Saturday 6 September 2008

#170-European Escapade 2007 PT. 4 - Star Princess Baltic Cruise Voyage #9724; Summary

Well, the last European Escapade post was post #82 which I covered on the ICEBAR that I went to. And I just realised I haven't covered the cruise that I went last year so here's a summary and some pictures.

Last year, on the 30th of June 2007, my family and I flew to Copenhagen from London for a Baltic cruise. It was the day of the Glasgow airport bombings, so it was a little hectic at the airport and we realised some of our bags were missing. Bags that were affected were me, my second brother and my dad. But anyways, it's the first for my whole family to travel up to Northern Europe/the Scandinavian countries. Some facts about Copenhagen;
1.)The shopping malls there close at 2-3pm on weekends. Swt. Wayy too early compared to malls here in Malaysia.
2.)The taxi drivers there like to speed in their Mercedes-Benz taxis.
3.)It's a bit gloomy if you stay out of the city.
4.)It's the world's happiest nation and yet they have the world's highest fuel price. Lol.
5.)Their standard of English is pretty good.
6.)They have a wide range of taxis, from Mercedes A-Classes to Mercedes S-Classes.

On the 1st of July 2007, we had to get up early to take breakfast and after that we had to get all our supplies in under 2hours starting from 10am, as you have to board the cruise before 5pm. And the earlier you board, the better. Imagine, going to the shopping mall next to your hotel to get shirts, t-shirts, shorts, underwears, socks, ties, a luggage bag, formal attire, and all that in under two hours, it's more like a challenge! And I do remember, I called two taxis to get us to the cruise centre from the hotel, one was a BMW X5 and the other a Volkswagen Touareg. Imagine that! Apparently the price for a car to be used as a taxi is half price, so imagine if a Mercedes-Benz C220cdi is about 900,000DKK for private ownership, it's only 450,000DKK if you buy it to use as a taxi. Reached the cruise centre, checked in and we knew our cabin numbers already before hand, D425 and D627, it's um, on Deck 9 (Dolphin deck) , D425 was in the Centre, and D627 at the rear of the ship. Checked out and registered for the Teen Club and everything. Made new friends from all over the world, USA, Scotland, UK, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Australia and more. I was actually the only actual ASIAN from Asia there. There were two other Chinese peeps, but they're American.

Summary of the route we took;

1st day- Copenhagen, Denmark.
2nd day- At sea.
3rd day- Stockholm, Sweden.
4th day- Helsinki, Finland.
5th day- St. Petersburg, Russia.
6th day- St. Petersburg, Russia.
7th day- Tallinn, Estonia.
8th day- Gdansk, Poland. (Didn't stop here due to bad weather)
9th day- At sea.
10th day- Oslo, Norway.
11th day- Copenhagen, Denmark.

I had a lot of funs throughout the entire cruise, and although I was only awake for the tours in Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki, I missed the chance to the rest of the countries like St. Petersburg and Tallinn. I was asleep in the bus due to a tiring previous night. LOL.

Listening to Gabrielle - Sunshine.
Sent from my Dell Inspiron 8600.

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