Rare John&LaLa Posted September 1, 2020 Author #151 Share Posted September 1, 2020 Back to the Serenade Has to be Azamara when we come back They dock right in town Next to a submarine no less Relics of the cold war everywhere Some aren't even in the water Ice breaker museum Lakhta Center, the tallest building in Europe. 14th in the world, but that changes all the time now Peekaboo Serenade Vodka anyone? Model pose getting back on the ship Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 1, 2020 Author #152 Share Posted September 1, 2020 (edited) Last set of pics Some of the sites away from old town Cool bridge Soccer stadium? Celebrity Eclipse Later that night Changed for dinner, but kept the theme going Smoked fish in the Jammer We went to Chops Lamb again😉 A better pic of the tower Goodbye St Pete, next stop Helsinki Edited September 1, 2020 by John&LaLa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westaussie Posted September 1, 2020 #153 Share Posted September 1, 2020 Lovely photos. A week there wouldn't be enough! We did a two day tour with Red October, guide was a lecturer full of information. At night we went to the Folkloric concert (many of them were killed in a plane crash a few years ago on way to performance). Yes, an exhausting time but well worth it. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodtime Cruizin Posted September 1, 2020 #154 Share Posted September 1, 2020 We enjoyed a 2 day small group tour w/ SPC tours. Amazing guide w/ a great sense of humor. We learned alot but noticed that everyone goes to the same places. All the guide services pretty much carry everyone where 'they' want you to go and show you what 'they' i.e. Russia wants you to see. I've attached a couple of videos of the commuter subway. It was beautiful. But we did not take a ride though as we actually convinced our guide & driver to take us to a 'grocery store' somewhere off the beaten path. She could not believe we wanted to go to a mart. But we did! Spent about 20 minutes in a store about the size of an Aldi. It was fun. We all bought a few snacks. Someone bought beer, which BTW was shelf temperature, beer is not sold cold! Anyway we all jumped back into the van and away we went. Goodtimes! https://www.dropbox.com/s/c27tbg762w1vb34/IMG_4228.MOV?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/sc/gzgtecj23zodgym/AADodkzRoi6M_ftBBvjgwSCca 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodtime Cruizin Posted September 1, 2020 #155 Share Posted September 1, 2020 John, Laura's hat looks great on her! Good job. Better than your composed picture hat for sure. Ha. It looks like y'all had a great time in St.Petersburg. Looking forward to the Helsinki pics. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
napoxoguk Posted September 1, 2020 #156 Share Posted September 1, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Goodtime Cruizin said: All the guide services pretty much carry everyone where 'they' want you to go and show you what 'they' i.e. Russia wants you to see I'd argue the selection of sights offered is primarily demand-driven. That, and time constraints. There's so much more to SPB than the self-perpetuating list of "must-sees", but, given time limitations, only a tiny minority of cruisers would pick something like the museum of the Siege, the Russian Museum, the excellent Navy Museum, or Grand Maket miniature museum over the much more intuitive combo of "Top 2 cathedrals", "Top 2 imperial palaces", and a mandatory gift shop stop. On a separate note - Goodtime Cruising, thanks for the metro videos. And kudos to the OP - at $36, I think your panorama tour was money extremely well spent! Edited September 1, 2020 by napoxoguk Grr, autocorrect strikes again 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodtime Cruizin Posted September 1, 2020 #157 Share Posted September 1, 2020 You'd probably win that arguement too! It just seemed everyone was following everyone. Having said that, we thoroughly enjoyed SPB. Two days was enough to tell me that two days wasn't nearly enough! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare bobmacliberty Posted September 1, 2020 #158 Share Posted September 1, 2020 12 hours ago, John&LaLa said: Which one is better? Definitely the bokeh! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunshine3601 Posted September 1, 2020 #159 Share Posted September 1, 2020 We were booked for this same panamoric bus tour for one of our mornings. Looks like you really covered a lot on this tour. We had 3 different excursions for day 1 and 2 for day 2. I figured we would be exhausted and so ready for the sea day on way back to copenhagen. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 1, 2020 Author #160 Share Posted September 1, 2020 Thinking about working on Helsinki, but this keeps calling me away 252 pictures to cull through once I get started 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njkruzer Posted September 1, 2020 #161 Share Posted September 1, 2020 2 minutes ago, John&LaLa said: Thinking about working on Helsinki, but this keeps calling me away 252 pictures to cull through once I get started Love the view! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 1, 2020 Author #162 Share Posted September 1, 2020 12 minutes ago, njkruzer said: Love the view! Stop by when you're in town😁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njkruzer Posted September 1, 2020 #163 Share Posted September 1, 2020 22 minutes ago, John&LaLa said: Stop by when you're in town😁 Stayed in Cocoa Beach in Jan 2019 between New Year's Eve Brilliance cruise out of Tampa and Oasis out of Port Canaveral. Both interesting.... Brilliance couldn't depart for 20 hrs due to fog at bridge and Oasis returned a day early because of Noro....we were fine. Remember a nice restaurant, pub I think, walking distance to hotel (Marriott). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 1, 2020 Author #164 Share Posted September 1, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, njkruzer said: Stayed in Cocoa Beach in Jan 2019 between New Year's Eve Brilliance cruise out of Tampa and Oasis out of Port Canaveral. Both interesting.... Brilliance couldn't depart for 20 hrs due to fog at bridge and Oasis returned a day early because of Noro....we were fine. Remember a nice restaurant, pub I think, walking distance to hotel (Marriott). We were on the Noro cruise. January 2019 We are a little south of Marriott. Edited September 1, 2020 by John&LaLa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njkruzer Posted September 1, 2020 #165 Share Posted September 1, 2020 15 minutes ago, John&LaLa said: We were on the Noro cruise. January 2019 We are a little south of Marriott. Ok. Since we didn't get sick, nice to get all the points and our money back! Headed up to Hilton Head after that. They also reimbursed for the 1 nt in hotel when we should have been on the ship. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SummerBeee Posted September 1, 2020 #166 Share Posted September 1, 2020 15 hours ago, Goodtime Cruizin said: We enjoyed a 2 day small group tour w/ SPC tours. Amazing guide w/ a great sense of humor. We learned alot but noticed that everyone goes to the same places. All the guide services pretty much carry everyone where 'they' want you to go and show you what 'they' i.e. Russia wants you to see. I've attached a couple of videos of the commuter subway. It was beautiful. But we did not take a ride though as we actually convinced our guide & driver to take us to a 'grocery store' somewhere off the beaten path. She could not believe we wanted to go to a mart. But we did! Spent about 20 minutes in a store about the size of an Aldi. It was fun. We all bought a few snacks. Someone bought beer, which BTW was shelf temperature, beer is not sold cold! Anyway we all jumped back into the van and away we went. Goodtimes! The subway terminals are beautiful My daughter and I visited NYC last August and we found some of the subway stations to be quite beautiful, especially near Central Park and museums. The ones in SPB are missing all the ads for new movies and shows on Netflix 😆 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njkruzer Posted September 1, 2020 #167 Share Posted September 1, 2020 BTW dh says your wife .oops familiar from our Oasis cruise. Maybe CL? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 1, 2020 Author #168 Share Posted September 1, 2020 7 minutes ago, njkruzer said: BTW dh says your wife .oops familiar from our Oasis cruise. Maybe CL? Yes, we hunkered down up there trying to avoid the Noro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Von & John Posted September 2, 2020 #169 Share Posted September 2, 2020 John - thanks for the fabulous review... We did a TA last October, starting in Copenhagen - loved Copenhagen, but 4 nights was not long enough to see everything we wanted to see... The cruise b/4 ours was very similar to yours - I couldn't be away from work long enough to do both... Maybe in the next decade 🙂 In September '18 we did a TP, Vancouver to Yokohama - with a day in Petropavlovsk, Russia... We loved the tour we did there & had a fantastic time... We missed out on our San Antonio, Chile to San Diego cruise this March... We'll see what the future brings for us for future Cruises. Thanks for doing the review - bringing us all a tiny glimpse of Cruising! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 2, 2020 Author #170 Share Posted September 2, 2020 49 minutes ago, Von & John said: John - thanks for the fabulous review... We did a TA last October, starting in Copenhagen - loved Copenhagen, but 4 nights was not long enough to see everything we wanted to see... The cruise b/4 ours was very similar to yours - I couldn't be away from work long enough to do both... Maybe in the next decade 🙂 In September '18 we did a TP, Vancouver to Yokohama - with a day in Petropavlovsk, Russia... We loved the tour we did there & had a fantastic time... We missed out on our San Antonio, Chile to San Diego cruise this March... We'll see what the future brings for us for future Cruises. Thanks for doing the review - bringing us all a tiny glimpse of Cruising! We want to do a northern TP that calls on Dutch Harbor. Laura's mother grew up there. Evacuated during war and never went back. Her grandfather was harbor master and her grandmother was the post master. Only lines that do it are pricey, and no guarantee it will be able to tender. Glad you are enjoying our trip. Let's go to Finland now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 2, 2020 Author #171 Share Posted September 2, 2020 (edited) August 24, 2018 - Day 6 - Helsinki, Finland Looks like it's going to be a great day Our tour today is City of Helsinki with Ice Bar Another Cruise Planner sale, got it for $43. With our $200 OBC, I only paid $42 for all 3 excursions for both of us Ice Bar is in the upper right, we dock in the lower left Other places we stop at are the 2 crosses, Helsinki Cathedral on the right and Church in the Rock on the left Heading out Like Copenhagen and Stockholm, Helsinki has an old amusement park as well Our first stop, the Ice Bar Supposedly, Finnish is the most difficult language to learn. Based on the spelling of things, I don't doubt that Edited September 2, 2020 by John&LaLa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 2, 2020 Author #172 Share Posted September 2, 2020 OK, so the ice bar is located inside Winterworld I hope I can borrow a coat Cross Country Skiing is popular up here Apparently we need more than coats, time to change I just realized we match, how cute is that🤣 Snowmobile suits, boots, gloves, etc.. It's cold in here and dark Two shots of vodka are included, the glasses are ice Cheers Round 2 went well 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 2, 2020 Author #173 Share Posted September 2, 2020 Did I mention you can ride a dog sled It was, however, another $30 or so. Laura did it, I declined due to my back Here is my best musher pose Or maybe it was a ice walker for the in-firmed The dogs are crazy, they just want to run Laura said the turns are banked to keep the speed up Posting video next 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 2, 2020 Author #174 Share Posted September 2, 2020 And she's off 20180824_085338.mp4 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare John&LaLa Posted September 2, 2020 Author #175 Share Posted September 2, 2020 Here is some one else having a run They were couples and the dogs ran slower 20180824_085149.mp4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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