St. Petersburg & The Baltics

United International First Class Lounge SFO

This has to be one of the nicest US-based airline lounges I have visited. Pleasant and attractive dragon welcomed us in and gave us wi-fi access cards. Since it was in between UA departures, there were only two other people tonight, our cabin mates in 1DG.

The lounge is very attractive and much cleaner than the last time we were here. Even the food looked better tonight.

The beef was excellent and rare. Unfortunately, the shrimp was also a little rare.

Plane watching was very good tonight.

The IFL dragon announced "10 minutes to First Class boarding" as we gather our things and start to make our way to Gate 101.

Lufthansa First Class Lounge at Munich

What a pleasure to come back to a great lounge. Pleasant check-in staff had the manifests for inbound arrivals and welcomed us in. Mrs. SFO almost lost it when she walked in and saw Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Bastrds, Water for Elephants) or so she thought. She gushed "hello, how are you today". I'm still not convinced it was him especially after the passport control agent mentioned a different name. Oh well, I'm not going to ruin her fun. At least she didn't run after him shouting his name, like she did with Gene Hackman a few years ago at the Campton Place.

Agent gave us more good news tonight as she advised that our flight to ARN was departing from the tarmac, so we will have to take a limo to the plane. Ah, what a shame. I was still stuffed from dinner and breakfast, so we passed on food and relaxed for the next two hours.

I opted for a refreshing shower in the Rubber Duckie room.

At 7:05p, we gathered our belongings and headed downstairs for our limo ride. A brand new Porsche Cayenne was our ride tonight, and our driver was more than happy to show us how fast his V-8 wheels could go. For the third time today, Princess gushes "this is the only way to go" I do try.

Stockholm

Our hotel-arranged driver was waiting for us after baggage claim, and with no traffic at 10pm, we were at our hotel 35 minutes later. When the Lydmar Hotel wanted $525 a night for a closet, I opted for the Hotel Nobis, a new hip old-building-converted-to a hotel on a Norrmalmstorg, a couple blocks from the water. The weekend package included a roomy deluxe city view, breakfast and amazingly faster internet service for only $325 a night. Optimistically advertised as a Stockholm's newest 5-star hotel, Nobis has a young hip feel, but is more like a pleasant 3 or 3.5 star. Nice features, friendly and helpful staff, but a little too minimalist for my tastes. Attractive outdoor terrasse bar/dining area, soothing dark brown/dark grays in the hall walls, but the rooms are pretty basic.

On our first morning in Stockholm, Mrs. SFO provided the most excitement of the trip by nearly burning down the hotel. Not content to use simple hotel hair dryers, Mrs. SFO insisted on bring her 10 kilowatt hair dryer from home. Using one of our standard (low capacity) adapter, she not only blew the fuse in the bathroom but caused smoke to come from the outlet, but managed to short circuited power for the entire room... forcing a room change later in the day. Of course it was all my fault for not knowing this would happen... to her prized hair dryer.

Anyway, after the morning excitement had subsided, we headed over the Lydmar to meet our friends and explore beautiful Stockholm on a picture perfect +22 degree summer day. First stop was the Vasa Museum, home of the King's prized warship, which was so top heavy with cannons that it sank on its maiden voyage after only 1,500 meters of sailing.

After lunch at the Grand Hotel, we took to the water for the sights of Stockholm...

That evening, we explored Old Town and had a great Swedish dinner.

One of the palace guards on our walk back to the hotel...

Day 2 we went for the Stieg Larsson (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) walking tour, learning background and exploring neighborhoods where this celebrated author lived and used as the backdrop for his Millenium trilogy.

Mikael Blomkvist's apartment on Bellmansgatan...

And the view from nearby Monteliusvagen...

Crystal Serenity
Cruise #1312
Jewels of the Baltic
Stockholm-Tallin-St. Petersburg-Helsinki-Warnemunde/Berlin-Copenhagen
June 27 - July 8, 2011

This was our first Crystal cruise, and our last. Don't get me wrong... the Serenity is very elegant and recently refurbished, the food very good and at times sensational, the staff mostly very good, but... there are simply too many negatives to make me come back.

Among my biggest complaints are (1) too many people on this ship for our tastes, nearly 1,000 pax on this fully booked cruise, (2) the size of the rooms. Give me a break, 268 SF?, (3) live music at the pool instead of peace and quiet, and (4) the inflated price. But the biggest issue I had, and it didn't hit me until the 2nd or 3rd day, too many f***ing Americans. Jeez already, we're in Scandinavia and the Baltics and, outside of private day tours, we may as well be at a resort hotel in Indiana, Oklahoma or California.

I just don't get how Crystal can be voted the #1 cruise line year after year, and get away with their outrageous prices, unhelpful front desk, crowded cattle-like shuttles, and a terrible dis-embarkment process.

Our previous cruise experiences have been Regent Seven Seas (Alaska) and Silverseas (Greek Isles/Italy) and, with the exception of dining and food, we liked both Regent and Silverseas much better.

Anyway, here is a pictorial summary of the ship and some of the on board amenities.

Stateroom 9042 aka the closet that doubled as our room. At least we had a balcony.

The one area where Crystal does excel is food and dining. Our favorite restaurant was Silk Road from celebrity chef Nobuyuki "Nobu" Matsuhisa.