August 9-16, 2018: The Northern European Cruise is MAGIC! (Completed!)

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These hashbrowns look really good! Not like the ones at the buffet.

Thank you for sharing your cruise I really enjoyed reading along. It seemed like a fantastic trip!
 
These hashbrowns look really good! Not like the ones at the buffet.

Thank you for sharing your cruise I really enjoyed reading along. It seemed like a fantastic trip!
Thanks! It was a fantastic trip! Yes, the hashbrown patties in the MDR's were good, not at all greasy!
 
Fantastic trip report! Thank you for sharing your vacation with us here. :goodvibes:

As I said earlier, we started our cruise the day you disembarked. We also saw a creepy Mickey Mouse fake but in Copenhagen - in Nyhavn. I stayed away. :rotfl: If you are seriously considering the Norway/Iceland cruise... do it! It was fabulous. Really gorgeous scenery and fun ports. Oh, and if you are traveling internationally you might want to consider getting Global Entry. It gives you TSA precheck in the US and when we landed and had to go through customs we bypassed the HUGE (Disney park like) line going back and forth and filling the room. Some credit cards will even pay for it. At the end of an 11hour flight we were very happy to be able to scan our passports and walk right through. I've been eyeing the Baltic itineraries, but I'm not sure I'm willing to fly those long flights anytime in the next few years.
 
Our next cruise is 5 nights on the Magic out of Miami, April 2019, followed by the British Isles Cruise, September 2019. Thanks to you and your magnificent trip report, I now know what I'll be planning after the British Isles!
 


Our next cruise is 5 nights on the Magic out of Miami, April 2019, followed by the British Isles Cruise, September 2019. Thanks to you and your magnificent trip report, I now know what I'll be planning after the British Isles!
Thanks for reading! Enjoy your cruises on the Magic!

Thank you for the trip report! It was great to relive the trip through someone else’s eyes!
Thank YOU for reading it! I'm hoping some other people from our cruise do trip reports as well. It's fun to see what others did on the same trip!
 
Fantastic trip report! Thank you for sharing your vacation with us here. :goodvibes:

As I said earlier, we started our cruise the day you disembarked. We also saw a creepy Mickey Mouse fake but in Copenhagen - in Nyhavn. I stayed away. :rotfl: If you are seriously considering the Norway/Iceland cruise... do it! It was fabulous. Really gorgeous scenery and fun ports. Oh, and if you are traveling internationally you might want to consider getting Global Entry. It gives you TSA precheck in the US and when we landed and had to go through customs we bypassed the HUGE (Disney park like) line going back and forth and filling the room. Some credit cards will even pay for it. At the end of an 11hour flight we were very happy to be able to scan our passports and walk right through. I've been eyeing the Baltic itineraries, but I'm not sure I'm willing to fly those long flights anytime in the next few years.
Yikes...creepy Mickeys in Denmark AND Sweden, lol, glad I didn't know about that before I travelled. :rotfl2:

We'll see what the summer 2020 itineraries are...school schedules limit us (as does our wallet.) :earsboy: We were happy the schedules worked for us this year! Previous years had the Northern itineraries too early for us to do.

Global Entry...not quite ready to spring for that yet...although after our experience at JFK, it's awfully tempting (as is the TSA Pre-Check part after travelling through MCO twice a year...) I just wish there was a closer interview location than BOS, especially with weekday only hours...last thing I want to do is travel into the city on a weekday. :eek:
 


I loved your trip report, it was interesting to compare what my 2015 Baltic Cruise to yours.
Our Russian passport control officer flipped through the book, towards the end…and stamped one of the Alaska pages, the one with the bear. He did that for all 4 of us.
I feel like they do this for everyone (or at least they did it for my family)
you’re now in a long line. Bathrooms mean leaving the line and walking much farther. Poor kid! DD14 had also had it with lines by this point. Take a line to another line, to another line. :confused: Go to a passport station…get yelled at by a Customs agent telling us to use a different station—without explaining ‘why’. She just said, "it doesn’t work! Can’t you see the tape?! That means you don’t go to it!" Well…the tape was BEHIND the machine…making it look like something to keep you in that area, NOT AWAY from it! I said that the tape needs to go in front of it then if it’s not working, because it’s not obvious. And well...the machine was working for us. :confused3 But okay...we'll move to another machine because the customs agent is so angry with us. But it turns out that the other machine ‘was’ indeed working…and after we moved, 2 of our receipts printed out! According to a nicer agent, the first machine we were at was finicky and didn’t always print. So, this delayed us further. And then we got into another line to actually show our passport to the customs agent! :faint: We finally got through it all! DD18 and I used a restroom while DH looked for our luggage…which was no longer on a carousel because we’ve been in customs for SOOOO long!
In the future try using Mobile Passport. Instead of waiting in the line for the kiosks, you just get in line for the agent.
 
I loved your trip report, it was interesting to compare what my 2015 Baltic Cruise to yours.

I feel like they do this for everyone (or at least they did it for my family)

In the future try using Mobile Passport. Instead of waiting in the line for the kiosks, you just get in line for the agent.
Thanks for reading!

Visa stamp in Russia--I figured there was a reason for it, they're probably told if it's a US passport to stamp it on page x. It was just a surprise.

Thanks, we'll look into the Mobile Passport app! Lol, I'm pretty old school and usually prefer paper (I print out the airline tix, concer tix, etc.), but after our JFK experience, I'd be willing to do this to avoid the bigger part of the line...and an angry customs agent!
 
I really enjoyed your report! I read your Alaska report and it helped me in planning that cruise for my family. I hope there is something wonderful for you in 2020!
 
I really enjoyed your report! I read your Alaska report and it helped me in planning that cruise for my family. I hope there is something wonderful for you in 2020!
Thanks for reading! I'm glad the Alaskan report was helpful to you. I hope you had a great Alaskan cruise! Thanks, I hope so too!
 
Great trip report, thank you so much for sharing. I loved the pics esp of the palaces etc in St Petersburg. I totally agree that "travel" is the worst part of vacation. So stressful and needlessly so in some cases (e.g. customs agents...)
 
We are Canadian and they stamped the last page of our passport. So maybe it’s their process.
 
Great trip report, thank you so much for sharing. I loved the pics esp of the palaces etc in St Petersburg. I totally agree that "travel" is the worst part of vacation. So stressful and needlessly so in some cases (e.g. customs agents...)
Thanks for reading it! We were amazed by all the detail in all the palaces, it's just not something we see in the US. I really do hate the travel part, lol, and I'm so used to a 3 hr non-stop flight to Orlando that anything more than that drives me crazy. Thankfully the trip itself was so good, that I'm willing to do the horrid travel part again to go on another cruise!
 
We are Canadian and they stamped the last page of our passport. So maybe it’s their process.
Yeah, maybe they start near the end of passport books...but the US one was on the second to last set of pages...maybe due to the statue of liberty pics on the last couple pages...and the Alaskan bear/totem pole pics are less offensive or something.
 
I am woefully behind but catching up slowly (just finished your first sea day). Your last day in Copenhagen sure was adventure-filled!!! What an amazing city!!

Lovely formal night photos!!:lovestruc

Wow, talk about beginners luck at Bingo!!! We've played every cruise and haven't won a dime :rotfl2:Good job, I bet you had the mojito luck :laughing:
 
Wednesday 8/8/18: Copenhagen Day 3—"How scary could that ride be?” Part 4

We watched the parade with a float sponsored by Disney World (Tivoli is celebrating 175 years!),
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Disney's "It's a Small World" float, congratulating Tivoli on 175 years!
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went on the trolley car…and then DH and I decided to brave Rutschebanen…the 104 year old wooden roller coaster that has a brakeman to slow it down as needed. How scary could it be? Scarier than we thought! Despite the lap bar, DH felt himself leave his seat multiple times. Then there was the pitch black area…thankfully there were no dips there! It was fun though, glad we can say we rode it!
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After that excitement, we stopped for some dinner. One of the parade floats had a sign saying ‘Tivoli World Menus’…and I noticed that it had Currywurst listed for Germany. DD18 LOVED currywurst during her trip to Germany…so, of course, we had dinner at Biergarten! DD18 got the currywurst with sauerkraut, fries, and a roll. (Sorry…I took the food pics when we were mostly done!)
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The rest of us split the charcuterie with pretzels, cheese, and cornichons. DD14 ate almost all the cornichons…I snitched one before she ate them all!
I had a can of ginger beer and DD18 had a carton of water
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DD18 bought an umbrella in one of the shops, so she’ll have a Tivoli one for college! We then sat on the grass by the Pantomime Theater and watched the show ‘Pierrot at the Deer Park”. We loved it.
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I was hoping to stay for the next show, but DD14 was done—too hot/humid and she was tired; so we walked back to the hotel. We got back early enough to pack up our bags…tomorrow we’d be boarding the Disney Magic!

I started to read your report because I think it’s always interesting to read from the americans perspective. I love Tivoli and always a must is Ruchebanen even if not riding anythig else. For me it’s more like a kiddie ride but still SO fun and I really don’t know but the Biergarten is a must for me too. Never eat or crave this kind of fat food other than Christmas or when in Tivoli lol. And their’s is one of the few places having German beer Edelweiss frozen available. Mmm..
 
I am woefully behind but catching up slowly (just finished your first sea day). Your last day in Copenhagen sure was adventure-filled!!! What an amazing city!!

Lovely formal night photos!!:lovestruc

Wow, talk about beginners luck at Bingo!!! We've played every cruise and haven't won a dime :rotfl2:Good job, I bet you had the mojito luck :laughing:
Copenhagen--before the trip I had marked off all the things I might want to do with the Copenhagen card...and quickly eliminated the stuff that was outside of Copenhagen...and then a week before our trip I worked on our schedule for each day...how to maximize our time...so I cut more stuff out...like the Aquarium as it's not near anything else. We definitely made the most of our time there!

We were shocked to win at Bingo! Lol, I was SO happy that it was DH's paper card that won and not mine...because I don't think I would have realized I had a winner after all those mojitos! (I was definitely a number or two behind at times, lol.)
 
I started to read your report because I think it’s always interesting to read from the americans perspective. I love Tivoli and always a must is Ruchebanen even if not riding anythig else. For me it’s more like a kiddie ride but still SO fun and I really don’t know but the Biergarten is a must for me too. Never eat or crave this kind of fat food other than Christmas or when in Tivoli lol. And their’s is one of the few places having German beer Edelweiss frozen available. Mmm..
Thanks for reading! Tivoli was so fun! I wish we had more time to enjoy the entertainment.

I actually spent 1 year using "Duolingo" to learn some Danish before our trip, knowing we'd be there for 3 days before the cruise (I only spent about 10 minutes a day on it...). I learned enough to be able to read it/translate it to English...but not enough to speak it or understand the spoken word. (I mostly wanted to learn it to be able to read some signs, etc.) Thankfully, everyone was willing to speak English with us and they didn't have to suffer through my spoken Danish!
 
Thanks for reading! Tivoli was so fun! I wish we had more time to enjoy the entertainment.

I actually spent 1 year using "Duolingo" to learn some Danish before our trip, knowing we'd be there for 3 days before the cruise (I only spent about 10 minutes a day on it...). I learned enough to be able to read it/translate it to English...but not enough to speak it or understand the spoken word. (I mostly wanted to learn it to be able to read some signs, etc.) Thankfully, everyone was willing to speak English with us and they didn't have to suffer through my spoken Danish!
Finished reading your TR now. Wow so beautiful pictures and such a detailed review.
It was also heart warming to read about you saying so beautiful things about Tallinn (and you wrote the name rightLol). I was born and raised in Tallinn and very proud of my home town and our little Estonia (now been living in Norway Oslo for 14 years but Tallinn still is ❤️ for me:). Lol @ that’s actually right what your guide said about learning the Estonian language (the language geeks and someone loving an estonian person learning it). My Norwegian husband was one of the latters - taking summer course in Estonian in Tallinn University one year.

This really is nice and respectful of you to try to learn some words of Danish. But don’t blame yourself, as I speak fluent Norwegian and Swedish but can only read Danish - one of the most difficult languages to understand when spoken

Your cruise on Magic seemed nice. We are booked a Med next year and I would like to know what the sommelier’s basket is?

And oh yeah, seems like your husband really likes his salmon (laks)! reminds me of my 12 year old - a breakfast without salmon cannot be called a breakfast according to him
 

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