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LIVE from Celebrity Apex: Best of Scandinavia May 25, 2023

love2crews.

By love2crews.,
in Celebrity Cruises

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love2crews. "Live from...." Rare

love2crews.

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LauraS
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Hello!

 

Please bear with me as this is my first live thread.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading other lives and thought it’d be nice to do my own. :)  It will also be a good way for us to document our trip. 

 

This will be our first sailing since the pandemic.  I am traveling with my mom and sister and we have had this girls trip planned since 2020… we all know how that went.  

 

It’s also our first Celebrity cruise and first time visiting each of these ports. Our original itinerary included an overnight in St. Petersburg which has since been replaced with Visby, Sweden.

 

We are very excited to experience the Apex and all it has to offer.  We are big foodies, so feel free to chime in with any snacks or food we need to try.  Expect lots of food photos!

 

At the moment, we’re finishing up all our packing.  We have a few days pre-cruise in Amsterdam as well as a few more days post-cruise.  We plan to explore the nearby cities as well and have an exciting itinerary planned.

 

Looking forward to sharing our trip with you all and thanks for following along! 🙂

Screen Shot 2023-05-21 at 9.10.52 PM.png

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Barwick Cruiser

Barwick Cruiser

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Thank you for posting this live review, we’re doing the same itinerary next May except on the Silhouette. We will embark from Amsterdam and disembark in Rotterdam. Also planning close to a week in Amsterdam precruise so interested in what you guys do there. What are your ports? Have fun and hope the weather is wonderful! 

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love2crews. "Live from...." Rare

love2crews.

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3 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Thank you for posting this live review, we’re doing the same itinerary next May except on the Silhouette. We will embark from Amsterdam and disembark in Rotterdam. Also planning close to a week in Amsterdam precruise so interested in what you guys do there. What are your ports? Have fun and hope the weather is wonderful! 

 

The original itinerary was roundtrip Amsterdam, but was changed to roundtrip Rotterdam a few months back.  We decided to keep our hotel in Amsterdam and just head over to Rotterdam on the morning of the cruise.

 

We will be sure to share our Amsterdam activities here.  🤩

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kabmab

kabmab

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Thank you so much for this Live!!  Excited to follow you as we're onboard June 25 for same cruise and staying in Rotterdam pre-cruise.   Have a wonderful time on the Apex!!

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Silkroad

Silkroad

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Looking forward to your live review. We visited some of the ports on your itinerary on our Baltic cruise. If you love beautiful scenery, don’t miss the sail in (and sail away) through the Stockholm archipelago. I hope you three have a wonderful cruise!

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love2crews. "Live from...." Rare

love2crews.

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14 hours ago, Silkroad said:

Looking forward to your live review. We visited some of the ports on your itinerary on our Baltic cruise. If you love beautiful scenery, don’t miss the sail in (and sail away) through the Stockholm archipelago. I hope you three have a wonderful cruise!

I’ll have to remember that we need to get up extra early that morning, lol!

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love2crews. "Live from...." Rare

love2crews.

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We made it to Amsterdam!

 

We had a great flight and Schipol was super easy.  I pre-arranged what they call “Meet and Assist” to have someone escort us through customs and help us collect our bags.  She was waiting for us as we walked off the plane and stayed with us until we found our driver.  I highly recommend this service.  It also allows you to essentially bypass the customs line (you go through the same line the flight attendants go through).

 

We arrived to our hotel around 1pm.  Fortunately, our room was ready before the 3pm check-in time.  I will upload hotel info and photos once we are checked out of the hotel.  So stay tuned! 

 

After dropping our luggage in our room, we were in need of some fresh air from being on the plane for so long.  We made the 30 minute trek to the Albert Cuyp market.  We weren’t too hungry, but needed to check a few snacks off our list.  We went to the original Rudi’s stroopwafel stand and opted to share the chocolate stropwafel.  There was a short line, but it went quick-I’d say not more than 5 minutes.  Right across from Rudi’s is a poffertjes stand and we got Nutella and banana.  YUM!  We also plan to try pickled herring and we looked for a licorice stand, but didn’t see one.  We could have missed it though.

 

On the walk back to our hotel, we were on the hunt for a little sandwich shop that caught my sister’s eye on our earlier walk to the market.  We finally found it, but they closed at 3pm. 😞  She rerouted us to another sandwich shop with good reviews, but we passed a Joe & The Juice before we made it there…so Joe & The Juice it was!  

 

Our last stop of the day was to Albert Heijn.  Contrary to what I read online, they DID accept my US credit card (VISA).  They had some really nice prepared charcuterie meats and cheeses.  We grabbed a couple to try and I’m currently snacking on them as I type this!  The “bests de fuet” is my favorite.

 

A little note: the streets are definitely a little wonky with some of the cobblestones and curbs (as expected in Europe), so you really need to watch your step.  It’s also hard to decipher the street and crosswalk/standing areas at times.  It feels like you’re standing in the middle of the street, but you’re technically standing in a standing area.  It’s confusing.  We almost got run over by bikes several times, too.  They come out of NOWHERE!

 

It’s also virtually impossible to take a bad photo here.  The weather today was wonderful and we didn’t even need a jacket.  No rain at all and sunny skies!  Amsterdam sure knows how to welcome us!  

 

We’ve got a full day planned for tomorrow, so off to bed!  My mom and sister are already asleep and it’s only 7pm here, lol!!  We are TIRED!

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love2crews. "Live from...." Rare

love2crews.

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If anyone has tips/tricks for posting photos, I’m all ears!

 

I made the post on my iPad and then uploaded photos from my phone.  I’m going to try to figure out how to add spacing between the photos next time.

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Ciaranaman

Ciaranaman

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Following!  We will also be on this itinerary next May on the Silhouette.  Your first day in Amsterdam sounds really yummy!

Those stroopwafels are HUGE!

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Silkroad

Silkroad

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13 minutes ago, love2crews. said:

We had a great flight and Schipol was super easy.  I pre-arranged what they call “Meet and Assist” to have someone escort us through customs and help us collect our bags.  She was waiting for us as we walked off the plane and stayed with us until we found our driver.  I highly recommend this service.  It also allows you to essentially bypass the customs line (you go through the same line the flight attendants go through).

I’m very happy to see this! Do you think your arrival would have been fairly easy if you’d not booked the M&A service? We’re flying into AMS for a b2b in late July, and I’ve been hoping we wouldn’t encounter the chaos that passengers found last summer. I had noticed the M&A service on the AMS website, but hadn’t researched it further. It’s great to have a positive review! Thanks for mentioning it.

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mahdnc "Live from...." Rare

mahdnc

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50 minutes ago, love2crews. said:

If anyone has tips/tricks for posting photos, I’m all ears!

 

I made the post on my iPad and then uploaded photos from my phone.  I’m going to try to figure out how to add spacing between the photos next time.

 

I used to travel to Amsterdam for business quite often a few years ago.  Schipol is large but I like that airport.  Have a nice cruise and I will definitely be following along.

 

Your photos are nice and adding a blank space between them will make them show even better.

 

I find it easier just to add the space before I load each photo.  You can add the spaces after you load all the photos but you have to be careful where you tap on your screen to place your cursor before you hit the return key to add the space or you could wind up deleting the photo instead.  You will get the hang of it.

 

Have fun.

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