Cruising the Baltic

Welcome Aboard The Aylesbury to Marylebone  to Waterloo then Southampton main station

We went by train and taxi to our ship, the Balmoral. This took us 2,444 nautical miles from Southampton and back via the Kiel canal, Copenhagen, Tallinn, St Petersbury, Riga and Warnemunde.

Our ship

The Balmoral has ten decks, 710 cabins, five dining rooms. Our cabin is deck 5. It can carry 1350 guests and 510 crew. Its maximum speed is 18.5 knots. Funny how I got used to hearing that engine speed lulling me to sleep each night. Eventually I woke to it realising that I missed the birds at dawn.

Vocabulary

I referred to our window in our room and got reminded that on a ship it's a porthole and we have a cabin with berths.

Ramblers

We're with the Ramblers group, about 21 people and a leader. We're all in the 'older' age range, old enough to have saved enough to afford this, and to have enough leave to go away for two weeks. Most members of the group have retired or gone part time. Three or four of the men have good heads of hair. Most people wear glasses. We have four single / widowed women, one of whom has Australian permanent residency. I don't learn names because I miss the first few minutes of the first meeting and they're never repeated. I pick most names up during the fortnight, one by one when we sit at the same tables for meals, which we do every night.
One of the innovations that Ian, the leader, suggested, was the use of buddies. When we go on tours, walks and trips, he can't always see us all to count us in and out. A partner might help, though not all of us have partners. So Ian's idea of a buddy is someone who isn't your partner you buddy up with and they check you're present and warns if their buddy is  missing. It works. My buddy turns out to have been an OU tutor like me, and like me, had done her degree and doctorate later in life. In fact, several of the Rambler women did their degree and professional training later in life, having been brought up for the teacher/nurse/typist until-you're-a-wifeAndMother life.
Ramblers briefings are usually every day at the same time in the same place but not for this trip because we only get briefed for shore visits so we sometimes forget and miss a briefing. Fortunately we make most of them. For shore visits we're advised to take insurance proof, debit card, passport, EHIC (for the EU countries Germany, Estonia and Latvia), phone with the number of the local agent. 

Meals

Food on board was good quality, varied and plentiful with starters, soups, salads & main courses followed by desert and coffee.

A lunch menu

 One dinner menu for example:

Starters

citrus cocktail chilled orange and grapefruit segments, dressed with grenadine
roast beef rolls with asparagus
roasted strip loin, filled with grilled green asparagus and served on lettuce with sour cream and chive dressing. 

Soups

fisherman's broth : fish broth with carrots, fennel julienne and salmon quenelles
cream of lamb with root vegetables
mango gazpacho: cold mango soup garnished with red onions, cucumber, coriander & drizzled [sic] with extra virgin olive oil
I've cut out some of the creative descriptions

Salads

house salad with a  choice of dressing
a selection of market fresh seasonal ingredients with a choice of honey mustard, balsamic, Caesar, thousand island or creamy garlic and herb dressing 
Avocado salad with pineapple
a medley of diced avocado and pineapple tossed in an orange vinaigrette, served ... with lettuce

Main courses

pan fried lemon sole with butter sauce
grilled corn fed chicken breast
roast veal leg
lasagna al forno
salmon trio
and there was a vegetarian dish each day and a British dish of the day such as Suffolk stew. on top of that, grilled fish, pasta, omelettes were always available if nothing else met your fancy. Finally deserts were served.

Lunch in the Spey restaurant

If you had dietary requirements, your waiter gave you the dinner menu the night before to choose from and sorted it with the chef before you arrived. so for example if  you fancy the tagliatelle "perugia", but avoid gluten, then the chef would prepare it with gluten-free tagliatelle . 

On the last weekend, they arranged a Neptune menu - loads of seafood.

Fish picture - lettuce represents the seaweed

Seafood Neptune lunch

Unfortunately, it was the same day that Ramblers had our afternoon English tea. Having eaten so much seafood we had hardly any room for the dainty and delicious sandwiches and cakes with proper leaf tea in the Observatory lounge.

English high tea

Crew

The captain, Lars Juel Kjeldsen, a Dane who'd lived in Sweden, welcomed us to the ship and gave us midday updates on progress on sea days. He had a tag phrase, "it is what it is" about the weather or life.
On the last night, he gave awards to nominated members of staff for their particularly good service. I daresay they deserved it; i cannot think of time or place where all the staff seemed so happy to see you and serve you and talk with you and remember you. We had our stewardess, Joecyn and Billy our waiter. Both were from the Philippines. Perhaps that's why there were Tagalog classes during the voyage. I learned to say good evening to them: "Magandang gabi". I also met crew from Bali, India and Thailand.

Activities at sea 

Each day, whether or not a shore day, offered activities, announced in the ship's "Daily Times" a short newsletter that arrived in your cabin in the early evening. Activities included: yoga, Pilates, line dancing, ball room dancing, fitness classes,use of the gym,  Bridge, chess, craft, knitting. Classes were offered on Haiku, cooking Thai massage, iNdiean head massage. There were talks on Faberge & the treasure of the Tsars, on genealogy, Port talks e.g. on Copenhagen or the Hanseatic nations. Some went to bingo or quizzes, or gambling. There were shows every evening - one evening specialized on Great Britain and everyone sang English, Irish, Welsh or Scottish songs, wore red, white and blue, and waved Union Jacks.

Russian Capella singers

St Petersburg opera singer

In St Petersburg, we visited the cathedral in St Peter and Paul's Fortress where we heard these professional opera singers. The first minute is the heavily Russian accented introduction. Listen for the deep baritones in the last half minute. It's amazing. 

More cities to describe but others have described them before me.