Emerald Princess Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,873 reviews

Long review - Princess Good, DenRus Fabulous; Tired tourists

Review for the Baltic Sea Cruise on Emerald Princess
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dance4fun
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jul 2009
Cabin: Balcony

Emerald Princess Review Sailing 15 July 2009   Summary   We had a very good vacation on the Emerald Princess.  Several of the port tours were excellent.  We did a mixture of ship and private (DenRus) tours.  DenRus was fabulous.    Food was good in the Anytime Dining rooms and very good to excellent in the specialty restaurants.  Public areas on the ship in general were very clean.  With a little prior planning of our day and making dining reservations, we did not experience the feeling of being with a crowd of people.  As can be expected, the shows in the Princess Theater and Explorer Lounges were packed; we arrived 15-20 minutes early to get a good seat.  We did experience crowding in the hot tubs in the Lotus Spa area.   Background We were two couples in our fifties and sixties traveling together.  We have done a number of cruises; it was the first time for our friends.  (They must have liked it; they paid a future cruise deposit.)  Our friends have traveled on organized land tours in Europe.  While we are generally in good health, our knees and ankles are not those of the twenty somethings.  One member of our party had a back injury two years ago; walking for a long time or standing was a concern.  We did some planning to accommodate this constraint that will be discussed in the tour section.  But we can not say often enough how good DenRus was.  Traveling with four turned out to be a great deal.  We do eat out often at good local restaurants.   We have used the same travel agent for the last several years.  He is extremely good.   Pre-Cruise   Flights - We arranged non-stop flights to and from Copenhagen via Princess.  We flew business class to get larger seats and seats that (almost) fully reclined to give seating options for back positions.  The Princess rate was the same as non-refundable rate on the internet.   Worked without a hitch and we because we booked flights early, we got our desired seats.  Our friends used mileage points and thus were not able to fly directly to Copenhagen.  They arrived about 4 hours after we did.    Hotel - The only downer for the trip was the Scandic Copenhagen Hotel (on Vester Soegade).  This was the one downer for the trip because of the staff.  Expedia reported the hotel had air conditioning.  It does not.  It has an "air chiller".  The one in our room did not work very well and when we reported the room as hot, the staff's response was "it is not an ac, it is a chiller."  We could not get them to come to the room.  When the "chiller" finally stopped working altogether on the second night at 11:00 pm, the response was to bring us another fan at 11:30pm and say, "it is really pretty late to move to another room since you are checking out in the morning."  We went around the issue with the management the next day (we were told there was no night manager).  The Scandic finally offered us a discount good at any of their hotels.  That did not work for us.  We will take this up with Expedia.  We also ate dinner one night after walking Copenhagen all day.  It took over 2.5 hours for dinner to be completed because the wait staff basically would not come by our table after serving the entrees.  The one good aspect of this hotel is that the breakfast buffet is included in the price.  The buffet was very tasty and had a wide selection of food.    SKIP this hotel and use priceline or something similar to stay in the Marriott.  We also heard good reports about the SAS Radisson.  Or stay at a hotel that does not have ac and do not pay the extra money.   Now on to the good stuff!   Copenhagen To minimize jet lag on the cruise we were in town for one full day and two half days (arrival and departure).  Changed money at the airport (200 USD).  Took taxi with all of our bags (don't ask how many) to hotel.   On arrival of our friends at noon, we walked from the hotel, bought a CPHcard for free transport, and then walked the Stroget shopping area.  It was a Monday so it was not extremely crowded.  Had lunch about half way down at Cafe Europa. Really enjoyed the club sandwich.  Saw Nyhavn area; Amalienborg Palace and visited the church; the water fountain and statue of the goddess (?) plowing the fields with her sons(?) as oxen (excellent - it is on the John Lawrence DVD) and nearby church; and the little mermaid (over-rated but you have to do it).  Clouds were threatening to rain, so we walked across a metal bridge over the electrified train tracks (smart thinking, there!) to catch the (free with CPHcard) metro back to the Tivoli stop.  Entered Tivoli (free with CPH) and walked around to select a restaurant.  Had dinner at the German place off to the left as you enter from the main gates (it was OK).  Then walked around Tivoli.  We enjoyed the flowers and the large puppet / human show (Love?).  Watched the show at the Peacock stage (we could have passed on this, but to be fair, we were all pretty tired from the overnight flight and it was 7:30ish at night).  Walked back to hotel.   Next morning up and out at 8:30 am to use the CPH card to get a free train trip up to Kronborg Castle.  Walked to central train station.  Verified with ticket agent the card meant free trip on the regional train. "Ride to the end of the line.   Platform 3. Leaves at 9 am."  We scurried down and waited.  A train pulled up on track 4 (same island as 3) and we determined along with the other passengers that this was the train.  Checked with engineer up front. Hopped on and enjoyed the trip - about 45 minutes or so.  Got off at the end.  Our traveling companion said, "Wonder where the castle is?"  We followed the big blue "I" information sign, walked outside, and you can see the castle (Oh, look, a castle!).  It was a short walk (10 minutes, according to the Danes no matter how far the distance is). Okay, it was not a bad walk, but we were ready for it to be done when we got to the castle.  Entrance to maritime museum was free with CPH card, but it did cost (Visa charge) to get in to casements, church, and private apartments.  English tour was well worth the money, including the private apartments.   Took train back to Copenhagen.  Did lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe (our first visit ever to a Hard Rock) at Tivoli.  Actually a Dane recommended HRC as the best place in Tivoli to eat.  Got chatted up by the manager Tony.  We enjoyed it.    Then right around the corner and down the street to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.  Great museum for sculptures.  Mother with water babies, several variations of Rodin's "The Kiss", variations on Eve, romans, etc.  Skip the little mermaid and visit here.  In my opinion, one of the trip highlights.  Everyone was tired.  Went to SAS Radisson to eat in the restaurant at the top to see the city sights.  "Closed, every one is on holiday."  So we walked back to the hotel and had the long dinner there.  Then played cards till everyone was sleepy, in addition to just having tired legs.   Next day, after going in circles with the hotel management about non-working chiller (did I mention, do not stay at the Scandic Copenhagen?) and storing our bags, we did the Hop on, hop off bus Mermaid line to see the city again.  The audio quality was very poor, lots of dead air time, and the bus was packed (this now being the day that the ship was to leave and more people were in city).  Did the full circle tour on bus.  Then we walked back to Cafe Europa to have lunch again.  Yup, it was that tasty and very centrally located.  Walked back to Nyhavn area to grab some more pictures.  Then grabbed a taxi back to hotel.  Took a min-van taxi to ship.  (all of our bags, plus all of our traveling companion bags, plus 4 people - deal of a lifetime because our friends picked up the fare!)  Actually, throughout the trip, the four of us grabbed a taxi on occasion (generally the end of the day) and that was the cheapest way to go versus transfers, etc.     Embarkation Very, very smooth.  We arrived about 2 pm.  Initial crowds were gone and others had not yet arrived; we were able to get directly into the balcony cabins on the Baja deck, starboard side, forward.  Dropped off our carry-ons, put stuff in the safe and gave our traveling companions a tour of the ship (their first cruise).  It was fun to see their faces while each new area was revealed.   Checked out the Patter, decided to do an early dinner.  Luggage arrived a couple of bags at a time and clothing and more clothing and more... got put away.  We do like dressing for the formal nights.  Made reservations for two nights at specialty restaurants.   We toasted the trip with champagne and strawberries our friends had pre-arranged to be in the cabin.  Great start to the cruise.     Stateroom Balcony cabins, side by side.  Had steward open the balcony passage way.  This was our first trip traveling with other people with adjacent balcony cabins.  It was nice to be able to sit and see the other folks and pass stuff back and forth without going into the hall.  However, neither side was big enough for the four of us to sit together.   Cabin steward was friendly and efficient; rooms were very clean.  No towel animals, nothing special.  It seemed to us that the steward had an awful lot of cabins to tend to, compared to other sailing on other ships.   Public Area Cleanliness Extremely clean.  Perhaps the swine flu scare had them working hard on this aspect, but the ship was extremely clean, in our opinion.   Dining Food was good in the main anytime dining room.  Presentation was very nice.  Could have been seasoned more for us, but the reality of mass cruising is that seasoning will be middle of the road.  Had good time in both the Crown Grill and Sabatini's.  Worth the extra money for a break in the routine of the dining room.  We had made reservations upon getting into the cabin after embarkation so we got to pick nights and time.  Sabatini's called during the cruise to say that a large party had booked most of their restaurant on the night we had reservations.  Would we consider moving to a different night?  We did and that was probably for the better.  The wait staff talked about the rush the previous night when we were there.   Did also do the English pub lunch in the Wheelhouse bar; Mexican in the Caribe (some of the most tasty food of the trip); pizza, grilled chicken breast; hot dogs by the pool; and Horizon Court for lunch and one breakfast.  We grabbed early breakfast before several of the tours.  All the food was good.  Pizza was not as good as Carnival's though.   The biggest disappointment in the food was the escargot.  No taste, limited garlic; why bother?   Food service certainly met expectations.  More experienced staff in the specialty restaurants, dinner service better than breakfast, some breakfast service better than others (tired waiters?), breakfast better than buffet lines.  Because we planned a bit and returned to the ship 1/2 hour earlier, we were never in long lines at security or for food.  Those squeezing the last bit of happy out of the shore time probably saw more lines than we did.   Princess did not push beer and soda as much as Carnival did.  Only one waiter at dinner was pushy about trying to up sell us on wine.  Lemonade and ice tea were available at the food courts, by the pool only ice tea (or so the waiter told us).  Princess did a good job of bringing water when requested, even with out an extra cost drink.   Entertainment First of all, we found a Cruise Planner overview in the cabin on the first day.  It listed the schedule for major entertainment events for the entire trip.  THANK YOU Princess.  We had not found a similar schedule on previous cruises.  It was very helpful in planning dinner reservations for the rest of the trip.  (While we had anytime dining, we did make reservations based on what we wanted to do for the evening and when our tours ended.)  While on the subject of the Patter, thanks to Lisa Ball and her staff.  The Patter proved to be very accurate about show times and places.  Believe it or not, we have had cruises where the "patter" equivalent was truly hit or miss.   Production shows were good to very good.  (We do like the Las Vegas style shows that Carnival does.) Motor City, What a Swell Party, I got the Music, and Boogie Shoes.  We hit them all, including the Crew show.    Kevin Hughes had us crying from laughter during his relationship show.  While we really enjoyed the Nobel Prize routine he did later in the week, it may have expected too much science knowledge from the audience. I can't be sure.  (Can I get a Nobel Prize for that?)   We thought Pete Mathews was going to hit his head riding the unicycle in the Explorer' lounge.  Another great show.   Uber Rossi was less our cup of tea, but it was amazing to see someone stand on their head on a basketball while the ship was rocking.   The "other" David Copperfield was OK, but it would have been OK to miss him.   We ended every night listening to Sammy Goldstein in Crooner's.  Three of the four of us knew most of the songs.  Sammy was a good entertainer, but also got off the ship the same day we did.  Wilson (a waiter) did nice tricks pouring martini's.  And I'll think of him ever time I hear "Put another nickel in..."   Dancing Good enough, but not a real draw.  Could be that we were very tired from the walking.  Also, it seemed to us that the two bands (Temperature and the Perry Phillips Trio) had fixed sets of songs.  They seemed to open their sets with the same songs.  We asked the Trio for some covers, "oh, we don't know that one."  We did get enough dancing in to satisfy us on this port intensive itinerary.  Had it been a Caribbean cruise, we would have wanted more.   Other Passengers Seemed to be mostly American and UK, but with a mix of 40 other nationalities.   The CruiseCritic.com roll call for this sailing was great.  The meet and greet on the first sea day in Wheelhouse Bar was the best meet and greet we have done.   Disembarkation Very smooth.  We did a Princess transfer to a Princess arranged flight.  We grabbed breakfast on the last morning before meeting to our 6:15 bus departure group (Red 2).  We were actually placed on bus Red 1.  Due to business class tickets, we walked straight up to the SAS desk and checked in.  Spent the next several hours in business class departure lounge.  Our friends joined us for the wait.  They had a later departure from the ship due to a later flight to AMS.   Weather Most tour days started in the mid 60's F and ended in the upper 70's F.  Most were partly sunny to partly cloudy.  We had a 5 minute rain in Tallinn - just enough time to duck into a building, fish out the portable umbrellas from the back pack, open them up, get back on the street and - what rain?  Put the umbrella's away.  In St Petersburg the second day (20 July), it started raining while we were at the Gulf of Finland at Peterhof.  The umbrellas kept some of the rain off.  But it was a damp ride back to the ship and a shower there felt very nice.   There was one day it rained while we were on the ship.  We were heading 20 knots in one direction; the wind was driving the rain at 20 knots in the other direction.  There was some ship movement, but nothing too bad.  Our newbie friends were OK.  We passed on dancing.   Tours   For the most part, we have taken ship tours in cities; we have done beach excursions on our own.  This time, the Princess tours could not accommodate our needs in St. Petersburg.  So we figured out a way to split the tours in St Petersburg to meet our needs.  More on that later.   Stockholm - Ship's tour of City Hall and Vasa Museum (Best of ...).  The good news was that we did not wait in the Vasa's non-tour line.  It was extremely long and did not move.  Our ship tour waited one cycle (another tour that was there waiting when we arrived got in and then we were next.) before entering.   The Vasa was more interesting than I thought it would be.  (I did not give it much respect - I mean, what can you say about a boat that sinks on its first sailing because the "powers that be" decided to add another deck over the advice of the builder.)  But the museum was good and the display of the skeletons and the life stories (on the bottom floor) was very good.  Ship carvings were impressive.    City Hall was good.  We liked the lake view and the Gold Room much more than the Blue room.   Our tour guide was OK to poor.  Did not speak loudly enough for even those gathered around.  She had communication problems with the bus.  Everywhere else, the driver and guide had phones or knew where to find each other   Consider doing this port yourself, but be warned that Vasa Museum could be a big tie up.   Helsinki - Ship's tour to Senate Square and Rock Church (City Highlights).  Rock church is very nice and Senate Square was good.  We saw two weddings at the Lutheran Church.  Left the tour for shopping on our own.  Bought a "hat thingie" for DW at the market.  We bought some bread and then sat on the edge of the water to eat a lunch with meat we had saved from the previous night dinner at the Crown Grill.  Free toilets at the city hall right beside the market and one block from Senate Square.  (Toilets at Rock Church were pay)  Went around the corner from the market to the Orthodox church, but it was closed.  Grabbed a taxi back from Senate Square to the ship.  The A/C in taxi felt good.  Price was right for four people and one fare.   The only thing we missed doing was the Pub tram.  Consider doing this port on your own.  But we did feel the ship tour and the tour guide was very good.   St Petersburg We mixed private and Princess tours, rather than just Princess offered tours. There were two factors - itinerary and handling of physical limitations. Even with Princess offering private cars, they were only for basically 8 hours a day. We had an itinerary of sites we wanted to see in the city that took 12.5 hours to see on the first day. We wanted to focus on cathedrals (inside visit to 5 different cathedrals) and spend 3 hours in the Hermitage, while by-passing some of the common tourist sites. The second day we did a 9 hour Princess tour to Catherine's Palace and Peterhof. The second factor was handling our needs to accommodate physical limitations. We were able to work with the private tour company (in our case DenRus) to ensure that a portable wheelchair was available for the extended first day tour for use by a person with a back injury. We could not have put in the extended time in the Hermitage without the wheel chair. While the other sites had the opportunity to sit occasionally or as we moved by van from one to the other site, the 3 hour block in the Hermitage had basically extremely limited opportunity to sit. We could do the Princess-offered Palaces tour, because there were places to sit occasionally while others were gift shopping or using the toilets.No matter what selection of Princess tours we looked at scheduling (private van, evening at Catherine's Palace, 2 day grand tour), we could not get inside the cathedrals we wanted, spend the extended time in the Hermitage, and see the palaces and grand cascade. Princess suggests "easier tours" for people with limited mobility. It is tough to handle special needs on a bus with 30-40 people. So, there are cases in which Princess is just not able to meet the needs.   We can not say enough positives about working with DenRus.  Prior to the trip we worked with Natalie Gordeyeva to design the custom tour.  She answered al of our questions, including arranging for a wheelchair for the day.  We sent a list of "must visit inside" sites, "would like to see" sites, and we "do not need to see" sites.  She designed a custom tour that actually got us to 5 cathedrals and seeing the outside of even more.  The number that we actually would see was dependent on the time we got off the ship.  Because we did get off early, we were able to convert some "see outside" to "visit inside".  While we were concerned about transferring credit card passport info to a private company, in the end, DenRus had a secure web server that we entered our credit card info into and a non-secure page for the passport info (still better than sending via email).  (Hint for DenRus - Advertise that credit card info is entered via the web site.)  We did not want to pay with crisp American bills at DenRus' office.  We did sign and get a receipt for the trip after getting through immigration.  Other DenRus people will appear in the text below.  Each was great to work with - Ali, Elvira, and Shamil.Now for our disembark in St. Petersburg, because this has been a big topic for the posters on CruiseCritic.com.Our experience - Princess published in the Patter that private tours were to gather at one of the bars at 8:30 so that an orderly disembarkation could occur. The exact wording from the Patter is "The State Boundary and Immigration Office of Russia have advised that we must control the flow of passengers going ashore on the first day of our call in St. Petersburg as follows. 1. Passengers who purchase ship's tours must proceed first. 2. Independent passengers who have purchased tours from local companies go after ship's tours. 3. Passengers holding individual Russian visas, who do not participate in the ship's tours, must proceed to passport control after the above mentioned groups.   [in bold] Failure to follow the above restrictions may result in passengers being refused entry into Russia. [end bold] Announcements will be made advising when you may proceed ashore.  We thank you for patience and understanding.   (more text about passport photos)   [in bold] Passengers going ashore independently: Should meet in Explorers Lounge, Deck 7 Midship from 8:30am. (additional text) Announcements will be made when Independent Passengers may proceed ashore. [end bold]   End of Patter quote. We keyed on the word "should" and the desire for orderly flow.   We had a custom private tour arranged on day one with DenRus scheduled to start at 7:15 or when we got off. We went to the gangway on Deck 5 at about 6:50 am and decided just to stand by the security check station. We talked to all the security people finding out where they were from and what they had seen in St. Petersburg and telling them how excited we were to be there. We let them know that our tour for the four of us was scheduled for 7:15 and agreed with them that getting every one off the boat in an orderly fashion was important. The security guy said they would mix in the private folks with the Princess folks as soon as they got clearance for people to leave the ship.About two dozen Princess tour people went by before the security guy mixed the four of us in with them. We were off the ship by 7:20 and in the hands of our DenRus guide by 7:30. It seemed that Deck 4 people started getting off a little sooner than we did on Deck 5. By the time we left the ship, the line for the private folks on Deck 5 was back around the corner. We do not know how long it was.  (In another posting on CC, the 8 people behind us said they were also mixed in with the ship tour folks fairly soon after we were off.)The largest hang up was the Russian health person taking the temperature of everyone before they left the ship. The skin temperature measurement unit was not working as rapidly as she wanted it to.The actual process we experienced was not bad. We were stressed prior to the actual event by the words published in the Patter that basically let one infer that private tours would not be allowed off the ship until after 8:30. By 8:30 we were already in our first cathedral. There was no line to speak of at Immigration. (Lines in US were much longer when we returned to IAD.) With correctly completed forms (not the pre-printed ones supplied by Princess which had some technical errors), we sailed through the Russian immigration booth.  Ali from DenRus was watching people enter immigration lines. (He was actually just a few feet behind the immigration booth.) When he saw us glance at the DenRus sign while we were still being processed by immigrations, he asked if we were on one of their tours.  We nodded "yes" back (not wanting to annoy the immigrations person by communicating with someone before being processed through).  Ali was waiting when we were cleared and walked through.  We gave him our name, and signed the credit card receipt for the tour while our traveling companions processed through immigrations.  We told Ali who they were so he had their receipt ready.  Ali then took the four of us from the immigration hall to the waiting area.  We meet Elvira, our twenty(?) something guide.  She was studying languages (spoke 6 or 7) and her English was better than mine.  She certainly had a harder time with my accent than I had with hers!  She introduced us to Shamil, our driver for the extended day.  As Elvira was walking us out to the van, she asked about our needing a wheelchair.  We said it would be needed for the Hermitage for the 3 hour block of touring with no sitting.    Everything that we had agreed was waiting for us.  The van had a step stool to reduce the step up / step down height into the van.  The wheelchair was in the back.  The van was air conditioned and neither the driver nor guide smoked. Shamil either got to within inches of every high curb so that the step out / into the van either did not require the step stool or he placed it for us to use every time he stopped.  Shamil helped DW from the van and into the van every time for the entire 12 hour plus tour.  The van was always just steps away when we finished seeing every sight.  DenRus had arranged for a special parking pass for us to use to enter St Peter and Paul Fortress area to eliminate some of the walking one would normally need to do.  We did not ask for that nor expect it; DenRus just made it happen.   That could be the theme song for the first day in St. Petersburg.  DenRus made it happen.  Timed entry tickets were handed to Elvira as we entered the Hermitage; the museum staff held the handicapped door open for the wheelchair; we hardly slowed down. We were first to board the canal cruise boat.  She had us in St Nicholas Cathedral, Kazan Cathedral, Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral, Church of the Spilled Blood, and St. Isaac's Cathedral.  She knew when to hit the side door so we could pick our seats first to listen to the monks chant.  Visited the outside of Smolny Cathedral. Saw all the standard sights, such as the Field of Mars, Admiralty building, etc.  We were never rushed, yet she had us where she wanted us for the next thing to occur.  During the course of the 3 hours in the Hermitage, she used our 4 page list of objects (with room numbers that we had researched on the web) to hit every one, and added a few that she thought we should see to understand the development of painting.  She was never stumped by a question we had in the course of the day.  She said she had studied for 3 months to be a guide.  Do not know if this was a requirement or a test she had to pass, but she was great.  She picked a great "pub style" restaurant for meat and salmon pies; simple food that was simply delicious.  Fresh, flavorful, and a great place to sit after 3 hours of the Hermitage. And every time we were ready to move, Shamil was there waiting with the van and step stool.  We hit two shops for toilets and gifts for the people back home.  We used the ATM in the Hermitage to get rubles for lunch. Lunch was 1500 rubles for 5 of us including one wine, one beer, and two soft drinks, with tip.   On day 2 in St Petersburg, we did a Princess tour to Catherine's Palace and Peterhof.   We chose to use Princess to ensure the ship would not leave without us.  In retrospect, I may have considered DenRus for that day too, because of how great day one was.  However, Princess did a good, not great job.  We did see the inside of Catherine's Palace and some of the gardens.  The gardens were cut a bit short here by the time it took to get people from the tour all collected after the gift shop and toilet break.  But there were just lots of people from our tour as well as others.  Lunch was at a new restaurant probably built just for tour buses.  Great toilets, cool air, so-so food that did no harm but had little taste, and some entertainment / folk dancing / music.  (The pub the day before was better food, but could not have handled the 5 tour buses that hit this place for lunch)  Peterhof was the key site for me, particularly the Grand Cascades.  The Princess tour explicitly said the fountains and we were there in the afternoon when the fountains were on.  That was worth the tour.  Princess tour did stumble - tickets were not available when we arrived at the Gardens - we waited for ½ hour before diverting to see the palace first.  That was a real waste because I suspect the garden tour got cut by ½ hour.  We saw Adam, but not Eve.  We also got caught in the rain, but since the tour was ending, we made it back to the bus before the downpour started.  The bus ride back was all in rain.  Guide was ok, used a transmitter for which we all had receiver headphones.  This worked if you were in about 20 feet of her.  Note this is one place where a woman from the group said someone tried to open her back pack.  Another person had someone try to steal their receiver for the guide's broadcast -  must have been a amateur not to realize that it was not an iPod.  The receiver was knocked off, then let drop to the ground when the pickpocket realized what it was.  (Not an accident.)       Tallinn - The best value port in the itinerary.  We downloaded a PDF file of a walking tour from CruiseCritic.com ports forum.  It was great.  While we were concerned about the effort to do the walking (considering the back injury), we decided to give it a go and just walk from the ship.  Only the stretch from the lower city to the upper city caused an issue.  We had discussed using a cab for this part, but there did not seem any available.  And it was on this stretch that we saw some watercolor paintings that we decided to buy.  So we would not have done that if we had not walked this stretch.  Wander outside the lower city walls - there was a great little garden exhibit - potatoes, strawberry plants, swings and sundials, etc.  At the end of the day, we did grab a cab back from the lower city to the ship.  Once again, 4 people, one fare, great way to go to beat the crowds a bit to enjoy lunch while the rest of the people got on board and then waited in buffet lines.     Gdansk - Did the Ship tour of Gdansk and Oliwa Cathedral.  We believe this was the way to go see these sights.  Guide was very good and had a portable loud speaker system.  After the walking tour of the city, we had about an hour to shop before meeting back at a bridge.  That was just enough time to buy some additional gifts and do some walking around on our own.  Then off to Oliwa Cathedral to tour the gardens, church and then listen to the pipe organ recital.  Good news was that the walking was separated by the bus rides.  Saw an apartment building that was 1 kilometer long on the bus ride.  If you are interested for the Solidarity monument, this bus was really not the way to see it as we motored by it.  (That was not high on our list.)  "...and out the right window is the ship yard..."   Oslo - We had debated doing this on our own since the ship's tours would not do Vigeland Sculpture Park, the Viking Museum, and the Kon-Tiki museum.  In the end, we decided to do the ship's tour of Vigeland and the Viking ship museum due to the limited time available.  We were also running on empty with respect to energy for walking  So the ship tour left a little later than if we had done Oslo on our own.  What we should have considered is what another couple did - do a cruise deviation and disembark in Oslo instead of returning to Copenhagen.  With more time, we could have done all three.  In retrospect, the Vigeland sculpture park was worth much more time than the 45 minutes we spent there - maybe half a day would have been good.  Tour guide was OK, but the Viking ship museum could not handle the number of people there and the guide made little effort to try to talk so that many could hear him at Vigeland.  We got tired of what we took to be the thinly veiled references to tips when he pointed out rich people's houses overlooking Oslo and how he was savings in hopes of buying one of those.  Yep, none of us on the tour could have bought those either.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BE

B219 - Normally balcony room, we like the location forward.  Quiet.  Lots of hanging space and hangers.

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