To Russia with Love

[Goodtime Cruizin]

After neraly two years of planning, our 15 month old reservation is coming to fruition as we're leaving in a few hours to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary! We're headed out for a 15 day cruise that goes to Scandanavia & Russia on Brilliance of the Seas. 9 cities/15 days. I hope to be posting some along the way. Jump on board. I'll post as often as I can. Bags are packed and waiting on an Uber!

 

Next stop IAH - Houston to Amsterdam w/ a change of planes in London, via Brittish Airways

[ONECRUISER]

Will be watching. I'm sailing over Europe myself in 11.5 months on B2B, my first TA and my first Europe sailing. Safe travels, enjoy!

[Richjoxyz]

Congrats! In a few weeks we will be taking a similar flight, except we go through Dublin. We have three nights in Amsterdam, then we board the Brilliance for the Baltics!

 

Have fun!

[Goodtime Cruizin]

We’ll while at IAH bored silly this would be a good time for introductions. We’re Kerry & Lavine, from Houston. This will be our 8th cruise. All w it’s RCL , w one on Celebrity. This will be our first for several things such as Northern Europe, a GS stateroom, and on day 9 we technically will hit Diamond status.

 

We’re arriving 3 days early to relax, unwind, & take in as much as we can of the Netherlands. Our friends of 40+ years, Rick & Barbara will join us on Monday in Amsterdam. Rick & I stood up for each other at our weddings. This will be there first cruise.

 

It’s about an 8+ hr flight to London, then another hour or so to Amsterdam. We’ll be a bit tired upon arrival but we’ll survive! We got super pricing on the airfare by using an alert service. The flight is considered full. Time to board!

[TexCruise371]

Planning on booking the Brilliance and Baltic while on Adventure tomorrow. Looking forward to your adventure [emoji16]

 

 

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[Ashland]

Congrats! In a few weeks we will be taking a similar flight, except we go through Dublin. We have three nights in Amsterdam, then we board the Brilliance for the Baltics!

 

Have fun!

In a few weeks we'll also be flying to Dublin...but to start our cruise on Eclipse...Ireland, Iceland & Scotland.

 

Enjoy the Baltics that itinerary was a favorite of ours!

[Tin can]

Have a great time, it’s a fabulous place to cruise to!

 

 

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[Goodtime Cruizin]

Well BA is one for one. They were late pushing out of HOUSTON which made it late landing in London which made impossible to make our connecting flight. Ugh! No worries as they gave us both a 5 pound voucher. So we’re off to cash in our winnings. Going forward we will always Fly direct....

[kalliekae]

The Baltic was one of our favorite cruises. Looking forward to your posts. Have fun!

[steveru621]

Looking forward to seeing you again.

 

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[Pstreet12]

Post lots! We're on Serenade in July for most of the ports you'll be visiting. We'll be watching for your posts.

[Mr. Click]

Congrats on making 40....We did the Baltic on Celebrity a few years ago and loved it. When you are in Amsterdam try the HOHO canal boats. We had fun just riding around the whole circuit once to get a feel for the city and then on the second time around we hopped on and off....

[philliesgirl48]

I am an the same Baltic cruise. We are flying to Amsterdam tomorrow. So excited to see Russia.

[Sarah1974]

I’ll be following this, I’m on Navigator from Southampton in June to “Baltic Cities”

Enjoy your cruise

[kernow]

We are currently on MSC Magnifica and were in Hamburg yesterday. We saw Brilliance docked there and gave her a wave, she is one of my favourite ships.

 

We did the Baltics a few years ago and loved it. Hope you have a great trip, look forward to reading

 

Julie

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Hello everyone! Thanks for following along. We finally made it to Amsterdam! Anyway, we selected our hotel stay at the Hilton Amsterdam due to Hilton Honors points and we received a nice upgrade to a Jr Suite. :) We decided to Taxi to the hotel instead of dragging all of our luggage via train. If you plan to do the same, our Taxi was $50 US w tip. Ouch! But very nice ride. A Model S Tesla.

After breakfast we headed out to meet our small group tour via Viator’s Keukenhof & Flowerfields, Volendam, & Zane’s Schans (6926P19) The flowers are absolutely stunning. It’s starting to rain now so time for a break and coffee. Busy busy day today as we have two more tour stops and then meeting a dozen or so from the roll call for drinks tonight.

I’ll be back!

[Goodtime Cruizin]

I should post a bit of detail on this Viator tour. We have 7 in our group. Nobody from our cruise though. The van is nice, the driver has. Microphone so we all can hear fairly well. This is a 9 hour tour. We’ve just completed 3 hrs at Keukenhof. We paid $129 US ea a couple of months back. Next stop Volendam which is about a 30 min ride. I’ll add this if you go to the flower fields, go early. As the day progressed, the crowds grew as well. We joked that there was many people as bulbs!

 

BTW I’ll eventually add some pics!

[123funcruiser]

I should post a bit of detail on this Viator tour. We have 7 in our group. Nobody from our cruise though. The van is nice, the driver has. Microphone so we all can hear fairly well. This is a 9 hour tour. We’ve just completed 3 hrs at Keukenhof. We paid $129 US ea a couple of months back. Next stop Volendam which is about a 30 min ride. I’ll add this if you go to the flower fields, go early. As the day progressed, the crowds grew as well. We joked that there was many people as bulbs!

 

BTW I’ll eventually add some pics!

 

You are visiting on a likely very busy weekend. Sundays certainly see more crowds as weekdays already, but this weekend is an even more busy one. The Netherland had a holiday (Kings Day) on Friday, so it´s a long holiday weekend for them and Germany has a holiday on May 1st, which many people use the opportunity to take the Monday off and get an extended weekend as well and use it for a short trip. The Netherlands are a popular destination for such short trips, especially for those living close to the Netherlands.

[Ron Don]

Hello everyone! Thanks for following along. We finally made it to Amsterdam! Anyway, we selected our hotel stay at the Hilton Amsterdam due to Hilton Honors points and we received a nice upgrade to a Jr Suite. :) We decided to Taxi to the hotel instead of dragging all of our luggage via train. If you plan to do the same, our Taxi was $50 US w tip. Ouch! But very nice ride. A Model S Tesla.

After breakfast we headed out to meet our small group tour via Viator’s Keukenhof & Flowerfields, Volendam, & Zane’s Schans (6926P19) The flowers are absolutely stunning. It’s starting to rain now so time for a break and coffee. Busy busy day today as we have two more tour stops and then meeting a dozen or so from the roll call for drinks tonight.

I’ll be back!

 

Hey Buddy, Looks like you are having a great time. Look forward to seeing more of your posts....have a great time. :D:D

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Hey Buddy, Looks like you are having a great time. Look forward to seeing more of your posts....have a great time. :D:D

 

Well looky there! Ron Don joins the party! You give that good looking lady of your a big ol hug!

[Goodtime Cruizin]

We had a long but fun day today. We really enjoyed the tours we just wished we had better weather for the Windmills. They were pretty cool but the rain was bad .

 

After we got back to Amsterdam, we went to Molly Malone’s to meet up w a few from the roll call and tip a few pints. I’m telling you, we’re cruising w/ a great group.

 

Tomorrow we finally have nothing to do in the morning! Which is good. At 2pm we have a 3 hr tour, a 3 hr tour. Lol. It’s a Coffee Shop & Local Food walking tour.

 

Tomorrow night our buddies from Austin finally get here! We’re looking foreword to enjoying them over the next couple of weeks.

 

Tip... you need Euros in the big A. Plan on it

[Goodtime Cruizin]

I need to brush up my pic posting skills! I’ll get some pics up soon! We’re in Dam Square across from the Royal Palace awaiting a small group tour from Viator called Amsterdam Coffee Shop Culture & Local Food Sampling Walking Tour #8550P1. If your judging, stop it! We’re here for a good time, not a long time! I’ll keep you posted !

Edited April 30, 2018 by Goodtime Cruizin

[Zákamenné]

Following closely we are doing this in July! Like u, 3days in Amsterdam lst. Are u at the Hilton that’s close to the port?

[vplsh]

So excited to follow along as we are on the same cruise leaving Amsterdam on July 3. We fly direct to Amsterdam with two days before the cruise and plan to visit the local spots as well.

 

Can't wait to hear about the ship and the stops! Have a great time!

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Following closely we are doing this in July! Like u, 3days in Amsterdam lst. Are u at the Hilton that’s close to the port?

 

We’re at Hilton Ansterdam which locally is called Hilton South. It’s located at Apollolaan 138. It’s a nice older Hilton in a very nice, very quite neighborhood. Altough if it wasn’t for the points, I stay in closer to the Dam Square or the Central area. BTW this is the place that John Lennon & Yoko Ono had their infamous Sleep In. We took Tram 16 into the Central Station area yesterday & today to Dam Square. EZPZ. Its 7 euros for a 24 hour pass.

 

 

Our buddies made it! Time to hook up w/ them for dinner. We’ve made no reservations. We’re rolling with it and pretty sure we’ll have a great time. Tomorrow brings us to the Anne Frank house & then we board the Brilliance. :)