Hi All,
Amazing experience......
I had made the effort to get to the bus terminal and
ask the silja lines help desk about the procedure for catching the bus
in order to ensure we would make the ferry leaving time.We stored our bags at the bus terminal with a minor annoyance of the locker, which I had measure with a stick earlier in the day, being too slim for my pack and the next size being slightly short requiring us to unpack the top section of our packs. A minor irritation.
We then walked to the old town and found a harbour cruise. This gave us a great overview of the famous buildings on the water front of Sweden with most of them away from the old city. It was a great cruise and Vanessa and I really enjoyed it.
We walked back to the train station in time to collect our bags and catch the bus. The directions were to catch the bus which was 'down the stairs and to the left' which took us to a terminal with dozens of options. I was a little frantic as we couldn't find the bus stop and we missed the bus. I was furious that it was not obvious and needed Vanessa to speak with the information desk as I had steam coming out of my ears and was a little irrational. Even with further information we couldn't find the bus stop so switched to plan B and caught the metro to within 500m and bumbled our way to the ship. I was certain that this was an indicator of the quality of the ship but once on board we realised that the focus was on the ship not getting to the ship. The ship was huge at about 200m long and was a floating entertainment centre which centred on a promenade that ran for about 100m. Absolutely amazing.
http://www.tallinksilja.com/en/tab2/ships/serenade/technicalInformation/
We had purchased 4 bed share room tickets to reduce the cost and Vanessa was in a womens room sharing with 2 others and I was with a shy Russian.
Our first stop after dropping off our bags was a quiet dinner by ourselves up on the top floor overlooking the harbour. We have a 400ml travel kettle and had bread and soup to cut costs. The ship cost was 30 Euro each. Not bad at all for a 13hr sea trip.
There was on ship entertainment. A promotion for visiting france. It was already on show when we arrived with french dancing girls and acrobats and we had entertainment in the promenade from 630pm to 9pm with singers, acrobat and dancers. Wonderful. Then we moved onto another area for a short entertainment session with the full dancing team and a band followed with an interesting mix of dancers on the floor with an equally interesting mix of dancing styles. We particularly like the twirler who spun his first dance partner so much that he eventually flung her to the floor then spent the rest of the evening looking for another to spin. He did have sucess later with another victim but she survived a little better. We had a little break and returned for the main show at midnight which was interesting. I like french caberet! It was like a mini moulin rouge performance. Yes! Can this be true? and all for 30 Euro each? Dancing girls, dancing girls, dancing girls...
We had managed to get to duty free inbetween performances and purchase a few KG of lollies and some alcohol for Vanessa's birthday party when in Lapland before having a couple of sangreas and a pack of chips up on one of the bench seats on the top deck like a couple of winos.
Then it was off to bed to the lower deck where our rooms were located. So low that they were below the car decks. We didn't mind as we had entertainment and bed for such a cheap price.
Later the ship was in open waters and we could hear the waves smashing against the ship.
It would not be long before reaching Helsinki...
Bye,
David and Vanessa
