We arrived a day early in Copenhagen and stayed at a wonderful unique 4* Botique Hotel, Nyhavn 71. (150 rooms & suites) It previously was two old spice warehouses. Check it out if you like boutique hotels. Ask for the new air conditioned section. We had a great room overlooking the water. The friendly staff speak English well. Excellent buffet breakfast, and the dining room is very nice. The Nyhavn area of Copenhagen is full of bars and restaurants. You can walk to almost all the tourist sights from this hotel. We enjoyed walking around in the evening and morning. At 1:30 we took a short taxi ride to the ship. We were extremely lucky and had beautiful weather almost the entire trip. High 60's, 70's and even in the 80's in Berlin. The Emerald Princess is a beautiful ship. We were on deck 11, stateroom B411, Inside Room. We've done a balcony room for Europe Cruises before, but we just find it unnecessary because of always being off the ship sightseeing. Plus, in the Baltic, it stays light late so we enjoyed our inside room. B411 is very well located, and is very quiet. We love the anytime dining that Princess provides. They do a great job with it. This ship has 3 dining rooms, and 2 of them offer anytime dining. We never waited more than 10 minutes, and only then when we wanted our own table. They give you a buzzer so you can walk around the shops or Piazza and they buzz you when your table is ready. The food was very good, and the waiters were attentive and friendly. Deck 15 has a great bar out back and the buffets are just inside. Several nights we got our food from the buffet and ate outside on the back of the ship as we were leaving port. The buffet food was very good. If we didn't eat out we went there every afternoon for drinks. A very enjoyable, relaxing place to be. We ate breakfast in the dining room when we had time. It wasn't very busy, didn't take long, and we met many interesting people as we requested a "shared table". Fish & Chips for lunch and Afternoon Tea in the Wheelhouse Bar were very good also. The shows in the Princess Theater were very entertaining. Movies Under The Stars are fun. They serve you popcorn, pizza, cookies and milk. There is so much entertainment everywhere you can't possibly do it all. The spa on this ship is very good. I had the hot rock massage and another day had the seaweed wrap and massage. Both are great for getting over jet lag, and/or recovering after a day of sightseeing. Getting on and off the ship for tours, or on our own, was very organized and easy to do. We really enjoyed this ship and itinerary. I think it's the first time in our 15 cruises we had absolutely nothing negative to write about on the survey form at the end of the cruise. If you want to enjoy the ports, this is not a relaxing cruise as you can tell from the itinerary. Only one sea day, but what you "see" along the way is absolutely incredible. Go to the port seminars or watch them on the TV in your room. These are not "shopping talks" like on Caribbean cruises. John Lawrence does an excellent job telling the top sights to see and the history of each. These are especially valuable if you are doing any ports on your own as we did. Three things made this trip exceptional. 1) The Weather. It can be very iffy with rain. We had absolutely beautiful weather, even two sunny days in St. Petersburg.(They only have approximately 50 sunny days a year) 2) Our tour guides. It's really just luck. We talked to people who did the same tours as us but didn't enjoy them because their guides couldn't speak English well, or they maybe didn't know all that they should have. Our guides were wonderful! 3)The people on the ship, and in the ports we visited. We made wonderful new friends on the ship, and everyone was very friendly in every port we visited.