Do be sure to be near a window when cruising from Stockholm to Copenhagen through the Stockholm Archipelago, apparently around 24000 little islands and islets. See photo. It take a while but suddenly you are cruising so close to holiday homes and the scenery is just spectacular as is the experience of being on a monster ship cruising through such a narrow channel. This is probably one of my least favorite NCL ships as the atrium is really noisy - who thought it was a good idea to have all the audience participation shows next to guest services and a bar outside La Cucina? The Pub is open plan. What we really missed was the ability to sit in a reasonably quiet bar with a view - nothing on the front or back of the ship. The bars either have no views or are in the noisy atrium area where all the noisy audience participating shows take place. The restaurants had lovely outdoor areas but totally wasted on the Baltic as even at the end of July it was just too cold to enjoy. We enjoyed Moderno the most. La Cucina was good and Cagney's ok. We asked for medium and got very well done (cremated). We were heading for a show we did not want to miss so were not able to re-order. Do reserve for La Cucina and ask for a table away from the noisy atrium area where all the noisy audience participating shows take place. Garden Café food was very good for a buffet but very noisy and often hard to find a table due to the size of the ship. There was also a horrible vibration on the one side of the Garden Café which was not pleasant while eating. The staff literally pulled dishes away at the closing time while people were dishing. Have never experienced this on NCL. Cannot blame them - the supervisor was to blame as he was telling them to hurry and clear the area within seconds of the closing time. We were leaving both times and were really surprised to see this happening. Felt sorry for the staff. Barman from Russia was amazing. Always smiling and just loved his job - of course, he has the best view. The Russian Foklore performance onboard was great. We decided to take it easy on the evening in St. Petersburg and were pleasantly surprised when the performance showed up on the daily activities. Do take a raincoat for St. Petersburg as the showers are really hard. Put a bit of a damper on the trip as it shortened the time to see things and made the boat trip less fun but that is St. Petersburg - a very rainy city even at the end of July. I would recommend taking a sweater as the temperatures most days were in the 60's. Do take a train between Rostock and Warnemunde as it is cheap and both places are worth visiting but I would say Warnemunde is the cutest. We took a boat one way and the train back. Stockholm was very beautiful but once again very cloudy cold weather in late July. We spent a few days in Copenhagen prior to the cruise. I highly recommend the hop on hop off boat ride (in Stockholm as well). In Helsinki you can walk to the tram and take it into the city center and there are also great boat tours at the waterfront so if you like to explore on your own do not hesitate to skip the ship tours. That applies to all cities on this cruise. We had visas for Russia and did not experience any problems. We just showed them the visa, they asked us where we would spend the night and off we went. The queues can be rather nasty so wait for the tour groups to leave or try and get off before them which is hard as they get priority. Taxi lines can be long as well on the first day and not frequent so a bit of a wait. On the 2nd day we left really early and skipped the lines. St. Petersburg has been on my bucket list. I enjoyed the cruise but this is a one time cruise. I am not aching to go back. I enjoyed every moment but the weather put a damper on it. Just one of those "once and never again". Do I regret going "NO" - just brace yourself for cool summer days and take some warmer clothes and a raincoat. It did warm up half way through the day so you could wear shorts and t-shirts but you need an extra layer for your shoulders in the morning. If it your one and only cruise, rather choose an itinerary that includes the Greek Islands, Dubrovnik, Venice or Italy.