A Tale of Two Cruises

[emeraldcity]

Just recently retired and the best way to celebrate that is with a cruise or two. So I joined a fellow cruise frantic for two European cruises on NCL. My only other NCL cruise was quite some years ago on the Pride of America, but I’ve been making the Royal Caribbean stockholders very happy for some time so it was time to spread the wealth. And let’s face it, the two lines offer a rather similar product … they just have different ways of ensuring profitability while annoying the fewest number of customers.

 

This was a new part of the world for me. I don’t do the bucket list thing, but I do have an awesome world map mounted on my wall that gets a bunch of new push pins when I come back from a trip. This time it was the Baltic Sea ports on the Getaway and the coast of Norway on the Jade.

 

I often do a rather detailed journal after a cruise, but this time I’m going to go with a different format and just compare the two ships … because that’s what I was doing as I tried them on for size. I’ll start off by admitting I’m a small ship kind-of-person. I like the social aspect of cruising and the small ship delivers that by offering more chances to bump into the same people repeatedly during the duration of the cruise. So I was actually looking forward a bit more to the Jade than the Getaway, but I expected both cruises to be fantastic … and they were.

 

The Arrival at the Port

Nothing beats the fun of scoring a pre-cruise hotel with a view of the port … but that didn’t happen this time. I personally like being able to see the ship when I wake up in the morning so I can droll over it for a few hours before we leave the hotel. Instead, for both of these cruises, my “there she is” moment came when I was hanging over the shoulder of the taxi driver getting those first few pictures. NCL does an amazing job with all that available white space on the sides of the ship. I love the fun murals each ship proudly carries.

 

Embarkation

This all about the port authority and kudos to Copenhagen, where we boarded the Getaway. They really have their act together. Good traffic flow, except for the bit where they directed you away from the ship after check-in because the photographers were set up on the other side of check-in. But that’s just a little bump in the road. Hamburg was a bit more painful when we arrived to board the Jade. Bag tags were a source of confusion, and if there was a line, there didn’t seem to be a general respect for it. Pushy people got served first by the lone fellow who was the czar of bag tags. Once rid of the checked pieces, a very pleasant man greeted us at the terminal door and directed the line we were to head for. He was the only pleasant employee in the process. While it admittedly is unrealistic to expect that the people assisting in the boarding process might consider sharing your excitement … it would be refreshing if they could at least fake it. In any event it took us nearly an hour from taxi drop-off to setting foot on board, but we heard others who said it took an hour and a half.

 

Cabins

A comparison here is a bit unfair because we had a balcony on the Jade and an inside on the Getaway. That being said, the Getaway bathroom was laid out better than the Jade. I suspect they both had the same number of square inch-age (is that even a word, because let’s face it, you can’t use the term “square footage” when referring to a cruise ship bathroom), but the narrow layout of the Jade bathroom was clearly designed by someone who wasn’t planning on cruising on the ship. The safe on the Getaway was tucked sideways into a closet and it would have been far too easy to leave something behind when emptying it on the last day, because no light shone into it. The safe on the Jade was bigger and better located (Had I brought my laptop, I bet it would have fit in there). If you’re into drawer space, you’ll be disappointed on the Getaway, because there wasn’t any … I had to rethink my organization of personal items because everything had to be stored on shelves. The beds were fine and the pillows were workable, but I still longed for my pillows from home.

 

And that balcony was a nice size, sporting comfortable chairs. I spent hours on it, especially those two days when were cruised through the fjords. For those two days alone, it was worth the extra expense.

 

Food

Cruising is all about the food. OK, it’s primarily about ship and itinerary, but food comes in right behind that. And I’m pretty easy to please. I like the basics, and am not really into trendy. But my travel partner for this trip kept telling me ahead of time that the food is better on NCL than RCI … and I have to agree that Getaway clearly delivered on that promise. Jade? Not so much. The food was fine … I just think it was better on the Getaway.

 

I was delighted to find that 9 years after my first (and only other) NCL cruise, made-to-order crepes are still a thing. Sometimes I’d skip dessert in one of the restaurants to go to the buffet for a crepe instead (yeah, I’ve got it bad). This posed a dilemma, however on the Getaway, because the buffet also had hard ice cream and gelato as standard fare, along with chocolate and caramel topping. Choices, choices … The Jade had the ice cream topping as well, but no hard ice cream … only soft serve.

 

There was plenty of variety on the salad bar (although the Getaway had all my favorite selections and I was a bit disappointed to find some of them missing on the Jade) and the main dishes were often themed toward one nationality or another on any given evening, which was a nice approach, provided you liked the theme. If the main dishes were a bust, you could always do Asian, Indian or the pasta station … and my go-to was the pasta.

 

Dining experience – buffet

The layout was considerably different on both ships. Getaway had a long serving area that easily got rather congested, while Jade had islands with more clearance around them and that seemed to work better for traffic flow. The islands seemed to be the reason that there was no hard ice cream according to the Food and Beverage manager, which was unfortunate. There also seemed to be more overall variety on the Getaway every night because there was more space, but maybe that opinion is colored by the ice cream withdrawal pangs.

 

As for seating, it was predictably crowded at peak times and often near impossible to find a table right around the time of the “All aboard” on port days. On the Getaway, that meant making a complete circuit and then ending up out on the pool deck. On the Jade, that meant heading ever farther back until you ended up in the outdoor seating area, which didn’t have a lot of traffic on a cloudy, chilly, damp Norway afternoon.

 

The roving staff is amazingly focused on making dirty dishes disappear and cleaning recently vacated tables. I have a visual of an invisible command center identifying diners starting to push their chair back and radio-dispatching staff to the table to get it turned around. It was the same on both ships, so I have to wonder if that’s an NCL thing. There wasn’t any personal service in the buffet seating area, except for bussing tables. That’s one of the things I missed a bit.

 

Dining experience – sit-down restaurants

This is where I missed RCI, because I’m part of that old school group that really likes assigned dining with shared tables. I thought it was just because I’ve had such good experiences connecting with a group of new people that become my friends for the length of the cruise, but I discovered another missing piece to the puzzle on NCL. I missed the comfort level of getting to know my servers … and they get to know me. That in turn seems to deliver a higher level of service.

 

NCL has a different structure and I understand how it is supposed to work, but it just doesn’t seem to be very effective. On the Getaway, we would invariably arrive at a restaurant where we had a reservation and be invited to sit down in a nearby seating area before they could take us to our table. If the restaurant had been packed, that might make sense, but we are talking about an early dining time when the place was empty. And walking past the restaurants at peak times was a challenge in navigating through the crowd. All of the people had reservations and they were still having to wait, without benefit of the seated waiting area which was full.

 

Once seated, the service was professional, but somehow distracted. Different people showed up for water, order-taking, food-delivery, clearing, etc. I really wasn’t sure who was in charge of the table.

 

There were stand-outs such as Cagneys on the Jade and Moderno on the Getaway. We had fantastic dining experiences at both locations.The guy that runs Jade’s Cagneys in particular should get promoted. His restaurant was the number one establishment on the Jade. I’m struggling to evaluate the restaurant service level overall on the Jade because it was unfortunately under par. The service level was spotty and seemed to depend solely on whether you had someone who cared about his job and took pride in the level of service being rendered. I’m used to a head waiter overseeing the dining experience and insuring that every server delivers an expected service level. I guarantee that the Cagneys manager on the Jade was doing that.

 

 

--more to come...

Edited September 1, 2017 by emeraldcity

[Keith1010]

Enjoyed your first installment and looking forward to the next post.

 

Very well written.

 

Keith

[Two Wheels Only]

Dining experience – sit-down restaurants

This is where I missed RCI, because I’m part of that old school group that really likes assigned dining with shared tables.

Different strokes for different folks.

I would dread the thought of being seated with strangers for a week. Even assigned dining times would irk me.

I gotta be free....Freestyle Dining for me.(y)

 

Although, I can see how some people would prefer the other/older way.

[KeithJenner]

Another thing that shows how different peoples experiences can be.

 

There was someone posting on here about Cagneys on the Jade a few weeks ago. Their opinion was that it was the worst restaurant on any ship, and they were recommending to people that they give it a miss.

 

I ate there a few days ago and thought it was pretty average for Cagneys.

[Barb Nahoumi]

Different strokes for different folks.

I would dread the thought of being seated with strangers for a week. Even assigned dining times would irk me.

I gotta be free....Freestyle Dining for me.(y)

 

Although, I can see how some people would prefer the other/older way.

 

It's Freestyle for us as well. We don't like to be tied to a schedule when on vacation.

[Travel R]

Enjoying the review so far -- looking forward to the rest.

 

I too miss the traditional dining -- and have no issue sitting with other people. I enjoy the company of new and different people.

 

On my last cruise on RCI we had the my-time dining, but because we had kids we normally went at the same time anyway, and would usually be placed at the same table area. A few other passengers also were on a similar schedule, and even though we all had our own individual tables, we all started talking anyway among ourselves (one couple even bought a gift for my daughter).

 

One thing I will be stating when I eventually get around to finishing my own review is that I miss the "cruise experience." Not that I did not really enjoy myself, but there is "something" that is missing with today's floating hotels.

[CruzinMel]

Liking your review - more, please!

 

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[easyboy]

Your comparison is interesting. Will be following along.

 

 

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[EllieinNJ]

I am doing the baltics next year on the Breakaway and have the same worries about it being too big for this area. I also am considering doing Norway on the Jade, which leaves a day after our baltic cruise returns, leaving from Southhampton. I just can't find two nonstop flights from EWR to Copenhagen and returning from London. I'll probably just go to Oslo after the cruise and leave from there.

 

But am eager to hear the rest of your story.

[emeraldcity]

Meet & Greet

Unlike RCI, apparently someone on cruisecritic has to take the initiative to organize a Meet & Greet event with the ship prior to sailing. We had one very resourceful cruiser who handled this chore for both cruises. Also unlike RCI, once said Meet & Greet is arranged, NCL takes it very seriously. They send virtually all of the senior hotel staff to the event and go so far as to pass out a printed card with all of their contact information on it. Each of them makes a very nice presentation and you are made to feel like your loyalty to the line is valued.

 

Events

OK. This was a surprise. I was expecting some different game shows. Granted, they have a winning crowd-pleasing line-up of game shows on Royal Caribbean, but I thought NCL would have a different set of crowd-pleasers. Nope. Apparently, the two lines work this out together. Majority Rules, Battle of the Sexes, Newlywed/Not So Newlywed (at least the two lines give this one a different title … but the questions were exactly the same! As memory serves, they were word for word).

 

Special shout-out though for Jeparody … they don’t have that one on RCI so I enjoyed the chance to watch something new. Probably an RCI scout from the entertainment planning group will one day approach the boss and suggest this great new idea he/she has for a Jeopardy style game show on the ships.

 

Both ships delivered plenty of contests and tournaments, ranging from shuffle board, bean bag toss, ping pong, mini golf and trivia. I really enjoy trivia, but I approach it rather warily after a few encounters with some RCI cruisers who believe it is a blood sport. NCL has a different approach to prizes that I really like, and perhaps it knocks the competitive angle down a few pegs to a tolerable level. Instead of competing for rubber keychains and refrigerator magnets, you simply play for signatures on activity cards. Winning team gets two signatures, but everyone gets one. At the end of the cruise, you turn in activity cards for a prize of your choice. (I chose the ink pen, which is something I can really use.) I didn’t try out the trivia on Getaway, but I did on Jade and it netted me some wonderful friends for the cruise. We didn’t have any set teams. I just joined one of several different groups whenever I’d arrive at the event and we had a lot of fun testing our knowledge. A special thank you to the gracious folks who treated me like I was an asset because I had provided one right answer the previous day. Trivia provided the social part of cruising that is such a vital component of the whole experience for me.

 

Entertainment

While I can’t say any of the headliner entertainers was a stand-out, NCL hit a solid home run on the shows they have as standard fare. Getaway had the Million Dollar Quartet which was so fantastic we went to see it again the second night. They also had Burn the Floor, which is an amazing dance production. The third big show was the Steam Punk dinner show (billed as a cirque-type event). I can’t say the dinner stands out as anything special, but the costuming and staging of the show was worth the price of admission. There was so much imagination put into the costuming that it turned a series of juggling, balancing and acrobatic acts into a spectacular. The knife throwing was an element that I found unsettling, but then, that’s just me letting the “what if it goes wrong?” concerns become the lingering impression.

 

As for the Jade, it blows me away that a smaller ship with a smaller complement of passengers to support the price of the entertainment was able to fill their cast with such an outstanding group of entertainers. The production shows were well choreographed and very enjoyable, but nothing prepared me for the big production show toward the end of the cruise. Elements is unquestionably the best production show I have ever seen on a cruise ship. With the use of imaginative costuming and interpretive dance, they brought together dancers, aerialists and an illusionist to create a series of productions that evoked each of the elements. After a quick dinner, I managed to snag a SRO spot in the back for the first show, so I came back early to get a seat for the second one. Yes, it was good enough that I wanted to see it twice in the same night.

 

Admittedly, it seems like a waste of perfectly good cruise hours to watch a movie that you could see at home, but sometimes the right movie is in the right timeslot with nothing else that grabs my attention. Such was the afternoon when the Jade showed The Monument Men. Having just spent several weeks touring museums and cathedrals in Europe (most notably in Russia), this particular film added an extra dimension of historical perspective. A special thank you to whoever scheduled that one.

 

Since the Cruise Director is responsible for the entertainment, I have to add a special paragraph about the cruise directors. I felt that both ships had done a great job of staffing this position, although I’d give a slight edge to the CD on the Jade (I apologize because I can’t find his name in my notes). Not only did he join in to a limited degree with some of the dance moves on the end of the production shows, but his command of multiple languages and the ease with which he slipped from one to another was truly impressive.

 

Venues & Features

Best venue, hands down, on either ship is the Spinnaker Lounge on the Jade. This nice size show lounge is situated forward on an upperdeck and boasts extensive views of the sea. Once it got dark, the sea views wouldn’t be there, of course, but it was an outstanding venue to house gameshows. During the day, it was used for the occasional trivia game, but also served as a quiet zone (great idea) mid-day for those who just wanted to read or work on a craft while enjoying a seaview (presumably the inside cabin folks). If there was a similar space on the Getaway, I never found it. Since I had an inside, it was a drawback to that class of ship for me. The smaller ships on RCI offer seaviews galore and the big ships are all inward-facing. Not sure if that is also the case for NCL, but it certainly held true about these two particular ships.

 

The theaters were both fine, but I found that once the early goers claimed the center seats, the seating against the wall (particularly on the Jade) could only be accessed from one of the two center aisles by stumbling over people. Side aisles were non-existent. I would have thought for safety reasons alone, side aisles would have been mandated during construction. The seats were quite comfortable on the Jade. But the Getaway seats lacked padding toward the back of the seat and I found that if I sat up straight (like mama taught me) I was sitting on a hard iron bar. So I slouched in my seat, which probably was appreciated by the person behind me, but didn’t do my back a whole lot of good.

 

I’ve never had a chance to do a ropes course and the Getaway features this intriguing option. (Did I mention that I’m retired … and I didn’t retire until well after the age when I was eligible to do so.) So I had to try it. And I’ll give the staff credit … they didn’t bat an eye when I walked up there to be fitted into a harness with all those elementary school kids. They gave me the basic information and I headed up that stairway and out onto those intimidating balance beams. Two minutes into my adventure, the overwhelming thought was “what in the world are you trying to prove to yourself?” But I couldn’t give those kids the satisfaction of seeing that gray-haired old lady promptly do an about-face. So I explored most of the feature, including the part that has a dead end and I realized with dismay I’d have to retrace my steps, doing that entire piece over again. I finally reached the point where they do a zipline of sorts and then I could make a graceful exit.

 

Getaway also has some amazing looking waterslides, including a couple with what looks like a 70-degree drop, but a Baltic cruise doesn’t offer swimsuit weather … that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

 

 

...Port review to follow ...

Edited September 2, 2017 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

I am doing the baltics next year on the Breakaway and have the same worries about it being too big for this area. I also am considering doing Norway on the Jade, which leaves a day after our baltic cruise returns, leaving from Southhampton. I just can't find two nonstop flights from EWR to Copenhagen and returning from London. I'll probably just go to Oslo after the cruise and leave from there.

 

But am eager to hear the rest of your story.

 

I actually starting my European adventure with a 10-day land portion that began in Budapest and involved several train trips before we got to Copenhagen for the Baltic run. Trying to book Cleveland to Budapest and then London to Cleveland was cost-prohibitive, so I booked a RT to London and then took a one-way on British Air from London To Budapest.

 

London is pricey because of the travelers tax they slap on. Frankly you might find some great ground options between London and Copenhagen that are more fun. Try checking ferries and trains. We actually took a train that they put on a ferry for part of the trip when traveling between Copenhagen and Hamburg.

[Dina7]

I'm truly enjoying your descriptions of both cruises! :)

[cruisequeen4ever]

Congratulations on your retirement!

 

 

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[Steve007NY]

Given in CL's "fleetwide menus" were the main dining room then use the same on each of the two different cruises? Where there are nights where, as opposed to specialty restaurants, you actually ate the same menu prepared by each of the separate chefs? Maybe it's just the research scientist in me but that would be the comparison I would most like to see.

Thanks

[emeraldcity]

Given in CL's "fleetwide menus" were the main dining room then use the same on each of the two different cruises? Where there are nights where, as opposed to specialty restaurants, you actually ate the same menu prepared by each of the separate chefs? Maybe it's just the research scientist in me but that would be the comparison I would most like to see.

Thanks

 

Other than Moderno, we never had the same menu item on each ship. As for Moderno, Getaway was clearly a better experience ... both in service and food quality. Frankly we felt the meats were a bit overdone on the Jade, which is a sentiment shared by the couple who was dining at the table next to us.

 

On the Getaway, the difficulty in getting a dining slot when we were ready for dinner left us heading for the buffet most evenings rather than the main dining rooms. We had the dining plan as one of our perks on both ships and we used those with the times I had booked well prior to sailing, but it was just too much of a hassle getting a dining time on the Getaway. We tried the MDRs several times on the Jade however, because we could walk up and get seated. But I'm afraid I'm not in a position to offer you the comparison you were hopping for.

[Steve007NY]

Thanks. We're actually just curious. We're in the process of trying to figure out which nights to use our three specialty dining perks and went to eat in the MDR. But more than that, was just wondering about the general issue of how to different shifts on two different cruise l was just wondering about the general issue of how to different shifts on two different cruise ships compare in preparing identical fleetwide menus

[emeraldcity]

Ports

At this point, I’m going to depart from the comparisons between the ships and do a bit of a review of the ports … I’ll get back to the advertised format after this. If you’re not into child-like awe and amazement, you might want to skip this section. Europe was still pretty new for me and it’s likely to creep into the narrative. I’ve traveled the USA from one end to the other, mostly by road. We had a motor home for ten years and that is an amazing way to really see the country. Then I started cruising in the late 80s and visited much of the Caribbean, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. Having completed the quest to visit all 50 states I took my first trip to Europe last year when I got a toehold into it on the tail end of a transatlantic cruise. I followed that up by a trip in May of this year with 3 days in Rome and a cruise of the Greek Isles. This trip started in Budapest ten days before the Getaway cruise and involved train travel to Bratislava and Prague before arriving in Copenhagen for 2 days pre-cruise

 

 

Cruise 1 ... THE GETAWAY

 

Copenhagen

There are bikes everywhere. The Danish really take the concept of green travel to amazing levels. If they have a serious distance to go beyond what they want to employ pedal-power, they use their metro system, after having biked to the station. And the bike parking area around the stations are such a jumble of parked bikes that I can’t for the life of me figure out how they determine which one is theirs. It can’t be the one that is locked with the key in their pocket, because I didn’t see locks on the bikes. Maybe they just take any bike and bring it back the next day.

 

Great Metro system, by the way. We stayed a bit outside of town so we took the Metro in the next day to do the tourist things like the Little Mermaid statue and Nyhavn. It was a bit of a walk from the Metro station to Nyhavn, but walking through the cities to get the feel of them was our operating mode and Copenhagen delivered a very different feel from the cities we’d just visited in Middle Europe. I’m an architecture groupie and I had a field day photographing the brightly colored, well-maintained buildings we passed. I felt like Walt Disney had been one of the city planners who wanted to ensure crowd-pleasing star power in the cityscape. We arrived at Nyhavn canal and the tableau exploded with more of the same feel, but enhanced by the removal of vehicle traffic and the addition of the canal lined with sailing ships as a centerpiece. Initially, we walked the length of the canal to the harbor with the intention of hoofing it to the Little Mermaid statue, but we returned to our starting point, having decided to take a canal boat tour first. It was a good call. The lines are a bit intimidating, but they move quickly since boats leave every 20 minutes and there are multiple companies running them. It is a not-to-be-missed component of a visit to Copenhagen. The canals are wonderfully picturesque and you receive a fair amount of local information in the provided narrative. Most importantly, we also discovered how far away that statue was. The canal boat lingers off the statue a bit and I sat there thinking “that’s it?!!”. So we photographed it from the back and shuddered to think of what would have been involved if we’d decided to walk that far.

 

After the canal boat ride, there are plenty of local places to eat in cafes that spill out onto the sidewalk. We ended up getting gelato and then walking back toward the metro. We stopped for a late lunch just before reaching King’s Garden and we explored that after fueling up. Situated deep in the garden is Rosenberg Castle and my only regret is that we didn’t have time to explore that. I needed another day in Copenhagen, but I had to settle for photos from the outside.

 

Warnemunde/Rostock

I’m afraid I couldn’t convince myself that I wanted to leave the ship to explore the first port. The big thing here was a shore excursion that went to Berlin and wouldn’t be returning until late that evening. Six hours on a bus had no appeal. I’d just spent a week and a half touring Europe and I wanted to relax and enjoy my laid-back floating hotel … so I did.

 

Helsinki

It was another day of just walking off the ship and wandering the nearby town. We walked along the waterways, crossing bridges and wandering through the occasional park, enjoying gorgeous weather. Those who took a tour probably got more out of this port, but we were in laid-back mode, saving our touring energies for St. Petersburg (which would be an intense 2-day tour).

 

St. Petersburg

I had avoided looking at pictures of St. Petersburg in advance, because I wanted to discover it as it unfolded for me. We beat the rush at passport control by being among the first off the ship. We were promptly collected by a representative of Alla Tours and escorted to our minitour bus to await those who were hitting those lines en mass. Once everyone was collected we set off to experience the opulence of the tsars. St. Petersburg was patterned after Venice, so it is laced with canals … and those canals are lined by palaces. Lots of palaces. Palaces of the great and the not-so-great. Palaces in yellow and white, aqua and white, salmon and white. Of course, the most impressive are the winter palace (the Hermitage) and the summer palace (outside the city). As impressive as the outside of those palaces are, I was not prepared for the jaw-dropping opulence of the interiors. I know I gasped and I felt like a country bumpkin gawking at the ornate rooms. Gilded scrollwork exploded all over the walls and ceilings, chandeliers dripping with glittering prisms spread light to ensure you got the maximum amount of amazement and inlaid wood floors completed the picture. Few rooms were furnished, because that would have probably diminished the effect. Picturetaking was unequal to the task of attempting to capture the lasting impression. And picture taking was forbidden in the Amber Room … enforced by a humorless stout woman who had clearly gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. Another amazing visual treat awaited us when we left the summer palace and entered the gardens featuring the famous Peterhof Fountains. We were blessed with spectacular weather to enhance a delightful vista of waters tossed high into the air by a succession of fountains that line the walkways down the hillside. Wandering the gardens, we had a chance to view some of the reportedly 200 bronze sculptures that bathe in the waters of the 64 fountains dotting the landscape. I stood at the base of the hillside looking up at the palace through the joyful display of the carefree sprouting waters and reflected that this was the view cherished by the tsars who ruled this land for so many years … and now common folk like me can have the same view for a brief moment in time, and a considerable outlay of American dollars.

 

Speaking of American dollars, there was an interesting interlude where I could have parted with a few more of them. We emerged at one point from a venue to find that we were facing a run through a park in pouring rain to our bus on the other side. As I pulled out my reusable RCI shopping bag to create a makeshift rainhat, a helpful local under an umbrella approached me and shoved a folded one-time use rain poncho at me saying “here!” I shot back “How much?” He clearly misjudged his audience because he responded $30. Wow! Even the Kingdom of Mouse wouldn’t risk pricing their ponchos that high, and they at least sweeten the deal by plastering Mickey’s face on it. I just started laughing and headed off into the rain. He followed me for a ways, periodically lowering the offer. He got all the way down to $5 with no response at all from me (other than continued laughter) before he accepted that the conversation had ended with the first words out of his mouth.

 

The cathedrals were quite unlike any I had seen thus far in Europe. I’d seen some pictures of the inside of the Church of the Spilled Blood and I thought that frescos covered the walls and ceilings (like the Sistine Chapel). I was wrong – those detailed images are mosaics. Even standing inside the church looking up at them, I was hard pressed to believe that such detail could be produced by a collection of little tiles. I am amazed at the talent and vision of the artists who could produce such beauty. Of course the outside of that church is probably one of the most photographed images of every tourist with its colorful, imaginative collection of mismatched onion-shaped domes. Quite the contrast is the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, which has an unremarkable exterior that just looks like one of those old mission churches in California. It doesn’t prepare you for the attention to decoration on the inside, which is graced with stunning chandeliers, gilded scrollwork on walls and ceiling, pleasant pastel-colored walls, and soaring square columns painted to look like marble.They can’t possibly use this church for services, because there is little room for worshippers. Much of the floor space is taken up with crypts housing the remains of members of the ruling families of years past … and the crypts are enclosed by their little wrought iron fences.

 

I generally find all-day shore excursions grueling by end of day, and this was to be two consecutive solid days of all-day touring … yet they mixed it up with so much variety and kept you moving past long lines of the less fortunate that it never got overly tiring. We toured palaces and cathedrals, took a subway ride to experience the incredible mosaics that grace the subway stations, rode a canal boat and a hydrofoil and we even got to see the navy on parade, because our visit coincided with a display of the naval boats complete with sailors dressed and standing at attention on deck as the boats paraded through the canals.

 

Ever mindful that this is the same Russia that we were taught to fear as children in the 50s at the height of the Cold War tensions, there was a little piece of relief as the ship cast off the lines at the end of two days and began to move out of the harbor. I looked at my cruisemate and said “Well, we got in.” and he finished with “and we got out”.

 

Talinn

This was another wander-the-town day and this was an outstanding port for that sort of adventure. Old town is clearly in view from the ship and was probably only about a 15-minute walk. It’s a delightful collection of old-world architecture housing great little shops and featuring a spacious town square lined with outdoor restaurants. There were churches to explore, but I passed them by, because after Russia, I figured I would be a bit jaded and wouldn’t have done them justice. I just enjoyed a day of walking the cobblestone streets and photographing every interesting building I passed (and there were plenty that interested me).

 

Stockholm

Stockholm offers the truly unique opportunity to see an authentic sailing ship from the seventeenth century. The Vasa was built between 1626 and 1628, but was horribly top-heavy. It sank in the harbor on its maiden voyage and spent 333 years at the bottom of the harbor. Raised in 1961, it is housed in a museum in Stockholm and was my number one objective for this port-of-call. We chose to walk the distance to the museum from the port, which was probably about 2 miles … which netted us the bonus of getting a chance to have a feel for the area and take lots of pictures. We spent about an hour and a half at the museum, engrossed in the huge ship and the story they tell of its birth and its sudden end. Frankly, I was expecting a Viking vessel, but it looked more like a Spanish Galleon, complete with gun ports and rearing sterncastle. Furthermore, it was lavishly decorated with carvings (reportedly 700 of them) from the bowsprit to the stern. The museum offered viewing on multiple levels as well as multiple interpretive displays which included a movie of the disaster and a mock-up of the gun deck that guests could wander through.

 

The other treat that awaited us in Sweden was the picturesque sail-away through the Stockholm archipelago. The Getaway following a channel between the islands which generally allowed for a nice margin of clearance.There were, however, several tight passages, including one where I was pretty stunned how close we were … even checking the other side to determine if we were just as close … and we were. We were apparently the island entertainment for the afternoon, since folks were sitting in lawn chairs watching our gaily painted ship slip by. And yes, we were close enough that I could see their faces clearly as we all waved to each other.

 

... Norway ports up next ...

Edited September 5, 2017 by emeraldcity

[shipperx]

This is excellent. I can't wait for your next installment.

[emeraldcity]

This is excellent. I can't wait for your next installment.

 

Thank you for the compliment ... sorry for the delay ... I had no idea how busy retirement could be. :)

[emeraldcity]

Hamburg

Our NCL Norwegian cruise was a repositioning cruise that would start in Hamburg and end in Southampton. We had 3 days between them and the first of those was largely spent getting from the ship and travelling to Hamburg. Not being sure how long it would take us to get off and make it to the train station, we opted to buy our tickets same day. Bad move. Buying train tickets on the land potion of our trip had been a snap, but that experience didn’t play out the same way in Copenhagen. We’d purchased the NCL transfer to the city center and it dropped us off right by the train station … very efficient and a process I can highly recommend. Getting train tickets was challenging, however. There was a glitch in the system and international tickets just quit being sold for a chunk of time. When we started to voice concerns, we were soundly put in our place. Once they realized we had a valid point, they quietly fixed it, but offered no apologies. Moral of the story: get your tickets on line ahead of time. Although the train was at capacity when it pulled out 45 minutes after we got our tickets we were seated together. The young man across from us was traveling Europe on the cheap with friends and he’d been told the night before there were no seats together … all three of them were in different train cars. Makes no sense. After the positive experience we’d had in Copenhagen pre-cruise, this was a real head-scratcher.

 

The train was wonderfully prompt, leaving when advertised and arriving in Hamburg as scheduled. It even offered the delightful experience of a 45-minute ferry ride mid-way, when they pushed the cars onto the ferry and we all got off to go to the upper decks to visit the shops or the restaurants during the crossing. Five minutes before docking it was announced we were to return to our seats and they hooked up another engine to the front and continued on our way.

 

We launched our visit to the city that evening with a walk to Planten un Blomen, the Botanical Garden. They have a delightful show of fountains and lighting set to music. It was a bit of a walk from the hotel, but after a day of traveling logistics, a walk was a very good thing.

 

In retrospect, I would have preferred to spend an extra day in Copenhagen, rather than have two full days in Hamburg. That would have given me the chance to see Rosenberg Castle. Instead, we explored Hamburg for those two days and it wasn’t one of the high points of the trip. Other than the lightshow at the gardens, my favorite part was the U-Boat that was open for tours. Getting in and out of it was relatively easy because a spiral staircase was installed on each end, but getting through it was a different story. They didn’t bother to make it handicap-accessible, or even senior citizen accessible. Trying to pass feet-first through those round hatches was quite the challenge. The crew had to be in seriously good shape if they really just swing effortlessly through them like the stunt men in the movies. Anyone traveling with younger folk could spend a day at Tivoli Gardens, but it wasn’t part of our agenda. So we walked a good bit.

 

It wouldn’t be a very honest assessment of the city if I didn’t comment that one of the lasting impressions I have is that the city was plastered with graffiti nearly everywhere we went. It was so sad. Even the pedestal of the massive statue of Bismarck hadn’t escaped. It seemed that everywhere there was an unadorned wall or suitable flat surface, someone with a spray can of paint had made his mark. It certainly cut down on the number of pictures I was interested in taking.

 

Christiansand

This charming village rolled out the red carpet for its visitors. There was a hut manned by locals passing out maps and the town was overflowing with flowers. Baskets of flowers, arbors of flowers, plantings of flowers … it enhanced the charm of a fishing village that had prettied itself up for company. The harbor buildings were gaily painted and there was a charming park en route to the stone fortress with cannons overlooking the sea. But the centerpiece for those who love to take a nice stroll was the two parks that lay less than a mile from the harbor.

 

Following the map provided by the folks at the port, we arrived at the edge of town and began the climb into the first park (Baneheia). Well-maintained paths led up to several small lakes in a peaceful wooded setting. We wandered along the paths, following signposts that pointed out the way to the second park – Ravendalen. Eventually, the ground began to drop ever downward until it opened up into Ravendalen … a clearing nestled at the foot of soaring cliffs. This area was artfully landscaped and obviously hosts plenty of events, because it included an amphitheater, a fountain, paved pathways, a pond that hosted several graceful swans and a party center. This place was a photographer's paradise … and worked nicely for the amateur picture-taker (me) to produce some very satisfying results. I suspect this is the in-place to have one’s wedding or other special event.

 

Haugesand

I can’t help with this one. I wasn’t feeling well and spent the day on board. Let’s face it … a cruise ship is just a giant petri dish and I suppose I’m lucky I was cruising for so many days before I ended up with a scratchy throat and the sniffles.

 

Bergen

The industrial port where we docked didn’t want hapless tourists wandering through to provide targets for their forklift drivers, so a steady stream of shuttle buses greeted us to provide a quick trip to the shuttle depot at the edge of town. This particular port of call just begs to be explored on foot, with its attractive central park with the lake as well as the colorful, historic boat houses repurposed to service the tourist industry, which line the canal on the way to the fortress. For me, the big treat was the medieval Bergenhus Fortress, which I explored from bottom to top. It brought alive the setting of so many of those historical novels I’ve read, with its winding stairway between the walls and its series of single rooms occupying each floor. The centerpiece, of course was the royal bed chamber (complete with a narrow cubbyhole hallway that led to a primitive privy … ah, the masterbath). It gave a whole new meaning to the concept of “living like a king”. If this is how the kings lived, I’m so glad I’m a commoner in this century, rather than royalty in that one.

 

Alesund

I think it’s likely that the word “picturesque” was invented in Alesund. The crowded jumble of buildings that vied for real estate on the multiple islands were well-maintained and probably priced out of reach of the average Norwegian (if the sleek yachts tied up along the quay were any indication of the residents' back rolls). This is another town that begs to be explored on foot, en route to the path that leads up to the lookout.

 

I admit I didn’t tell my cruisemate that there would be 418 steps to get to the top of the lookout, but he can’t claim ignorance of the effort the climb would involve, because we could clearly see the lookout from the ship before we left … perched high above us, as well as part of the switchback path that led to the top. There were plenty of places to stop and take a breather on the climb (and I needed those breathers) and plenty of foot traffic. Once the top was reached, there was another set of stairs to climb to the top of the restaurant for a more panoramic view. One of the informational markers on the upper level provides the information that the islands are linked together by a series of tunnels (which cuts down on the amount of snow they have to plow).

 

Flam

I was up early and I installed myself on the balcony to watch the beauty of the Norwegian fjords unfold as the ship nosed its way deep into the inlet, bound for Flam. This would have been a good day to have room service for breakfast to be able to avoid missing any of this stunning view, because the principle lure in booking this cruise had been the fjords. Of course, that meant we’d only get to see them for two of the ten days.

 

The biggest excursion in Flam is the famous Flam Railway, but I didn’t focus on this trip early enough to book it. I should have been online to get tickets in February. The cruiseline was selling tickets too (at scalper’s prices) but I didn’t bite. I had decided I would save my major excursion for the next port. There had been a lot of concern on cruisecritic about “making it” to the train on time for the earliest departure, and those who booked on their own exploded from the ship as soon as we docked, sprinting for the train about 50 yards from the port entrance. Those who booked the same train through the cruiseline gathered sedately on the pier and then followed the leader to board the train without risking sprained ankles.

 

The other big excursion here would have been a fjords cruise and I had eyed the reasonably priced Spirit of Norway cruise early in the planning stages, but closer to cruise departure, I couldn’t find it in my internet searches so I figured that for some reason, it was no longer in service. Wrong. There it was, slipping into a berth near the ship and I could have booked it as a walk-up. But by that time, I reasoned that I’d just cruised up the fjord and I would be cruising back out the fjord, so I didn’t really need to pay to take another boat ride to see the same stuff. It may have visited a different inlet, but by that time, I’d lost interest. So I went hiking in the nearby park that had some creative playful sculptures and discovered little surprises along the way.

 

It is unfortunate that the most spectacular part of Norway was the part that involved the shortest port calls. We were to leave Flam at 3:00 and not everybody got the email. They finally tired of waiting for the last couple and cast off the lines. This is the second time I’ve been in a position to watch someone running for the ship when they realize it’s underway. Save your breath … It isn’t going to return to the dock. You just became the entertainment for all the folks who got back on time. The crowd was pretty merciless (point and laugh … take video … wave good-bye). I’d studied the map and I knew they could rejoin us the next day fairly easily at the next port (there was even a lovely hotel within walking distance), but the port agent apparently didn’t want to be saddled with them. They produced a couple of lifejackets, popped them into a small boat and zipped around to the other side of the ship, where I understand they climbed up a ladder into the ship.

 

Geiranger

I didn’t want to nibble at the edges of Norway by only hanging out in the port cities … I wanted one port where I got into the interior a bit, without being stuck on one of those big tour buses. I found just the thing … Twizy cars from eMobility. Don’t let the gray hair fool you …I love to drive and that bum knee doesn’t slow me down when I’m behind the wheel of a car. Several ports offer the chance to rent little electric cars that include a preprogrammed GPS to give you the benefits of a tour while offering the freedom to do things at your own pace. It’s a wonderful thing. Along with another couple from cruisecritic, I rented one of those cars and we set off on the 3-hour trip up Mt. Dalsnibba and back. The scenery was jaw-dropping and the sense of adventure was intoxicating. The route wound continually up on switchback roads that those big tour buses shouldn’t have been using (we’d have to stop before some of the hairpin turns to allow those megabuses to carefully ease their way through the turn). The climb took us up well above the snowline (did I mention there were no side windows?) to a skywalk at the summit. There was the illusion of speed because the straight-aways were limited, the wind was rushing past you due to the open windows, and you were generally zipping around the multitude of turns (although I did register 54 km/hr on one straight stretch going downhill just before town). I loved my Twizy car and will look for them again in future ports-of-call.

 

Oddly, this was a rather brief port-of-call as well. The Jade stopped first at Hellesylt to let off those who had booked ship’s excursion. The docking and the chunk of time after unloading that we sat there robbed us of time later when we finally reached Geiranger. We arrived in Geiranger about 11:00 and left at 5:00. If you book this itinerary for these last two ports-of-call, you will feel cheated. So book a balcony and focus on the two days of scenery going in and out (with the ports being the “icing on the cake”).

 

... next we return to our regularly scheduled programming ...

Edited September 12, 2017 by emeraldcity

[emeraldcity]

Sail-Away

I love a good sail-away party. And both ships delivered great ones. They included all the necessary components: a highly energetic cruise director’s staff pumping up the excitement, great music, a series of line dances to release endorphins and a conga line so more people could be pulled into participating. Of course one has to choose between dancing and viewing the fun with a festive drink in hand and I chose dancing this time. The other thing that helps the overall mood is an actual sail-away. The Jade was still loading equipment during the party and it was nearly an hour before we got underway, but in the overall scheme of things, that’s a pretty minor thing.

 

On-Board Shopping

Most of the shopping area on both ships was given over to high-end stuff … and I’m not a high end kind of shopper. I would have liked to find something that I could use and every time I pulled it out of the cupboard it would make me smile as I thought about where I got it and how much fun that trip was … I don’t know, maybe a nice plush beach towel I could take to the local pool that bragged about the cruiseline or the ship. I really tried to find something on the ship that needed to come home with me, but I wasn’t successful.

 

I had determined before I left home that I would probably buy a set of those Russian nesting dolls and they were all over Europe. The ship had some especially nice ones, but as I window-shopped them throughout the trip, I started to settle on what had the most appeal for me. The mass-produced ones didn’t speak to me. Most of them had a child’s face and I decided the most striking ones were those with a woman’s face. I spoke to the saleslady on the Getaway who was marketing some very nice ones and she confirmed my earlier information that most of them tell a story. But the set didn’t come with the story. You had to buy a lovely (expensive) book in addition to the dolls and the book would tell you all the possible stories. That was very off-putting. Imagine spending several hundred dollars for a special purchase on a once-in-a-lifetime trip and having to also buy something else to achieve the full value of the purchase. I walked away from the set that was starting to draw me in because of that little gambit. In the end, I found the perfect set in St. Petersburg … which is truly the best place to buy the Russian dolls anyway.

 

Disembarkation

The end of the cruise is always a bit of a downer, so it’s pretty easy to get grumpy about how the disembarkation process is handled, but some serious forethought in staggering departure times can make the situation a lot less painful. Couple that with some enforced crowd control and you have a process that respects the concept that he who arrives first, gets processed first. Getaway did a really good job, in my estimation. We walked our luggage off and left a bit before our scheduled time for the NCL transfer to the city center. We were accordingly directed to the appropriate area to wait for the busses and seating was provided in that area (not sure if this was the port’s doing or the ship).The Jade disembarkation was complicated by Immigration. One would expect that everyone waits their turn in line, but the crew didn’t provide crowd control, so the pushy people took advantage. The mindset that had made luggage tags such a challenge on embarkation was operational in full force for both the Norwegian Immigration process after we left Geiranger and for the disembarkation immigration process in Southampton. People coming off the elevator just crowded into the line, without making an attempt to follow the line to find the end of it. Crew standing nearby didn’t bother to intercede. After we finally got processed and dashed back to our cabin to collect our luggage and make an attempt to see whether our booked transportation was still an option, we hit a line just before another elevator lobby leading off the ship and this time, there was actually crowd control (so it’s can be done). People coming off the elevators were firmly being prevented from shoving in front of us and were being directed to the back of the line. I really hesitated doing this write-up, but I moved forward with it in the hopes that someone will evaluate their process and look for ways to ensure that courtesy is enforced, because cruising should be a gracious way to travel. After all, you wouldn’t push your way into a line at a theme park, so why should this be any different.

Edited September 15, 2017 by emeraldcity