Days 26-29,10 - 13 Sep. St Petersburg Russia, Helsinki Finland & Copenhagen instead of Gothenburg Sweden

Day 26

Up early at 5:30am as we have a St Petersburg tour that is 9 hrs today😳. Had a quick brekky then down to wait for our pick up. Going through Russian immigration was much quicker today as they just check the stamp in our passports from yesterday, but they don’t look at you or speak - can we see why we were told not to smile or you would get questioned!

Funny - their passport date stamps had 9th of the 9 th, but still in the 1990’s for the year?! Maybe Putin doesn’t allow new stamps lol?!

Out onto the bus - had a wait for 3 Spanish women- 2 who had decided to come at the last min and they continued to hold up the bus the whole day at stops & tried the patience of our tour guide Marina!*#!

The guide took us to Catherine the 1st’s summer palace- she was a commoner in Peter the Greats house in the early 1700’s and he fell in love with her and she became the Emperoress. He built her this palace for the summer months and the Hermitage was their winter residence.  The palace was added to over the centuries and rivals the Vatican in opulence. Gold guild everywhere and so stunning to see, although  always left with wondering how some people can live amongst that wealth while others live in such poverty. 

Traffic in St Petersburg is truly diabolical- both days we’ve been we have spent as much time gridlocked - as we have sightseeing! It’s unbelievable. 

We were taken to the obligatory tourist shop - as we were leaving, the group heard and saw a car hit another, but no one was hurt luckily- just a lot of waving Russian arms around from the guy that caused it. 

For the included lunch in Russia, we were taken to - a tiny English pub, playing Michael Jackson?!! Haha gotta laugh🤔. 

Then we were taken to St Isaacs Orthodox Church - again another incredibly opulent gold church which is now a fee paying museum of sorts. There are no religious services there now but apparently the Orthodox Church wants it back, but wouldn’t be able to afford the maintenance. Not sure if I wrote before,  but I remember being told in Hungary that catholic church goers have decreased by more than half because of the publicity and knowledge around priests and pedophilia. 😔

After the church we were back in the traffic and went past a lot of stuff we saw yesterday, along with another tourist store- the beautiful, huge palaces and buildings. Can see why St Petersburg is called the city of palaces. 

Back to the ship at  5pm- the tour was $700 aud for the 2 of us today 😳- the cruiselines really cream it on the excursions but it’s the only way to see the beauty of Russia, as very few passengers have Russian visas. 

We went to the Savor restaurant for dinner and took a couple of drinks back to our cabin, then into bed as it has been a full on day.

 

Day 27

We berthed in Helsinki Finland at 6am today. It’s not particularly cold- about 16C but it’s blowing a gale. We had already decided to do our own thing for this port and there is a shuttle bus for 10 euros pp, so we hopped on that and into the city. The Finnish ticket collectors said it isnt a big city so we just wandered around and it was easy. 

The maps.me app you use when you are offline - having downloaded the map when you have internet is pretty good at getting you round too. 

We wandered through the markets, talked to an English stall holder who said he has been here 20 yrs and there are still words he can’t pronounce- we had been told that Finnish is the 2nd hardest language to speak, behind Hungarian.  Its luckily they all speak English and Swedish as well. 

The weather closed in and it rained but was fine, just gusty with the wind. I need to watch my right eye though with the wind as the pterygium growth I had years ago from wind and sun, has come back and I remember the dr telling me to always wear glasses and not expose it to either or the lesion grows! I look like I’ve had a hard night- every day!

We went to Mc Donald’s and got a cuppa and used the Internet. My hot chocolate was pure milk with whipped cream on top, took the cream off and it was yummy! Very different. 

Video pm’ed Danni quickly to check she was still alive lol! Then back out to have a look round. Graeme got a Finnish hat badge- the collection has grown as we’ve moved along and I’ve started buying a Christmas tree decoration when I can, got a wooden hand painted one in Russia and 2 wooden ice skates here in Helsinki. 

It was getting a bit wet so we headed back after looking in the Lamy pen shop for Gray, then timed the bus perfectly, back to the ship. Had a quick bite for lunch and a beer - noice! Then back to our cabin as I really need to wash my hair. Only issue is the desalinated water has turned my hair almost yellow and like straw?! 

Hopefully it will improve once we are back to land/normal water as the colour is awful atm!

We booked our 3rd speciality dinner tonight - Ocean Blue. It’s the one restaurant where you have to dress up! Gray was saying the bill from the other night at Cagneys Steakhouse would have been over $200 if we had had to of paid, so having them included is a great bonus. 

The meal and drinks were awesome, we ordered jumbo shrimp, gumbo and fillet Mignon with lobster tail (again)! A few mojitos and pinot noirs and we had a great night- service was fantastic too. They address you by name all the way through for that more personal experience. We rolled on back to our room - tried to watch a Downloaded Netflix movie, but we both crashed!


 

 
  
                                 

Day 28

Moved our clocks back again overnight, so got an extra hours sleep- noice! I have been having weird dreams about friends every night - it’s like I’m awake and watching but know that I’m actually asleep!  Been busy arranging weddings for friends, helping others out and working out life plans the whole week in my dreams- no wonder I feel tired 😂. 

Today is an at sea day so a quiet one for everyone. The captain told us last night that we are getting the winds from hurricane Dorian for the next 2 days of the cruise and that its not an issue for a ship this size but it will be blowing big time- and it is!

Mooched around, sorted my nails and washed my now very  yellow hair! And watched a couple of things on tv. 

We decided to book the Teppanyaki again tonight as it was so good last time, it’s worth it for usd $40pp. Was a good night, although we didn’t have enough time for dessert as we were booked into the show afterwards tonight. Thought 1 1/2 hrs would be enough but the restaurant was really busy. 

The show - million dollar quartet was amazing. The story was of the year when Johnny Cash, Elvis, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were all signed with Sam Phillips at Sun records. The actors were fantastic and it was as good - if not better than the similar show we saw in London’s Westend, years ago. 

Can’t remember if I wrote this earlier but the other show-Burn the Floor, which is all Latin & sauced up ballroom dancing, cost them $24 million for the 5 yrs they play it on the ship😳😊.
 

 

Day 29

Final day of the cruise today- we are still at sea until 10 am them can go ashore at Gothenburg (“Got-en-burg”) Sweden. Then we are going to get the shuttle in and look around ourselves again. It takes 1/2 an hour to get from the port to the centre of town so the $15pp will be worth it- some people walk on the shorter legs like Helsinki, but they said it’s too far to walk here and it’s a high of 16c but big wind chill makes it feel cooler apparently. 

We were meant to dock at 10am so got ready but then the captain came on and announced the winds were 45 knots so we wouldnt be able to get into dock- so Gothenburg is out. 

A bummer but safety has to come first so what can you do. They were cruising after doing a u- turn! So we decided to pack our bags for getting off tomorrow. Then at 1:30pm the captain announced he had negotiated a berth at our last stop, in Copenhagen so would dock at 5:30pm and we could go ashore. 

We decided to do so along with a lot of other people! After asking, we were told you could either do the hop on hop off bus or the public bus - and to basically just go for it and sort it out as the ship didnt do anything in this situation. Gray was keen to go back to Nyhavn where we have been before- it is Hans Christian Anderson’s hometown. We all worked out how to get bus tickets after long queues, then walked to the bus stop. It was meant to be there in 15 mins but didn’t arrive and the queue was huge. We decided to give it 10 more mins and finally one arrived. Got on luckily as many people (always seems to be 2 ethnicities) pushed in at the front of the long queue. The bus was so packed I actually felt claustrophobic! Then after 10 or so mins of driving like he was in an F1 car, the driver announced it was as far as he went and everyone had to get off and wait for another bus- what a fiasco!  We talked later to an American couple we had met on the pier and they said that after our bus into town, no others came so everyone was stuck with tickets they couldn't use and had to go back to the ship or pay for taxis.

With walking, we  had the invaluable maps.me app luckily so could use it to navigate without internet, so we decided to walk into Nyhavn- it was 1.8kms. Was fine  although the wind was pretty cutting by 7pm. We wandered around the waterfront inlet and reminisced about our trip 4 yrs ago. Saw the ice cream parlour where graeme photobombed a group of asian girls last trip  lol!!

Had a beer sitting outside, admiring all the famous different coloured fisherman’s houses. The beers were about $13 a pint, a little more expensive than home but it is what it is there. 

We grabbed a van back to the ship- decided  it was worth it as it was a mess with the buses- we got a Somali Dane! Named Skhar- he was funny as he lived in another city but had come to get the e-class mercedes for his uncle and decided he likes Copenhagen! He was quite young, English was not his 1st language and was saying he wanted to visit Melbourne but had heard about the snakes and kept saying “f*ck that” like he didnt know it was a  swear word-

It was quite funny!! It was $45 compared to $10+ walking for the bus, but worth it with no long winds or hassle! Straight up to the big Tropicana restaurant for dinner - there is so much food and drink onboard to choose from- I’m sure I’ve put on weight! 

Back to our cabin and watched the motorbikes street racing below us on the long stretch of road - obviously illegally, down in front of the ship where there is a straight road. Noisy buggers, but interesting to watch.