Baltic Boating Part 2: Stockholm

By Day 3 of our 12-day cruise, we were well into the swing of cruising. Breakfasts and lunches would be taken at the Windjammer Buffet on deck 11, with the eating interspersed with table tennis, billiards or Scrabble contests, or one of the many shipboard activities constantly on offer. With the ice broken, our dinner-table companions were now friendly faces amongst the 2200 other passengers, and we'd enjoyed the first "Formal Night" - a chance to swan around in full dinner-jackets and generally indulge in Titanic/Casino Royale fantasies:

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the casino photo, not everyone had the same definition of the Formal Night dress code (despite it being quite clearly outlined in the cruise itinerary). In particular, the quite large Latino contingent virtually disregarded any and all dinner dress code recommendations for the entire cruise, which greatly pained Johnny's sensibilities ...

The following day we slipped into Sweden's capital city Stockholm - and what a city. Arranged elegantly around the harbour are some of the finest classical buildings we could hope to see, while the old town Gamla Stan is a charming warren of cobbled streets and quiet corners.



A pleasant stroll along the waterfront gets you to the Djurgården - Stockholm's island playground. Our six-hour stay in Stockholm didn't allow us the time to check out all of the attractions, but we did find the time to put ourselves on the outside of more tasty Scandi-fare - this time some Swedish meatballs and another round of herring (not red this time), garnished with local berries of choice, lingonberries - delicious! We fell in love with Stockholm and could happily have spent days exploring its delights.

Baltic Boating Part 1: Copenhagen

Quick! What are your first thoughts when we say Cruise Ship? Old people? Shuffleboard? Overeating? Expensive? Titanic? Probably not for you?

Yeah, same here. But what if you found out about a cruise that went to a whole heap of places you wanted to visit? And had last-minute prices that were actually pretty cheap? And left from a port 90 minutes by train from your house? And was pretty-much guaranteed not to hit an iceberg?

We first noticed that last-minute cruise prices verged on "crazy bargain" back in 2007 in Bath, walking past the travel agents. The particular itinerary we liked was the Scandi/Baltic loop which often took in St. Petersburg in Russia - a huge bonus as getting private tourist visas to visit Russia is a notoriously expensive and dodgy process, that can be side-stepped if visiting with a recognised cruise company.

After more than two years waiting for the stars to align, we finally took the plunge, booking an el-cheapo interior stateroom (no porthole!) on the Jewel of the Seas three weeks before it sailed to St. Petersburg via lots of lovely Scandi-cities.

Our first surprise was a free upgrade to an exterior stateroom with a huge window, quickly followed by a dinner-table upgrade as well. The Jewel is a truly massive ship - 13 storeys of pleasure and 293 metres long - and there was tons to explore on our first day at sea before we arrived in Copenhagen. After Johnny hit the rock-climbing wall (on the back of the funnel - a long way up!) we also spent some quality relaxo-time beside the pool(s) and got astonishingly sunburnt while crossing the North Sea!

Copenhagen was a good introduction to Scandinavia for first-timer Bec. After finishing our GBP4 / AUD$8 coffees, we wandered past the charming Little Mermaid statue and along the shore into town, discovering a very pretty Dutch-esque windmill in the Kastellet along the way. Nyhavn is Copenhagen's signature waterway/street, with gorgeous colourful architecture and bustling restaurants serving up herring-based delicacies. We toured the impressive palace square and looked for Princess Mary, Bec sat on Hans Christian Andersen's slippery knee, and we peered into the famous Tivoli Gardens. But at GBP10 just to go in, or GBP35 to actually go on the rides, we went no further. We got quite lost in the Botanical Gardens, and were challenged by a stern-but-polite guard after accidentally straying onto a military facility. An exhausting first day, so we called into a restaurant on Nyhavn on the way back to the ship to replenish ourselves.

Bec had challenged Johnny to order a proper Danish herring-based meal, which he promptly did. A plate of red herring arrived, prompting many jokes, but it was really quite delicious. Washed down with some fiery Aquavit in the local tradition, although the Aquavit in turn had to be washed down with some local beer!