You Are Not The First To Pass This Way: 2nd Magic Baltic Cruise, 6/24/2010

[grizbuzz]

We made it home last night. What a wonderful cruise! I am looking forward to this rocking feeling to go away. Haven't felt like this since my very first cruise. Oh well, small price to pay for a fabulous vacation!

 

[cindy18]

Hi Everyone! We got home late last night, after a surprisingly easy travel day and a lovely side trip to Canterbury on the way back to Heathrow (the Cathedral is as amazing as I remembered and DH and the DDs were suitably impressed). So sad to get off the ship yesterday morning. We couldn't pick a favorite port (we tried), and there are several we want to return to. Also can't imagine how we're ever going to feel that a short cruise is sufficient, even though we do have a 4-night on the Dream booked for February. It is unbearably hot in New York, and we were actually hoping for another volcano eruption so we had to stay in England for a few more days. But truly, such an amazing vacation!

 

[TDC Nala]

yeah, I'm at work today. My cubicle sways so I feel like I am still on board the ship. and the big boss came around today, I hope he couldn't tell I was jetlagged.

Next cruise I'm doing is the Wonder PC repo so if anyone is looking for another long cruise...that one is even longer than the Baltic! Some of the crew members I met will be working that cruise and some want to work the Alaska cruises.

Now I am wishing we had fantastic weather in DC (it's 100 degrees here but feels like 110) like we had in all the ports (excepting the St. Petersburg thunderstorms but I viewed those from inside the Hermitage and inside a van.) I was very happy with how well the private tour in St. Petersburg went. It was a lot of work to cover everything we saw but worth it. favorite port? I don't know, they were all wonderful. I loved Copenhagen.

 

[macassi]

We are back home as well! We had a very long travel day yesterday considering our flight home was only 1.5 hours long! Our flight was delayed and we ended up hanging out at Heathrow for 5.5 hours. Ugh. Then the trains weren't aligned with our flights so it took us twice as long to get home from the airport as usual.

We couldn't have asked for better weather for this cruise! We loved every minute of the cruise. Now I wonder why I was worried that it would feel long.

Loved many of the fish extender gifts!! Thank you!! I just used the bookmark after I finished reading to my daughter. The kids LOVED the autograph books. We've never done one before and it will definitely be a "forever" keepsake. The kids also loved the canvas bags and they will be their PE clothing bags next year.

My fish extender gift (A Swiss candy sampler bag) was stolen from my inlaws' door as well as ours. (I had done a small bag for my kids to enjoy.) I sure hope everyone else received it! I was really upset to think that someone would steal it from the door, but I guess it was just too tempting. Sigh.

We're going on the Med next year. Can't wait!!

 

[TDC Nala]

My DVC door magnet (the one they give out to everyone who's a DVC member) disappeared about halfway through the cruise...go figure, that someone would remove a DVC door magnet that practically everybody on the cruise has. So I'm guessing candy didn't stand a chance. We should have put some of the Norwegian goat cheese we couldn't finish in somebody's fish extender....(kidding)

 

[cindy18]

Oh, I completely forgot to say how much we enjoyed the fish extender gifts. Thanks so much to everyone for them. Our DDs loved the swiss candy, no problems there. We lost our DVC Member magnets somewhere along the way as well, but the magnets that you guys put in our FEs stayed up the whole cruise and are now home with us. Agree absolutely about the autograph books and the calendar. Very cool! Thanks everyone!!

 

[buck4568]

We made it home last night. What a wonderful cruise! I am looking forward to this rocking feeling to go away. Haven't felt like this since my very first cruise. Oh well, small price to pay for a fabulous vacation!

I want the rocking to stay with me as long as possible! We arrived back in Orlando last night aroung 6:00pm. We left our dog with a friend who lives in Destin, FL. She drove five hours to bring him back to us in Orlando! She did the same to pick him up on June 20th! What a great friend to do that! We stayed overnight in Orlando and got on the road early today for the ride back home to Naples.

Enjoyed meeting many of you throughout the cruise and still can't believe it is over!

yeah, I'm at work today. My cubicle sways so I feel like I am still on board the ship. and the big boss came around today, I hope he couldn't tell I was jetlagged.

Next cruise I'm doing is the Wonder PC repo so if anyone is looking for another long cruise...that one is even longer than the Baltic! Some of the crew members I met will be working that cruise and some want to work the Alaska cruises.

Now I am wishing we had fantastic weather in DC (it's 100 degrees here but feels like 110) like we had in all the ports (excepting the St. Petersburg thunderstorms but I viewed those from inside the Hermitage and inside a van.) I was very happy with how well the private tour in St. Petersburg went. It was a lot of work to cover everything we saw but worth it. favorite port? I don't know, they were all wonderful. I loved Copenhagen.

It was nice to have you as a part of our group in St. Petersburg. During the cruise we met quite a few people besides you that were on the same 2007 Med cruise! I would love to do a PC trip some day.

I think Copenhagen was great! Loved Tivoli! Stockholm was really my favorite though. Was really the end to a perfect day when we left and sailed past all those islands. St. Petersburg was just packed with highlights. I can still hear her, "Now. city guests, on the left we are passing...."

 

[lzj21428]

Just out of curiosity, who was everyones servers? We had Romeo and Gidion and had the APL rotation. Table 40. These two guys were great!!

 

[buck4568]

Just out of curiosity, who was everyones servers? We had Romeo and Gidion and had the APL rotation. Table 40. These two guys were great!!

Our servers were Jayson and Isac on the PLA rotation table 59!

Still on London time waking up at 3:00 and 4:00 am!

 

[cindy18]

We were LAP rotation and had table 28 (a window seat in both Lumieres and AP, which was a first for us). Our servers were Raphael and Shantol, and our head waiter was Mario, who is planning to be on the Dream so we'll look for him in February.

 

[newgeneb]

Enjoyed meeting everyone WOW what a trip Thanks for all the neat gifts in our FE I hope everyone enjoyed the candy bag we gave out we took out the calories our servers were Jocef and Nevda not sure of spelling Hope to sail with the group again soon we are booked for the Magic on Jan 29th 2011 and the Dream on June 12th 2011 See Ya Real Soon

 

[mehaul]

Just out of curiosity, who was everyones servers? We had Romeo and Gidion and had the APL rotation. Table 40. These two guys were great!!

We had Romeo on our Med cruise in 2007. He was great. We also had the APL rotation for this cruise. Our servers were Orlan and Trevis. Sounds like everyone is heading to the DREAM.

I'm glad to hear that we weren't the only ones (the DW and I) who were still feeling the boat rocking a couple of days later. Up this AM at 4, an improvement from yesterday which was 2:30 AM. I'm using the time to create a trip report.
Here is a link to some photos from the Princess Ball in St. Petersburg - if you're interested.

www.magicalbalticcruise.com/cruise-trip-report--russia.html

Cindy 18 did a fabulous job of blogging, I'm amazed at her discipline. The funny thing about Cindy 18's slideshow is that so many of her photos matched up to ours that my 6 year old DD wondered why "WE" had so many pictures of other cruisemates.

 

[cindy18]

Thanks Mehaul! And I love your pictures from the ball. It really looks like a special evening for your girls. It is funny to start looking at everyone's trip reports and realize how much we were all captivated by the same things. Whether we did ports on our own or with a tour, we all more or less went to the same sights!

 

[Kouris_Family]

Does anyone know where the drop off point is for Berlin on your own?

 

[TDC Nala]

I can still hear her, "Now. city guests, on the left we are passing...."

Took me forever to figure out that she was saying "So, dear guests..." and she said that EVERY TIME she said anything.

Servers were Fernando and Ivalina and they had to put up with the ghost guests at Table 24 next door.

 

[cindy18]

How is everyone doing with jet lag? We are struggling a bit more than I had expected, other than DD 14 who is back to sleeping until noon without difficulty. The issue is the late afternoon to early evening time. We are seem to sort of lose it. The last several evenings, I keep dozing off somewhere (last night it was the couch) at around 8:30 or 9 and eventually wake up and go to bed for real. I think I'm starting to sleep later in the mornings, but I am so surprised by how woozy I still am other times. Maybe it's the heat? Not sure.

 

[buck4568]

Does anyone know where the drop off point is for Berlin on your own?

Just guessing but there were eight or ten rail cars for a variety of tours going to Berlin from port and If you are getting to Berlin by train I would guess that it starts right from the Berlin station? Although, the return train was in a different location.

 

[buck4568]

How is everyone doing with jet lag? We are struggling a bit more than I had expected, other than DD 14 who is back to sleeping until noon without difficulty. The issue is the late afternoon to early evening time. We are seem to sort of lose it. The last several evenings, I keep dozing off somewhere (last night it was the couch) at around 8:30 or 9 and eventually wake up and go to bed for real. I think I'm starting to sleep later in the mornings, but I am so surprised by how woozy I still am other times. Maybe it's the heat? Not sure.

My DW is having a difficult time getting past the jet lag but myself and the kids are back on schedule. For me I had to jump right back into work so I did not have to be sitting around this weekend. The entire trip was go go go, and when you get home, I think you go into shock from not having to do that routine of getting to an excursion, a show, or dinner etc. and you have more time to think about how exhusting the past three weeks were. Kind of a mental thing I think?

 

[cindy18]

Totally plausible. I think we were so happy that we didn't realize how much we had been running, running, running, and we did go through an awful lot of time changes although they didn't ever feel so material. I seem to be struggling the most, although DH is really, really tired a lot of the time. May just be the total bummer of re-entry after such a terrific 2 weeks.

Did you see that it was over 90 degrees in Germany yesterday? Can't imagine how Berlin would have felt if we had been so hot and racing around...

 

[macassi]

No jet lag issues here. We only had a one hour time adjustment. We did feel the rocking for a few nights, though.