see the long lines of passengers waiting to board the Serenade of the Seas, in Helsinki Finland. We usually come back ahead of time, so we avoid being caught in such a line.

 

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