It's called the Baltic for a reason - a Northern Europe trip report 2017 - complete 6/18

[janiebubble]

Not having much success with the Navigators, but here is the grid from the sea day ...

 

[janiebubble]

We didn't do much that morning. My water order from the day before never arrived so a quick trip to guest services was needed to sort that out. After getting up late we ended up grabbing lunch on deck ...
I had the special of the day in Pete's Boiler Bites ... pulled pork sandwich, it was really quite good!




After lunch we bumped into Tiana ... she graciously posed for me ..



we had an appointment later with some different princesses though ...but first (at 1.45pm) we headed up to the Buena Vista Theatre for



we got there early (well 15mins or so) and it was already quite full. By the start time it was standing room only. Dr Dolberg gave a lecture on each port (including Copenhagen at the end) but due to the nature of the ports, Tallin and St Petersburg were on the same day (we missed Tallin - slept too late!). I'm really glad we went to this, I learnt a lot and it made our visit to St Petersburg even more meaningful. I wouldn't however have taken my children, those that were there were clearly bored! He overran making the end a little rushed but all ways round a good experience. Worth remembering the talks all were repeated on the TV Channels. The only reason I was worried about the over-running is we had a date in Arendelle, just 15 minutes after the scheduled end of the talk.

We ran down to Animator's to see the trio taking a quick break, so we waited to see them return


This time, all three were meeting together, and were lovely that two adults wanted to meet them!


Unlike previous visits, all three were meeting together. Two years ago Olaf was separate.

Again we were running out as our next date was in Fathoms.... yes it was Bingo



we didn't win but we had a laugh ....

Then it was Cove Café



and another random character meet



and again it was dinner time ...

 

[tink1970]

Really enjoying your trip report! I was supposed to be on this cruise but when DD ditched the trip, rearranged things and now DH, DM, DF and I are on the Dover to Barcelona next month (Neither DM or DH have been to London or Paris so...). Honestly I'm still super bummed about missing this cruise, so appreciate your posts a lot

 

[janiebubble]

Really enjoying your trip report! I was supposed to be on this cruise but when DD ditched the trip, rearranged things and now DH, DM, DF and I are on the Dover to Barcelona next month (Neither DM or DH have been to London or Paris so...). Honestly I'm still super bummed about missing this cruise, so appreciate your posts a lot

Ahh thank you! Nice to know people out there are reading! We did the Dover to Barcelona in 2015 ... you'll have a great time! My top tip for that cruise would be pack a couple of warm items of clothing - it'd had been warm in London and was warm once we reached Spain, but the two days crossing the Bay of Biscay was cooler than I had anticipated ... I ended up buying a hoodie on the ship as I'd only packed t shirts!

 

[tink1970]

the two days crossing the Bay of Biscay was cooler than I had anticipated ... I ended up buying a hoodie on the ship as I'd only packed t shirts!

Thank you! Have no fear...to us London temps are cold (from FL and accustomed to 30-31 C lately with 90-100% humidity!). I have read a little about the Bay of Biscay and am packing seasickness meds, too- just in case. We were on the Fantasy last month and our head server (who is headed to the Magic in Aug) was from Portugal and gave us wonderful recommendations I'm excited to try out. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to share

 

[janiebubble]

So it was dinner time ... and we really didn't feel hungry ... we'd woken late, eaten a buffet breakfast and pool food and dinner was 6pm. (which was 2 hours ahead for our body clocks which were still adjusting. Plus, it was formal night ... and I'd forgotten my shoes ... the only thing I had with me that wasn't trainers/sneakers was the very casual shoes you can see in the pictures with Olaf. So we decided to skip dinner - I called into the dining room and told the head server - I didn't want them wondering where we were especially as we had Palo booked for the following night.

So later one we headed up to Cabanas ... turned out they were serving the Animators Palate menu (remember where we ate last night?!) but actually it was good as I got the truffle pasta pursettes which I'd considered the night before, and managed to grab a cookies and cream sundae



It was lovely, they seated us by the window, our waiter was really friendly and we had a quiet, peaceful meal.

We then headed down to the After Hours district, took a few porthole pictures





and headed into O'Gills to play some tv trivia



we then went to see Twiced Charmed, we'd skipped it the last cruise but I was glad we made the effort tonight ... I enjoyed the re-vamped version very much

After the show we went for a walk on deck four and the sun was setting



Eventually we made it back to the cabin to this - not 100% sure what he is??!



So that was our day at sea ... tomorrow we finally get to a port ... Tallin, Estonia

 

[janiebubble]

Thank you! Have no fear...to us London temps are cold (from FL and accustomed to 30-31 C lately with 90-100% humidity!). I have read a little about the Bay of Biscay and am packing seasickness meds, too- just in case. We were on the Fantasy last month and our head server (who is headed to the Magic in Aug) was from Portugal and gave us wonderful recommendations I'm excited to try out. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to share

I took seasickness meds on that cruise ... I hadn't on the two previous, having only taken ginger supplements - but I felt movement in Dover so started taking them the first day. It was quite choppy and a lot of people felt ill ... I kept walking past a woman on a seat in the atrium staring out the window clutching her ginger ale ... and 2 of our extended family didn't make it to dinner the second evening, but I was fine! I'm glad I took the meds!

 

[janiebubble]

we weren't due to arrive in Tallinn till 10:45am so we didn't rush getting up in the morning ... and when I did wake up everything felt quiet ... I think I've said I could feel the vibration in the cabin but when I woke I actually wondered if we were still moving for a moment ... when we got upstairs to Cabanas it was obvious how calm it was. We ate breakfast outside and then walked around to see the coastline



we ended up watching our approach from deck four



As we got close to Tallinn you could see the old town buildings





It really was beautiful. Turns out we were the third ship to arrive that morning. Celebrity and Royal Caribbean had made it there before us ...



Just a few minutes later than expected we'd docked. The queue to disembark was a little chaotic and one woman in particular made herself very unpopular as she tried to get in front of people who were lined up. She even got between a husband and his wife and children at one point and it almost got heated when he refused to let her past him, but his wife was unwilling to push herself past the woman (who had pushed her way past the wife!). Anyway, after a few minutes we'd made it off the boat



as you can see the weather was lovely ... I had a long sleeved top on and my rain jacket ... but I soon ended up carrying the jacket and wished I just had a t shirt on. Disney had put on complimentary bus shuttles to the old town but we had different ideas... we were heading to Lennusadem (the sea plane harbour museum). I switched on google maps and we began to walk ... it was just over 2km away and was supposed to take around 25 minutes.

 

[Geomom]

Re: your towel animal on the day at sea--it looks like it would be a swan...if it was upright...kind of looks like it fell backwards.

Enjoying your trip report! We'll be doing this cruise next August.

 

[PHamrick]

WHen you have a chance could you also talk about the souvenirs you bought? EITHEr in port or on board? Were there any cruise specific merchandise that was particular to the cruise? THanks for doing the trip report! I'm so excited to read it!

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I was on this cruise, too - our first cruise! We loved it and have already booked a cruise for 2018; we are hooked!

I'm glad you're doing a trip report because I agree that I couldn't find many before our trip... I thought about doing one but I mostly just took pictures of my four-year-old daughter, so it probably wouldn't be that helpful!

 

[GrantFam]

We were on this sailing, too. Looking forwards to reading the rest of your report!

 

[janiebubble]

Re: your towel animal on the day at sea--it looks like it would be a swan...if it was upright...kind of looks like it fell backwards.

Enjoying your trip report! We'll be doing this cruise next August.

You're right it could be fallen down swan ... I'm not the best at identifying towel animals at the best of times!

WHen you have a chance could you also talk about the souvenirs you bought? EITHEr in port or on board? Were there any cruise specific merchandise that was particular to the cruise? THanks for doing the trip report! I'm so excited to read it!

Other than the northern Europe stuff in the pictures earlier on there were postcards, fridge magnets etc all with that logo on. The small shop (Sea Treasures?) next to O'Gills was filled with Russian merchandise the entire cruise (apparently on the transatlantic it had been full of Star Wars but that had all gone). There were nesting dolls, lots of amber, Faberge reproductions etc. We didn't buy anything there. To be honest we're not big souvenir shoppers. We both bought a DCL top although not the northern Europe one and I got an iPhone case which I love. I also finally got an Animator's butter knife. We didn't buy any country specific souvenirs in port other than in Russia ...

We were on this sailing, too. Looking forwards to reading the rest of your report!

Thanks. It was a great cruise wasn't it?

 

[janiebubble]

I was on this cruise, too - our first cruise! We loved it and have already booked a cruise for 2018; we are hooked!

I'm glad you're doing a trip report because I agree that I couldn't find many before our trip... I thought about doing one but I mostly just took pictures of my four-year-old daughter, so it probably wouldn't be that helpful!

I have never done one before but like you said I really couldn't find many reports that helped much, so I thought I'd give it a go. So were did you book for 2018?

 

[janiebubble]

So, we walked out of the port and followed the road closest to the coast towards the museum. Before we left though I couldn't resist taking a selfie with the ship


Along the way we passed this sign which made me smile ...as you can see it signposts the moon!



as we rounded the bay you could look back at the ship in port which was cool ...



there had been a suggestion we could have followed the coastal path on the other side of the fence you can see, but we played it safe and stuck to the road

Before too long we saw this ...


rounded the corner and saw the museum straight ahead



According to the time stamps on my phone there was 23 minutes from the last photo we took outside the ship and the sign for the museum painted on the wall. We stopped and took quite a few photos of the Magic across the bay so it probably was a 20 minute walk all in all (for two healthy but not super fit adults!).

the museum website is here http://meremuuseum.ee/lennusadam/en/ and tickets were 14 Euro for adults. We ended up buying the combined ticket that also included a museum in town for 2 euro more, but never actually got there. The single ticket includes everything inside the museum plus an icebreaker boat moored outside.

The museum is based in an old hanger. When you entered there was a foyer with a small shop, the ticket desk, toilets and a staircase to the right. Once we'd bought our tickets we headed up as a school party had just entered and we wanted to get ahead of them! When we got to the top of the stairs I hadn't been prepared for the sight. The museum was beautiful ...



I'm not a good enough photographer to do it justice, but you're looking at a full size submarine in the centre of the picture. The floor was shiny and represented the sea. You walked along an elevated walkway across the left of the museum and then round the other side, eventually coming down the stairs you can see in the picture. Everything was explained in English as well as Estonian and Russian.

we walked around learning lots about different types of boats and ice craft and eventually made our way onto the Lembit (the submarine)



It was built in the 1930s in England for the Estonia armed forces ...


we descended the staircase - not realising that was the only way in and out and explored the submarine. I won't bore you with all the pictures but there was loads to look at


to move from room to room you sometimes had to climb through these

 

[janiebubble]

There were lots of other cool things ...

like this helicopter you could climb inside


we stopped for lunch in their café ... you could eat inside or out. We stayed inside overlooking the exhibitions.
I had a turkey croissant & H a greek salad (the only veggie option as far as we could see) ... these plus two coke zeros came to just over 11 euro



outside was a cool children's play area


we toured the icebreaker ship which was interesting but I don't appear to have taken any pictures. We then decided to head into the old town.

If you were interested in going to the museum and didn't fancy the walk the hop on hop off buses stopped there too ....

 

[janiebubble]

So by my scientific means of checking the time stamps on photos it took 17 minutes till we saw this ... Fat Margaret and the city walls ...


we decided not to go inside (although clearly you could climb to the top) and continued walking in, it was very quaint




with Marzipan shops galore


The centre was very touristy but still cute ... we wandered for a while, found a modern shopping centre (remember I left my shoes behind, I was hoping for a cheap pair to wear on the cruise, it wasn't to be) and stumbled on the pick up point for the shuttle back to the bus. We decided we'd jump aboard and in no time we were back on the ship. Worth knowing there was a cute 'market street' inside the port and you could pick up any souvenirs you wished you'd bought there!

 

[janiebubble]

We ate at Palo that night ... here is the menu



We had done Palo brunch on our second cruise and whilst the food was nice we weren't blown away, possibly because I'd read so much about legendary service and to be honest it was mediocre, we felt ignored by our server as he tended to another couple, he didn't explain the upcharge drinks etc. Anyway, this time we had Ugo and he was fabulous, really, really good. We had a 6.30pm reservation and we were seated by the window. As we were just leaving Tallinn this gave us a great view of the coast. Unfortunately it did start to rain at that point but still ...

So we started with the antipasti & bread
-

this was just my plate as H is vegetarian!

I had the shrimp and calamari but I'm afraid I couldn't manage the whole small octopus ... Ugo teased me that I didn't like the tentacles but I'm afraid he was right ...

H had the caprese salad but he brought us the gnocci to share



Palate cleanser was delicious


I had the tenderloin and H the Saffron Arancini





However Ugo clearly didn't think we were stuffed enough and brought us the Butternut Agnolotti too



This was a revelation and possibly my favourite part of the meal, the crunch from the Amaretti was delicious. I'm very glad he brought us them.

So I've hit food porn photo max for this post ... you'll have to jump to the next one for desert ...

 

[janiebubble]

I'd heard great things about the soufflé - who hasn't?! So we ordered one chocolate and one Amaretto ... was that enough for Ugo ... no! He brought us two chocolate - which honestly at this point was too much and defeated us ..
my clear favourite was the Amaretto but I realise that places me in the minority







We were thoroughly stuffed and I managed to stagger out. If you're wondering I ended up wearing skinny black jeans with a nice top and getting away with the complete lack of formal shoes ... once I was sat down I didn't feel too bad ..



neither of us can remember what we did after this (we definitely didn't go to see the magician act in the main theatre - although our MDR tablemates said they were great), I think we got changed and tried to walk off the meal .. I think we failed! We knew we had an early start the next day - our excursion meet time had been shifted forward to 7.35am! So we put a room service breakfast order on the door for 6.30am-7.00am (our experience has they've always been quite prompt) and set our alarm for 6.00am so one of us would be dressed when the breakfast arrived. We fell into bed still quite full and the ship rocked us to sleep again!

 

[Laura1123]

Following. Hoping to do this itinerary in 2018. Thanks for sharing!