Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Stockholm, Sweden and the last sea days

Another quick post here .. Sorry things have slipped these last few days.  Running out of Internet time, and the time you are on is extremely slow.  We are now on our first of the final two sea days.  The water on the Baltic has been great.  Not looking forward to getting back to the rough waters near Dover tomorrow.

Stockholm was lovely.  Wished we had more time.  Our tour was changed slightly due to the Royal Wedding on Saturday, June 19.  Instead of visiting the Royal Palace, we visited the Vasa Museum.  Very nice.  It was worth the switch.  The boat ride was good too.

These last two days are relaxing.  Last night the hectic schedule in Russia caught up with me and I was asleep by 10 pm.  I felt so much more rested in the morning.  To those following us, you are in for a treat!  This cruise has been great!  Don't know if I will post again.  I will try to add some photos when I get back!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

St, Petersberg and Helsinki

Very quick post here, as heading up to Pirate's party soon.  Russia was amazing.  Smooth disembarking and boarding the ship.  No problems with private tours getting off the ship.  Days were jam packed.  Did too much, no time to breath.  I am exhausted.  Streets were quite busy, as there was a government convention meeting here, so high security, plus the teen graduation party was Saturday night, so teen's everywhere.

Helsinki was one of my favourites.  Loved Porvoo and recommend it.  

I know you want to hear more, but only have 10 minutes left in my quota so want to get this out, before I run out of time.  Tomorrow we are off to Stockholm!!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Sea Day - June 17, 2010

First of all ... sorry for the delay in posting... Internet is lousy on board!

Today is a relaxing day at sea. Tonight is the Villain’s show. Kirstyn took the Villain dance lessons! She did pretty good, I guess those dance lessons paid off. Breakfast we were a no show, so we went to Topsider’s for lunch. I talked to Captain John in line. He seemed like a very nice man. He did tell me that Captain Tom will be on the Dream, but I think I already knew that.


Today was actually a slow day. We read on deck 9 (used a blanket because it was chilly!). We did the Disney trivia. We got 10 out of 25. The winners got 12 out of 25. It was really hard. Tonight was the villain’s dinner at Lumiere. Yummy ... had the ravioli for an appetizer and the New York steak for dinner.

The “Villains Tonight” show was good in my opinion. Afterwards there was the Villain’s Ball in the Lobby Atrium, followed by a balloon drop. Very fun, but disorganized. Too many people, too hot. We are going to try to get to sleep early today, as tomorrow and Saturday are going to be very busy. They are switching dinner to 5 pm for those with night excursions. We are scheduled to arrive at noon, with our excursion meet time at 12:45!

Oh yeah ...for you fellow cruisers following along, we found out tonight that access to the Royal Palace will not be available on Monday, due to the recent Royal Wedding celebrations. Our tour has been changed and we even got a small refund. Don’t know if it will affect any of you or not.

Warnemunde, Germany

A quick post about my day in Warnemunde, Germany. The day was busy for those going to Berlin. They had a 6:30 meet. From what I could gather, the first train was reserved for excursions only. If you were on your own, you couldn’t take the train, but I may be wrong. Kirstyn and I decided to stay in Warnemunde. We did the “Rostock’s Regional Highlights” tour. It started at 8:45; so technically, we got to sleep in,
The tour was nice. We took the bus into Rostock and toured the town. We visited St. Mary’s church. It was originally a Catholic church, but is now a Lutheran church. We also visited a monastery where the young woman stayed from age 10 and up. The guide explained that the guests were the younger daughter’s that the parents could not afford to marry off. After the city tour, we visited a micro brewery where we got to sample their brew and have a German pretzel. Finally, we took a ferry boat back to the Magic.

Now I know I am boring, but the first thing I did when I got on board is make a dash to the Laundromat. I figured this would be the best time, as most of the boat was away for the day. Turned out I was right, as when I got to the Laundromat, it was empty! After laundry, we delivered our FE gifts (it is a DIS thing!), and went to dinner. We were the only one at our table tonight. What fun. It was nice to have a quiet dinner for two. Our waiter, Louis, surprised us with a sample of Indian curry. Kirstyn surprised me by trying some. It was quite spicy and the look on her face was priceless.

The evening was quiet. We basically did Karaoke and made flubber, then it was off to bed. Tonight the clocks went forward again! Tomorrow is a sea day!

Warnemunde, Germany

A quick post about my day in Warnemunde, Germany. The day was busy for those going to Berlin. They had a 6:30 meet. From what I could gather, the first train was reserved for excursions only. If you were on your own, you couldn’t take the train, but I may be wrong. Kirstyn and I decided to stay in Warnemunde. We did the “Rostock’s Regional Highlights” tour. It started at 8:45; so technically, we got to sleep in,
The tour was nice. We took the bus into Rostock and toured the town. We visited St. Mary’s church. It was originally a Catholic church, but is now a Lutheran church. We also visited a monastery where the young woman stayed from age 10 and up. The guide explained that the guests were the younger daughter’s that the parents could not afford to marry off. After the city tour, we visited a micro brewery where we got to sample their brew and have a German pretzel. Finally, we took a ferry boat back to the Magic.

Now I know I am boring, but the first thing I did when I got on board is make a dash to the Laundromat. I figured this would be the best time, as most of the boat was away for the day. Turned out I was right, as when I got to the Laundromat, it was empty! After laundry, we delivered our FE gifts (it is a DIS thing!), and went to dinner. We were the only one at our table tonight. What fun. It was nice to have a quiet dinner for two. Our waiter, Louis, surprised us with a sample of Indian curry. Kirstyn surprised me by trying some. It was quite spicy and the look on her face was priceless.

The evening was quiet. We basically did Karaoke and made flubber, then it was off to bed. Tonight the clocks went forward again! Tomorrow is a sea day!

Copenhagen, Denmark

A little slow on this post, but I’ll try to remember all the details. Today we stopped in Copenhagen, Denmark. Our tour today was “Panoramic tour of Copenhagen and Carlsberg Brewery”. The tour was at 12:30, so we got to sleep in a little. We did get up, but I missed breakfast by 10 minutes. Kirstyn did get up and get herself some. She did bring me back a doughnut, but that was it. I had to wait until 11 am and had a slice of pizza for breakfast. Oh the life of a cruiser!!!!

Today’s tour started off uneventful. We had a lovely tour of Copenhagen. We got to see the residence of the royal family and got to see the second largest yacht in the world. Unfortunately for us, the Little Mermaid statue is on vacation in Shanghai, so we got to see a video screen of here in China.

Next, we made our way to the brewery, and as we arrived, the rain finally fell. It rained and hailed, and there was even lightning and thunder. I felt sorry for those out on the street. The tour was self guided, so Kirstyn and I enjoyed the leisurely walk. For those that don’t know me, my dad spent some time in Copenhagen at the Brewery. He worked on the Canadian Carlsberg campaign. I was hoping to see some mention of him, but alas there was none. At least I felt I was walking somewhere he had been. At the end of the tour, we got to sample some beer.

Tonight’s dinner was the animated show at Animator’s Palette. The meals are starting to meld together, and I think it was the Beef Tenderloin that I had. It was good, whatever it was. After dinner we went to the “Once upon a Song” show, featuring five staff members. Kirstyn was the lucky one chosen to dance with one of the male performers. I think I will be sitting in the aisle seat from now on! Next was the “Who wants to be a Mouseketeer?”show and karaoke. Kirstyn sang “Part of this world”. She did really good!

So that was our day in Copenhagen. Tomorrow we are off to Warnemunde, Germany.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Hello from Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen. Quick post as Internet is free! Weather finally got worse...