Cruising the Baltic

Our trip started a little unexpectedly......Within an hour of boarding the cruise ship we heard an announcement over the intercom for Raye Ann and Keith Blauer to come down to the guest services immediately...... Um, yeah.... Out of a thousand people on board they called those two. A hundred different scenarios started running through all of our heads as to why they could possible want to talk to them and  it turns out they dropped a piece of our luggage into the ocean!!!!!!! Yeah, we never expected that one! Turns out it was the suitcase that had my dad's snoring machine in it and of course the machine was destroyed. Not a good thing when you have to share a room with him for the next 9 days. The cruise directors had to call a shop and they drove for a hour to get to the port with a new $1,500 machine with 10 minutes left before we left port!!

The first day of the cruise was spent in Berlin, Germany! On our guided tour we pretty much just passed by all the cool sights while stopping to take pictures with a few such as the Berlin wall, check point charlie and some palaces.

 

The next country was Estonia and we spent the day touring around Tallinn. Tallinn was interesting but it seriously felt like a city that was set up just for tourist to visit. There didn't seem like there was much life there except for the tourists and those serving the tourists. Oh well, we saw some cool sights.

Russia was kind of meant to be the highlight of the cruise. We spent two days there but we had to be with a tour guide the entire time. St. Petersburg was not what I expected AT ALL! I literally expected every building to be like the onion domed looking things. Turns out there are actually only two...... I was definitely not expecting all the baroque styled buildings. We toured some churches such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, Cathedral of the Resurrection, St. Peter and Paul's (Where Anatasia is buried)  and some palaces such as Catherine's Palace and Peterhof.

The entire time I was in Russia I just went around singing Anastasia songs!

Have you heard
There's a rumor in St. Petersburg?
Have you heard
What they're saying on the street?

Too bad I never saw Demetri.....

 

 

Helsinki, Finland may have been my favorite city we visited on the cruise. Maybe it was because it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We toured a few churches, took a boat tour around the islands and just walked around the city.

Yes that is a church made completely out of rocks!

Our last port was Nyhashamm, Sweden. This town is a bit south of Stockholm and since we would be spending the whole next week in Stockholm we just toured around Nyhashamm a bit and spent the afternoon on the boat.

When we docked in Sweden we couldn't dock on the shore so they anchored in the middle of the bay and we had to take one of the lifeboats to shore. It was cool to see the lifeboats and to know that they actually run.

5 countries in 8 days!!!

Overall cruise was a blast. We ate a lot, saw a lot, learned a lot and already forgot a lot.