A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 46 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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The ABBA museum looks really interesting. I think I still have some ABBA albums around somewhere. I just to have anything to play them on.
The city is really beautiful. I enjoy looking at all your pictures.
Liz
When we were at the palace, we found the guards to be quite intimidating. They were VERY clear about how close we were able to get to them. More intimidating, I think, than those at Buckingham Palace.
Gorgeous city, wow! I guess I never realized how much water was in and around the city.
I like your snack!
And yeah, I wouldn't mess around with that guard either. He means business.
Definitely! He's not just there for show, as some appear to be...
The ABBA museum looks really interesting. I think I still have some ABBA albums around somewhere. I just to have anything to play them on.
Isn't that always the way? I gave away all my records years ago - probably about 15 years ago now, as I never thought vinyl would have a resurgence and look what happened...
Quote:
The city is really beautiful. I enjoy looking at all your pictures.
When we were at the palace, we found the guards to be quite intimidating. They were VERY clear about how close we were able to get to them. More intimidating, I think, than those at Buckingham Palace.
In the next instalment, you'll see an example of that and definitely way more intimidating that those at Buckingham Palace!
Nice photos coming into Stockholm! That was one insane taxi ride with a completely clueless, rude and inconsiderate driver! The ABBA Museum looked so cool and was presented so well with an amazing amount of detail! I'm a big music fan and always liked them, so I'd definitely enjoy this. I like many own "ABBA Gold."
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Nice photos coming into Stockholm! That was one insane taxi ride with a completely clueless, rude and inconsiderate driver! The ABBA Museum looked so cool and was presented so well with an amazing amount of detail! I'm a big music fan and always liked them, so I'd definitely enjoy this. I like many own "ABBA Gold."
It was an excellent album... I think I own all of theirs!
Thursday 9 June – part eight: you can’t take him anywhere!
We made our way around the side of the Royal Palace…
As we walked further up the road, we realised there was a massive crowd, and there appeared to be some horses coming. Oh wow, it appears it’s the Royal Palace guard. We worked out where they’d be going, and there was no-one there at all, so we darted out and got in front of them and got some great photos.
We then made our way round to the front of the palace…
Trying to get one of these shots, Mark got him into trouble with the Royal Palace guard. The guy on duty yelled “halt” and I turned round, as did just about every other tourist there. It was only Mark – he’d apparently strayed too far into where he shouldn’t. You can’t take him anywhere!
We carried on walking through the Gamla Stan, seeing bits we hadn’t done on our last visit. On that occasion, we’d had three nights I think, and we’d concentrated on seeing all the major attractions, like the Palace, the Vasa Museum and Skansen, the open air museum. Because our hotel had been located a bit north of the city, near a Metro stop, we literally got off at the Metro stop we wanted near the palace and walked that way. It seemed like we’d missed a lot…
We found the tourist information office ( again Google!) to find out where the bus stop was that would take us back to the cruise terminal, although she told us we’d have to go one direction to go and buy tickets and then the other way to pick the bus up. Ugh! We decided to walk down there and see if there were automatic ticket machines there, as the girl wasn’t 100% sure.
When we got there, there were no ticket machines to be seen, but we’d spotted some taxis. Surely we couldn’t be that unlucky a second time? We headed up to one guy, who was hastily trying to cram his lunch into his mouth, and he took us back to the cruise terminal. Although he didn’t really speak to us, he knew where he was going, which was a huge improvement over this morning. I got a couple of photos on the way:
Before we knew it, we were back here:
We took the opportunity to do some shopping here, and got a Stockholm fridge magnet, and I ended up getting a candle holder as I still had some Swedish krone to use up. I still had some, even after that, but heck, I’ll trade them up when I get home, and then get some US or Canadian dollars for our September trip with the money we get back.
We headed back to the ship, only having to show our Celebrity room keys. I did ask the security people about that, as Celebrity had made a point of saying we had to take our passports ashore. They told us that was in case we lost our room keys. I think I prefer Disney’s system of asking you to bring another form of photo ID that you can take into port with you, then you can keep your passport safe in your room. It’s a lot less hassle to get a new driving licence, rather than a new passport.
We headed back to the room, discovering my room key no longer worked and goodness knows why. I’d had it in my pocket in my jeans, kept separate from everything else, as I already knew from the first night on board that they can become demagnetised from being near to a mobile phone or other cards. That was eventually done, although I think I managed to break the woman’s computer, as she went to update it and her computer started to give her error messages, and she had to ask someone else for help in the end.
That done, we made our way back up to deck 12 and headed over to the Solarium. I said I’d just do a light swim of 30 lengths, although I did decide to push myself to 40 lengths in the end. Then we went and soaked in the hot tub for a while, before making our way over to the spa.
I decided to wash my hair in the shower before going into the Persian Garden, so it could dry while I was in there, so I was a bit later in than Mark. When I arrived, there was him, a young guy (perhaps the youngest adult I’d seen so far this cruise ) and an elderly couple. I settled down on one of the hot stone chairs next to Mark, and we were happily reading. The younger guy was up and down into the other areas of the Persian Garden, and the woman was just sitting there, enjoying the view, while her husband (I assume) was lying there asleep – snoring his head off! It was really distracting and I did wonder a few times why she didn’t just prod him, but she did nothing.
I went to use the steam room, and this time it was working, and it did wonders for my sinuses. I headed back to the hot stone chair for a little while, then went to sample the aromatic suite. Now finally, this was back to how it had been on our first day on board, and it was perfect.
I came out of there, headed back to my hot stone chair, and my reading was once again broken up by the occasional snoring. Then I heard a sound, and thought I must be wrong. Then it happened again. surely not? The elderly guy had his face covered with his hands in embarrassment and so he should – he’d just farted very loudly twice! While there is a funny side to that, I just didn’t think it was appropriate, and we got no apology. We both knew the younger guy was very unimpressed, as he shot him a filthy look and left shortly afterwards. I can’t say I blame him. I didn’t last that much longer after that incident, as frankly I couldn’t look at him again…
Oh wow, what a pleasant experience in the Persian Garden - not! But sounds like you had a wonderful day in Stockholm with no rain I found the Royal Palace to be quite impressive and I'd love to go back and see it again someday.
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Oh wow, what a pleasant experience in the Persian Garden - not! But sounds like you had a wonderful day in Stockholm with no rain I found the Royal Palace to be quite impressive and I'd love to go back and see it again someday.
It's a beautiful place. We were lucky enough to have three nights in Stockholm on our first visit and we explored the Royal Palace on our first full day there.
oh my goodness, that guy in the Persian Garden! I would NOT have found it so funny if I was in the room with him though. Yuck! I was also going to say perhaps his wife is hard of hearing and didn't hear the snoring, or is immune after so many years? If Mike was snoring like that in public you can bet he'd get a jab from me to wake him up/shut him up.
Stockholm has so many streets that surprise me - it looks a bit like Paris, or your photos from Brussels too! I think I'm saying it looks more European than I thought it might.
Ending your adventures by relaxing in the Persian Garden sounded lovely. Until the very end. For crying out loud, that's just so wrong.
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Tanya
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