We planned in October of 2021 to take Holland America’s “Jewels of the Baltic” cruise in October of 2022. My father-in-law, Oscar, had been to Russia a couple times decades ago, including a visit to Saint Petersburg, and wanted us to see it. Getting to Russia has never been simple, but the easiest way to see Saint Petersburg is to arrive on a cruise ship and take authorized excursions, so that is how this cruise was selected. Unfortunately Russia attacked Ukraine in the spring of 2022, so the itinerary ended up changing quite a bit.
Saint Petersburg and everything close to it was canceled, and Gothenburg, Sweden and Aarhus, Denmark were added. Later on, drought in Holland meant not enough water in the canals to start in Amsterdam, so the cruise started and ended in Rotterdam.
We had a fairly well-planned departure for Amsterdam / Schiphol Airport. I had checked tire pressures in the car the day before, but on the way to drop off our dog, Daisy, the car’s low tire alert came on. I had pumped a few additional PSI into this tire the night before, but then the pressure seemed to be reading high, so I let some out, but now I think I mis-read the gauge in this dark corner of the garage. Anyway, the Clarity has an air compressor on-board (instead of a spare tire!), so we pumped the low tire up and headed for the airport with fingers crossed. The pressure never seemed to drop, suggesting the “should have brought a light” theory.
After going through some heavy traffic in Portland we made it to the airport, but realized we had forgotten two things – we ended up finding one at the airport. The flight was pleasant enough for what it was: a nine hour non-stop flight leaving at 4:30PM and arriving at 11:30AM. We rode in an Airbus A380 seated mid-wing and I thought it was significantly quieter than the Boeing 757 that we rode in on our previous trip to Amsterdam, but later we heard from Oscar that seats behind the wing got a lot of engine noise.
I arrived fairly hungry because the on-board breakfast featured mushrooms, so we grabbed some food at the Schiphol Airport. The train we rushed to buy tickets for ended up being canceled so we had plenty of time to eat on the platform. The train half an hour later was direct to Rotterdam. Once there we found a group of women from the U.S. also trying to get to the cruise terminal and, between our multiple efforts, we discovered how to get the tram tickets. The tram took us to a stop only a couple blocks from the cruise terminal. After checking in we waited for an hour or so to board. Once our boarding group was finally called, the process was efficient and we quickly found the way to our room. The safety muster was much easier than our last cruise because the flotation device and lifeboat instructions were all given via a video on the TV in the room instead of having to gather the all the passengers at once on the lifeboat deck. After watching the video, all we had to do was find our muster station and check in there at some point over the next hour or so.
We had a nice view toward the famous Erasmusbrug bridge from our balcony.
We met up with Oscar and Joann and had some cocktails and a pizza near the pool, then went down to the Grand Dutch Cafe, which quickly became our favorite lunch and drink spot on the ship. We had some Dutch beer, frites, and a grilled sandwich, then an apple pie afterward. I found I really like the Leffe Tripel.
The ship departed quite late in the afternoon, and we got some nice views of Rotterdam with evening sunshine, then passed the outskirts of the city at dusk.
Everyone was tired after the long day of travel so, after a brief walk around some parts of the ship we had not seen yet, we went to bed. We slept well for a few hours, then woke up for a few hours, but managed to fall back asleep and slept pretty hard until eight in the morning.
We had a nice breakfast on the Lido deck then launched into a day of shipboard activities on this day at sea. We watched a presentation about creative solutions to some of the difficulties presented by Norway’s harsh climate and terrain, had lunch at the Dive In, listened to a string quartet at the Lincoln Stage, got an overview of the excursions available on the trip, and rode stationary bicycles for about twenty minutes. This evening was one of the formal dress dinners, and the main dining room dinner was good – I think everyone was pretty happy with their meals. Afterward we went to a “Captain’s Toast” in the main theater where the captain introduced the senior officers and made some jokes, then we just stayed seated for the dance show “Musicology”.
