Friday, May 22nd
Nick and I had a VERY early morning flight to Copenhagen from Milan to start a week-long cruise along the Baltic sea. It would be a first cruise for both Nick and myself. We've been talking about doing this cruise for several years. 12 of our friends have done it in the past 2 years, and have given it mostly praises! I had to convince Nick for many years to go on it. He'd rather sail a boat himself, then feel confined to a big ship with thousands of other people. But I convinced him by talking up the food on the boat. :) He finally gave in. Endless food sounded pretty tempting to him.
Rough start at 5am. Nothing a little cappuccino couldn't fix!
We arrived to Copenhagen by 9am, and got to our hotel by 10. We stayed in Nyhavn at Hotel Bethel. It was right next door to a home where Hans Christian Andersen lived.
Our room wasn't ready yet, so we waited in the dining area for about an hour. The receptionist informed me that I had actually booked a single room, but they luckily had a double available. I was CERTAIN I had not booked a single room. Once I was connected to wifi, I double checked. I had definitely booked a double. I showed the receptionist when we returned to the lobby. I thought it would have been helpful to know in case it was a reoccurring problem with the booking site we used. She didn't seem to even slightly care. She had made such a big stink about it when we were checking in, but couldn't care less later. I was confused. Nick thought it might have just been a cultural difference.
In any case, we were on our way to explore a new city!
Nyhavn is definitely the most charming district in Copenhagen.
So excited to be in Denmark!
First stop - Boat tour!
We were some of the only people on at first because it was pretty chilly out.
That's our hotel on the corner as we rode out from Nyhavn on the boat tour.
After passing some large (rather boring) buildings, we reached the statue of The Little Mermaid. I was more impressed with the big crowd gathered around her, than the actual statue.
There was also a statue of David! Who knew?!
These guys were hilarious! They were waving their stuffed animals at anyone willing to look at them from the shore. haha!
Nick and I would be visiting that church spire in just a few hours near Christiania.
This was the narrowest bridge we passed through. It didn't look like we were going to fit! The driver handled it like a champ though.
By the end of the one hour ride, we were frozen. We walked to Told and Snaps across from our hotel for some traditional Danish food. We were inside just long enough to warm up and get a hearty, delicious meal. It was SO good!
And of course we had to finish it off with a hot waffle! Yumm!
Next, we walked over to a bike rental with every intention of renting a tandem bike. We've loved tandem bikes in the past. Nick pedals and steers, while I take photos and navigate. Well, the bike shop didn't have a tandem, so we got the next best thing...
Haha! We got so many funny looks and comments! We were cracking up. It was mostly women nudging their husbands saying, "See that's what we should have done." Haha!
The back of my seat read, "Taxa."
While Nick was trying to get used to steering, we about flipped several times. He ran into a few other bikers as well. It was pretty terrifying.
We rode to the Amalienborg Palace first. There was a crown on the flag which means the royal family is home. I should've popped in for a sec.
We caught a glimpse of the changing of the guards.
Next stop was The Little Mermaid statue! This was about as close as we could get with the mob of people around her.
We rode through Kastellet park next. We got the funniest stares riding through here. At one point, other tourists said that we were the sight that was worth seeing not the actual tourist attractions. Ha!
The Marble Church
Next we made our way over to Chrstianshavn. We climbed the tower of Our Savior's Church just before it closed. You can see our awesome bike, "Taxa," down below.
It was so cold and windy on top of the tower; we could feel the tower moving in the wind. Scary!
I wanted to see inside the church, but they closed 10 minutes early! I heard someone inside lock the door as I went to open it. I knocked and even said, "You closed too early! I still have 10 minutes!" They didn't open it. :(
I just about screamed when I looked back up at the tower where we'd just been. There was a hand sticking out over the edge! Nick looked up and started laughing. It was definitely the hand of a statue, but didn't look like that at first glance. :)
We noticed that NO other adults in Denmark were riding on the front seat other than me. There were kids in the so-called "family bikes," but not a single adult. Haha! I kept waving at the kids as we'd ride by them. Even the kids would give us funny looks. :)
Next we rode over to Christianhavn. It used to be an old military base that squatters took over. Now it's the only place that marijuana is legal in Denmark, but don't step a foot outside with it!
We found a spot for our bike. :) It's so ridiculously big!
Photographs are not allowed in Christiania, but I snuck a few in.
After about 5 minutes of walking through clouds of pot smoke, we left to ride to the Carlsberg Brewery.
I know, we don't drink. Why would we want to go to the Carlsberg brewery you ask...?
The horses, duh! Luckily, we didn't have to pay to see the horses. We walked through the gift shop and out to the stables!
Nick was laughing so hard that I was giving the horses different hairstyles. :)
I decided to switch drivers with Nick on the way out of the brewery. It was the steepest part of the entire ride we'd done. Nick got the worst looks from people when they'd see him sitting in the front seat! People would wag their fingers as if they were disgusted with him, even though we were laughing!
I finally reached a downhill section. I was relieved at first! Then the cart started shaking and I almost crashed our bike! I gladly handed over the reigns to Nick! People in the park practically started clapping! Haha!
We made it to Frederiksberg Palace
The zoo was next door, but we decided to skip it because we were so excited to ride the roller coasters at Tivoli down the street.
Tivoli Gardens is the second oldest amusement park in the world.
There was a concert being held in the park at 10pm that night. Girls were already reserving their spots on the lawn in front of the stage. Apparently, the "Justin Bieber of Denmark" would be performing there that evening. That is literally what the old woman at the ticket booth told me. I still have yet to find out what his name actually is.
Nick and I bought tickets so we could ride all of the rides; otherwise, you have to pay for individual rides which can add up quickly.
First we rode a tiny wooden roller coaster controlled by a hand brake. It was so much fun! Half the ride was in the dark.
The second ride looked like the biggest; The Demon. I actually thought the smaller, wooden roller coaster was more fun! We went back a second time to the wooden roller coaster, and rode in the backseat after fighting some little girls off for it. (no joke) At the end of the ride, I had bruises on my backside because the ride would throw us into the air and we'd come crashing down onto the hard wooden seat. Ha! It was totally worth it!
10 pm rolled around and the band started. Teens from all over the park rushed to the stage. At the same time there was a mass exitus of 35+ year olds leaving Tivoli because of the concert. When we walked outside there was a line to get into Tivoli that wrapped around several blocks! We were glad to be leaving!
I was happy to be in back in the quieter neighborhood of Nyhavn.
You can still see a slight glow through the clouds. It was 10:30pm and still light out! I love "white nights."
Saturday, May 23rd
The next morning, Nick and I rode the metro over to Rosenborg Castle before our cruise. We spent an hour walking through. It was one of my favorite museums.
Side story: As we were standing in line to get tickets we spotted a large, older American wearing an old leather jacket. The jacket had patch of the triple Nickel on it! I had to ask him about it. Unfortunately, he'd just found the jacket at a salvation army. It was still cool to see it! I wish I'd taken a picture of it. Doh!
We accidentally started with the treasury first because there aren't clear markings to the main entrance. I sort of rushed through because I was excited to see the main museum.
We finally found the main entrance.
These two paintings are actually one.
These two paintings are actually one.
This painting deserves to be a meme.
Nick and I walked back to our hotel to grab our bags (and an extra waffle) before heading to our boat. The anticipation was killing us! And we were a little unsure of how to actually get to the boat.
As we were leaving our neighborhood, we witnessed some skinny dipping. Don't look too closely. :)
We got off at Nordhavn metro station and started walking the "5 to 10 minute walk to the boat" that Rick Steves' mentions in his cruise book. 45 minutes later, we reached our boat! We were pooped! Along the way, there were probably 3000 buses, taxis, vans, cars of every sort that passed us.
The queue to get on the boat was another hour wait. Unfortunately, their computers weren't working well.
By 3pm we were on the boat, and found our room. There were two twin beds. I thought surely there had been a mistake, but figured we'd handle it later. As we were leaving our room for a practice fire drill, our room attendant called to us. "Uh, Mr. Joey?" I turned around and answered him. He looked at Nick and then back at me. "Oh. I'm so sorry!" There was another long pause. "Would you like me to put the beds together?" Haha! That's a first!
We almost immediately had to do a practice fire drill. At this point, Nick was getting anxious and grumpy; wondering why we didn't have a plan for the rest of the afternoon. (Oh boy!) After the fire drill, he explained that he was overwhelmed by the amount of activities onboard. He was so excited he wanted to do everything at once! Haha!
We grabbed some food from the buffet. (Our first meal onboard!) Then sat outside to enjoy the view as we set of to sea!
Bon Voyage!
Nick had the great idea of going to the front of the boat to reenact the scene from Titanic. It was freezing cold, and really windy...and I was wearing a summer dress. We lasted about 2 seconds and then ran back inside. We were laughing hysterically. Later, we found that there is a channel on every TV onboard that broadcasts footage of the front of the boat 24 hours a day. If anyone had been watching at that time, they would have a pretty good show!
It was a great beginning to the our cruise! We couldn't wait to see what the next 7 days would bring!
Sunday, May 24th
We started our first full day with a workout (bc we knew we'd eat a lot of food), then onto a delicious buffet breakfast at the Windjammer cafe. We meandered through the boat searching for different activities after breakfast.
At 10am Aysy (pronouced Icee), from Russia, taught a 45 minute ballroom dance class. It was really just the basics, which I think everyone in the class knew. But it was still fun!
In the afternoon, Nick and I decided to try a fun round of Bingo. It was the steep price of $35 for one person though! There were only a few people there when we bought our cards, so we had pretty good odds. By the time the game started, there were about 100 people. We didn't win anything, but we still had fun! There was a second bingo game later in the week, and we decided to opt out.
That night we had a delicious dinner in the "my time" dining area. Our waiters, Maximo from Chile, and Catalino from Mexico were amazing. They gave us great recommendations each night for dinner, and they were so entertaining. :)
That night the group, Crescendo, was performing in the main theater. This was the biggest show expected on the boat that week. Nick and I got there early for good seats. At the end of the show, they walked into the audience to drag someone up on stage. I got to be that lucky sucker. They each took their turn singing to me on one at a time down on one knee. My face was the same color as my hair.
I took my picture with two of the four performers. They were really good! And very nice.
After the show, I could not go anywhere on the boat without being recognized. I couldn't even go into a port town without being recognized and everyone knew my name because the performers repeated it over and over.
That was the start to an amazing week on The Royal Caribbean: Serenade of the Seas.
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