This is only our second cruise where we've had an overnight stay in a port, the first being Venice at the start of the Grand Mediterranean cruise. Which interestingly enough, was also on the Regal Princess. Aside from the uncomfortableness of having trivia in a venue designed like Princess Live with small mostly immoveable seats and no tables, the Regal still remains one of my favorite Princess ships. I'd like to say that like the old children's song, "second verse same as the first" when describing our second day in St. Petersburg but thankfully it wasn't since I don't think I could have done that Moscow excursion two days in a row! The bulk of the people we got to know and chat with as regular trivia players chose Princess' 2 day St. Petersburg excursion.
Knowing our main focus for our time in St. Petersburg was going to be the previous day's excursion into Moscow, we specifically chose an afternoon only excursion for this second day so we could sleep in. While we only shared the port with a Regent ship yesterday (at least that I was there to see), today we were joined by a full lot with two TUI ships, the Aida Mar, the Viking Star, the Oceania Marina, and the Norwegian Getaway. The Oceania Marina decided to follow us from Tallinn logically enough but the last time I saw the Norwegian Getaway was in Miami back in the spring while we took a harbor boat tour pre-cruise. Either that ship is stalking us or it's a subliminal message telling me that I'll eventually try an NCL ship!
Rainy Miami April 2017 (left), Sunny Baltic September 2017 (below):
We slept in too late this morning to have breakfast in Sabatini's so opted for a quick trip to the buffet. Wasn't a fan of the scrambled eggs as they were more like scrambled egg soup. After working out our brains at morning trivia, we headed off the boat a little earlier than necessary for our afternoon tour partly because we wanted ample time to deal with immigration again and we also wanted to browse the little merchandise stands in the port building. I don't know if it was because this was the 2nd day we were docked but our tour actually met on the dock rather than having to wait in a lounge and be escorted off like we were yesterday. Immigration turned out to be a breeze with no real wait so we took our time browsing the shops until we settled on a painted Christmas ornament set to bring home for our airport ride giving neighbor. We asked the saleslady about the cost and she automatically wanted to convert the price into US dollars. Was quite surprised when Dad told her we actually had gotten rubles to spend. Dad didn't want to risk cutting our time too close by running the purchases back up to the ship so we toted the bag on the tour with us. Thankfully, like most tours they let you leave belongings safely on the bus.
Today's tour was also through Princess - Hermitage and Gold Room. The tickets stated that we'd get a city tour in the process but the two young female guides spent the entire 30 minute drive over to the Hermitage trying to figure out how to make the headsets work. They split up our bus 2/3rds full in half and each guide escorted half of us around the museum. Our guide was very knowledgeable and did well with keeping the group moving along and together which wasn't an easy task given how many of my fellow passengers kept electing to wander off. She had made a big point of being done by 5PM when we started so we could get back on the bus in time to drive back to the ship as our all aboard time was 5:30PM. By the time we reached the Gold Room at the end of our guide escorted tour, we met up with an expert employed by the museum. Of course we ended up with the expert who wanted to give a monologue about every single item and several of us were ready to drop in yet another overheated museum. We were told the expert could only speak Russian and our guide had to translate so every story took twice as long to tell. At one point, one of our tour mates asked the expert how much one of the items cost. The "I only speak Russian" magically disappeared as the expert laughed and joked to our guide in English, "This is a museum, not a store!"
As the clock ticked closer to 5PM, several people in our group were waning and hoped that our guide would soon wrap things up. Unfortunately though, she instead seemed unable and unwilling to interrupt the expert to bid goodbye so we had to stick around and wait until we covered every single item within each case. No "here's a bunch of spoons the queen used" shortcuts here! As a result, our guide had to rush everyone all the way back to the front which wasn't an easy task given some of our less able bodied passengers and less than compliant "I'm still gonna look at everything and stop for pictures" passengers. The rest of us would have to stop every so often to let everyone else catch up and our guide had to insist that no one even try to go shopping when we passed by the souvenir shop. The crowds were still packed solid outside the entrance and we had to wait for so long just to cross the busy street that by the time we got over to our bus, the other guide said her group had been sitting on the bus waiting for the last 20 minutes! The guides tried to joke that we now had more time to enjoy St. Petersburg because the ship left without us. Thankfully everyone seemed to understand she was joking or I think we might have had a bus mutiny on our hands at that point. She quickly added that it wasn't true and that the Princess rep had been calling her every 5 minutes wanting to know where we were. Another day of having the ship held and us being the last people back on board. At least I've never been a pier runner!
Thankfully immigration was essentially empty except for our bus worth of passengers so we moved through quickly. Dad's stall guy only asked for his passport but it took me a couple minutes to figure out mine kept asking for my cruise card too. Finally back on board we stopped on the way to our cabin at the Princess Live Café/Bar. It bills itself as a café too because they have coffee and tea making machines and occasionally some baked goods. After gulping down a soda each to try and cool down, Dad ordered a virgin dirty banana and I ordered a virgin Miami Vice. Dad's drink came out really chunky looking and the bartender had to shake it out of the blender little by little. Mine came out looking like pink Pepto Bismol rather than the two toned pour down each side of the glass.
Dad said to me later that his tasted really icy and watered down. Mine tasted okay, just didn't look like you'd expect for a Miami Vice. Later in the cruise Dad brought up how his drink tonight tasted too icy and the same bartender's response was "well it depends on how you make it." Shouldn't you make it the same every time as a bartender? We tried another bartender at the Wheelhouse bar another evening with almost the same drinks and they were perfect.
As we headed back to our cabin just after 6PM, we spotted our cabin steward Ronaldo in the hallway. Dad wanted to give him the heads up that we planned to stay in the rest of the evening and there was no need to turn down our room. He replied "I've already done it because I thought you guys just went down to an early dinner!" He was surprised when we explained that we'd only just now gotten back on board.
By this time after the super long Moscow day and today's draining tour, we felt like we had jet lag all over again. Once back inside our cabin we dumped all our stuff and ordered room service. One of the perks of having a suite on Princess is that you can order from both the main dining room menu and the regular cabin room service menu.
Nothing on the above main dining room menu really appealed to me except that I was curious about tonight's Princess Gourmet Beef Burger topping of blue crab, asparagus, and hollandaise sauce. We also ordered club and turkey sandwiches with chips and cookies and cake slices for dessert. We thought to ask for glasses of milk and stored them in the cabin fridge so Dad could enjoy them with his desserts later. We ordered ice water to wash down our dinner. I've also learned to make sure I ask for the specifics I may want as well like ketchup for my fries. I spent an evening on my first cruise wandering a closing down buffet begging a crew member to get me some ketchup so I could enjoy my room service hot dog. I was surprised that the woman who answered the room service call didn't bother to ask how many were eating or how well done I wanted my burger. Once the food came, we did end up with 3 sets of silverware and left one set on the shelf so we could have some on hand when we brought snacks back to the cabin on future days. As it turned out, Ronaldo actually took our extra silverware when he cleaned the cabin the next morning. Next visit we had to the buffet we grabbed an extra napkin's worth of silverware and hid it in a drawer in the cabin!
Given the wind, chill, and darkness outside, we happily dined on our coffee table while watching a movie on our cabin TV.
My burger however was medium rare so I mostly just ate the toppings. I must say though, Princess could make a side dish out of the blue crab, asparagus, and sauce alone and have a hit on their hands!
The sandwiches were the perfect comfort food for our tired bodies and we were really impressed that the chips were fresh and crunchy!
As we ate, we kept hearing what sounded like someone messing around with our cabin door. The first time I heard it, I looked toward the door thinking Ronaldo was about to come in but he never did. Second time I looked over at Dad and he looked just as confused. By the third time, I finally got up and peeked out the little peephole. Not seeing anyone I opened the door to look around and Ronaldo rushed up to explain that he'd spotted a couple trying to unlock our door because they thought this was their cabin! Turns out they had the same corner cabin on the opposite side of the ship and they were soon set on the right path by Ronaldo. I accidentally tried to enter the wrong cabin once on a cruise but we soon realized we'd mixed up the numbers and were thankfully saved the embarrassment of having the correct occupant throw open the door and scare us!
By now we had started a second movie but with full bellies and the comforts of our cabin for the rest of the evening, we soon started feeling sleepy. We got ready for bed and I brought my cake dessert into the bedroom side of our suite so I could relax. Only drawback was that despite being still in the same cabin, the movie only keeps your place if you resume watching it on the same TV. We started the bedroom TV fast forwarding until we got to the point of the movie where we left off but all it took was a few minutes of being under the covers and I watched the rest of that movie through closed eyelids.
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