August 9-16, 2018: The Northern European Cruise is MAGIC! (Completed!)

[Geomom]

Sunday 8/12/18: DCL day 4: St Petersburg, Russia: “Use Your Elbows!” Part 6

Maria tried to steer us to ‘quieter’ rooms and tell us some of the history of the Winter Palace. The roof was planted with grass/gardens, to trick World War planes into thinking that it wasn’t a building—nothing that they would want to bomb.







Room with the portraits of Generals…if you see an empty frame, the general died before the portrait could be painted.







We did get to see the 1 unfinished Michelangelo statue—“Crouching Boy”. (DD14 did a report on Michelangelo in World History 1 last year, so it was great for her to see one of his works in person.)



When we finished with the museum, we drove to a Russian souvenir store. My family was exhausted by then and we weren’t in a ‘buying’ mood. We did get a magnet and a couple of ornaments…that’s about it. It was a very long day—I felt bad for the couple of young kids (who behaved amazingly well) on our port adventure…I especially felt bad for the family using the stroller in the Hermitage—it’s no fun wheeling one through wall to wall people!

We went back to port, through passport control uneventfully…and safely back on the ship by 4:30PM! Yay!

 

[Geomom]

Sunday 8/12/18: DCL day 4: St Petersburg, Russia: “Use Your Elbows!” Part 7

I asked if anyone wanted to go in the pool or hot tub…no one but me! So, I went to the Adult pool, swam a bit, and then relaxed in the hot tub. It felt good after a full day of walking. A couple in the hot tub asked me how St. Petersburg was. One of their travelling group is active US military, and anyone with the same last name in their travelling party wasn’t allowed off the ship in St. Petersburg…they had thought the regulations had been loosened up before the cruise…but perhaps not…or perhaps they tightened back up. Well…they got to enjoy a ship mostly to themselves for the day…

I went back to the room, got changed, and the family went to get character pics—in regional outfits!

Daisy



Goofy



Minnie



With the all aboard time being 11:30PM, it was open seating in the dining rooms tonight. Sit down meals: Lumieres was open from 6-8:30PM, Rapunzels from 6:30-9PM, Cabanas was open from 4:30-7:45PM. Cabanas opened again from 10-11:30PM as a buffet for those coming back to the ship late. We decided to eat in Rapunzels again. We were at a different table—next to a window and had different servers. Tonight was the World of Flavour Menu (with regional inspirations.) We forgot to take menu pics… The kids weren’t too hungry after all the snacks they had after getting back on the ship—we told them you could just get an appetizer and dessert if you want! “I” did NOT have lots of snacks after getting on the ship, lol.



I had the Floating Lantern to drink,



the Crab Cake,



and the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup,



DH had the Smoked Salmon



DD18 and DD14 had the Argentinian Empanadas

 

[Geomom]

Sunday 8/12/18: DCL day 4: St Petersburg, Russia: “Use Your Elbows!” Part 8

For entrees:
I had the Danish vegetable Turnover,



DH had the Sea Bass



DD18 had a baked potato



DD14 had the Greek Salad



Desserts:
I had the French Passionfruit Crème Brulee.



DD14 and I had the British Lemon Sponge Pudding,



DH had the Canadian Ice cream Sundae.



DD18 had the NY cheesecake.



DH and I were still eating, and the 7:30PM Michael Harrison show in the Walt Disney Theater had already started. (The 7:30PM showtime between the 2 dinner seatings is just awkward timing…it was worse tonight as we went to dinner later.) We sent the kids off to it, and it was half over by the time DH and I arrived. We enjoyed it…it was pretty much the same routine we saw him do 2 years ago in Alaska, but still fun!

 

[Geomom]

Sunday 8/12/18: DCL day 4: St Petersburg, Russia: “Use Your Elbows!” Part 9

After the show, the kids went back to the room…and DH and I went out on deck 4 to take some evening pics of St. Petersburg.



Passport Control/Duty Free shopping:



Skyscraper—on our tour, Maria told us it was an office building for a gas company. The interior is still being worked on.



Celebrity Ship Funnel…DH and I thought it looked like a penguin from this angle!



And watch the sunset.






We did manage to entice DD18 to come back out for the character meet at 9:45PM because Minnie had a different outfit on!



And Mickey was in his Russia outfit!



I’m sure DH and I once again brought snacks back to the room for all to share…

Then, we said goodnight to our Crocodile (Calvin warned us about him!) and went to bed.

 

[Maplered]

I’m very jealous you got all those character outfits on the Russia day! We were exhausted from the long day and was only able to get Russian Mickey! And I love the fact that we too ate at rapunzels that night and got the same meal!
We had gone to the Hermitage at 5 pm (we only got an hour) but it was substantially less busy for us.
Onto Finland!!!! (I wait for this trip report every day)

 

[Geomom]

I’m very jealous you got all those character outfits on the Russia day! We were exhausted from the long day and was only able to get Russian Mickey! And I love the fact that we too ate at rapunzels that night and got the same meal!
We had gone to the Hermitage at 5 pm (we only got an hour) but it was substantially less busy for us.
Onto Finland!!!! (I wait for this trip report every day)

Daisy/Goofy/Minnie were all from 5:30-6:15PM. I guess it was a trade-off...instead of characters, you got to actually 'see' stuff at the Hermitage (vs people!). That is too funny that you got the same meal! Thanks again for reading!

 

[Hubie]

Sunday 8/12/18: DCL day 4: St Petersburg, Russia: “Use Your Elbows!” Part 5

DD14 and DD18 in front of a concert poster in Russian—proof that they were in Russia!

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We took some pics in Palace Square.
Winter Palace (Hermitage) to the left, Alexander Column to the right.

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General Staff Building to the right of the Alexander Column.

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Then our tour group went to get in the long long line to enter the museum. Maria left us in the line to see about getting our tix and see if we actually needed to be IN the line. (The answer was yes, and they were having printing issues…hopefully our tix would be printed by the time we got to the entrance.) There were many people trying to sell us stuff here—army surplus, etc. And some living statues (another surprise to me as I wasn’t expecting such whimsy.)

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We eventually made it INTO the museum…and the MASS of humanity!

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Maria said the museum is closed on Mondays…so Sunday is busier…and with it being summer…they get 25,000 visitors a day…it felt like they were ALL there at the same time as us! Yikes! At the top of the staircase there was a double door…only 1 of the doors was open…with people trying to go in AND out that one door at the same time! “Use your elbows!” is what Maria told us! Needless to say…with those crowds, we did not find the Hermitage very enjoyable. DH and I took a lot of floor and ceiling pics, to avoid taking pics of lots and lots of people. (While the Hermitage is now an art museum…it “was” the 1000 room Winter Palace…so you still have all the gilding, plaster details, painted ceilings, wooden floor designs, etc…so the floors and ceilings are interesting to us in their own right!.)

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We felt the same way this year about Tallinn. Last June, there was only one other cruise ship besides the Magic in the Tallinn Port on the day we visited. This time there was six or seven others, and Old Town was a little nuts. We couldn't even get into our favorite coffee shop as there was a line out into the street. It was too hot inside of it anyway. When DW and I re-upped for this cruise we forgot that August is the month that many Western Europeans take their vacations and hire eastern Europeans to help run their shops while they are on as they say, Holiday.

 

[AussieDisneyfans]

Really enjoying your trip report, looking forward to reading more.

 

[Geomom]

Really enjoying your trip report, looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Geomom]

Monday 8/13/18: DCL Day 5: Helsinki, Finland: “Reindeers are better than people!” Part 1



Today we had a buffet breakfast at Cabanas, eating outside as we came into Helsinki. Our Disney excursion (11AM-3:30PM: Reindeer and Finnish Nature (HE 15) $174) met in Fathoms at 11AM. DD18 had chosen this one—you get to feed reindeer…what’s better than that? DH was looking forward to the ‘nature’ part—he’d had more than his fill of cities by now! It was a beautiful day today—sunny and a high of 70F. Our guide was Heidi. She told us about Helsinki and Finland during our bus ride to Nuuksio National Park. When we arrived, there were 2 hiking guides that would bring us to the Reindeer park—we had a choice of the short or long hike…well we, along with 33 others chose the ‘long’ walk…and only a handful chose the short route. Our hiking guide Ino was surprised, and joked, “I’m allowed to lose 10% of my group—so that’s 3 of you.” We did a 3 ½ km. hike with her, about an hour, through the woods.



We had a nice view of a lake at one of our ‘break’ stops.

 

[Geomom]

Monday 8/13/18: DCL Day 5: Helsinki, Finland: “Reindeers are better than people!” Part 2

Eventually we made it to the reindeer camp. They keep 5 reindeer there. We fed the reindeer big chunks of lichen. (Seriously, when I read about this before the trip, I was picturing the lichen I see growing on rocks at home…but no, these are 6 inch balls of lichen that grow up in the Arctic Circle area…and it’s all the reindeer eat!)





Then, we went into the Lappish style hut, had a delicious cinnamon/cardamom? spice bun, coffee or tea (brewed on the fire). We sat on furs at picnic benches.



DD14--'peace sign'



DD18--'reindeer antlers'

 

[Geomom]

Monday 8/13/18: DCL Day 5: Helsinki, Finland: “Reindeers are better than people!” Part 3

When our time was up, we took the bus back to Helsinki, with Heidi telling us more about the area. (She talked about Finnish health care when we were passing a hospital, and then she pointed out the Presidential Palace where Trump and Putin had their conference.) She offered to let us off at Market Square or back to the ship…as we didn’t see much for shopping near the ship when we left in the morning, we opted to get off the bus with a map (making sure we had good directions to the ship’s free shuttle from town!) DH and I took some pics in that area.

Upsenki Cathedral



Skywheel Helsinki and Market Square



Helsinki Cathedral





Then we started shopping. We used up the last of DD18’s Germany Euros (got a slight discount as we only had $11.90 and the items came to $12…the merchant was excited to get change, so we got the discount, lol.) DD18 got a keychain, I got a magnet. From another booth, I got a “I sailed the Viking Route” t-shirt. It had a map of the Baltic and listed all the places we went (plus others we didn’t.) DD14 wasn’t really interested in shopping…until she saw this beautiful handmade/hand dyed pink/purple shawl. I looked at the price tag. $58 Euros…I said ‘you have expensive taste.’ But, as that’s all she wanted—I got it for her. Once we finished shopping we started walking to the shuttle stop. Took some pics in Esplanadi park area along our way.



Music Stage



Statue of Johan Ludvig Runeberg



We figured out where the shuttle stop should be, then went into the local grocery store and bought more local candy and Kinder eggs to open on the ship. We took the Disney shuttle back to port, made it back well before our 5:30PM all aboard. (Yes, my kids were worried about that.)

 

[Geomom]

Monday 8/13/18: DCL Day 5: Helsinki, Finland: “Reindeers are better than people!” Part 4

When we got back to our room, we found 2 light up snowflake necklaces for 'Frozen Day'.

Our kids did Anna’s Chocolate Chase, while DH and I went to the DVC Member Mixer from 5-5:45PM. (Free alcoholic/non alcoholic drinks and bottles of Evian.) I had 2 Bay Breeze, DH had a non-alcoholic drink, and I grabbed 2 Evian to bring back to the room to use for our excursion the next day. Lol, the mixer was really just sitting in your own little group and drinking—which was fine—I’m all over free drinks…but I wouldn’t call it a mixer. DH and I just enjoyed relaxing in a quiet place for 45 minutes!



Dinner tonight was in Lumiere’s.





I had the Tuxedo to drink,



DD14 and I had the Scandinavian Garden Salad,



DH had the Smoked Salmon Timbal,



and the White Onion Soup,

 

[Geomom]

Monday 8/13/18: DCL Day 5: Helsinki, Finland: “Reindeers are better than people!” Part 5

For entrees:
I had the Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin,



DH had the Thai Red Pumpkin and Coconut Curry



DD18 had the Pan Seared Venison Medallion (most of it was too rare and chewy—she did find a couple ‘good’ ones. Henry offered to get her something else, but she wasn’t that hungry and was leaving room for dessert.)



DD14 had the Lighter Note Grilled Grain Fed Sirloin Steak.



Tiago cutting up DD14’s steak.



Desserts!
DD18 and I had the Captain’s Table Sundae.



I also had the Raspberry Vanilla Crème Brulee.



DD18 and DH had the Chocolate Lava Cake,



DH also had the Russian Honey Cake.



DD14 had the Apricot Trio.

 

[Geomom]

Monday 8/13/18: DCL Day 5: Helsinki, Finland: “Reindeers are better than people!” Part 6

Frozen decorations in the Atrium.





By the time we finished dinner, the 7:45PM “Freezing the Night Away” deck party had already started. We watched most of it on deck 10. It was SOOO windy. When it ‘snowed’ the bubble stuff got everywhere! When we had this deck party in Alaska, it was as a sail away party—and it worked much better that way!





Views from deck 10 at 8PM—note how sunny it still is! (I’m writing this trip report in early September…at my latitude and at this time of year…the sun is setting at 7:09PM. I’m missing all the daylight we had on the trip!)





When it finished, we hurried down to the Walt Disney Theater to watch “Christopher Robin” at 8:30PM. When we came out at 10:15PM, the sun was setting—we went out on deck 4 and took some pics of the sunset.







DD14 went off to find her ship friends. DD18 went into Fathoms with us to watch the Adult only performance of “Graffiti Classics.” We loved it! They are a comedic string quartet. We had 3 violinists and a cellist. It was so much fun, and they were great musicians to top it off! Towards the end of their show, cast members started coming by with desserts for the Club Frozen the After Party. We grabbed a couple and brought them back to the room. Calvin had left 1 Anna chocolate for our room. (2 years ago, we got 4 of them…not sure if he was low or they’re just doing 1/stateroom?)

Tonight, we had a Pirate diapered Monkey hanging around! So cute! We left him hanging in our room for the rest of the cruise, in a different location! Tonight, the clocks were set back 1 hr!

 

[cadien]

We were booked on this same itinerary for this summer (July 2019) on NCL and this is really giving me second thought about changing to Puerto Rico. I mean not really because we've really wanted to go there too and they really need the tourism dollars right now, but I wish we could do both! Eventually.

 

[Geomom]

Tuesday 8/14/18: DCL Day 6: Stockholm, Sweden: “Yo-Ho? Heigh-Ho? HO-HO!” Part 1



Today we were going ‘rogue’. Being unfamiliar with Europe, we wanted the ease of Disney excursions for most ports…but Stockholm had the ‘Stockholm Pass’ similar to Copenhagen’s—1 price gets you access to 60+ attractions. Stockholm’s didn’t include public transit…but it did include 2 out of the 3 HOHO (Hop on/Hop off) buses! (The Stromma ones were included.) Our only worry in Stockholm was the early all aboard time of 4:30PM—we knew we had to pay attention to the time, and finish our day on the earlier side as we were not in walking distance to port (Frihamnen). DH and I started the day by getting coffee on deck 9, then grabbing some pastries and free ‘smoothies’ in the Promenade lounge on deck 3, where we got to just sit and relax together. I had the Strawberry smoothie today! We also grabbed the kids some food and left it in the room for them, telling them to get up, we wanted to try to leave on the early side! I think we made it off the ship by 10AM. While there is a Disney shuttle into town…the HOHO buses were also just sitting there. I already had the Stockholm passes in my hand (from having them shipped to my home months before!) We went onto one of the buses…discovered they have (uncomfortable) earbuds that you plug into the wall, choose your language, and then you get to hear the tour!

Inspector Gadget, is that you?



We got on at stop 14b…and planned to get off at 11…yep…that would mean almost a full tour (100 minutes!)…well, that was just too long for us as I had PLANS for the day! So, we got off at stop 1 and walked over to stop 9. We took some pics of the architecture in the area…I have no idea what the buildings are, lol.





We waited about 10 minutes for the next HOHO bus to come along…luckily it was NOT the same one we got off of, lol. All the attractions I wanted to see today were on the island of Djurgarden. So , we got off at stop 11, Vasa Museum. It was probably around 10:45AM when we got here…later than I wanted, but we still beat the ‘big’ crowds. The Vasa Warship is the world’s only preserved 17th century ship. It was launched AND sank in Stockholm in 1628. 95% of the ship has been preserved. It spent 333 years on the sea bed…the polluted harbor water preserved it due to low oxygen levels in the water. Now that it has been out of the water for 47 years, they have been working to keep it from degrading. It was amazing to see how large the ship was, and how well preserved. We passed a few Disney excursions while in the building. We didn’t stay here too long. Long enough for a quick look around, then a quick stop in the shop—magnets, a T-shirt for DD18, and a book.

 

[Geomom]

Tuesday 8/14/18: DCL Day 6: Stockholm, Sweden: “Yo-Ho? Heigh-Ho? HO-HO!” Part 2

We went outside and the kids had a quick snack before we walked to our 2nd stop. We took pics along the way.















And then we saw “Creepy Mickey.” “Creepy Mickey” is one of those ‘knock-off’ Mickey Mouse costumes…that just looks ‘wrong’…we are guessing that maybe he came from the Grunalund amusement park a little further down…or else he was just “Creepy Mickey.” Either way…”Creepy Mickey” was creepy. He started walking past us…lurched towards us and squeezed a ‘squeaker.’ ALL of us jumped. Lol, took a while for us all to calm down…and then we walked into ‘Vikingaliv.” Vikingaliv is a new museum…about…Vikings! The big draw for me was the ride—Ragnfrid’s Saga, which was fun.



I think we spent about an hour total here, DD18 did a little shopping, got a book on Norse Mythology. DD14 loved this sign.



As we walked to our next destination, we took pics of the ABBA museum…unfortunately we had no time to stop there…and it wasn’t part of our pass.

 

[Geomom]

Tuesday 8/14/18: DCL Day 6: Stockholm, Sweden: “Yo-Ho? Heigh-Ho? HO-HO!” Part 3

Our destination: Skansen—the world’s oldest open-air museum (founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius). At Skansen, we took the escalator up to the top…and then we got food. The kids and I were hungry.

I got the Swedish Meatballs and Lingonberry Juice.



DD18 got the roast beef with goat cheese sauce (too much sauce…),



and DD14 got the waffle!



We started eating outside…with the chickens…felt a few sprinkles, and decided to bring everything to a table inside.



Finally, we were ready to explore. Skansen has a bunch of well-preserved buildings from various time periods in Sweden’s history. They also have Nordic Wild Animals, and farm animals.

 

[Geomom]

Tuesday 8/14/18: DCL Day 6: Stockholm, Sweden: “Yo-Ho? Heigh-Ho? HO-HO!” Part 4

More Skansen pictures:







The Soldier’s Cottage from Smaland, early 19th century.



The Eksharad Farmhouse from the Swedish mountains in Varmland, 19th century.



Milestone marker from Smaland showing King Gustav III’s monogram and dated 1779.



The sheep were too funny! They were so noisy…and then the cows across the way joined in!



Skane Farmstead





We spent a couple hours here, found our way out…ended up at the exit near ‘stop 11’ on the HOHO bus…so we crossed the street and waited for a bus. I think it was around 2:30PM when we got to the bus stop…my goal was to be at a bus stop by 3PM, so we were actually ahead of schedule. Before entering the bus, I double checked that it would be stopping at the cruise terminal—yes! So, we took the HOHO back to the ship!