NCL Getaway Baltics Cruise - Aug 14-23 - humble review

Hello all. As with others, I feel it’s my duty to pay back the CC Boards after enjoying and learning so much for all of you.

Funny, I casually mentioned to a new acquaintance friend on the Getaway ship that I studied and read these boards for months prior to our cruise to whet my interest and learn tips and information. He did the same. We both referred to the mammoth trip report written by “Travel R” as one for the ages….so Travel R, if you are reading this, consider yourself a legend in this small NCL Getaway subculture!

Anyway, the following trip report covers the Aug 14-23 NCL Getaway Baltics cruise and involves me, my wife, and my 13 year old daughter.

COPENHAGEN ARRIVAL

We flew in the night before on SAS out of Newark, staying at the Absalon Hotel about some 2 small city blocks away from the central train station. The location could not be better. We’d do it again. Don’t be scared away by Trip Advisor stuff about the ‘red light district’. The area was perfectly safe and convenient and the rooms were large and modern. The one we were in had A/C, but we didn’t need it. The room was about $300.

Getting from the airport to the train station was a breeze. The ticket machines are in International Terminal we arrived (with helpful staff nearby), and the track was one level down. It maybe took 15 minutes to get to the train station and cost us $17 total.

COPENHAGEN TOURISTS PRE- and POST CRUISE

We sandwiched a day on each end of the cruise in Copenhagen. On arrival day, we generally followed the Rick Steves walk….and walk we did. Actually, we benefited the entire cruise by perfect weather, so walking was especially pleasurable. (My daughter, however, may disagree). In fact, in every port stop we walked a minimum of 13,000 steps and on the last day in Copenhagen, with a better understanding of the city, we hit 30,000 steps (11 miles, or so my smartphone tells me) – that definitely helped offset all of the cruise calories.

In Copenhagen, we highly recommend the boat tours of the canals, visiting Nyhavn (of course), and going to the “Copenhagen Street Food “ for a great selection of any ethnic food you can imagine. This place is a short walk past Nyhavn across the “Kissing Bridge”. We did Tivoli as well, but at the end of the cruise (staying again at Absalon). We saved that until the night to see all of their lights. Tivoli was pretty and rather intimate compared to the US versions of the same. I liked it better. Note that the number of food venues exceeded the smallish number of rides. We had 3 of us and bought admission tickets and a la carte ride tickets which seemed the economical way to go if you are really not that into doing rides. Do the rollercoaster, though, as it’s a wood vintage ride and relatively harmless even if you are adverse to roller coasters.

MONEY MATTERS

You could definitely get by the entire cruise and port stops with only a credit card, but as you’ve read from others there are caveats. You’ll need 50 cent Euros to get into some public rest rooms. Most notably, your credit card only works at places that have staff to watch you sign for the transaction – which was bad for us trying to buy train tickets prior to 7am on the way to the airport. We couldn’t use the machine with our PIN-less US credit cards; and we had to wait until the ticket office opened at 7am. Finally, it’s nice to have a few units of local currency ($25 equivalent) just to have to get through small purchases faster.

On the sketchy side of things, when we arrived in Copenhagen, I went to an ATM to withdraw the equivalent of $100 in Danish kroners to walk around with (and cash out on the last day at the hotel if I had any remaining). All good, except I got a fraud phone call during day 2 in Russia that someone(s) in Indonesia was withdrawing around $600 from my account in various translations. My ATM card got skimmed. What a pain. I had to deal with my ATM issues for 45 minutes while trying to enjoy a café stop in SPB with my tour group. Lesson learned: don’t use the ATMs on Stroget in Copenhagen. Find one attached to a bank that’s well in view of everyone.

EMBARKING THE GETAWAY

The cab ride from Absalon Hotel to port was around $35 and via credit card. No way we were going to use the busses, but they do exist. We arrived around 10am. We are fortunate to have stayed in the Haven, forward 12106, so the boarding was easy. Actually it appeared easy for anyone at that time, as the terminal was rather empty at that hour, but of course over the late morning, it got rather busy, but looked to work efficiently from our balcony vantage point.

Once we got to the Haven, they do the standard welcome and invite you to roam the ship and suggested the rooms would be ready by no later than 2pm, but ours was ready around noon. The concierge let us know we could eat lunch at Margaritaville if we opted to (gratis); and we did. I thought the fish soft tacos were great, except for the rather hard (not ripe, and instead crunchy) avocado. We ordered the mountain/volcano nachos. They were piled high and tasted fine. You’ll have to trust me. I don’t take photos of our food.

HAVEN FORWARD 12106

This cabin was pretty awesome. We were fortunate enough to have stayed in the Haven courtyard penthouse cabin for a prior cruise, but we liked this one way better. It doesn’t have the proximity of being “in the Haven”, but that minor thing was more than offset by the fact that on deck 12 we were far closer to everything else in the ship; that my wife and I had privacy in our own bedroom (with a door!); that my daughter also enjoyed her privacy; and that it’s actually less expensive than most other Haven options. No brainer really. There’s a YouTube video of this room if you are interested. I recommend it. I carved my initials in the closet, look for them….just kidding.

Say, this isn’t a complaint, but a suggestion: while it’s nice to be in the Haven and have the butler leave little snacks and finger sandwiches, etc., I do wish they had a little card in the room that helped guide our preferences so as not to waste food. We did inform our butler (“our butler”…sounds weird) about bringing X but not Y, but it took us 2 days to do that. The food waste in the Haven, I suppose, is nothing compared to the piles of uneaten food I see all over the ship. It’s just a shame I think.

CASINO

I don’t see a lot of coverage in the trip reports about the casino, so hence devoting a few sentences.

I do enjoy the casino (too much); and the staff there is great. The smoke is marginally annoying (esp if you are used to casinos), but less so from active smokers, and more from the seeped-in smell in the textiles. For gaming choices, they have the usual litany of slots and video poker and also: lots of blackjack, a few 3-card tables, 1 Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em table, 1 baccarat table, 2 craps, Let It Ride, multiple roulette tables (very popular on this ship), and Pai Gao…which is a favorite of mine, but isn’t opened all the time and doesn’t have the bonus features. With regard to Casinos at Sea, it seemingly takes a rather long to time – maybe multiple cruises and/or a gigantic average betting history – to achieve higher CAS levels and the “perks” that they bring. Nonetheless, the casino staff were merciless in asking everyone for their cards (room cards are used, no need for special slot cards) to track play.

ULTIMATE BEVERAGE PACKAGE

We had it; and it seemed so did everyone else on the ship. Since our last cruise, NCL did away with the paper slips; and the bartenders, if you have the UBP, just scan your card and that’s it. I have to imagine it kills the number and level of tips to this staff, so every once in a while, to our regular bartenders in the Haven (Kumar and Ateeq), I’d provide a $5 bill with a round of drinks and then $20 on the last night. I do understand that our UBP has a surcharge for said tips, but I’m just guessing that the bar staff don’t make as much as before. They work hard; and I feel these bartenders definitely earned some extra, especially given the hand-on service provided all cruise long.

FOOD ON SHIP

Having cruised before (Breakaway, NYC to Bermuda), we basically knew what to expect from the eating venues; and we were largely correct: there’s a lot to eat and everyone eats a lot. So much so, frankly, that at least my family was at a point where we arrived, as scheduled, for pre-booked specialty restaurants even when not very hungry, so we ordered accordingly.

We generally minimized the buffet, largely due to the chaos, esp in the mornings prior to a port stop and also b/c it seems like it’s always a race to get your food, go back for second and third rounds, and then declare victory that we finished in under 25 minutes. That being said, the food in the buffet was fine. The selections are always varied; and being a picky eater (only fish and vegetables for me), I found options that I liked without any problems. In addition to things like fish curry and other random fish options, they have a permanent station where they grill shrimp and salmon.

The Haven restaurant was our main go-to location for lunch and dinner. The repetitiveness of the menu (same every day) got a bit tiring, but the kitchen would accommodate variations. For example, while I think I ate, like, 14 Caesar salads over the cruise, I’d ask them to sub-in scallops from the entre menu or tuna from the lunch menu instead of the usual salmon or shrimp options. We were not disappointed at all with the Haven restaurant. The quality and service are great.

We did eat at 4 specialty restaurants to take advantage of our UDP. Margaritaville I mentioned above, which we’d recommend and also the LeCirque show meal, Ocean Blue, and La Cucina.

LeCirque – the meal was not bad. So much so that we really don’t remember it except that it started with a salad and then, telling the waiter that we didn’t want the steak, they brought something different (shrimp?). Rather unremarkable in the end as neither my wife nor I can remember the food…and no, we didn’t have “too many” cocktails. (As for the show, we left early. Maybe we were tired, but we lost interest).

Ocean Blue – We booked this for the last night while pulling out of SPB to cap-off the special occasion (when are we ever going back to Russia?). We asked for outdoor seating which was especially nice as we dined and enjoyed the scenes of outlying islands with various levels of inhabitation and Russian (military?) equipment on some of them. As I knew from the CC community boards, the only specialty restaurant limit here was sticking to one entree, so we ordered a few appetizers and a few sides. Of note, my broiled sole was maybe the best fish I had on the ship. The only downside of the experience was that it started to rain as we were finishing our entrees, so we hurried and skipped dessert and headed out. Actually, we skipped dessert at virtually every single dining option except La Cucina, as below. We’re not a big dessert family, but they all looked decent.

La Cucina – I wish we were hungrier for this one, as we thought it was the best of the bunch. The portions were rather large, and we couldn’t handle them. Even so, the waitress convinced us to try the tiramisu and lemon ricotta cheesecake, we said we’d try one, but she brought us both. They were indeed delicious.

“BERLIN” PORT VISIT

We booked a private tour through SPB to visit Berlin, suggested on the CC roll call (thanks Casey). There were probably around 20 people on our large bus (plenty of room to spread out), so it was roomy enough to be OK. Unfortunately, our ship was delayed from arriving in port by about an hour; and more troubling, there was apparently a major road accident on the most direct road route from the port to Berlin, so our bus (and every other tour bus too) had to drive a roundabout way to get to the city. In short, we traveled some 8 hours round-trip for what was more like a 5 hour RT journey. Our tour was thus cut short to less than 3 hours, so our tour guide (a Portland Oregon native) did the best he could to race us around. We totally missed the Olympic Stadium, which is a major bummer, but we did stop at the Brandenburg Gate, which was very cool to see in person; and from there we walked to various sights. We got back into the bus to see Checkpoint Charlie, which was rather underwhelming and was the most tourist-trap place of the entire cruise, and proceeded to walk to a remaining standing section of the Berlin Wall…and then back to the bus. Are we glad we did it? Yes, just to say we’ve been to Berlin…but it was the least enjoyable of the port stops, largely b/c of the logistics.

TALLIN PORT VISIT

Initially booking this cruise, I thought the Tallin port was a “throwaway”, given the big names and recognition of the other cities on the cruise, but it may be our family’s favorite. The old town was extremely walkable and our experience was enhanced by our tour guide, Nils, who is part of “Free Tours”. We met at the town hall area by the Information building by 10am; and then he and his tour colleague broke up all those who showed up into 2 separate groups of some 30 people or so and off we went. He was terrific and pointed out everything notable in the area as well as sharing his own experiences – and the general sentiment of the country – regarding relations with Russia, the European Union, and how their day to day lives have evolved given the geopolitical maelstrom they seemingly have endured for centuries. At the end of the tour, we tipped him 30 Euros for our 3 person group. Well worth it.

Some other things to note: we walked from the ship to the old town. It is indeed walkable, but since no street is parallel in Tallin (nor in any of the other “old city” portions of Helsinki or Stockholm), pay attention to the tourist maps. It’s pretty easy to get briefly turned around and unable to easily decipher the street names, but, frankly, that’s the fun of doing these on your own. Also notable is that there’s a nice shopping area in the Tallin old town that my wife enjoyed, lagging behind by an hour or so, as my daughter and I walked back to the ship.

RUSSIA VISIT

The visit to SPB was pretty cool. We booked Best Tours for the “Happy Tour”, which, of course, is a 2 day tour that visits the highlights: Peterof, St Catherine’s Palace, Hermitage, Church of Spilled Blood, and various drive around and walking tours, including brief subway ride – and since we had time – we went to some SPB Walmart-supercenter equivalent, which was a great way to buy souvenir Russian candy or whatever as well as see that a pack of box of Oreos cost 79.99 rubles. (I guess the .99 thing is an international marketing trick).

Our tour guide (“Helen” or Elena if you read her name tag) was very nice and worked hard. We were very lucky to have only had only 4 others on our tour – a wonderful family of 4 from Berlin, via the US – which gave us a total of 7 people...which, to all of us, with a tour van driver and a guide, was basically a private tour. The cost was $617 for us 3 for the 2 days, plus a 10% tip to the guide and 5% to the driver (at the end of the tour).

All of the things we saw at the palaces and Hermitage were over the top and ornate. Hats off to the Russians for restoring Peterof and St Catherine given the devastation they suffered in WW II. They make a point of showing the "before and after" photos. These places were both magnificent…as well as super crowded. Wow. At certain times we felt like were sardines packed into the place. The Hermitage, however, was better with regard to crowds, as being in a tour, we were in first thing in the morning, prior to the general opening, so it wasn’t so bad.

Overall, the city was more cosmopolitan than I envisioned, but compared to the other cities on this visit, SPB has visibly suffered from decades of neglect with most of the buildings throughout the city in some state of disrepair. That’s just my observation.

Based solely on this trip, if ever given the opportunity, we don't think we'd go back to SPB, opting instead to visit other parts of Europe or Stockholm again, as we felt we didn't have enough time in Stockholm (among other things, we didn't get to the Vasa museum as we hoped).

HELSINKI VISIT

Yes, we walked from the ship to the sights to see (the central market), but that was a long walk. We could see the dome of the Lutheran Church from our cabin window, but to get from the Gateway there wasn’t so close or intuitive. In fact, we got turned around and needed the help from some very helpful Finnish people – who all speak English very well (as do the Danes, Swedes, and Estonians). Once we got there, the central market and the church were as nice as you see in the photos and the Rick Steves video. It was kind of early in the morning, so we weren’t hungry, so unfortunately, we didn’t get to have a small meal of the little fried whole fish they sell at the markets, but I did sample one. It was very good. My wife bought some jewelry there; and my daughter got her Finland flag pin (one purchased in each country except Russia, as we couldn't find one); and I bought a nice Christmas ornament, as I did in every port, as that’s our way to remember these trips for years to come.

We hoped to go see the Rock Church and started the walk there. On the way, we needed a rest room and found a McDonald’s, but learned you needed to buy something there for the rest room code, so a banana shake was in order. Not bad actually.

When we got to the Rock Church, we were already about 7 miles of walking and the line was very long. We knew we were doomed when we saw about 10 tour buses swamping the place; so seeing a cab, we bailed and rode back to the ship. Our cabbie said the line would go fast, but the promise of relaxing back on the ship was too tempting. The cab ride was about $20.

In hindsight, we should’ve taken the taxi from the ship straight to the Rock Church and then walked back to the market and other sights and then to the ship.

STOCKHOLM VISIT

Rick Steves (who I am sick of mentioning, but nonetheless saw many, many passengers with his book) had warned about rip-off cabbies, and we did get ripped off. Firstly, a walk from the ship to the Gamla Stan location in Stockholm can’t be done given our short time in port (we got in an hour late) and the very long distance. With that in mind, the first guy in line says “flat fee” to the city center for 35 Euros, which, knowing that it was high, I refused, but then he convinces me (gullible) that that’s what all the cabs charge. So off we went and we paid. The trip back, on the black Stockholm taxis (with 15000 number on the side) was around 21 Euros. Yeah, that difference in price has been forgotten and won't make or break me, but since I’m imparting tips and tricks to you, try to avoid all but those black cabs.

As for Stockholm, Gamla Stan was magnificient, sort of like Tallin old town mixed with Copenhagen -- small cobblestone streets, shops, plenty of places to eat, and water everywhere. We waited and saw the changing of the guard at the palace; and got their early enough to get towards the front. It was crowded; and I don’t know how or what people in the back could see.

DISEMBARKING

We paid $35 ($15 each) for the transfer bus passes from the ship to the “city center” which really means the train station area in Copenhagen. It was fairly easy to do and for us 3, was the equivalent of the cab cost without the cab waiting hassle. Our call to leave the ship was around 9:50. We waited in the Haven and got escorted down and out. Our luggage was there waiting; and we got it loaded on the bus. Good bye ship!

And good bye and thanks to those who read this review. I appreciate all of the help and insight this community has provided to me and my family. Thanks.

Great review, and I agree about Tallin. We considered it a bit of a throw-away as well, until we went. It was our favorite port. Loved the architecture and old town. I'd love to go back and spend time on a land trip there.

Your description of Gamla Stan as Tallin+Copenhagen is spot on as well!

Glad you had a great trip.

Thanks for your review and helpful hints I hadn't seen mentioned elsewhere! We're heading out this week! [emoji5]

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Excellent review.

Keith

Thank you for your review. If you don't mind sharing, how much did you tip the butler/concierge? With such a port intensive itinerary, i was wondering if the $10 pp/day guideline is still a good one to follow?

Thank you for your review. If you don't mind sharing, how much did you tip the butler/concierge? With such a port intensive itinerary, i was wondering if the $10 pp/day guideline is still a good one to follow?

We considered the trip 9 days and tipped $240 US to the butler. The concierge recommendation of $5/pp/day, though, seemed excessive to me, as we only engaged their services one time, to confirm a dinner we booked on-line but was not showing up on our in-room itinerary TV screen. I wonder if we were too cheap, but we tipped $75 US to the concierge which was less than the $135 recommended. Sort of still feel awkward about that.

21 Euros are still a bit too much for a cab between Gamla Stan and Stadsgården S167 (if you docked there). Around 17 euros are more reasonable.

21 Euros sounds about right for a journey between Frihamnen and Gamla Stan though.

There are also supposed to be Stewards/stewardesses at both Frihamnen and Stadsgården to assist passengers

with finding a proper non scamming taxi.

Thank you so much for your review. I second that you gave some helpful hints that I have not seen anywhere else. We leave in about 3 weeks and I am still soaking up all of the information that I can.

JGmf, thanks again for your tips and hints. There is actually so much useful info in your post, I had to go back and re-read it a few times to catch all the useful tips.

Did NCL enforce any "NCL tour " priority disembarkation rules at the St Petersburg port?

$75 is a lot just for a dinner confirmation...IMO

JGmf, thanks again for your tips and hints. There is actually so much useful info in your post, I had to go back and re-read it a few times to catch all the useful tips.

 

Did NCL enforce any "NCL tour " priority disembarkation rules at the St Petersburg port?

 

$75 is a lot just for a dinner confirmation...IMO

Thanks for the kind words.

I was in the Haven, and when we went up there to line up to disembark, they didn't discriminate for the NCL tours versus the privately scheduled tours. Nor was there a distinction for the announcements for general disembarking. Um, even if there was, you could just ignore it, as no one in security who swipes your card upon exiting the ship ever asks for a tour ticket.

One other thing that I read from another cruiser was to line-up on the far right when in SPB and Russian immigration. There are indeed more lines that split off from that section. Regardless of how fast you are when you get there, be prepared to wait.

21 Euros are still a bit too much for a cab between Gamla Stan and Stadsgården S167 (if you docked there). Around 17 euros are more reasonable.

21 Euros sounds about right for a journey between Frihamnen and Gamla Stan though.

 

There are also supposed to be Stewards/stewardesses at both Frihamnen and Stadsgården to assist passengers

with finding a proper non scamming taxi.

We were indeed in Frihamnen. Seems like the size of the Getaway put us in the further port, not only in Stockholm, but in Finland too.

As for the friendly helpers to guide cruisers to taxis, if they were there, I didn't see them. The taxi thing was the only small blemish on what was a spectacular city. I would've traded a day in SPB for a day in Stockholm.

Great review, particularly the ports. I would do the same with your tip to the concierge.

Thanks so much for the review, great information and it makes me even more excited for my cruise on the getaway in a little over a month.

whatever will bewilder me

Hello from your new acquaintance on the Getaway, Thank you for this great review it was fun to read through and compare to my thoughts. I'm already missing Kumar and Ateeq they took such good care of us, and I was right TravelR was still not done with his great and thorough review by the time we got back :)

As for my tipping I was in a party of two and tipped the concierge $100 as she helped us out a lot more, I took advantage of her services to book all the things I could not book online (Ice Bar, Behind the scenes ship tour, etc...) as soon as I got to the Haven. She also helped in moving a some of our reservations around when plans changed. The biggest thing she did for me, and what really earned her tip, was to get my Hop On Hop Off Bus tickets refunded when they were a mess in Stockholm and also my Taxi fair I had to pay because the last bus to the ship was too full.

My butler I tipped $10 per person per day so $180, he did not do as much for us other than deliver breakfast on our port days and make sure we always had treats in the room.

We gave our cabin steward another $50, they do get part of the daily service fee, because he did a great job and even worked secretly with my wife to decorate our cabin with cards and decorations she brought for my birthday while I was in port with her.

Last we gave our two great bar tenders $40 each for the great service they gave and for pouring us a lot of drinks... 8 bottles of misscato just to the wife and a lot more.

We gave our cabin steward another $50, they do get part of the daily service fee, because he did a great job and even worked secretly with my wife to decorate our cabin with cards and decorations she brought for my birthday while I was in port with her.

Hello "blacklamb"!. What a pleasant surprise to see you read my account of our cruise. I hope your last days in Copenhagen were good. I could swear I saw you guys in Tivoli on Wednesday night. Was that you?

Regarding our cabin steward, we did the same. We tipped $40. Felt it was the right thing to do. We also tipped the Entourage (teen club) staff. Our 13 year old spent a lot of time there and met an internationally diverse groups of friends there. She had a blast. I neglected to give that club high marks in my review above.

Say, how did you get the behind the scenes tour? Is that a Latitudes specific level thing? Too bad I couldn't ask you while sitting at the bar. I do so miss the carefree unlimited bar with Kumar and Ateeq. What a treat!

Yes we did go to Tivoli on Wednesday night so you may have seen us. As for the tour it was not the Latitudes tour but the two hour one you can book from shore excursions, I found out about it when I was reading another review for the cruise. It was a little expensive for what it was but you did get a nice photo of you in the main galley with a map of the cruise route and photo of the ship as part of it, and the ships washing machines are amazing. Something I learned on it is all the meat, cheese, dry, and frozen food, along with beverages and merchandise are shipped in from Miami to Germany and Dairy and produce comes from Germany because the quality is better than Denmark. Also fuel is from Russia.

Thanks for your great trip report. How did you like SAS? We are now looking at airfare and SAS is the only one that does nonstop from EWR. Were you able to pick your seats in advance? Did you have to pay extra for food and carry on bags? Were there free movies on board? How far in advance did you make your reservations and did you make them directly with SAS or with a travel website like Expedia?

Thanks for your great trip report. How did you like SAS? We are now looking at airfare and SAS is the only one that does nonstop from EWR. Were you able to pick your seats in advance? Did you have to pay extra for food and carry on bags? Were there free movies on board? How far in advance did you make your reservations and did you make them directly with SAS or with a travel website like Expedia?

I have only flown with SAS on short haul (Stockholm - London - Stockholm) about 4 years ago and carry on was free.

Table for different classes: https://www.sas.se/reseinfo/bagage/#/incheckat

Economy (SAS Go) allows one carry on bag that weighs max 8 kg and one checked in bag that weighs max 23 KG without extra cost.

According to https://www.sas.se/flyg-med-oss/ombord/ food and and drink (non alcoholic only in SAS Go)

are included in the price on long haul flights.,

Wifi is 19 USD I think if I got it right https://www.sas.se/flyg-med-oss/ombord/

Check this for more info https://www.flysas.com/en/us/travel-info/

See this for info about seat selection https://www.flysas.com/en/us/travel-info/before-travel/seat-selection/

Thanks for your great trip report. How did you like SAS? We are now looking at airfare and SAS is the only one that does nonstop from EWR. Were you able to pick your seats in advance? Did you have to pay extra for food and carry on bags? Were there free movies on board? How far in advance did you make your reservations and did you make them directly with SAS or with a travel website like Expedia?

Thanks for the kind words regarding my trip report.

SAS for flying non-stop out of EWR to Copenhagen was fine. We flew SAS Economy GO. We have no complaints, as we got where we wanted on-time and safely, but had its few minor challenges.

We booked in February for our August trip. I used points on my various credit cards, but I recall the fare prices at the time were very reasonable. Either way -- direct booking or through your card -- you get to choose your seats. In fact, on the day before, when you check-in on line, if there are empty seats, you get to change your previous selection(s). I actually did that for our leg out to Copenhagen, opting for the inside set of seats so that the 3 of us could sit together, figuring we didn't need to look out the window on a red eye flight.

Carry-on bags and checked bags were "free" as long as you didn't blow the 50 lb weight limit. The food was free; and given that's it a long international flight, there are 2 meal/snack times. The food is pretty good, or so my family tells me, as I really didn't eat much of it.

On the way out to Copenhagen, we were more interested in trying to get sleep so as not to be so jet lagged when we arrived, but they serve a full meal at around 12:30am! A lot of people were chowing down when a good number of us were trying in vain to get to sleep. I had the aisle seat, so I had a lot of action and near misses with carts and other items. No big deal, but just know that it doesn't settle down until closer to 1:30am.

As for movies, they have a very nice infotainment system on each seat back, providing movies, TV, games, advertisements, flight position, etc. It's free. (WiFI will cost you though). I watched 4 movies on the way home. It made the trip go pretty fast.

Just so you know, while the Copenhagen airport is way nicer than EWR, on the return leg home, the SAS counter is a madhouse. Waiting to check your bags and get your boarding pass at the counter with a human being would take a while, so use the kiosks instead. In advance of your trip, make sure you print your flight booking details (that has a QR code) as well have your passports handy. You scan both of items into the kiosks and you get issued your boarding pass and luggage tags. Thereafter, you go to the "check luggage" line and SAS staff take your bags and verify your info. Then you get on the escalator upstairs to go through customs/immigration and to your gate. The Danes have a very efficient operation in that airport. When you get back to Newark, you'll miss that efficiency!

SAS' A330s and A340s (which are the ones doing USA/ASIA <--> Scandinavia

are either very new (4 of the A330s) or have had their cabin refurbished.

JGmf -

thanks so much for your very detailed answer about SAS. Some people on other threads say is is much cheaper to fly Norwegian out of JFK but Newark is much closer for me here in NJ.

JGmf -

thanks so much for your very detailed answer about SAS. Some people on other threads say is is much cheaper to fly Norwegian out of JFK but Newark is much closer for me here in NJ.

My opinion: if the cost differential is not that great, the hassle of JFK makes Newark worth more money. Plus, consider your long-term parking costs. You might be able to Uber it from your place in NJ to Newark for a pretty cheap cost.

CASINO

Nonetheless, the casino staff were merciless in asking everyone for their cards (room cards are used, no need for special slot cards) to track play.

Great review, enjoyed reading it! So for the casino, one settles up at the end of the cruise? How does it work (I'm not the gambler in the family, the wife is. I just wanted to know which currency to use, and you answered that question)?

Great review, enjoyed reading it! So for the casino, one settles up at the end of the cruise? How does it work (I'm not the gambler in the family, the wife is. I just wanted to know which currency to use, and you answered that question)?

Casino uses US$. By "settling up", if you mean exchanging chips you bought into for table play, there's a cashier there who will buy them back at any time the casino is open. There's also a machine that will cash-in any winnings or remaining balances from your slip from the slots or video poker. If you mean "settling up" for any comps that Casinos at Sea can shave off your cruise bill, yes, on the last day, go to the Casinos at Seas window and they'll review your play to see what they can do....which is really not that much. If your wife is used to Las Vegas, consider the comp buy-back level as tight as the Wynn/Encore, not something more generous, like say, Harrah's.