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Baltic Cruise On Serenade of the Seas from Copenhagen- May 26 to June 6, 2015.

We left Dulles on SAS the evening of May 26, arriving in Copenhagen the morning of May 27. We paid for SAS Plus but signed up with OptionTown to see if we could get a relatively cheap upgrade to Business. No upgrade for flight over but we got the upgrade for flight home – cost 326 euros for the two of us to move from Plus to Business for flight home – which I think was very much worth paying to get the SAS lounge in Copenhagen and business class on the flight, although the flight attendants in both the Plus and the Business classes on our flights were a delight – very nice, very helpful. Our overall experience on SAS was great.

I did not make any advance arrangements for any transportation to the hotel and we just got a taxi. I think the fare to the hotel from the airport was just about 200 Kroner, but I cannot remember for sure. Our hotel was the Wakeup Copenhagen on Borgergade which was a good location in the City and fine for us, but the room we had was very small – about the size of an interior cabin of a small cruise ship. We got a good price that included breakfast and we would stay there again but I would not recommend it unless I knew that the people involved understood about the size of the room and would have no problem with it. It may be that the hotel has bigger rooms for more money – we had the smallest if there is variety. We were on the go in Copenhagen and but for sleeping spent virtually zero time in the room.

We stayed three nights in Copenhagen and had a wonderful time. Despite Danish ancestry on both sides of my family (the wife is Irish and Dutch ancestry – nobody’s perfect), and how much travel I have done generally, this was my first time in Denmark. I have second and higher degree cousins in Denmark but have lost any contact with them since my Dad died and did not try to contact any for this trip. Denmark reminded us very much of Amsterdam, which is one of our favorite cities of all time. We had bought the Copenhagen card online to be able to use for three days which turned out to save us a lot of money because of how much we did. The highlights of Copenhagen and the day trips we took were Kronburg, Roskilde, and Rosenborg but there were so many other places of interest. We ate dinner at open air places in Nyhavn two nights and enjoyed both very much although we quickly learned to make use of the blankets they have at all the tables at the end of May – it was a little cold!

Saturday May 30, after some morning sight-seeing, we got a cab to the ship – the fare was about 185 kroner. This was on Serenade of the Seas – Royal Caribbean Radiance class - and we had an aft GS – 1600. It was a really nice cabin and being able to sit out on the aft balcony while sailing away from the ports was fantastic. Our cabin steward’s name was Rommel and he comes to attention and salutes when you make the obvious joke of his relationship to the Desert Fox. I have a hard time not making the obvious jokes that come my way – one of my acknowledged weaknesses. Rommel was excellent.

We usually do a lot of research on ports and often try to do things on our own, but this was our first time in all of the ports: Stockholm, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, and Helsinki – and pre-cruise I was not going to have a lot of time to spend on worrying about what to do - so, I just checked around and got some strong recommendations for SPB Tours. I signed us up for tours with SPB in all four ports of call. We thought all of the tours were done very well – the wife did have a bit of a complaint against one of the tour guides, but I thought he was fine. Her complaint was that although one of our stops was a kind of nature reserve place, he disavowed any detailed knowledge of the flora and fauna of the place – she thought that inexcusable for a guide who had been working for some years and took people to this place. Since I really did not care if I knew the name of every bird, I did not care – she did. Except maybe Helsinki, and especially St. Petersburg, it is and was for us impossible to come anywhere close to doing justice to these cities in just one day. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg was as fantastic as everyone says and we easily could spend days in just that one place.

We had invited everyone taking a SPB tour in any of the ports to come to our cabin for a get-together after the muster drill on Saturday and we got a good crowd. It was good to meet people we later toured with and it was a really nice group of people. We met some really nice people on this cruise.

We were very well treated throughout the cruise by Nizar Laatini, the Concierge and also by the bartender in the Concierge Lounge whose name I should remember but cannot – who did his best to get me in trouble with the wife in keeping my drinks coming (I tipped him behind her back…).

Two differences for me on this cruise – I never went in the gym (we walked so much in some of the ports that the gym was unnecessary and unwanted) and we only won one trivia – and our team won that one victory only because a teammate (William, you were great!) quickly answered every question with 100% accuracy and then won a tiebreaker by himself. We contributed nothing but got a tote bag!

We ate in both Chops and Giovanni’s Table twice – which also is unusual for us. One reason, I knew that we had $600 OBC from a booking thing and some credit I had gotten through the RC credit card – so I was thinking that I was getting some money back on this cruise even blowing through money on specialty restaurants and some souvenirs. Little did I know until it was too late that the wife had been eyeing a memento in the jewelry shop on board and suffice it to say that there was no money back at the end of this cruise.

Bonnie Buchanan did the cruise travel arrangements for us as usual. She and Paul are cruising so much themselves that they definitely have some current info on cruising!

We had another great cruise!

You do know that the onboard purchase comes with a 30 day guarantee, which includes a "buyer's remorse" clause. You can return your wife's purchase and have a credit on your credit card !! How cool is that ?!?!?!?!?! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" />

Having known this woman for 48 years, I can say that she never has had any remorse about a purchase of jewelry - well, I take that back, on occasion she has expressed remorse at not buying something.

Hey, thanks for the report! We definitely need to do some cruising in Europe one of these days. Glad to heard that Bonnie did her usual fantastic job!!

Great info! We will be on this ship in November!!Any advice about the ship and 'extras' (are they worth it?)
Thx!

Every ship, every cruise can be different and provide different experiences and opportunities. Our approach to each cruise can be different depending on the itinerary and the ship - is the ship more the destination or is it the ports. For us, the Baltic cruise was very much about the ports and the tours. Getting to know the people we would be touring with really increased the enjoyment of the entire cruise. In the Baltic ports we did so much sightseeing and walking that the ship was primarily the place to rest up. We just were on Oasis August 29 sailing and Oasis itself is the destination to a great extent - we focus more on the meet and mingle group on the Cruise Critic Roll Call and the onboard entertainment and activities.

On our cruises, we pay for some extras - such as the specialty dining - the prices can seem too high, but we get some discounts as Diamond Plus - we almost always eat at Chops on first night. The MDR experience is just not what it used to be - although if we are with a group on a cruise, then the MDR is fine. Staying in suites (which we have been doing mostly as of late) and being Diamond Plus can make our experience different from the experience of less experienced cruisers not in a suite.