SanDiegoSteph
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2010
We're in the final packing stages for the Northern European sailing on the Magic from May 28-June 4, 2017 with a follow-on week in Paris/Normandy D-Day beaches, so I thought I'd go ahead and start my trip report now in case I can do some updating while on board.
Our family is me (DW) my Hubby (DH) and our 10 year old Son (DS). We are sailing with another family of five - 2 parents and kiddos: DDs who are 12 & 6 and a DS who is 10 also and sharing two connecting interior cabins. This will be our family's 4th sailing. We sailed the inaugural 2011 season to Alaska when it sailed out of Vancouver; the inaugural May 2012 sailing to Hawaii and a girls trip in the Caribbean with my niece and sis.
Each trip we bring along a magnet of our "fur babies" as well as the Disney Dogs dressed appropriately for the trip, thus the thread title...here are Leo and Lola giving us their pathetic - you're sailing with the Disney Dogs AGAIN and you are leaving us behind?!?!
(ugghhh...I don't seem to know how to imbed an image...I'll have to figure that out and edit later)
We live in San Diego and were able to totally SCORE a great non-stop transatlantic flight from Los Angeles (about 1 1/2 hours away by car...on a good day) direct to Copenhagen for next Friday on Norwegian Airlines. They had just started their transatlantic trips between LAX and Copenhagen back in January so I think that is why the rate was so good...like $550 r/t including all taxes, etc. WAHOO!!!
We depart LAX at 4:45pm and arrive in Copenhagen at 12:45pm the next day. So, we'll be taking the Benadryl on the flight to try to knock out the kiddos for at least a couple of hours of shut-eye. I bought this crazy Portable Footrest on Amazon that my office mate raved about for when she flies transatlantic. You hook it over the tray table and then it let's you suspend your feet for easier sleeping. I'll let you know how it turns out once I have a chance to test it.
We made arrangements to stay at the Adina Apartment Hotel in Copenhagen because it was super close to the Langelinie port where all the preliminary harbor reports said the Magic was going to dock. Well, as luck would have it, once our cruise docs arrived, turns out we are boarding at the Oceankaj port instead (grrrrr). So, all the best laid plans are out the window already.
We didn't go for the Disney hotels as we were trying to get a good rate on a single room for the family of 5 sailing with us and the Adina Apartment Hotel has Studio, 1 and 2 bedroom apartments that can sleep up to 7 family members (in the 2 bedroom apartments) including 4 adults and 3 children under 12. Everywhere around the cities we are visiting it seems that 12 is the magic number at which you become an "adult" and you pay the "adult" rate whether it be for hotel rooms, museum tickets or transportation vouchers.
At this point the weather reports are looking kind of sketchy - we're a week out and Accuweather is estimating 61 high and 48 low in Copenhagen with sunny skies and similar mid to low 60s for highs and mid to high 40s for lows at night for all of our destination ports with spotty rain predicted and mostly cloudy skies: Tallinn, Estonia; St Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden before returning to Copenhagen.
So, packing is kind of a nightmare since we're not sure how many pants/jeans to bring; to even bring shorts or not; rain pants/no rain pants; uncomfortable waterproof boots or just a couple of shoes to swap out if a pair gets wet...aggghhh AND the only downside of the Norwegian flight is the are SUPER strict on bags - 20 kilos (44 lbs) for your single check-in bag and 10 kilos (22 lbs) combined for your single carry-on and single personal item. So, I'm totally stressing on the packing....
OKAY..So WE'RE BACK!!!!
We stayed an extra week in France after the cruise, so I'm just able to get back to this trip report now. I've got to get a TON done to get caught up with life. So, I'll have to type up stuff about the trip over the next week or so.
BUT...here are the BIG highlights that I can type out in like 30 seconds (plus the Navigators for those who have been waiting for those)...
IT RAINED A TON!!! And, that definitely made the port visits a bigger challenge than we had planned with our kiddos. Unfortunately, St Petersburg was the worst weather - pouring rain mixed with drizzle and cold (at least for us San Diegans) - 55 degrees - so our kids rated that as their least favorite port
We WAY over-planned how much we could do in each port (we didn't use any organized tours except in St Petersburg) as we didn't count on how long it takes a pack of 5 kiddos (and 4 type-A adults) to get from one place to another.
We are SO glad we booked an interior cabin (never done that before - always had a balcony or a big window) as we got great LONG sleep even for our super early riser kiddos!!
We are SO glad we booked 2nd seating dinner as the entire cruise seemed to be adjusted to late nights and late mornings with all the late morning port arrivals (except St Petersburg).
Most importantly, we had a AMAZING time and are already planning our next cruise (but somewhere warm this time since we have already done Alaska and Hawaii in the fall)
More details to come over the next couple of days...
Our family is me (DW) my Hubby (DH) and our 10 year old Son (DS). We are sailing with another family of five - 2 parents and kiddos: DDs who are 12 & 6 and a DS who is 10 also and sharing two connecting interior cabins. This will be our family's 4th sailing. We sailed the inaugural 2011 season to Alaska when it sailed out of Vancouver; the inaugural May 2012 sailing to Hawaii and a girls trip in the Caribbean with my niece and sis.
Each trip we bring along a magnet of our "fur babies" as well as the Disney Dogs dressed appropriately for the trip, thus the thread title...here are Leo and Lola giving us their pathetic - you're sailing with the Disney Dogs AGAIN and you are leaving us behind?!?!
(ugghhh...I don't seem to know how to imbed an image...I'll have to figure that out and edit later)
We live in San Diego and were able to totally SCORE a great non-stop transatlantic flight from Los Angeles (about 1 1/2 hours away by car...on a good day) direct to Copenhagen for next Friday on Norwegian Airlines. They had just started their transatlantic trips between LAX and Copenhagen back in January so I think that is why the rate was so good...like $550 r/t including all taxes, etc. WAHOO!!!
We depart LAX at 4:45pm and arrive in Copenhagen at 12:45pm the next day. So, we'll be taking the Benadryl on the flight to try to knock out the kiddos for at least a couple of hours of shut-eye. I bought this crazy Portable Footrest on Amazon that my office mate raved about for when she flies transatlantic. You hook it over the tray table and then it let's you suspend your feet for easier sleeping. I'll let you know how it turns out once I have a chance to test it.
We made arrangements to stay at the Adina Apartment Hotel in Copenhagen because it was super close to the Langelinie port where all the preliminary harbor reports said the Magic was going to dock. Well, as luck would have it, once our cruise docs arrived, turns out we are boarding at the Oceankaj port instead (grrrrr). So, all the best laid plans are out the window already.
We didn't go for the Disney hotels as we were trying to get a good rate on a single room for the family of 5 sailing with us and the Adina Apartment Hotel has Studio, 1 and 2 bedroom apartments that can sleep up to 7 family members (in the 2 bedroom apartments) including 4 adults and 3 children under 12. Everywhere around the cities we are visiting it seems that 12 is the magic number at which you become an "adult" and you pay the "adult" rate whether it be for hotel rooms, museum tickets or transportation vouchers.
At this point the weather reports are looking kind of sketchy - we're a week out and Accuweather is estimating 61 high and 48 low in Copenhagen with sunny skies and similar mid to low 60s for highs and mid to high 40s for lows at night for all of our destination ports with spotty rain predicted and mostly cloudy skies: Tallinn, Estonia; St Petersburg, Russia; Helsinki, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden before returning to Copenhagen.
So, packing is kind of a nightmare since we're not sure how many pants/jeans to bring; to even bring shorts or not; rain pants/no rain pants; uncomfortable waterproof boots or just a couple of shoes to swap out if a pair gets wet...aggghhh AND the only downside of the Norwegian flight is the are SUPER strict on bags - 20 kilos (44 lbs) for your single check-in bag and 10 kilos (22 lbs) combined for your single carry-on and single personal item. So, I'm totally stressing on the packing....
OKAY..So WE'RE BACK!!!!
We stayed an extra week in France after the cruise, so I'm just able to get back to this trip report now. I've got to get a TON done to get caught up with life. So, I'll have to type up stuff about the trip over the next week or so.
BUT...here are the BIG highlights that I can type out in like 30 seconds (plus the Navigators for those who have been waiting for those)...
IT RAINED A TON!!! And, that definitely made the port visits a bigger challenge than we had planned with our kiddos. Unfortunately, St Petersburg was the worst weather - pouring rain mixed with drizzle and cold (at least for us San Diegans) - 55 degrees - so our kids rated that as their least favorite port
We WAY over-planned how much we could do in each port (we didn't use any organized tours except in St Petersburg) as we didn't count on how long it takes a pack of 5 kiddos (and 4 type-A adults) to get from one place to another.
We are SO glad we booked an interior cabin (never done that before - always had a balcony or a big window) as we got great LONG sleep even for our super early riser kiddos!!
We are SO glad we booked 2nd seating dinner as the entire cruise seemed to be adjusted to late nights and late mornings with all the late morning port arrivals (except St Petersburg).
Most importantly, we had a AMAZING time and are already planning our next cruise (but somewhere warm this time since we have already done Alaska and Hawaii in the fall)
More details to come over the next couple of days...
