A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 About This Page:

[chezp]

Thursday 16 June – part ten: that’s a lot of police to see us off…..

Eventually, we headed back to the room for some down time. When hunger took hold (and bear in mind we’d only had breakfast and then that ice cream at the top of the Round Tower), we headed up to the Oceanview Café for dinner for the last time this cruise, as we’d be dining at speciality restaurants on our last two nights on board. I went for my sushi…



… and Mark had his usual of roast…



… plus he also got some salad, made up of watermelon, feta cheese and lime. I tried it too and it wasn’t bad.



Once again, they had an amazing array of desserts, some Danish themed…



We decided to head back to the room, and sat out on the balcony for a while, as the sun formed some beautiful colours and shapes at twilight…



We also saw this circling around a lot, which was a bit odd, and not something you usually get at home, unless they’re expecting trouble somewhere…



The sun even came out for a while.



When it became a bit cooler, we retreated inside, but kept an eye on the beautiful skies outside…




We were also fascinated by the various comings and goings below. We saw about 10 people head out about an hour and a half by all aboard, which was a bit odd, but we saw a number of them come back half an hour or so later, so maybe they just went out for a quick walk. Mark even spotted Jay, Stephanie and Ethan returning, but we thought better of waving and hollering at them, as Stephanie didn’t look very impressed from our vantage point at being back so late.

All aboard was 9:30pm, and we saw the final three stragglers, one of which was a toddler return about five minutes after that, then we heard the gangway pulled on board.

We were then on our way out of the harbour, but sadly the sunset that I thought might be stunning never really arrived, as there was just too much cloud.



This was really bizarre – as we left, we could see about seven police vans and I counted more than 20 police officers, who all seemed to seeing us off. We couldn’t quite work it out. I guess they had nothing else to do this evening. Note: We would find out why the next day….



We watched until we were on our way, and then we headed to bed.

The weather today was a real mixture, with heavy rain in the morning, followed by cloudy but humid weather, then finally sunshine and very warm, with temperatures reaching the low 70s.
The best thing today was walking around Copenhagen and seeing the sights.
The worst thing today was the rain in the morning.
The funniest thing today was finding a Disney Store without even looking for it!
Today we tried climbing up the Round Tower
And the result was it was tough work, but we did it.
The most magical moment today was visiting Tivoli Gardens and imagining it through Walt’s eyes.

Next: little do they know where we’re going…

[Tara O'Hara]

What a nice relaxing way to spend the evening!! Beautiful shots of the sky!!

[Colexis Mom]

Dinner looked great! Great shots as you're waiting to head out!

[Colexis Mom]

Dinner looked great! Great shots as you're waiting to head out!

[Pris]

Oh, the sky was stunning (as were your pictures) with the sunlight filtering through the clouds.

[pamcarey]

Hmmm, I'll be interested to find out why all those police were there!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by pamcarey

Hmmm, I'll be interested to find out why all those police were there!

Well, it was only luck we found out in the end... but details in due course....

[Cam22]

Dinner looked scrumptious. Now I'm curious as to why all the police.

[SuperDave]

Great photos as always! Your dinner looked good and especially your sushi which I love, even though it looks like standard fare, but still good! Nice sendoff from Copenhagen and certainly interested with the large police presence!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Cam22

Dinner looked scrumptious. Now I'm curious as to why all the police.

I can't remember if it's in this instalment or a later one, but there was a reason....

[chezp]

Friday 17 June – part one: little do they know where we’re going…

I know Mark didn’t have a great night’s sleep, as he woke me up at 4:00am to say I was snoring and there was just no way of shutting me up, except for pinching my nose, which of course freaked me out, as then I couldn’t breathe! I went back to sleep in the end, but surfaced about three hours earlier, as I wasn’t sure what the time was, and I didn’t want to lie in too long, given we had our tour of the bridge at 9:15am. I did not want to miss that.

We headed down to the hot tub at around 7:30am, and spent some time in there, before heading into the Persian Garden. Once again, we were the only ones in there, and it was a bit disappointing, given the steam room wasn’t overly hot, and neither was the aromatic suite.

We headed back to the room briefly, as I wanted to grab some shots of the Danish coastline we were passing, and when I zeroed in, it was fascinating, as what we thought were beaches really weren’t. They seemed to be more sand dunes…



We made our way up to the Oceanview Café, where I had a close call. I asked for a Scottish eggs benedict, as I do most mornings, and only realised after I walked away that it was in fact a different one, as I had bacon on it, rather than smoked salmon. Thankfully, I noticed before I bit into it, otherwise that would’ve been a bit unpleasant. I got a new version, and settled down to enjoy that and some French toast.

We were both very nervous before our tour of the deck, as we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Having been told the tour couldn’t go ahead because there weren’t enough numbers, we wondered if we’d be the only ones, or perhaps there’d be one other couple, as we knew the minimum size for the tour to run was six people. Well, all I can say is I think they had the minimum number, and sanitisation fears were the real reason the original tour didn’t run, as there were about 11 of us who got taken on the bridge tour.

You should’ve seen us all waiting at the deck 10 forward elevators. The amount of people who thought we were in line for an elevator, and we had to tell them they were fine to go ahead! Little did they know where we’d be going…

All names were checked off the list, and we were asked to sign, and we also had to show our Sea Pass cards and our photo IDs. Then we were wanded to see if we had any metal on us. I was lucky, as I had no pockets, given I was wearing leggings, but I watched everyone who had visible pockets have those checked. It was pretty thorough. We were then given a 37 sticker, which they took back off us at the end of the tour. That was a shame, as I’d like to have kept it as a souvenir, but I guess that’s the only time they use 37.

We walked to the front of deck 10, and literally right across from the front stateroom was the entrance into the bridge. You opened one door, and you were just in what I’d call a backstage area with no carpeting. Even here, it took about three attempts for them to get through the second door that actually leads on to the bridge, so tight is security. That’s no bad thing.

When we walked in, I was expecting it to be the same as the stairwell in terms of very basic and no carpet. Well, you couldn’t have been more wrong. It was all carpeted and they even had comfy chairs. It was much more luxurious that I was expecting.



We were greeted by Charis, who is one of the first officers and from Greece, as most of the ship’s senior officers seem to be. He was very nice and friendly, and obviously had a background in cargo ships, given how many times he made references to how things worked there.

We were shown over to this area, which is where we spent the majority of our time…



On the way, we saw this, which was very neat, although how on earth did they collect all the fragments of the bottle together after it was smashed?



This is the port side of the bridge and is what we can see from our room if we look ahead. We were told that control of the ship can either be done from here or the traditional centre of the bridge, literally just by pressing one button.



There was a lot of technical talk that didn’t mean much to me, as he explained how everything on the ship worked. We learnt about the azipods that are basically the ship’s propulsion and rudders. They rotate the whole 360 degrees, and they’re controlled by tiny buttons and dials. I was amazed there were no massive joysticks to be seen anywhere. I can’t begin to imagine dealing with these, where any tiny movement could have a massive impact on where the ship is going.

We also talked about the stabilisers and apparently they come out automatically and reduce the roll of the ship from 2 or 3 degrees to just 0.5 degrees. I was relieved later to see the stabilisers weren’t out. Phew!

We learnt about the different watches on board the bridge. They are done in four hour shifts, and they double the people that they have on duty between 4 and 8, both am and pm, as that’s usually when the ship is either docking or leaving. During those times, if I remember right, they have a minimum of four people on deck at any one time, whereas at other times, it’s a minimum of two people. I couldn’t help but think how boring some of those jobs must be, as they had a couple of sailors at the front of the deck, literally just looking out to sea occasionally through binoculars. I don’t think I could do that day in, day out.

Charis also explained to us that this…



… is not a trap door (I was tempted to say that people line up on a certain Disney Cruise ship to wait for the trap door to open to be taken off on the AquaDuck! ), but is for the senior officers to be able to see just how close they are coming into port.

On that subject, Mark couldn’t resist asking whether when we left Warnemunde it was done by a person or computer, and apparently it was personally steered out by the captain. I couldn’t help but comment that’s where he earns his money.

We talked about everything you can see on the radar screen, and once again, we were told that the closest land to us right now is beneath us by about 50 metres. Mark asked what the purple line was across the screen, and that’s apparently ferry routes. They really do have details for everything.



One person asked how far away they have to keep from other ships, and when we’re at sea, they usually keep two miles away, but when coming into harbour, depending on the conditions, it can be a mile or even half a mile. Charis did say that when that happens, the bridge is packed with everyone keeping an eye out everywhere for any problems. I can imagine.

These cameras are constantly showing the view along the side of the boat and at the end, although there are a total of 1,000, so if there are any problems anywhere on board, they can immediately look at that specific area, and work out what’s happened.



Next: you’re our captain?

[Tara O'Hara]

The bridge tour sounds really cool!!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures from your bridge tour!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures from your bridge tour!

[Pris]

What a cool tour! The security was, indeed, quite strict. I never thought about how secure the bridge must be, but, of course, that makes perfect sense.