Live from the Prinsendam as the wizard & witches cruise May 17 - June 17, 2013

[Skipper's Mom]

Well, we disembarked on Saturday along with Georgina, Gerry, Lilly and Nolan. Shared a cab into London. G&G and we have enjoyed two days together touring around Londontown.

 

G&G left today for Iceland (whooeee cold!). That left us to tour around by ourselves. Harrods (out of my league), HOHO bus (is that Big Ben or Trafalgar Square again?! and then on to the Palace Mews for a quick tour and then shopping in the gift shop. Actually, the HOHO bus have offered me a job as a tour guide!

 

We are on our way out for dinner. Tomorrow, we go on a tour to Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford-on-Avon.

 

Later....

 

Lynne & Rich

[rafinmd]

Well' date=' we disembarked on Saturday along with Georgina, Gerry, Lilly and Nolan. Shared a cab into London. G&G and we have enjoyed two days together touring around Londontown.

 

G&G left today for Iceland (whooeee cold!). That left us to tour around by ourselves. Harrods (out of my league), HOHO bus (is that Big Ben or Trafalgar Square again?! and then on to the Palace Mews for a quick tour and then shopping in the gift shop. Actually, the HOHO bus have offered me a job as a tour guide!

 

We are on our way out for dinner. Tomorrow, we go on a tour to Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford-on-Avon.

 

Later....

 

Lynne & Rich[/quote']

 

Enjoy London! Iceland, don't let the name fool you. It's lovely, I've enjoyed it all 3 times there including once on the Elegant Explorer. Are G&G on another cruise or visiting by air?

 

Roy

[Skipper's Mom]

Do not, I repeat, do not go to this restaurant. Bad, bad, bad!:mad::mad::mad:

 

That's all that I will say.

[Skipper's Mom]

Enjoy London! Iceland, don't let the name fool you. It's lovely, I've enjoyed it all 3 times there including once on the Elegant Explorer. Are G&G on another cruise or visiting by air?

 

Roy

 

They are visiting by air and will leave for home on Wednesday. I miss them already! :(

[gigianne]

Just spent 2 days in Iceland on our way home from London - miss you too Lynne. We had an 8 hour tour of part of the island - weather was cold, rainy, windy, foggy and sunny. The Crystal Symphony is docked in the harbour. I already miss all our CC friends who we met on the Prinsendam - what a cruise that was!!!

[Windsailer]

Have really been enjoying the "live from" posts as I will be on the EE later this year. But was wondering - have you heard any comments about the AB cabins? I know pre drydock there were many complaints of noise, water splashing on the balconies, other problems...but haven't heard anything since then.

[gigianne]

I believe that someone from CC was in one of the AB cabins - maybe they will post here - however I know for sure one couple who were in one of the new inside cabins in that area and their comments were about the vibrations. I was actually in the cabin as Kazu had arranged a cabin crawl.

[gigianne]

Jacqui - where are you - we want to know how you are doing without us!!!:)

[kazu]

Jacqui - where are you - we want to know how you are doing without us!!!:)

 

No we didn't fall overboard or miss the ship - I have had problems logging on to cruise critic. No free wifi in Warnemunde or other ports easily found. I've heard Tallin is loaded (our stop tomorrow0 so by all means post questions.\

 

I'm going to try to do some updates now as we speak and the bath is filling for fomral night!

[kazu]

Saturday - June 1st - Tilbury

 

I can't believe that the first segment of this cruise is over! Where in heavens name did the time go? A sad day as I have to say farewell to friends and a happy day as I get to greet new ones. Many, many mixed emotions.

 

What a feeling to realize that we don't have to pack, we don't have to rush - the only thing we had to do was get up early and go to breakfast so that we didn't hold things up.

 

About 7 am I realized we had never received that infamous in transit card. I suspect they forgot with all the gift cards and stuff I got on that fateful b-day. Thank heavens I had my head on and realized. So I headed to the front desk and was told that the concierge would arrange for it to be delivered to our room. 2 hours later it finally arrived and we were able to get off.

 

Although we got caught in a bit of an immigration/customs line it really didn't take that long.

 

We had been to London and decided to make an easy day of it so we had decided to go over to Gravesend. What nice people at the Tilbury terminal. When I asked where the ferry was they actually took us there!!

 

So, we got to cross the Thames with the locals and explore this pretty town a bit. Found a bit of free wifi but they only allow so many minutes so I had to take advantage of the minimal time to check my home emails and credit cards and bank accounts.

 

It turned out that I was one unhappy camper when I saw my emails. I had a private walking tour booked with Sandemans in Copenhagen and for some 'unforeseen reason' they had cancelled it with 3 days notice!!! NOt happy at all as they had had my money for 5 months and now I had to let everyone know that had signed up that there was no walking tour that day and return their money.

 

Knowing that my work was cut out for me, we headed back to the ship a bit earlier so I could prepare the money and notes and also deliver the meet and greet invites.

 

 

A very relaxing day which was quite nice. We lost one room steward today as his contract ended and gained a new one. So glad I read advice on these boards to tip at the end of each segment (yes, I know tipping is not necessary LOL). This way he did not miss out. His towel animals were absolutely the BEST!! I've never seen many like them. He was delighted we were saving the good ones and I think that's why they kept improving?

 

Happy to see on the menu that for dinner new things were being added to match the ports of call. Tonight they were offering Fillet of European Plaice with Lobster dumplings (a fish). Both Jose and I tried it and we thought it was quite good.

 

There were supposed to be 4 formal nights on this segment as well as the previous. In both cases the formal nights have been reduced to 3.

 

Clocks are no longer being moved ahead or back at noon. Now it is at night.

 

We have new entertainers on board so they are rehearsing. Tonight's entertainment was strictly Buddy, Kym, Adagio and the Station Bank. The Station Bank is quite good actually

 

Once again our verandahs, windows, etc. are all being thoroughly cleaned. Impressive considering this is only the second port.

 

Weather in Tilbury was better than Southern France. Go figure!

[kazu]

Sunday June 2nd - at sea - sailing to Copenhagen.

 

Well, you would have thought I would have had time to bring things up to date today. Seas are very choppy. As long as the ship doesn't pitch the wrong way, Jose is ok. Well, it's pitching so he's taking the ginger and stuff. I'm fighting a sore throat so neither one of us is totally up to speed.

 

The captain said it should settle down by 6 pm but I think he means 6 am as it doesn't settle down to night fall.

 

Today was our meet and greet for the 2nd segment. Another fabulous turnout. Some of our roll call have been telling tablemates about cruise critic so we have some new joiners who have discovered cruise critic. Georgina (gigianne) had made her fabulous name tags for those on this segment and left me with some blank ones 'in case'. Not a name tag was left over. So Georgina, if you are reading this they were certainly put to good use.

 

We had changed the time for the meet and greet to accommodate the trivia addicts but unfortunately it conflicted with the Captain's navigational meeting so he sent his regrets.

 

However, we did have our new Hotel Manager (Cess), cd Gene, Cellar Master Adrien and beverage manager Ricki. The offered a very nice fruit drink (non alcoholic) which suited my sore throat just fine.

 

Of course we asked about the new ship and it's name - It's name is #5107 (or something like that).

 

I think everyone enjoyed hearing from our guests and meeting everyone else.

 

I hit the casino to test my friends' theory that you win more on the first couple of days and I don't think it's true - although I didn't lose substantially (thank heavens).

 

For entertainment tonight we had Romany, a female magician who is a combination of Bette Midler and Mary Poppins (as described b the ship). Certainly sounds like she was well enjoyed as I could hear the reaction from the show room in the casino.

 

NOt feeling up to snuff, we decided to bypass formal night and just get room service in our room. Turns out it was a huge mistake as I heard they had a special menu as well to celebrate the 140th anniversary and the food was excellent. (our room service food was good but we missed out).

 

Hit the sack early to let the pitching put us to sleep and to wake up the next morning to smooth seas.

[kazu]

Monday, June 3rd - Copenhagen at 1 pm - continuing on to Tuesday June 45h

 

oops I forgot to tell you all that the Explorer is gone. It is now called today ON LOCATION. It is folded three ways and a different format than the old explorer.

 

They are looking for our feedback on it. I kind of like it as it is not as bulky. The only thing I don't like is that the info on what documentation you need in port is on the inside so it takes a minute to get used to it.

 

I was struggling to find the walking tour directions after losing our regular walking tour. I am still ticked off at the company - I did send them an email back and I hope they give me a good reply. anyways, what will be will be.

 

We wandered around and like many, got lost a couple of times and enjoyed Tivoli Gardens as well as some other spots.

 

I don't know how many miles we walked but it was a lot I am sure.

 

A great dinner in the dining room and ran into a lot of the roll call members who were in the same situation as us. They had gotten lost a couple of times too - so, at least we were on an even keel.

 

The next day we decided we would make use of the public transport to get us around in Copenhagen. Yes, we had a full day and 1/2 in Copenhagen. With the Copenhagen Card it was so easy. So we took the bus and got a 'tour' at the same time of Copenhagen.

 

Jose wanted to head to the Carlsberg factory (visit Carlsberg). so, we headed there first. I have to tell you while I was not thrilled with the idea of going I was blown away by the place. Just so much history and so well presented. This is a family with a long lineage and history in this beautiful city and they have given a lot back to the city. The sight itself is very beautiful - statues, gardens, etc. and of course beer samplings. What was fun to try were the beers that are only available domestically and not shipped to Canada or the U.S. so we opted for those (small glasses so no one was 'feeling it').

 

Ran into a number of roll call members also visiting.

 

Then we headed to Christianborg Palace, the home of the Queen, parliament, etc. Took a while to find the entrance - a lot of the spots outside at the slot are free but the signs were in Danish only. Finally we found it, but it was definitely worth the time to find it. Beautiful. Of course you had to put on those plastic shoe covers so you didn't damage anything.

 

After that we caught the bus to head back in the general ship's direction. oops bus wasn't going there although it was the right number. Got off and he directed us to the right stop. oops, that one was not going either. He let us off on a remote stop and that one was the 'harbour' bus, but it wasn't going there either. At least he let us off near by and we could walk back to the ship. Getting back on board I found out that we were not the only ones in that boat (no pun intended) - it happened to several others as well - so I guess I need to learn to read Danish in the future or at least know what some of the signs mean.

 

Just the same, we had fun. The weather was beautiful. Who would have guessed that the weather in the Baltics would have been so much nicer than the weather in Southern France?

 

Starting to look like (with luck) the weather in the Baltics may be nicer than the weather we had in France!!!

 

Now, our only worry is will the Elbe River flood to much for us to cruise on???

 

Just to let you all know... we haven't fallen overboard. I just haven't been efficient - and the ports are intensive now.. I will try to do more later - but with luck and co-operation of cruise critic, I will post this much at least.

 

Signing off from the Elegant

[kazu]

Have really been enjoying the "live from" posts as I will be on the EE later this year. But was wondering - have you heard any comments about the AB cabins? I know pre drydock there were many complaints of noise, water splashing on the balconies, other problems...but haven't heard anything since then.

 

from what I heard - the vibrations are still there. They don't bother our roll call members that much but they said they could see it bothering some. It's still a category I would avoid. Oh yes, and the water still sloshes over the AB verandahs as well. That much has not (and probably can't ) be changed.

[Windsailer]

Appreciate the update on the AB cabins. Yes, I'll avoid now.

[LuckyJ]

So glad to here from you Jacqui, I hope you are feeling better and glad Jose did not get sick.

 

That's to bad about your walking tour, might have to cross that one off my list?

 

Have fun, stay safe.

 

Hugs

Janet

[gigianne]

Great to hear from you J - say hello to Jose and all our CC friends - we arrived home late last night - needing a rest!!

[sail7seas]

Sorry about your walking tour being cancelled but happy you seemed to enjoy Copenhagen. We think it a charming city and have loved our visits.

 

Curious which Cees is the new Hotel Director. There is more than one. Any idea his last name?

 

Sorry about your sore throat and Jose having a bit of mal de mer and hope you both feel better soon.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Saturday - June 1st - Tilbury

 

I can't believe that the first segment of this cruise is over! Where in heavens name did the time go? A sad day as I have to say farewell to friends and a happy day as I get to greet new ones. Many, many mixed emotions.

 

What a feeling to realize that we don't have to pack, we don't have to rush - the only thing we had to do was get up early and go to breakfast so that we didn't hold things up.

 

About 7 am I realized we had never received that infamous in transit card. I suspect they forgot with all the gift cards and stuff I got on that fateful b-day. Thank heavens I had my head on and realized. So I headed to the front desk and was told that the concierge would arrange for it to be delivered to our room. 2 hours later it finally arrived and we were able to get off.

 

Although we got caught in a bit of an immigration/customs line it really didn't take that long.

 

We had been to London and decided to make an easy day of it so we had decided to go over to Gravesend. What nice people at the Tilbury terminal. When I asked where the ferry was they actually took us there!!

 

So, we got to cross the Thames with the locals and explore this pretty town a bit. Found a bit of free wifi but they only allow so many minutes so I had to take advantage of the minimal time to check my home emails and credit cards and bank accounts.

 

It turned out that I was one unhappy camper when I saw my emails. I had a private walking tour booked with Sandemans in Copenhagen and for some 'unforeseen reason' they had cancelled it with 3 days notice!!! NOt happy at all as they had had my money for 5 months and now I had to let everyone know that had signed up that there was no walking tour that day and return their money.

 

Knowing that my work was cut out for me, we headed back to the ship a bit earlier so I could prepare the money and notes and also deliver the meet and greet invites.

 

 

A very relaxing day which was quite nice. We lost one room steward today as his contract ended and gained a new one. So glad I read advice on these boards to tip at the end of each segment (yes, I know tipping is not necessary LOL). This way he did not miss out. His towel animals were absolutely the BEST!! I've never seen many like them. He was delighted we were saving the good ones and I think that's why they kept improving?

Happy to see on the menu that for dinner new things were being added to match the ports of call. Tonight they were offering Fillet of European Plaice with Lobster dumplings (a fish). Both Jose and I tried it and we thought it was quite good.

 

There were supposed to be 4 formal nights on this segment as well as the previous. In both cases the formal nights have been reduced to 3.

 

Clocks are no longer being moved ahead or back at noon. Now it is at night.

 

We have new entertainers on board so they are rehearsing. Tonight's entertainment was strictly Buddy, Kym, Adagio and the Station Bank. The Station Bank is quite good actually

 

Once again our verandahs, windows, etc. are all being thoroughly cleaned. Impressive considering this is only the second port.

 

Weather in Tilbury was better than Southern France. Go figure!

 

My mouth is watering -- now I have to get a dumb snack.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Sunday June 2nd - at sea - sailing to Copenhagen.

 

Well, you would have thought I would have had time to bring things up to date today. Seas are very choppy. As long as the ship doesn't pitch the wrong way, Jose is ok. Well, it's pitching so he's taking the ginger and stuff. I'm fighting a sore throat so neither one of us is totally up to speed.

 

The captain said it should settle down by 6 pm but I think he means 6 am as it doesn't settle down to night fall.

 

Today was our meet and greet for the 2nd segment. Another fabulous turnout. Some of our roll call have been telling tablemates about cruise critic so we have some new joiners who have discovered cruise critic. Georgina (gigianne) had made her fabulous name tags for those on this segment and left me with some blank ones 'in case'. Not a name tag was left over. So Georgina, if you are reading this they were certainly put to good use.

 

We had changed the time for the meet and greet to accommodate the trivia addicts but unfortunately it conflicted with the Captain's navigational meeting so he sent his regrets.

 

However, we did have our new Hotel Manager (Cess), cd Gene, Cellar Master Adrien and beverage manager Ricki. The offered a very nice fruit drink (non alcoholic) which suited my sore throat just fine.

 

Of course we asked about the new ship and it's name - It's name is #5107 (or something like that).

 

I think everyone enjoyed hearing from our guests and meeting everyone else.

 

I hit the casino to test my friends' theory that you win more on the first couple of days and I don't think it's true - although I didn't lose substantially (thank heavens).

 

For entertainment tonight we had Romany, a female magician who is a combination of Bette Midler and Mary Poppins (as described b the ship). Certainly sounds like she was well enjoyed as I could hear the reaction from the show room in the casino.

 

NOt feeling up to snuff, we decided to bypass formal night and just get room service in our room. Turns out it was a huge mistake as I heard they had a special menu as well to celebrate the 140th anniversary and the food was excellent. (our room service food was good but we missed out).

 

Hit the sack early to let the pitching put us to sleep and to wake up the next morning to smooth seas.

 

Sorry to hear you both under the weather.

Gargl with bourbon -- that will kill the germs. (and don't forget to swallow it)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Monday, June 3rd - Copenhagen at 1 pm - continuing on to Tuesday June 45h

 

oops I forgot to tell you all that the Explorer is gone. It is now called today ON LOCATION. It is folded three ways and a different format than the old explorer.

 

They are looking for our feedback on it. I kind of like it as it is not as bulky. The only thing I don't like is that the info on what documentation you need in port is on the inside so it takes a minute to get used to it.

 

I was struggling to find the walking tour directions after losing our regular walking tour. I am still ticked off at the company - I did send them an email back and I hope they give me a good reply. anyways, what will be will be.

 

We wandered around and like many, got lost a couple of times and enjoyed Tivoli Gardens as well as some other spots.

 

I don't know how many miles we walked but it was a lot I am sure.

 

A great dinner in the dining room and ran into a lot of the roll call members who were in the same situation as us. They had gotten lost a couple of times too - so, at least we were on an even keel.

 

The next day we decided we would make use of the public transport to get us around in Copenhagen. Yes, we had a full day and 1/2 in Copenhagen. With the Copenhagen Card it was so easy. So we took the bus and got a 'tour' at the same time of Copenhagen.

 

Jose wanted to head to the Carlsberg factory (visit Carlsberg). so, we headed there first. I have to tell you while I was not thrilled with the idea of going I was blown away by the place. Just so much history and so well presented. This is a family with a long lineage and history in this beautiful city and they have given a lot back to the city. The sight itself is very beautiful - statues, gardens, etc. and of course beer samplings. What was fun to try were the beers that are only available domestically and not shipped to Canada or the U.S. so we opted for those (small glasses so no one was 'feeling it').

 

Ran into a number of roll call members also visiting.

 

Then we headed to Christianborg Palace, the home of the Queen, parliament, etc. Took a while to find the entrance - a lot of the spots outside at the slot are free but the signs were in Danish only. Finally we found it, but it was definitely worth the time to find it. Beautiful. Of course you had to put on those plastic shoe covers so you didn't damage anything.

 

After that we caught the bus to head back in the general ship's direction. oops bus wasn't going there although it was the right number. Got off and he directed us to the right stop. oops, that one was not going either. He let us off on a remote stop and that one was the 'harbour' bus, but it wasn't going there either. At least he let us off near by and we could walk back to the ship. Getting back on board I found out that we were not the only ones in that boat (no pun intended) - it happened to several others as well - so I guess I need to learn to read Danish in the future or at least know what some of the signs mean.

 

Just the same, we had fun. The weather was beautiful. Who would have guessed that the weather in the Baltics would have been so much nicer than the weather in Southern France?

 

Starting to look like (with luck) the weather in the Baltics may be nicer than the weather we had in France!!!

 

Now, our only worry is will the Elbe River flood to much for us to cruise on???

 

Just to let you all know... we haven't fallen overboard. I just haven't been efficient - and the ports are intensive now.. I will try to do more later - but with luck and co-operation of cruise critic, I will post this much at least.

 

Signing off from the Elegant

 

We love Copenhagen -- have been there several times. One of our cruises started from there so we went over a couple of days early to tour around. One day we ate lunch at the Tivoli Gardens.

Glad your weather is great -- hope it stays that way.

[innlady1]

Glad you are enjoying Scandinavia, Jacqui. I spent three weeks there years ago with my mom and sister (my grandparents were born in Sweden). Beautiful countries....

[jgw321]

We had our first meet and greet in the Crows Nest with a couple of interlopers, but they joined in and introduced themselves so that was OK. The mug shots crib sheet helped to identify many fellow Cruise Critics members, but next time I will split it in to TA section and Baltic section.

 

Jacqui called me out to receive a gift for the work I had done in the planning. It was most unexpected and not needed but it was gratefully received. It was "The Guns of Normandy" by George G Blackburn which tells the story of the Canadian perspective in the Normandy landings and in particular the 4th field artillery of the RCA. He is a very readable author and I am already up to chapter 17.

 

By borrowing a DVD I was able to work out how to use the provided player and confirmed that we can play our region free self recorded DVDs but not our commercial Region 2 ones. Our plan to play them through our lap top had fallen through as, despite being told the TVs had HDMI connections, ours only had component video and VGA (VGA is most unusual for a TV in my experience). If I had brought a VGA lead I would have been alright, or our own portable player which could have used the component video leads from their player. Next time be a boy scout and bring all the possible connecting leads.

 

June 6th

 

Copenhagen was a nice city, and we enjoyed our Hal tour here, a combination coach tour and boat trip. The only disappointment was that on leaving we didn't go under the bridge.

 

The next day was hectic as we had our Berlin tour so we had breakfast in the room and met up in the Ocean bar at 7:15 for a 7:30 departure. We had a coach laid on for us by Alla rather than mini-vans which was a good arrangement as it was a long trip, around 3 hours with a comfort stop in the middle. We picked the wrong side of the coach to sit though as we had the full sun both going and coming. Unfortunately the coach didn't have individual nozzles for air con but was a modern balanced system that was too cold on one side of the coach (in the shade) and not cold enough on the other side (in full sun), we had to compromise by turning it up and down.

 

The Berlin tour split in to two with two coaches so that we had more room and that there were not too many of us at the stops. We had a comprehensive tour of the city picking up many of the highlights, but of course to do it justice we needed a few days there. I had been there before in the early 70's when the wall was at its height. At that time there was a clear distinction between the east and west sectors with a barren no mans land between in the area where the wall was. No one wanted to develop there so it was just left empty. Now it was all built up and it was also hard to tell the difference between what had been the east and was now the west.

 

Today we are sea on our way to Tallinn and had a bit of excitement. There was an announcement from the bridge that the ship had been turned round as a life jacket had been spotted in the sea. They dispatched the zodiac sized boat to investigate and a crowd gathered at the back to oversee the operations. A later announcement informed us that they had retrieved a dummy and the assumption was that it had been left behind by a ship doing man overboard drill. I wouldn't like to travel on that ship as they had failed to rescue the dummy. However we had saved him and the captain apologized to us for the delay and any inconvenience but that now they would not need to do a man overboard drill as they had practiced it for real. They also had a positive result.

[1of4]

Wow, wow, wow! Love the details....I can imagine every port. It is back to cold and rainy back here so the details of sunny weather has me hopeful that it may make it back over the pond.

 

Thanks for taking the time to update us.

[gigianne]

Great to hear that you are enjoying the cruise JG. other cruisers noticed the comradery between the CC members and wanted to know the name of our group. We actually had people coming up to us and asking us to explain CC. Some went on line right away to register and then joined in on our on board activities. I know I left about 15-20 different name tags with Kazu - great to hear that they were all uses!

[kazu]

Sorry about your walking tour being cancelled but happy you seemed to enjoy Copenhagen. We think it a charming city and have loved our visits.

 

Curious which Cees is the new Hotel Director. There is more than one. Any idea his last name?

 

Sorry about your sore throat and Jose having a bit of mal de mer and hope you both feel better soon.

 

Forgive me if I spell it wrong Judy - bit I believe it is Tesslar. He came from the same previous ship as our captain