Final Thoughts

We have all made it home safely and are catching up on our sleep!  It was a great cruise and we have wonderful memories, and photos, to share with our friends and family over the next few weeks. 

We have a few final comments from Flat Stanley....

We're back!  Yesterday was a long, tiring day but the only surprise was that Pat lost me!  I have traveled in her bag wherever we go and when she unpacked this morning all that was there was my suit!  I had been standing at the plane window to see out and then I jumped into her Sudoku puzzles and hid there.  She was greatly relieved to find me this morning!  There are lots of pictures of me.  I am posting just a few fun ones.  It was a great trip and  I can't wait to see Nolan, probably tomorrow.  Signing off until my next great adventure!  Stanley Lambchop.

Here are a few final pictures from Pat from her day in Helsinki.  More information about the Sebelius Monument can be found here.

Thank you for following our blog and for the encouraging comments and emails that you sent us while we were travelling.  We look forward to our next cruise adventure!

Al, Dianna, Sig, Pat, Jim and Elaine

and Lisa (keeper of the blog)

Parade of the Baked Alaska

We thought you might enjoy seeing one final cruise favourite in the dining room - the parade of the Baked Alaska.  It is a cruise tradition on one of the final nights of the cruise that the serving staff will carry in baked alaska that are in flames and parade through the dining room.  It is quite spectacular to see! 

This will be our final blog post before we depart for Canada and the United States on Sunday.  We will post one final time once we are all safely home.  Thank you for joining us on our Baltic Cruise adventure!

Amsterdam - June 16

This is our final port before we return to Dover.

We arrived in Amsterdam at approximately 8:00 am on  a dreary rainy morning.

About half of the area of the Netherlands lies below sea level and is protected by from tidal  flooding and salt water by dikes, dams and levees. There are countless canals throughout Amsterdam. Canals provide cheap, clean transportation. Water levels are constantly monitored and the water level is gracefully controlled. Canal houses tend to be tall, rather than broad which allows for only the narrowest winding stairways inside. Because it is out of the question to move furniture up these stairs most houses have a strong iron hook at the peak of the roof to  allow large furniture to be hoisted up and then pulled through the windows.  Some homes are built on an angle so as not to damage the facade of the house when the furniture is pulled up or they may have large circular staircases on the outside. Because the soil is wet many neighbourhoods are build on tall wooden piles, driven into the clay. The Royal Palace has 13,700 of them. Not all of the wooden piles last forever and this in turn causes some houses to tilt.  New construction of course is on concrete bases.

The weather cleared around 11:00 am, the sun came out and we had an absolutely wonderful tour of the city , tour of a cheese and wooden shoe factory as well as a canal cruise.

We leave at 5:00pm for Dover.

 A wooden shoe and cheese factory we toured

Leaning houses

Leaning houses

Bicycle parking for the millions of bicycles in this city!

Look at the top of the building - it is useful for pulling up furniture.

Houseboats on the canal

Kiel Canal - June 15

Sunrise was at 3:01 am and the pilot came on board at 5:00 am. We arrived in Kiel at 6:00am and 124 passengers disembarked to go on a tour to Hamburg. The rest of us stayed on board to enjoy the transit through the canal. 

The Kiel Canal, originally called the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal , opened in 1905 and is the world's busiest artificial waterway, surpassing even the Suez and Panama Canals in numbers of ships. The canal is over 60 miles long, 36 feet deep and over 300 feet wide. It costs $19 000.00 for the transit and on average 120 ships go through it daily. Throughout its length , the waterway is crossed by 10 major bridges and one road tunnel. All along the banks, there are parks and sports grounds which enable vacationers ashore to enjoy "ship watching" as part of their holiday.  Ship traffic is carefully monitored and controlled by traffic lights. It will take us 10 hours to complete the transit. It is a sunny day with a high of 70 F.

If you turn on the Ocean Princess Bridge Cam you might be able to see the ship passing through the canal.  Click here for the bridge cam.  

Edited to include 2 more pictures....

Captain's Dinner tonight

Tonight is the Captain's dinner in the formal dining room, or as many cruise passengers refer to it, "lobster night"!  In the early days of cruising, the Captain of the ship would join passengers in the dining room for a spectacular feast.  With cruise ships now carrying thousands of passengers it is less likely that you will run into the Captain, but very likely that your ship will have a lobster evening.  For those passengers who aren't fond of lobster, there are several other entrees to choose from. 

Dinner menu

Dessert menu

"Princess Love Boat Dream"

(Yes, that is really the name of the dessert!)

A day at sea - June 14

Everyone is elated to finally have a sea day to catch up and relax. We are sailing around the southern part of Sweden right now . Sky is overcast, temperature is around 15C and a little windy which makes it fairly choppy and cool on the water.  Tonight is a formal night and the Gala Dinner which means lobster for most of us. Dianna is having Beef Wellington. Hopefully the weather will improve by tomorrow.  The all day sail through the Kiel Canal should be quite spectacular.

Visit Wikipedia for more information on the Kiel Canal.

Stockholm, Sweden June 13

This is our seventh Port (Country)  that we  have visited on this cruise. Stockholm is the largest city in Scandinavia. Modern Stockholm is known as the Venice of the North, since it is built across 14 islands , linked by boats and bridges.  The heart of Stockholm is the Old Town which is built on a single island. There are narrow winding cobblestones streets lined with buildings and shops dating back to the 16th century. The prices of goods in the shops of course reflect more contemporary times. The countless picturesque shops ,art galleries and restaurants transport you to earlier times. The old Royal Palace , where the changing of the guard occurs , contains 608 rooms and was built in the 18th century.

Royal Palace

The Changing of the Guard

Cobblestone streets

Opera house

Parlianment Building

The sail into Stockholm normally takes 5 hours as we sail through the Archipelago . The sun rose at 3:32 am this morning and we woke at 4 a.m. to watch the sail in. Unfortunately we were completely fogged in with the visibility being around 5 feet if that. The fog lifted around 8:00a.m. and with modern technology, radar and GPS the ship did manage to dock in Stockholm at 9:00 a.m. 

Fog beginning to lift this morning

After receiving the all clear from Swedish Immigration we proceeded into the heart of Stockholm for some sightseeing and shopping.  An unexpected rain forced us to return to the ship in the early afternoon . Short time later the sun came out and we left Stockholm at 6:00p.m.  It is now 9:00pm and we are sailing through the archipelago and enjoying the wonderful sights that nature has to offer. All of us have remarked how the terrain  is just like the Bruce Peninsula and the Muskokas  . Sunset will be at around 11:00pm.

View of the Stockholm Archipelago

Another view...

And another view!



Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow because it is a sea day and dinner will be lobster and giant tiger prawns for everyone, except Dianna (who doesn't care at all for seafood!) . Then, we are off to the Kiel Canal.

Helsinki Finland

Hi, it's Stan again.  I've been  having so much fun it's hard to stop and write!

We left Russia yesterday after two days of wonderful sightseeing and woke up today as we entered the Helsinki harbour.  Did you know that St. Petersburg is at the latitude of Anchorage Alaska?  In the summer in this part of the world there is very little dark time at night.  they call it the land of the Midnight Sun.  Sunrise and set times for today are 3:35 and 10:35 but the sky stays light for a long time.  Another fact I learned:  St. Petersburg gets only 34 days of sun in the year...we had two of them while we were there!  The temperature is creeping up finally and tomorrow's high should be 21 C. in Sweden. 

We are now also gaining time.  In Russia we were 9  hours ahead of home, Finland 8 hours and as a Sweden will be 7.   

Right now we are at sea on the way to Sweden.  There was a beautiful sunset tonight (it's midnight but still a little light) and several ships were to be seen around us.  We have suddenly sailed into thick fog and I can hear all the ships blowing their foghorns.  It's kind of spooky.  We went our separate ways today and I stayed with Pat and Sig.  We walked off the ship looking for a tourist bus, didn't find one and started walking with a couple from Manchester England, Ann and Bob.  They had been there before and had an idea of what they wanted to see.  The men led off with the maps and we followed.  The market was  very good...mostly high quality goods made by craftsmen.  they had reindeer pelts which were very thick and soft.  Sig talked Pat into buying herself earrings and necklace in sterling silver with green stones.  We saw beautiful linens, knits and fur hats.  Today was a celebration of Helsinki being the capital of Finland for 200 years.  There were many children at city hall and they had lots of singing and games and even dancing.  We saw three churches today.  One had 43 very steep steps all across the front and it was quite a climb but the best was the Rock Church built by blasting a big hole in a rocky hill.  The inside is all bedrock walls with glass around the top.  We heard a piano recital there.   Next we walked to the Sibelius Park named for the famous Finnish composer.  There is a huge monument built to honour him.  It is made up of many stainless steel tubes which somewhat resemble organ pipes and apparently they hum when the wind blows across them. 

Our route back to the ship took us through the very vibrant and beautiful downtown.  We were back in time for afternoon tea tired but happy.  Sig says we walked at least 10 km. today.  Did I tell you that Pat is buying a little flag in every port?  We now have 7 with 3 left to get..  Well, I must go to bed and get some rest for Sweden!

Regards,

Stanley Lambchop

PS:  It is now Wed.  AM.  We arose at 4 AM to watch the long channel approach to Stockholm.  The fog was still very thick so back to bed and now at 7 AM we can't see anything yet.  We expect to arrive in Stockholm at 9 AM so we are off to breakfast.

Don't forget the Princess Cruise Cam

Would you like to know where the Ocean Princess is right at this moment?  Check out the
cruise bridgecam. 

St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg, a two day stay on the Gulf of Finland, Russia

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter 1 in 1703 and became the capital of Russia. During the first world war the name was changed to Petrograd and then to Leningrad in 1924. In 1991 the historic name St. Petersburg was restored for this magnificent city.

Day 1

We arrived into St. Petersburg at 7:00 a.m. on a sunny and warm , 20 C, morning. It gets light before 4 o'clock in the morning and stays light till close to midnight. Because the Ocean Princess is a smaller ship we are docked  near the downtown area which saves approximately 45 minutes of driving to get to most sites. Sig and Pat visited the Hermitage Museum which was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great as her Winter Palace . It houses on of the finest collections of art in the world, over three million works of art including Da Vinci, Rafael, Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir.  Elaine, Jim, Dianna and Al enjoyed a half day tour of the Peterhof  Palace .  It was designed by Peter the Great to rival Versailles and boasts a classical facade and stunning fountains and gardens.

The palace is approximately a half hour drive outside of St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland.

Day 2

Another beautiful day, sunny and around 20 degrees C.  Jim and Elaine toured the Hermitage and lucked out because they were the only group and therefore had the whole place  for their group without the usual thousands of other tourists because the Hermitage is usually closed on Mondays except for special arrangements.  In the afternoon, Jim, Pat and Sig, Dianna and Al took a 10 mile cruise along the Neva River and the canals in St. Petersburg and viewed the magnificent architecture and historical buildings and sites. There are over 80 canals and rivers

Neva river cruise

St. Nicolas Church, the favourite church in St. Petersburg

A few thousand less people would have made this a perfect tour!

We were given about half an hour to shop in a flea type market to buy souvenirs (very expensive compared to 6 years ago.)

We sailed from St Petersburg around 6pm and headed for Helsinki, Finland.  As we were leaving St. Petersburg we passed the Russian ship graveyard.  Six years ago there were miles and miles of rusty ships, however now there are only a few left.  They are being dismantled for scrap metal.

Ship graveyard

For more information on St. Petersburg, visit the wiki travel page here.