June 26, 2017 Navigator of the seas Baltic's review

[Cruisingcouple22]

Day 5 at sea

A leisurely start to our next morning and a bit of a lie in. We started off with another enrichment lecture from Prof. Gary Fuller about the political instability in Europe due to Russia’s influence and a bit on the history of Estonia. Quite a heavy topic for a holiday but interesting none the less. Then it was off to the buffet for breakfast where we easily found a seat. We’ve found that whilst the breakfast offerings are similar each day, they are all done well and are delicious. We took part in a name the counties of Europe quiz today, as well as origami, which was run really well by Dominic from the cruise directors staff. He engaged everyone well and made sure no-one was left behind.

Origami

 

We then watched a bit of Beauty and the Beast in the conference centre before trying to do archery (too windy) and settled on playing some cards.

Helipad was closed due to wind

Foggy today, I think there's a ship there somewhere

 

We saw the ice skating show today too which we were impressed by. The previous two we’ve seen had quite a strange story to try and follow which took away a bit from the skating, but this show (Ice Dancin’) focussed more on the skaters skill with a little bit of theming which was good. One of the skaters performed a spin so fast that we couldn’t count how many times he went round and then proceeded to back flip on ice!!

Ice hockey part of the show

 

We tried Sabor for dinner tonight because we had heard good things about it, and whilst the staff were excellent and the cocktails delicious (habanero and cucumber martini, yum!) the food was a bit of a let down, tasting quite bland a lot of the time. The guacamole tasted fresh, but not of much, even with the added hot sauce and the fish tacos and steak quesadillas didn’t seem to have any seasoning on them. The calamari starter was flavoursome though, and the chicken and bacon wrapped jalapenos certainly packed a punch! Dessert came out as a sample of all of them, and the cafe con leche and chocolate and banana empanadas were excellent. Overall though a bit of a let down. And unfortunately I forgot to get any photos!

Sabor

Tequila selection in sabor

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

We then headed to catch a bit of the All Access show with the ships singers and dancers, but only stated about 10 minutes. The music wasn’t the genres that we normally enjoy, and some of the vocalists seemed to have a hard time hitting their harmonies. But everyone else seemed to be enjoying it so maybe we were being a bit harsh on them! We’ll try their other shows later on. We also noticed a bit more movement on the boat today, but nowhere near enough to make anyone unwell, just a nice rocking you to sleep motion.

 

Towel elephant [emoji208]

 

Random photos from around the ship

Gold crown and anchor discounts

Metropolitan theatre

Promenade

Centrum

Sunrise on the deck

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Sunrise over the golf course

Pub menu

Cupcake decorating class, about $30 I think

Random artwork from around the ship

Promenade view from the card room

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Sitting area with ship models, deck 9, fore

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Here are some more photos of the breakfast in cafe promenade

 

And windjammer

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Through the roof! (Of the lift)

Way finder screen, they are really useful and you're able to check the menu in the MDR from anywhere!

Art work in the card room

Bathrooms next to windjammer, really nice view! I snuck in early to make sure it was empty.

 

Some other random observations:

There's no progressive quiz on this cruise, but other things (origami, battle of the sexes) are

Shows fill up early, so get there at least 15 minutes before to get a seat, or 30 minutes if you want front and centre

There is a gluten free corner in the windjammer so it's easy to find.

Gold suite guests (not junior suites [emoji45]) can have breakfast in chops grille, as well as lunch on sea days.

There was a cafe select card advertised on day 4 which got you 15 coffees for $39. Large coffees were about $5.50 so a good saving if you are having these each time.

Gratuities were included across the board in prices on this cruise, drinks, speciality restaurants and gym fees amongst others. Don't know whether this is because it's going from England or not. Cocktails that are $14 on the menu (avocado martini's in Sabor for example) have gratuities included in that price. A nice surprise, I was expecting 18% added to these prices.

 

We are off to Talinn today, then a ridiculously early St. Petersburg start (6:30!) so I may not be able to post much the next couple of days, but will try to keep you up to date [emoji4]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and please keep asking anything you want to know.

Ben

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[jules71]

Enjoying your review. A Baltic cruise is at the top of my bucket list and I Iove hearing about the ports.

[Frankinstein]

Thanks so much for your cruise updates. We're sailing on the 8th July for the Mediterranean cruise on Navigator. We have the drinks package, however looking at your photos, all of the cocktails are now magically over the $12 price limit. Do you know if any of the cocktails are $12 or under. Enjoy your cruise

[Shelley61]

Thanks so much for your cruise updates. We're sailing on the 8th July for the Mediterranean cruise on Navigator. We have the drinks package, however looking at your photos, all of the cocktails are now magically over the $12 price limit. Do you know if any of the cocktails are $12 or under. Enjoy your cruise

 

 

 

On cruises from the U.K. the maximum drink price is increased too, to $14 I believe.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Frankinstein]

On cruises from the U.K. the maximum drink price is increased too, to $14 I believe.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thats awesome thanks so much

[Cruisingcouple22]

Yep, to confirm, drinks up to $14 are included in the deluxe drinks package

 

And here are a few pages from the bar menu that's in a few Venus around the ship

 

So most should be included but there are a few that are $15-17.

 

Ben

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[sky0000547]

We have the drinks package, however looking at your photos, all of the cocktails are now magically over the $12 price limit. Do you know if any of the cocktails are $12 or under. Enjoy your cruise

 

 

As others have mentioned the limit is increased to $14 as cruises out of U.K. include 18% gratuity on the displayed prices where cruises in Caribbean and elsewhere are $12 then have to add 18% gratuity which makes up to $14.

[Frankinstein]

As others have mentioned the limit is increased to $14 as cruises out of U.K. include 18% gratuity on the displayed prices where cruises in Caribbean and elsewhere are $12 then have to add 18% gratuity which makes up to $14.

 

Thanks so much for your help

[Frankinstein]

Yep, to confirm, drinks up to $14 are included in the deluxe drinks package

 

And here are a few pages from the bar menu that's in a few Venus around the ship

 

So most should be included but there are a few that are $15-17.

 

Ben

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Thank you so much for all the photos. Greatly appreciated

[Suzieanna]

Hi Ben

 

looking at your very first post, I am intrigued as to how you managed to change cabin and get money back. I note you live in London. I didn't know us Brits were able to take advantage of such things?

 

If you like mojitos BTW the best ones are coconut flavoured in - I think it was called Boleros?

[Clagmeister]

Thanks so much for your cruise updates. We're sailing on the 8th July for the Mediterranean cruise on Navigator. We have the drinks package, however looking at your photos, all of the cocktails are now magically over the $12 price limit. Do you know if any of the cocktails are $12 or under. Enjoy your cruise

All prices out of the UK are marked up with the gratuity added.

[Geoffa30]

Enjoying your live from.

 

With regards the drinks package and the $14 limit - does anyone know whether you just pay the additional $3 if you have a drink which costs $17 or do you have to pay the full $17?

[Frankinstein]

Enjoying your live from.

 

With regards the drinks package and the $14 limit - does anyone know whether you just pay the additional $3 if you have a drink which costs $17 or do you have to pay the full $17?

 

Just have to pay the excess $3 and no gratuity on top of this as its incorporated into the cost of the drink I think, if sailing out of the UK.

[Geoffa30]

Just have to pay the excess $3 and no gratuity on top of this as its incorporated into the cost of the drink I think, if sailing out of the UK.

 

That's excellent. Thanks for responding. It was similar on Celebrity so I was hoping it would be the same on RCL seeing as they are part of the same group.

[happyholidays17]

Thanks for all your updates so far especially the food photos & the cocktail lists! I can't wait til we go in August now!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Sorry for the wait for the next bit of our cruise review, had a hectic couple of days in St. Petersburg, then a really early start in Helsinki. Just on our last couple of seas days now before our last day in Zeebruge. Anyway, onto....

 

Day 6 Tallinn

 

We started the day with another enrichment lecture, learning about they differences in languages across eastern Europe, and how some languages are Asian in origin (like Finnish) whilst most others are European. Another informative lecture from Gary Fuller. We then arrived in Tallinn, which again we had planned to just do our own thing. We decided to take the 10 dollar shuttle into town in order to try and beat the crowds, however this didn’t work due to the amount of traffic on the roads, a bit like Copenhagen. It ended up taking about 30 minutes to get to the drop of point, which was still a ten minute walk to the town square.

Old town gates

 

To put it in perspective, our walk to return to the ship only took 25 minutes from the same spot, so definitely worth walking if you’re able. Our first stop was the Olde Hansa Inn, a restaurant giving you a sample of traditional Estonian food and drink. It is definitely designed for tourist and all the staff speak excellent English, but is really enjoyable. The interior is lit almost exclusively by candles, even during the day due to the small windows, this does make it a bit of a challenge to navigate initially though!

olde Hanse Inn

Authentic bathrooms

 

We only had a snack here as we hadn’t long had breakfast, but I would recommend you try the beers. Our group sampled all three (dark honey beer, dark beer with herbs and light cinnamon beer) and each had a different favourite. They were about 4.50 euros for 0.5 litres, so not too bad (cheaper than on the ship!) We also tried a traditional coffee which was delicious, strong but without any bitterness. The staff were also fantastic and very funny. When I asked to pay by card, the waitress said she would just have to go into the future to get a magic box to help with that. Next we took a wander to take in the sights of the old town, the churches, castle and walls.

Estonian statues

Oldest cafe in Tallinn

 

We had an enjoyable time and found a spot overlooking the ship which was nice, but didn’t find too much to do around town.

View over old town, you can just make out the ship

 

This, combined with the fact that it had just begun to rain a little, lead us to head back to the ship. As mentioned above it was quite a nice walk.

We had a relaxing afternoon around the ship, playing cards and sitting in the hot tub, before deciding on the Windjammer for dinner as it was BBQ night and nothing in the main dining room took our fancy. One thing I would note is the food in the buffet does seem to reflect the main dining room most nights and here is much more choice in the buffet, but you don’t get the main dining room experience, so depends which you prefer. The food was very good too, and then we called it a night as we had a 6:45 meet for our excursion the next day!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

That's excellent. Thanks for responding. It was similar on Celebrity so I was hoping it would be the same on RCL seeing as they are part of the same group.

 

 

 

Yep, this what's been happening on our sailing. Also if anybody still has a select drinks package from an older reservation, they have let our group only pay the difference for more expensive wines too, which I don't think they used to do.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Hi Ben

 

looking at your very first post, I am intrigued as to how you managed to change cabin and get money back. I note you live in London. I didn't know us Brits were able to take advantage of such things?

 

If you like mojitos BTW the best ones are coconut flavoured in - I think it was called Boleros?

 

 

 

I was surprised when they allowed me to do it too! But I checked the payment card and the refund went through. I think maybe because I was upgrading categories, and they certainly would have asked for the difference if it has been more expensive! I'm going to keep an eye on our cruise prices for the future to see if this happens again. The only downside is you lose any deals you had originally booked under (OBC/free drinks package etc.) but can take advantage of current promotions.

 

And coconut mojitos sound good, I'll have to give them a try!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Day 7 St Petersburg

So up bright and early to meet for our excursion. This was the only excursion we had booked through Royal. We generally like to do our own thing, but the difficulty with getting visa’s, as well as the language barrier led us to book an excursion, and as we had some OBC we had used it for this. Incidentally, I love the fact the they now let you use OBC before your cruise on the cruise planner, so helpful!

Morning in St. Petersburg port

 

Off we trotted to meet at the theatre at 0645, where we met about 500 people doing the same thing, with a line reaching back through Schooner bar into the Casino. So we popper upstairs to café promenade to grab some coffee and breakfast, before re-joining the now much shorter queue about 0700. This put us in the final group of the two day tour (number 13! Lucky for some) They called the first group down at about 0715 and they filtered off the ship pretty swiftly. Then the queuing began again, with taking us about 45 minutes to get through passport control. Apart from the wait the process was easy, although the passport control staff did do a lot of typing. This is something to bear in mind if you are booking you own tour, leave plenty of time! We meet our tour guides, Julia and Elena from Arctur travel and then we were off. One benefit off being the last group was that ours seemed a bit smaller than the ones that had gone before and therefore we had plenty of space on the bus. Our tour was jam packed with things that we were going to do, and would require a lot of standing, walking and stairs, so not one for anybody with mobility difficulties. We first headed to Yusopov palace (apparently there are over 200 palaces in St Petersburg. Any large house was apparently called a palace.) There was a short wait to get inside, you weren’t allowed to take rucksacks in and you needed a little sticker in order to be allowed to take photos! We later learned that there is a small charge for anyone wanting to take photos, but this was included in the tour cost. This is where our guide really began to show her knowledge, leading us to different areas of interest whilst not following the main route, helping us to avoid the majority of the crowds. We learned a lot about the history of the Russian revolution, the murder of Rasputin and the Yusopov’s and Romanov’s in general.

The place of Rasputin's murder

 

We also caught the end of an acapella men’s quartet performing in one of the halls, and the were incredible.

After that we took a short drive to the Church of the Spilled blood, another beautiful building with an interesting history, almost being demolished but being saved by Germany’s declaration of war on Russia in WWII. It was stunning inside, and our guide took us through at a quick pace, whilst still allowing us to take it all in.

Outside of church

Other side of the church

 

She was also very safety conscious, advising us on pick-pocketing hotspots and when to keep a closer eye on our things.

Wall of icons inside the church

 

We then took a boat tour through the canals and river Neva of St Petersburg whilst narrated by our tour guide. There were also two teenagers running alongside our boat and stopping at each bridge to wave at us before carrying on. Obviously they weren’t just doing this for fun, and were waiting for us when we got off to get a tip, but they had put a lot of effort into it!

Boy chasing the boat

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Cruisingcouple22]

Our next stop was for lunch, and the Literary Café, apparently a favourite stop of various writers through the years. Lunch was included in our tour, starter was a nice salad, main was chicken and potato wedges with a lingonberry sauce and dessert with a vanilla and chocolate ice cream. It was all nicely prepared, although there wasn’t any other options offered if you didn’t like these ones. We stopped for 45 minutes for lunch, and along with the coffee, helped us feel recharge for the afternoon.

Our next stop was the Hermitage including the winter palace, an absolutely stunning collection of buildings housing one of the most extensive art collections in the world.

Hermitage

 

Again our guide showed her expertise, helping us to avoid the majority of the crowds and passing on a plethora of information about the building and art.

Stairs leading into Hermitage

 

We saw a number of Rembrandt, Da Vinci and Raphael works of art amongst many others. We also saw the amazing gold peacock clock, which only chimes once a week to preserve the mechanism.

Peacock clock

 

We also learnt some interesting history about the name of the building, coming from the word hermit, meaning lonely. There was so much gold on display that your eyes begin to ache after a while!

Hermitage gardens

 

After the Hermitage we stopped at St. Isaacs cathedral, which has an enormous gold dome on top, and every surface insisted is decorated with mosaics and paintings, it is absolutely stunning. The problem I have with St Petersburg is there aren’t enough superlatives to describe it!

Inside of St Isaac's

Dome of St. Isaacs. The dove in the centre is about 3 feet/1 meter across!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums