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Live From Emerald June 4 2016 Baltic Heritage

ccrain

By ccrain,
in Princess Cruises

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ccrain

ccrain

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We are back and cruising an itinerary we’ve had to cancel once, but this time will finally make it. This is technically a B2B2B, booked as one 28 day Grand Northern European and a 7 Day Scandinavian. Its actually a 14 day Baltic Heritage with the 14 day Norwegian Summer Solstice cruise, plus the 7 day tacked on to complete the northern European bucket list.

 

So the itinerary for this 14 day cruise is Southampton, Zeebrugge (Bruges and Brussels), Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallinn, St Petersburg (Overnight), Helsinki, Gdansk and back to Southampton. We have only booked one Princess excursion, in Bruges (On Your Own), for this cruise. Based on recommendations we booked Alla Tours for everything else in one package. We will let you know how each city goes. So far they (Alla) has kept us updated on everything and we look forward to the ports and the sights, as well as the more personalized guide service.

 

Oh, and we are Charles and Judy from Colorado. This is cruise 40 or so for us depending on how you count – we have sailed on the Emerald before, have done the British Isles before, but nothing in the Baltic, or Norway or Scandinavia. We have sailed out of and into Southampton before on other cruises, and have enjoyed the area before as well.

 

We flew in two days early for this cruise using United FF miles into LHR and Smith’s for Airports down to the Hilton (the older one near the M) in Southampton. (We use Hilton’s all the time because of the HH points.) We flew United Global First on a 767-300 for the first time. It was ok. Equivalent to an Asian business class (ANA for example) and a step above the normal international United Business class. If we get a chance to upgrade on the return flight on a 787 we will just to try out that plane.

 

Chicago’s international first class lounge hidden behind the customer service desk at C17 was pretty good. Fresh food, not just cheese and crackers, along with unlimited top shelf alcohol, was a welcome treat. The trip over was not that restful. I picked row 1 in a 767 and it’s a bit noisy and gets a lot of light from the forward galley. Judy, in row 2, had a better sleep. The lie flat seats are great for legroom but we did not get the promised mattress pad to make it even more comfortable after dinner. Oh well, it wasn’t that long a flight.

 

Arrival at the new T2 in LHR was a real treat. We haven’t been in LHR since the move to T2 and it is a really nice terminal for arrivals. A little long walking, but very clean, well lit, good signage, not hard to navigate at all. Lots of restrooms along the way as well. Very important after a long flight. And all of our bags arrived as well. Very nice start.

 

We were met by Ian from Smiths for Airports. Very, very nice man. Gave us a great guided tour on the way to the Hilton and a side trip to see the outside of Windsor Castle. Great tour of the countryside as well. I highly recommend Smiths for Airports. Yes, more expensive than the National Express bus, but far less hassle, very professional service and a stress free ride to Southampton – not to mention great conversation on all kinds of topics from Brexit to Clinton to Trump to history to peerage to architecture to you name it.

 

There is a new Hilton in Southampton at the Cricket Stadium, but at 20k points more per night, so we opted for the old faithful Hilton near the north side of town. It’s more a resort Hilton than a business Hilton, but the staff is very friendly, the rooms pretty standard for the UK, the food and drink very good as well. Downtown is only a 10 quid ride away by taxi, the port 15. With so much luggage for a 3 season cruise, no matter where you stay, there’s a taxi ride into the port.

 

For our day before the cruise we chose to go to the movies at the Odeon across the street from Ikea, frequent a local pub for lunch, people watch in West Quay and the market, and in general relax a bit before the re-packing and ques at the port on Saturday morning. The Odeon is a modern multi-screen theater complex with an Imax. Prices are a bit steep. 21 pounds for the two of us to see an 1100 showing of X Men Apocalypse. A late lunch was at Nick’s. A highly rated Tripadvisor, and cabbie recommended, bar/restaurant just outside the central area. Fish and chips, and a pint of hobgoblin later, and we’re good to go for wandering around the Bargate area.

 

Since we will be back to Southampton twice more, and having been here before, we opted out of visiting a couple of the museums and will probably train to Portsmouth on one of the turnaround days.

 

So now from the cruise embarkation patter. Kelvin Joy is the CD with Matt Thompson as the ED. Mario Propato is the Matre De and Martin Stenzel is the Captain. Peter Hollinson is the Hotel General Manager and Giuseppe Pollara is the Executive Chef. Haven’t had time to check out cruise staff yet, so although we’ve sailed with Matt and Kelvin before, on the Diamond Asian cruise, we don’t know if anyone else is on board we know.

 

Tomorrow is Zeebrugge for Bruges and Brussels. They did collect our passports, specifically for Brussels according to the check in lady, and time skips ahead 1 hour tonight, making for a really early rise in the morning.

 

For production shows on this cruise we have I Got The Music; Disco…Blame it on the Boogie; What a Swell Party; and, Magic To Do. For movies we have Star Wars; The 33; Everest; Concussion; Daddy’s Home; Spectre; The Martian; Man from UNCLE; Joy; Creed; Brooklyn; and, Bridge of Spies. For Guest Entertainers we have Comedian Luke Graves; Tribute Acts Jayne Middleton, Steve Larkins and David Kidd; Ventriloquist Jimmy Tamley; Instrumentalist Pingxin Xu; Musical Comedy Jo Little; A folkloric show in St Petersburg; Harry the Pianist; Comedy Magic RJ Lewis; Body Balancing Duo Claudio; Juggler Luke Burrage; and a Novelty act of Katia and Zenia. Not a darn thing to do or see…

 

It looks like the R&R Band in Explorer’s is Starwave. The Rhumba Duo is in the Wheelhouse.

 

Embarkation was pretty smooth. Left the hotel about 11. Went right in to checkin and to the Elite Lounge. About 11:45 we went through security and are now firmly ensconced in the cabin awaiting luggage.

 

More Later...

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Mom33

Mom33

Posted
Posted

Looking forward to your itinerary reports.:) We embark the Crown on the Solstice cruise next June. We have been surviving the wait by researching PBS videos as well as You Tube videos. Your reports are very detailed and helpful and we thank you for your time in writing them. :D

 

Have a wonderful cruise. cruising.gif

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beg3yrs

beg3yrs

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Posted (edited)

Hi Charles and Judy. We are Scott and Charlie who sailed with you on the Diamond out of Singapore in 2012. Like you we are Hilton folks (met you in the Conrad Centennial lounge in Singapore) and appreciated your quick review of the older Hilton in Southampton as we'll be there beginning August 3rd and then on the Emerald for 28 days starting August 6.

 

Looking forward to more commentary, have a great trip!

 

Will y'all be wearing matching parkas this trip or will it still be tropical shirts?! :D

Edited by beg3yrs
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LoriPhil

LoriPhil

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Posted (edited)

So looking forward to your reports and thank you for including so many details. We are booked on the July 9th Baltic cruise so your observations are a wonderful preview (though I averted my eyes so the ship-board movies will be a surprise) :). Best wishes for excellent weather and great adventures.

Edited by LoriPhil
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ccrain

ccrain

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Hi Charles and Judy. We are Scott and Charlie who sailed with you on the Diamond out of Singapore in 2012. Like you we are Hilton folks (met you in the Conrad Centennial lounge in Singapore) and appreciated your quick review of the older Hilton in Southampton as we'll be there beginning August 3rd and then on the Emerald for 28 days starting August 6.

 

Looking forward to more commentary, have a great trip!

 

Will y'all be wearing matching parkas this trip or will it still be tropical shirts?! :D

 

Being from Colorado - we are wearing our Aloha wear (with Fleece as a backup!)

 

funny we met on the Diamond - great cruise that the Golden sort of repeats in 2018 - Kelvin Joy was and is the CD, Matt Thompson was and is the CD, his new wife Kim is on board as the Zumba instructor. Its old home week!

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ccrain

ccrain

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In all of our cruises this has been the most confused Princess has ever been. We did get a cabin the night before we boarded, but our room steward apparently didn’t get the memo and her list had our cabin empty for this cruise. So we fixed that. But our card account numbers were reversed on our cruise cards. Judy had my account number, I had her account number. Signing up on the internet was an exercise in futility until I reversed the numbers. Then it worked. (I remembered that my number was always one less than hers.) Of course the bartenders were very confused. My number on my card came up with her name and vice versa. In addition, they have apparently lost all of my pre-cruise excursion reservations from the Princess website. No tags in the cabin tonight and the excursion desk is closed. But they haven’t been charged to the account yet, so we will have to get in another line tomorrow early to sort all of this out.

 

Not an auspicious start for sure…

 

So we don’t know exactly what we are doing today. We were supposed to do the Bruges On Your Own, but now, we’re not sure. Hopefully they haven’t lost the reservations for next cruise as well. Many of those were waitlisted and I would hate to miss some of those.

 

Off to the Que's!

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TracieABD "Live from...." Rare

TracieABD

Posted
Posted

Hi Charles and Judy-

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a live from. I am sorry to hear that there's so much confusion with your cabin and all of the arrangements that you had made in advance.

 

I am really looking forward to hearing of your adventures. The Baltics cruise that I did with my mom in 2008 was one of my all-time favorite cruises. It will be so interesting to see what you think of all the ports that I love, and the few that were OK.

 

We leave in less than three weeks for the Mediterranean, and I think your live from Will be exactly what I need to get me through these next days.

Happy sails!

Tracie-Lynn

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KruzPrincess

KruzPrincess

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Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I will be joining you on the next leg. Sorry to hear about the excursion problems. I hope they get this worked out for you and for our next cruise. Have you had a chance to check out the library? I'm wondering if it's well stocked or if I should load some books into my iPad. Thanks. Hope you have a great time.

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jpj39

jpj39

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Posted

Hi

Enjoying your post

Hope the confusion on the 1st day has been ironed out

I join the Emerald on June 18

Have been watching her progress . This AM she was leaving Bruges on her way to Copenhagen .

image.jpg.e7829d6d0ca1a2dd4ca326c3be8822e5.jpg

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petes family

petes family

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We reading about your progress with keen interest as we are also following along behind you on the 9th July sailing. Giving the entertainment on ship was great, as I have been looking everywhere for that. Hope your trip went ok today.

Peter

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

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beg3yrs

beg3yrs

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Sorry to hear about the excursions. We too had this issue on the Ocean Princess at the beginning of the year. We had booked 64 days as B2B2B2B. We had all our excursions tickets for the first segment and expected delivery of the remaining tickets the day each subsequent segment began. When this didn't happen we had to meet with the excursions manager. We did have our Travel Summaries to prove we had booked. She could see the reservations in one system but somehow they weren't transferring to the system being used to print the tix. We lost out on one excursion as it was now fully booked. Finally got everything sorted, tickets printed for all segments at once and at the original booking price as well.

 

I hope this works out for you and that Princess finally gets their IT act together.

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