Monday, May 13

Aboard the Serenade of the Seas- Sea, travel day. We will arrive in Stockholm on Tuesday morning. Shirley has set the alarm so that we can get to the gym in time for the stretching class at 7. Funny enough we wake up without it and thank goodness. Her phone is one hour late. It did not change after we left England. We are up at 6:30 and walk to the 12th floor to the gym. We realize pretty quickly that the instructor is not up to date on his exercises. He's doing more strengthening than stretching. Also, the way that the exercises are being shown, more military style,  someone could get hurt. We stick with it for 30 minutes and then there is a 15 minute ab work. We do the first two and call it quits. We then do some cardio before returning for a shower and to meet up with Nancy and Barb for breakfast. Shirley has smoked salmon, cream cheese and bagel and the rest of us have an omelette.
We decide to go to the Destination and Shore excursion talk to see if we should book something for Tallinn and Helsinki. At the end of the session we decide to walk to Tallinn from the dock as it only about 15 minutes and we will book a Helsinki tour as it is too far to walk.

elevators 

walking into the Schooner Bar

Looking upward from the 4th floor

there are different art forms as you walk up the different floors.

 Windjammer restaurant, buffet style. We only ate there a few times, our first day for lunch, and once for breakfast.

After the session, Barb and Nancy want to go to the Baltic Port Shopping talk. Shirley and I are not interested so we head to the Schooner Bar to watch the end of Scattegories. We arrived too late to play. We then meet up again and go for lunch. We all have salads as it is much too easy to overeat on a cruise. We will try to be good. 

Now it's time for the line dancing class. Shirley decides to join me and the other two sisters go looking in the shops. The line dancing is more like Zumba. The instructor is awesome and very high energy. There are a lot of people there and the dance floor is small. It's fun anyway. 

Our line dancing instructor. He had a zumba class right after.

The outdoor pool

Sports courts

Mini putt course

Just outside the Schooner Bar

We then go listen to two musicians from Trinidad. They are playing in the main area called, the Centrum. It has a small stage and seats all around and there's a bar nearby. Shirley, Nancy and I get up to dance a few songs and then we return to our room to shower, a second time, and relax a bit before heading to another game show. 

Duo from Trinidad

Shirley and Nancy dancing to the tunes of Bob Marley

Shirley and I also took a Cha cha lesson.

This one is called "Name that tune-songs with colours". It was fun. We got 10 out of 15. It's now 6pm so we go to the restaurant as that is our reservation time. We sit in the same place as yesterday. Ian and Reggie are there to greet us again. Ian keeps us in stitches and Reggie finishes the dinner with another card game. Before we leave, the supervisor comes over and shows us another card trick. Too funny.  

Nancy's escargot. She had this appetizer a few times

Pretty sure that this was Shirley's dinner choice. Don't remember what it was.

Nancy's Prime Rib. Too rare for her tastes.

Seafood pasta

Barb's meal. Also don't remember what it was.

Carrot cake. We all made the same choice.

Ian, from Trinidad and Reggie, from the Philipines

Card trick

It's time for the evening show in the Tropical Theater. ABBA is playing tonight, at least a version of the group is here. 

On our way Shirley and I pick up a free glass of Champagne as there is something special going on in the Centrum. We stay to watch a dance routine with dancers dressed from the 18th Century. It's all set up to introduce the Captain and crew. Time for the show. Nancy and Barb have save us seats. It's fun to sing along with the musicians as everyone seems to know the lyrics to all of the ABBA songs. 

ABBA

It's just after 9 when the show finishes so it's off to the Centrum for another game show called "Finish that Lyric". Ten people are chosen to participate. Each contestant listens to a specific song and when it stops, he/she has to complete the lyric. It's pretty funny. There are lots of people around and most are shouting out the answers. It's now about 10:30 and it's off to bed. Nice way to start off the cruise. Looking forward to our excursion tomorrow.

Little piggy waiting for us to go to bed.