Home bound

It’s been a great trip, but ready to be home. We met out transport for the airport at 4:45 this morning and had an uneventful trip and checked our bags before finding the lounge to wait for our first flight to London. Unfortunately when we got there, we found out that our connection was already delayed an hour, turning our 5 hour layover into 6.  Fortunately they too had a lounge that was well stocked and was right around the corner from the Harry Potter store and other shops, so Megan and I had a little retail therapy while we waited.

The flight home was good, they made up a little time in the air and we landed only at 7:00 pm Houston time instead of the 6:30 originally scheduled. We gathered our baggage and headed home. Boy are we tired!!!

Stockholm Sweden

Our final stop on the cruise was in Stockholm. We didn’t have breakfast delivered this morning so we packed up everything that we didn’t put out the night before and headed up to the dining room one last time. After breakfast, we had a little time to kill before our assigned time to depart so we walked around the ship one last time. They were actively getting ready for the next guests.  One we deboarded, we met our last tour bus for a 4 hour tour through Stockholm with a stop at the Vasa museum. It was fascinating!  This ship sank on its maiden voyage and they were finally able to find it and raise it 333 years later. They pieced it back together and preserved it.

After our tour, we were dropped off at our hotel, where our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe, which was 1.5+ mile walk each way. We saw a festival being held in the park on the way. Once there and back, we were all exhausted and knowing we had a 3am wake up call the next morning, turned in very early. Tomorrow we fly home!  It doesn’t get truly dark here. At 3am, it’s still pretty light-view from our hotel room.

Helsinki Finland!

i think this might have been my favorite day. We docked early in Helsinki, and we were right in the heart of town. Right next to our ship was a Ferris wheel that we discovered later had two special cars-one served champagne and the other was a sauna!!!!  Apparently the Fins love sauna.  We left the ship to attend the excursion for the day-which was an Archipelago tour by RIB (rigid inflatable boat) or zodiac. It was great!  It was a beautiful day, but they did give us parkas and googles to wear on the boat because the wind was chilly!  We got up to 55 mph!

We got off the boat at one of the islands where we took a guided nature walk and had lunch. The guide pointed out and had us try wild berries on the route-blueberries, raspberries and another one I forgot. He also showed us a special moss that the deer love to eat, but they often use in the winter to help absorb moisture in their windows as well as decorate with for Christmas. 

St. Petersburg day 3

The earliest of all, we had to meet the tour bus at 7:30. After the late night at the opera, it hurt, but worth it!  We went to Peterhof Palace, which was the palace for Peter the Great. The palace itself was very similar to Catherine’s Palace, but the grounds were amazing!

 After touring the palace and the grounds, we took a hydrofoil back to St. Petersburg. 

We got back to the ship just in time for our bridge tour!  The bridge had a nice view of our deck directly below them. We also got to steer!  (Just kidding, the boat wasn’t moving). 

 There was a window on the floor also to help them parallel park the ship.   After the bridge tour, we rested a bit and then got ready for our dinner reservation at the Thomas Keller Grill-delish!!!!

St. Petersburg day 2

We had to get up early again for another early morning excursion. This morning, we signed up for a boat tour, but turns out it included a bus sightseeing tour first. The boat was fun. The boat went under some bridges and we noticed people waving on the bridge as we went under/cute!  Then the next bridge, we noticed one of the same guys from the first bridge was waving at us from that bridge. Then we noticed he was jogging down the road so he could wave at us from each bridge!  There were about 4 bridges before we entered the large canal and cruised for a long while. Wouldn’t you know it, when we turned around to come back, he had been waiting for us and did the same routine the whole way back?!?  AND wouldn’t you know it, he made himself available for tips at the end. Oh well, he made it fun!

After the boat tour, we headed back to the ship and had lunch. Then Megan and I got in the hot tub again before showering up to go to the ballet!  

The theater and the ballet were beautiful, but the seats were about the most uncomfortable things we ever experienced. We gladly boarded the bus back to the ship and ordered late night snacks. Another early morning tomorrow-the earliest of all!  No sleeping in for this crew!  Breakfast is coming at 6:30 and we meet our tour at 7:30.