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I wrote this on Saturday when we returned, but am just now getting around to posting on Tuesday…
Our debarkation time was 6:30am, so Daddy and I had breakfast at 5:30 in the Horizon Court before heading to our meeting place in the casino.
After leaving the ship we boarded a motor coach and headed through Copenhagen to the airport. We had a lot of problems getting our boarding passes in Copenhagen. When Daddy and I got to the counter they said that there was a problem with our tickets, and this ended up being true for most of our group.
Our final day of the cruise was a glorious day at sea. This is perfect timing for a port heavy cruise that ends with a long day of travel back across the pond.
Daddy and I met Patsy, Ben, Win, and Anita in the Concerto Dining Room for breakfast. We had eaten every other morning in the Horizon Court, but decided to step it up a bit for our final full morning.
Next came a very interesting tour of the kitchen that is used to service the dining rooms on the ship. All through the line there were different types of potato preparations. I’m guessing there were well over 100 types of potato dishes.
Nynäshamn, Sweden was the only port on our itinerary where we had to board tender ships (the cruise director called them “water limousines.”) Fortunately we had calm seas and nice weather, so it was a pleasant ride to join our tour.
From Nyanäshamn we boarded a motor coach for a 60km drive to Stockholm with our guide Mecki. She was originally from Finland but moved to Stockholmn 35 years ago.
After breakfast in the Horizon Court, Patsy, Ben, Daddy, Win and Anita Keith, and I met in the Princess Theater for our tour and then departed the ship in Helsinki. We boarded a motor coach with our guide Violet and headed for the town of Porvoo.
On the way she told us a lot about Helsinki and the country of Finland. It was established in 1515 as part of Sweden. It became the capital of Finland in 1812, when under the control of Russia. It remained under Russian control until the Soviet revolution in 1917 when Finland gained its independence. The country joined the European Union in 1997.
Today Helsinki has 612,000 inhabitants. The population of Finland is 5.45 million. Both Finnish (90%) and Swedish (5%) are official languages due to their history. All signs have both Swedish and Finnish.
We had an early morning in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. After breakfast at 5:30, Daddy and I joined up with Patsy and Ben in the Princess Theater. Upon leaving the ship we had to go through immigration, and I got a Russian stamp in my passport!!
We boarded a motor coach for the day 1 of the tour with our guide Konstantin, who is a native of St. Petersburg. Our first stop was Peterhof Palace, in the town of Peterhof, which was over an hour from the port.