2010 Cruise - Baltic Capitals

For our 2010 family vacation, we planned a "once in a lifetime" cruise... a 12 day cruise of the Baltic Capitals in Northern Europe. We also added a few days to the vacation after the cruise to spend time in London. It truly was a once in a lifetime vacation. We had a blast.

The cruise started in Dover England. From there we visited Copenhagen Denmark, Warnemuende Germany (outside Berlin), Tallinn Estonia, St Petersburg Russia, Helsinki Finnland, and Stockholm Sweden before returning to Dover.

Here is the official cruise schedule:

Day 1, Leaving Bowling Green...

First we catch a flight from Nashville to Detroit. Before we could catch our flight, we had to see Annika off on her's. Her flight left in the morning on Terminal C and our flight was in the afternoon on Terminal B. Our flight was delayed due to weather in Detroit, but we made our flight from Detroit to London. It as a long day. We are glad we planned an extra day and we used that time to rest up after the flight and be fresh for the cruise.

We took the London Underground (subway for us in the U.S, a.k.a. the "Tube") to a train station (Charing Crossing), then a commuter train to Dover. Yes, we had breakfast on the train. Once in Dover, it was nap time. Ok, really this was day one and two... but to us it just all ran together.

Day Three/Four, Board ship in Dover, the sea day...

The next morning we took a taxi to the port and boarded the ship after a short wait at the terminal. Dover is a very pretty sea port with the city hanging on the side of the white cliffs. We would have like to spent more time in Dover, but our plans would not allow. Plus... the cruise... we were ready to go.

Shannon gave me the following notes about Dover and the first day on the ship. It was a sea day spent traveling to Copenhagen.

Shannon's First Day Report

The first day of the cruise was a day at sea. Not too much happened other than exploring the ship. Erin and I went to the teen center and met the 5 other teenagers on the ship. There were a lot of old people...no joke...anyways everyone got to learn more about each other and we had a good time. :)

Writing about days at sea suck because there isn't much to do or worth writing about, well other than the food. Days at sea are the main days to test out which resteraunts you like and

stuff. We all really liked the buffett area called the Garden Cafe because it was more simple to just file in and grab what you wanted to eat. But even though it was simpler it was also more difficult because all the old people figured they could just cut in the line since they were using thier retirement money to sail the Baltic, which was not cool. At all. But we also learned that the sit down resteraunts served really good food. I personally loved the Ceasar Salad - and I'm not one who typically enjoys salads.

Anyways, days at sea aren't much to write about but there you have it! Our first full day on our Baltic Cruise! :)

Shannon

Day Five, Copenhagen

Spent day five in Copenhagen Denmark. Nice seaport city. This was a Sunday and it looked like a big city wide party occurred the night before. The city workers were busy cleaning up after the event. We toured the city and stopped for a short visit at Tivoli Gardens.

Before going to Tovili Gardens, we made a quick stop at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Day Six, Warnemunde

Day six was gray and rainy, but we still had a wonderful time. Warnemunde is a German Port City complete with beach. The city is a 90 minute train ride from Berlin which some fellow crusiers took. We opted to stay in Warnemunde and walk around the city. I think we made the better choice. The port was busy and the people very friendly.

Day Seven, at sea

Spend day seven at sea traveling from Germany to Estonia. The girls spend the day in the teen center where they participated in an scavenger hunt.

Day Eight, Tallin Estonia

Day Nine & Ten, St. Petersburg Russia

Day Eleven, Helsinki Finland

Day Twelve, Stockholm (Nynashamn) Sweden

Day Thirteen & Fourteen, At Sea

A couple of relaxing days at sea to recover from all the other cities and activites. Plus we needed to get ready for two days in London.

Day Fifteen & Sixteen, London

After the cruise, we spent two days in London. Leslie and Cody joined us as we toured the city. Mainly by double decker bus. We had a great time and "played" tourist in the big city.

Disembark Photos:

In each port (almost) NCL had professional photographers stationed on the dock to capture a picture as we got off the ship. We missed getting the picture in Sweden... get Nettie to give you her opinion of this... :)

***Still working on this*** check back.

Now is this the full story, NO. All the pictures, NO. For the story, you will have to talk to one of us. For the pictures, you can find what we have posted here....

John.

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