And so the Baltic cruise ends where it started … in cosmopolitan, friendly Amsterdam. The ship docked early, just after 6 a.m., because Celebrity had to offload 2,100 passengers … clean up a bit … and then load another 2,100 to head back out the same day at 4 p.m. Those who appreciate logistics probably […]

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Cruising is not for everyone. If mobs of senior citizens set your nerves on edge … stay away. If proximity with uninformed opinion annoys you … don’t come. If the notion of a bare brush with exotic cities and people leaves you frustrated … don’t bother. If a disconnect from the greater wired world leaves […]

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Four days, three Baltic capitals, and we were left to mull, again, the apparent goal for which Finland, Sweden and Denmark (and presumably Norway) are striving — a kinder, gentler social order. While riding the bus around Copenhagen we again heard (for the third time in four days) about the cradle-to-grave benefits guaranteed to citizens. […]

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I am convinced a potential bestseller is waiting to be written. “Life Below Decks: The Secret Lives of Cruise Ship Staff”. In which a veteran employee of the cruise ship industry, preferably someone with a job that puts them in daily contact with passengers, dishes dirt on the cruisers as well as fellow crew and […]

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It seems as if humans are never quite satisfied with their portion of sun. At this moment, in Abu Dhabi and the UAE, the consensus certainly is that entirely too much of ol’ Sol is irradiating the parched landscape. While in Stockholm, which is closer to the North Pole than it is to Abu Dhabi, […]

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What a little treasure, is Helsinki. Granted, we can’t speak of much personal experience. The Celebrity Constellation’s time at port, in Finland’s capital, was a total of nine hours, beginning at 8 a.m. But our brief time ashore yielded a particularly positive impression of Helsinki. Personally warm. Visually pleasing. Tidy. Sedate. Orderly. Helsinki is attractive […]

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The day before was spent mostly in the country near St. Petersburg, green and a bit soggy but well-tended and open. Today, we stayed in the city, taking in three of the major cultural sites, along with what must have been every other tourist from the six major cruise ships docked in the port. All […]

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For decades, I thought I was meant never to see Russia. In 1980, I was to have been part of a three-man Gannett News Service team covering the Moscow Summer Games. But the Soviets went over the border into Afghanistan and President Jimmy Carter leaned on the U.S. Olympic Committee to boycott the Moscow Games, […]

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This is one of the main reasons you do a Baltic tour. To see the capital of Estonia. When is anyone not from this part of the world going to be in Estonia? Exactly. Sadly, we did not catch Tallinn at its best.

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A cruise in the Baltic, in the first half of May, is a crap shoot. Investigate the average temperatures in May for cities such as Helsinki, Stockholm and St. Petersburg, and numbers like “high of 62, low of 48” will come up. The first few days of the Celebrity Constellation’s lap of the Baltic came […]

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