Talinn, Estonia - May 31, 2024

Before we get to today time in Tallinn, we have one thing left over from our stay in Warnemunde Germany.

As I mentioned on that post, Warnemunde is the jumping off point for trips to Berlin.  It’s a long day and we had done it before so didn’t repeat it this time.  However, many of our fellow passengers did, in fact over 500 went to Berlin on Wednesday.

Holland America (HAL) books a train for their excursions, these are expensive in the $259 to $359 per person range depending on the tour. Others opt to go with a private tour operator to save money or just for the convenience of having a smaller group.  When we did the Berlin trip we actually booked a private small group tour and it was great.

The ship was supposed to leave Warnemunde at 9:30PM but that time came and went with no movement, we went to bed not knowing what was going on.  We found out the next morning.

The HAL chartered train had a mechanical problem and pulled over to a side track to fix it, scheduled to take about 20 minutes.  While that train was stopped, a regular commuter train from Berlin, with 27 HAL passengers on a private tour zoomed by them.  A little way up the track, the commuter train either hit, or was hit by a tree.  (severe storms were in the area).  

Both trains are now stopped and were delayed by several hours.  HAL will wait for their own tours, regardless of how late they get to the ship, but they don’t make that guarantee for private ones.

In this case HAL did wait for the 27 passengers on the now 2nd train into Warnemunde.  I’m not sure if the 27 people were transferred to a different train or the engine was replaced on the ‘tree’ train.  

HAL opened the buffet at 2AM for the passengers and 500 hungry people came storming in.  The 27 who came later were offered room service.  All in all quite an adventure for all those involved.

So now to today.

We’re in Tallinn until late tonight because our next port Helsinki is so close, really only a 2-hour trip so no need to leave early.

Tallinn Estonia is like a storybook town, frozen in time.  It was originally settled in 1180 and has been continuously occupied because of its prime Baltic Sea location.

Estonia was a Soviet satellite country until 1990, when it achieved independence.  Something they are very proud of.  Russia is literally their next-door neighbor and because of the Russian occupation, there are many Russians still living in the country.  This of course makes Estonia vulnerable but they do belong to the EU and NATO.

We didn’t have a tour planned for today however we did want to go up and see the ‘Occupation and Freedom Museum’ that detailed the occupation of the country by the Soviets and the countries eventual liberation.  The museum was all the way on the other side of the old town but it was a pleasant, uphill walk.  We got there and of course…it was closed.  They were having a private function.  Rats!

Well, it is a very pretty city so we walked around, had lunch and window-shopped amber jewelry.  The jewelry was everywhere.

It was a beautiful day for once.  Warm and sunny.  There was a threat of rain in the late afternoon but we were already heading back by then.

I’ve posted some pictures below and I swear I took the exact same pictures when we were in last time. 

Tomorrow we’re in Helsinki Finland.  We’ve been there before and honestly, it’s not a must see kind of city but we’ll probably take the HOHO bus around and see if anything interests us. 

Warnemunde, Germany - May 29, 2024

This Baltic Sea cruise stop is the jumping off point to Berlin.  It is however a long day, really long, like 12.5 hours long.  We’ve done it, years ago but we weren’t interested in repeating it this time.  It was a great tour and we enjoyed it we just don’t want to do it again.

Today we took a private group tour that covered Warnemunde and Rostock, a nearby city.  There were about 10 people on our walking tour and it lasted over 5 hours, that’s a lot of walking but it was interesting.

We started out in Warnemunde.  It’s strictly a tourist city, but not (just for) cruise passengers.  It’s a summer destination for Germans and other Europeans.  There are lots of restaurants and shops.  One thing that tells you that cruise ship passengers are an afterthought is the absence of English language menus posted.  You can ask for them of course but that can cause problems as we discovered later in the day.

It's a very pretty town with a lighthouse, plenty of beach chairs and a large beach.  The beach chair was invented here we were told.  The beach was covered with them but they didn’t seem to be in use.  It was a chilly, and then it rained quite a bit so I guess that’s not a surprise.

After seeing Warnemunde, we hopped on the local commuter train to Rostock, about 20 minutes away.  From there we hopped a tram to the downtown area. Our guide was watching us like a hawk, making sure we stayed together. He did a very good job…until the end of the day but we’ll get to that later.

Rostock is an ancient town with buildings dating back to the 1100’s and probably earlier.  It has the usual collection of attractive streets, pedestrian shopping ways and churches.  In Rostock, the churches are Lutheran.  We’ve mostly seen Catholic ones up till now.  It was also once a walled city, most of it has been taken down but a stretch survives today.

One of the churches has an astronomical clock, similar to the one we saw in Prague, but way more complicated.  For decades they thought it was broken beyond repair but in 1954 it was cleaned and started working again.  The clock can be set and will still be accurate for over 130 years we were told.  In the pictures below you can see the two clock faces and I zoomed in on today’s date, the 29th, so it was accurate today.  It does have to be wound and that takes 10 minutes each day.

Rostock was bombed during WWII.  There were munition factories nearby making it a target.  It was rebuilt slowly but it really didn’t flourish until after German unification in 1990.  Before that the East German government didn’t have the money or materials to restore bombed cities.  The Soviets didn’t have a Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe like the U.S. did.  In fact, the Soviets took many valuable materials from (East) Germany as war reparations.

Our guide, who lives in Rostock, told us that in 2019 he had to be evacuated from his house when an unexploded (American) bomb was found at a construction site.  Every new build in Rostock requires an inspection for WWII ordinance before construction can begin.

We went to see the University it has many beautiful buildings and one famous oddity.  We actually knew this story but didn’t know the bird was actually in Rostock.

This stork flew to Rostock in the early 1800’s with the arrow embedded in its body.  The arrow was of African origin.  Scientists knew nothing of migration patterns up until this time but now they knew that when storks left the area they flew all the way to Africa.  This started a whole new field of study for biologists.

After this stop we were on our way back to Warnemunde via tram and then train.  All went well until we got to the train station.  There were two sets of stairs to go up so the guide pointed to an elevator to see if anyone needed it and one person did but he didn’t see her so failed to give more specific directions for when she got out.  So, we all made it to the platform and one of the women said, where’s my mom?  She was nowhere to be found.  The guide and the daughter formed a search party and went looking.  Meanwhile Fred and I stayed at the top of the stairs so that she would see someone she recognized if she came that way.  She saw us and all was well!

When we got back to Warnemunde it was about 3PM and we’d been on this tour since before 9AM.  We were hungry and wanted to try out one of the local restaurants.  There was no English menu but you could use their QR code to look at one.  The German menus and the English ones didn’t have some of the same dishes but we thought we could point and get what we want.  When the waitress approached and we spoke English she said, ‘oh no, not English’.  She didn’t speak it very well and bottom line I got what I wanted but Fred got something totally different and we’re not sure what it was.  He said it was good though.

It was a long day but I’m glad we stayed in the area and had a look around here.

Tomorrow is a sea day and on Friday we’ll be in Tallin, Estonia.

Arhus, Denmak - May 28, 2024

I was determined to take our tour today so I propped Fred up and took him along, conscience or not.

Just joking.  He’s fine but this picture is hysterical.  He looks half dead.  The photographer just got him at the exact right time.  Even the clerks at the photo store were laughing at this one.

Today we are in Arhus, Denmark, the second largest city in the country (after Copenhagen of course).  As you might be able to tell from the picture, it was raining and chilly.  We had a 3 ½ walking tour, great planning on our part, I guess. 

We walked up and down hills and stairs quite a bit and Fred did great.  All kidding aside, he’s fine.  Though I had my head on a swivel the whole day.

One of the first stops was the Dokk1 building.  It’s a community gathering spot and library all rolled into one.  The fascinating thing about this building is its parking garage.  

In the pictures you see the lady with her car and she’s at a kiosk, then the door closes and her car disappears.  They have an automated parking system.  It is so cool.  After the pictures I included a YouTube link if you want to see it in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4jYDfOzrjY

The building also had an amazing sculpture on the ceiling. That's an upside down city-scape.

Several years ago we were in Cologne Germany and needed to store our bags for a couple of hours between trains.  The train station had an automated bag storage.  We just put our bags in an open storage locker type thing, pay for the length of time you want and it disappears.  You get a receipt and when we returned, we just inserted the ticket and the machine retrieved our bag from who knows where and we were off.

After we were dazzled by the garage we moved onto the rest of the town.  It was originally settled by Vikings back in 700 AD.  It has undergone many transformations since then, most recently (in the last 20 years) they have improved the waterfront area to make it accessible to all Danes.  There is a massive condo development going on at the end of the peninsula that will house 12,000 people eventually.  

Of course, when you ‘improve’ an area, people can lose their jobs and this happened to many dock workers, so they put up a statue to honor them. 

It's hard to get the true picture of an area when you’re looking out from under your umbrella the whole time but it looks like a very livable and well- run community.

We took a break from the rain in a little chapel and the guide answered questions.  A lot of the questions were about Denmark’s very high taxes.  This ALWAYS comes up when Americans are in the group, always, without fail.  The guide explained that they do have high taxes but then they don’t have to worry about anything after that, medical, school, retirement is all taken care of.  ‘But don’t you have to wait a long time for a medical procedure’, is always the follow up question.  Yes, he said, unless you have cancer or something life threatening and then you have to be seen within two weeks.  I feel like I’ve heard this all before LOL.

He was then asked about the potential threat from Russia.  He said it’s talked about, but people don’t think about it on a daily basis.  He noted the listening post they have on Bornholm Island.  This, NATO believes, would be the first thing attacked if there was a problem.  We’ll actually be on that island next week for a visit.  Fred and I knew all about the base there because we got an email from a friend asking if we would be close by (shout out). We felt pretty smart, no one else knew about it.

The city was very nice as you can see in the pictures below.  They do have a city hall they are proud of (the rain was coming down too hard to get a picture).  If you think Boston’s City Hall is attractive, you’ll like Arhus’ too. That’s all I’ll say.

Tomorrow, is our first stop in Germany.  

Kristiansand, Norway - May 27, 2024

Yesterdays’ sea day was uneventful.  The seas have been very calm considering we’re in the North Sea.  Fred’s been disappointed by the lack of swells.

Today we arrived at our first and only port in Norway.  Such a shame, we would have loved to have more but it is what it is.  Kristiansand is at the southern tip of Norway with a population of 117,000 people.  That’s a fairly big city for a country with a population of 5 million.  

Most houses are made of stone but they wrap them in white wood for the esthetic.  It looks very pretty.  The stone was mandated after a series of fires that burned down the town.  

Today we took a tour covering the history and present state of the city.  They used to mine and refine nickel in the area but now the mines are played out and they import raw nickel from Canada before refining it and probably making its way into our cell phones.

Lumber was also a huge industry here, but most of it was exported to England, Germany and other European countries to the detriment of Norway.  Norway was once part of Denmark and only became independent in 1814. I say only because in Europe that counts as recent history.

Our tour today took us out of town to a seaside area of the metropolitan area and then back into the main town via a scenic road.  It’s a lot like Maine, very craggy shore with fishing villages.  Very pretty.

We then went to an open-air museum, these are very common in Europe.  For Norway, this was an opportunity to exert their ‘norwayness’ and separate from Denmark by bringing examples of Norway homes, farms and structures to a museum where people could see how people lived and worked.

These storage areas were used on farms.  In the bottom part they would store farm implements and food, on the top they would store all their valuable possessions.  There would be a third structure with a hole in the roof and a fire constantly going in the middle.  This is where the parents would sleep, along with the husband’s parents.  Any children would sleep in the barn with the animals.  That probably would be healthier for them since there was always a fire (and smoke) going in the main house.

We were supposed to be here an hour to look around but that didn’t happen for us.  Fred passed out while we were at the first stop.  He’s okay, just fine, but it was a little scary for a minute or two.  He was standing behind me when he started getting wobbly.  Thankfully, a couple behind him was able to grab a hold of him before he hit the ground.  He was able to walk back to the bus after a little while and he had a good lunch once we got back to the ship.  He still has that nagging cold and took some cold medicine while we were on the bus, that apparently interacted with his heart medicine. A quick google search confirmed these two medications do not get along.  Lesson learned!

After lunch, Fred took a nap and I went back into town to look around.  We had dinner in the main dining room and Fred was totally back to his old self. Whew!

One thing is for sure, we definitely need to go back to Norway.  There are so many interesting things to see.  This short visit wasn’t enough.

Transfer to the Zuiderdam - May 25, 2024

We really liked the Hilton at Amsterdam Airport, it was a comfortable night and we had a great breakfast in the morning.

We had to head back into the airport proper to get our ride to the ship’s location in Ijmuiden, Netherlands, about ½ hour away.  This is the first time we’ve used cruise line transportation and it will probably the last.  I was going to just get a car service from the hotel to the port but thought this would be easier.  It wasn’t.

It was a mob scene with so many people and with so much luggage.  That, and of course there were people of different physical abilities and it all led to quite a march through the airport and then eventually to the bus.  It was a huge bus with two tier seating and it towed a trailer for more luggage storage.

It did the job as we got to the pier in good time and we were able to check in and get on board.

In addition to the luggage we brought with us we also had one bag shipped.  It has an air tag so I know it’s been in Amsterdam for a week or more.  Our ship was supposed to leave at 3PM today (it didn’t, there was a delay) but that was the scheduled departure time.  At 2:15PM I saw that our luggage was on the highway heading toward the pier, talk about cutting it close.  Long story short, it made it but we had to go down to guest services after dinner to pick it up for some reason still a mystery to us. 

It was raining pretty much all day and this is a picture of the luggage waiting to get on the ship.  Some of these pallets had been there quite a while.  I hope these bags are more waterproof than they seem!

Ours was hard sided and was fine.

This is the same ship we took to do the Voyage of the Vikings cruise last summer.  We had a regular balcony cabin on that cruise and it was fine.  This time we upgraded to a ‘Signature Suite’.  I honestly don’t remember why, there must have been a good deal, we don’t usually do this.

It's VERY nice.  The size is great.  It has a huge balcony and plenty of storage.  However, this might have been a mistake - how can we go back to a regular room now?

Next year, on this same ship, we have a four and a ½ month cruise around the world scheduled.  Of course, there’s a lot of time between now and then, but for now we’re committed to going.  The problem is, Fred now wants a suite like this - oh no.  I can’t imagine how much it would be!

Tomorrow is a sea day and likely there won’t be much to write about, but we’ll see.  The following day, Monday, we’ll be in Norway for the first time.

Prague to Amsterdam - May 24, 2024

Today was a travel day so not too much to report.  We flew from Prague to Amsterdam so we can meet up with our cruise ship tomorrow and begin the Baltic Sea portion of the trip.

I'll start with a couple of pictures taken from our hotel room in Prague looking out over the old part of the city but with a crane thrown in for good measure.

The airport is only 1/2 hour away from the city center so we didn't leave the Marriott until 11:30.  It was a nice relaxing morning and we were able to have a final breakfast with some friends we made on the river cruise.  

Security at Prague airport was okay, nothing out of the ordinary.  You had to put all your electronics in the bin and there was the standard liquid restrictions but it all went pretty smoothly.  We only had to show our passports to the KLM agent when we were checking in.

The upgraded seats for the flight were well worth it.  The flight was packed!  Because we had upgraded to their premium economy for a total of about $22 we were in the 5th row with blocked middle seats.  I was glad I went through all the pain with the airline yesterday.  At the beginning of the flight, the purser announced there could be no photos or videos taken of airline personnel or other passengers during the flight.  That's the first time I've ever heard that.  There are a lot of Youtubers out there who like to film their trips.

Our flight left late and it was pretty bumpy at first, there is a lot of stormy weather going across Europe today.  It was raining when we left Prague and it's still raining here in Amsterdam.  It looks like it will be raining when we go to the ship tomorrow as well.

There were no passport checks in Amsterdam and we were able to collect our (very wet) luggage.  Luckily it wasn't soaked all the way through but the outside was pretty wet.  When Fred complained a little about it he was told, 'planes land outside-things get wet'.  

We're staying at the Hilton at Amsterdam Airport.  It's very nice and we have a view of the runway.

After settling in we went for a walk around the airport to find our meeting place for tomorrow.  We're using the ship's transportation this time.  Cruise ships used to be able to dock in Amsterdam and I think some small ones still can, but ours will be out in the burbs at some pier.  

 

 

Prague, Czech Republic - May 23, 2024

What a beautiful city, the pictures don’t do it justice. We fly onto Amsterdam tomorrow but we sure wish we had another day here.

This morning we took a tour of the city.  Prague is still part of our river cruise just the land portion, just as Budapest was at the beginning.  They’ve been doing a great job organizing everything.

We took a bus up to Prague Palace.  From there you can look overlook the city.

Unfortunately, our tour did not include going inside to see the interiors, maybe someday if we return we’ll see them.  The weather has been wonderful so the tourists have been out in force.  Luckily, we’ve had earphones to hear our guide even from a distance if we wander off.  The castle had a series of courtyards and in one we found a bride.  Actually we saw three brides today in different locations.

From the castle we walked down to the Old Town square.  It was a beautiful walk but the pictures I took look flat, they just don’t convey our pretty the city is.

We went to visit the astronomical clock, a huge tourist attraction here. On the hour the two blue squares open up and the 12 apostles appear one by one.  We didn’t hang around for the show but we saw the crowd gathering last night when we did a little orientation walk.  Apparently, it’s known as a pickpockets’ dream because everyone is looking up and not noticing what’s going on around them.  Violent crime is rare here, but every big tourist city has a pickpocket problem.

The tour ended in the square and we went to a local restaurant to try some Czech specialties.  Fred had the local sausages with a potato soup and I had Prague Ham.  It was all really good.  Somehow, no matter where we’ve gone for lunch or dinner, it always comes out to be about $50USD for us!

We went back to the hotel to get rid of some of the stuff we’ve been carrying around from the tour and then went to the Museum of Communism that was nearby.  It was very interesting, more of a story then a lot of artifacts but one thing is for sure, as crazy as things get where ever you live, none of it is as bad as a dictatorship.  They’ve had a tough history.  It’s like they finally were in sunshine after 1990 and were able to be themselves.  I’m glad we stopped by.

By this time, it was late in the afternoon but we had to check out the local mega mall that was also close by and in the heart of the city.  It wasn’t big by US standards but it had all kinds of nice stores, some we recognized like, H&M and Marks Spencer but a lot we didn’t know.  The food court had McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Pizza Hut along with a lot of other places.  We got salads from one place to take back to the room and eat later.  We’ve definitely had a large enough lunch to hold us for the day.

The day would not be complete without some sort of a glitch however.  I went onto the KLM site this morning just to check our flight for tomorrow afternoon.  There was a message on the site (but no email or text to us) saying they had changed aircraft and so our seats were reassigned but we got the same type so don’t worry about it.  Yeah, right.

Fred and I always get aisle seats across from each other when we fly. That’s what we had on the original flight, they changed those seats to a middle and a window seat.  I don’t think a middle seat is giving us what we originally had at all.  I immediately went on the app and was able to move Fred’s seat up to their economy plus seating on the aisle for about $4 extra.  When I tried to change mine, the seat map was frozen, no changes were allowed.  

The tollfree number wasn’t open yet (in the US) so I had to resort to texting.  I waited a long long time for a response and they said (after a lot of back and forth) that the seat map was frozen while they made sure everyone had a seat on the new plane.  They would consider my request to change my seat but they had to refer it to another area.  Some hours later they got back and said, yes, I could upgrade to be across from my husband and it would cost me 18 euro.  Remember, earlier in the day I upgraded Fred for about 4 euro.  Whatever!  Just do it.  So, we got it settled and hopefully all will be well at the airport tomorrow.  There was supposed to be thunderstorms but now it just looks like rain. Fingers crossed.

Nuremberg, Germany and Pilsen, Czech Republic May 21, 2024 and May 22, 2024

Yesterday was a long but interesting day and I couldn’t get to the blog.  Today we traveled from Nuremberg to Prague via Pilsen.  But let me start with Nuremberg.

We were on the boat for most of the morning and put in at Roth, Germany.  We are now traveling in the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal.  This canal makes it possible to travel from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea, but there are a lot of elevation changes and thus a lot of locks to go through.  To save time for touring we disembarked in Roth and drove to Nuremberg, maybe 30 minutes away.  Later we would meet up with the boat in Nuremberg.

We did the WWII Nuremberg tour.  There were of course the famous trials held here after the war but before that there were enormous rallies held by the Nazi’s in the city.  We went to the old grandstand that is in some disrepair but still standing.  The pictures below are of the one I took yesterday and one from the Nuremberg Documentation Center (museum) so you can see what it looked like.  There are many historical films of these rallies.

Our guide was very interesting, she belongs to a group working to ensure locals don’t forget what happened here in the 1930’s and 40’s.  They started in the 1970’s when they realized people didn’t really understand the history of the Nazi’s and what it meant for Germany and the world.  They are fighting to preserve the buildings, pictures and writings of that time.  She said something interesting during the tour, she said that the Americans ‘liberated’ Nuremberg in 1945.  I don’t know that we would have used that word exactly.

The Documentation Center is undergoing renovations so the current exhibit is small compared to the material available.  We also went to the courthouse where the trials took place over several months leading to the execution or imprisonment of the high-ranking Nazi’s.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t go in because it’s closed on Tuesday.

It was a really interesting tour and at the end we went into the old town of Nuremberg and had some time to look around.  It was rainy and chilly pretty much all day so we really didn’t get any good pictures. I did however manage to capture the ‘big’ chair.  This is a furniture store chain and each of their locations feature a huge chair.  

After the tour we were shuttled back to the boat where we’ll stay moored until the next morning.

Pilsen

Today we disembarked the boat for the last time. 

The drive to Prague (our ultimate destination) takes about 4 to 4 ½ hours depending on traffic.  To break it up we stopped in Pilsen (famous for pilsner beer).  Unfortunately, it was another very chilly, windy and rainy day, at least at the start.  

We were dropped off at the town square that I have to say, paled in comparison to some of the other places we’ve seen.  The dismal weather didn’t help.  Our guide brought us around the square and we saw the church and heard how General Patton’s army liberated the town in 1945.  

The Czech Republic has a long recent history of being overtaken by other countries.  They were pretty much handed over to the Nazi’s prior to WWII in an effort to appease Hitler.  They were under Nazi occupation from 1939 until liberated by Patton but that didn’t last long.  The Soviet Union claimed the entire country and it fell within their sphere after the war.  After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989-90 they were free to form their own government but the country of Czechoslovakia was never a real country, it was made up of two different nationalities, the Czech and the Slovaks and in 1993 they split in two.

After walking around some we did see that it was a charming town but still trying to form their identity as a tourist destination.

In walking around we came across an exhibition celebrating the liberation by Patton’s army.  In part it said that for many years, during the Soviet occupation, people couldn’t talk about that day or show their pictures but they can now.  The exhibit called the American occupation the happiest six months many had ever experienced.

After spending a few hours in Pilsen and having lunch at a local restaurant, we continued our journey to Prague.

We’re staying at the Marriott hotel near the old town and it’s just great.  As I mentioned we came from the boat and had all our luggage on the bus with us.  When we got to the hotel, we were handed our keys and told our luggage would be delivered to our room.  About an hour and a half later we still had no luggage!

I have air tags in the bags so I knew they were in the building. We went down to the front desk and they sent a bellman up to help us out.  We showed him the location, at least according to the app, and he thought they were in the newer wing, but of course we couldn’t tell what floor.  Then he had a brilliant idea, we are in room 515 and in Europe people often write ‘1s’ like ‘7s’ and it happened room 575 was in the new wing.  So, we followed him there and Tada, our luggage was found.  The room was not occupied so it would have just sat there till whenever had we not had a smart bellman and air tags.

After that drama we went on a brief orientation tour of old town Prague.  It is so beautiful.  We can’t wait to see more tomorrow.  

So now we’re done with the river cruise portion of our trip and the question is, would we do it again?  The answer is no.  It’s just not a travel product that suits us.  This company, AMAwaterways is great, everything was top notch so it wasn’t them.

There is very limited space on the ship, and all the ships are exactly the same size, they have to be to get under the bridges and through the locks.  The low ceilings make for a tremendous amount of noise in any public area.  We were practically yelling to be heard at dinner last night.  The meals are very regimented, if you want to eat early, sorry no can do.  There is no room service or alternative dining venue.  

We loved all the towns we got to visit but the nature of a 7-day river cruise is you stay in pretty much the same geographical area so the stories are the same, the history is the same. 

Also, we don’t drink but we don’t mind if other people do of course.  On river cruises the house wine and beer are free flowing at designated parties or evening cocktail hour, and that’s every night.  Let’s just say some people really want to get their monies worth.  This contributes to the very loud public venues (of which there are about two).  So not for us but we’re glad we tried it.

One last thing from the ship, there is a window in the bathroom that looks onto the bedroom area of the room.