Visiting three cities from a cruise ship
ACRUISE wasn’t even a contender when my 8-year-old daughter, Meenakshi, and I were planning our summer vacation. The two cruises I had taken more than 15 years ago had left me certain that I would never go on another. I craved the freedom to explore a destination untethered by time constraints.
Yet there we were on a 13day voyage from Stockholm to Hamburg on Crystal Cruises’ Crystal Symphony, then a 922passenger vessel.
We had two weeks off and wanted to take a fun motherdaughter trip to Europe but didn’t want to grapple with the slew of flights we’d have to take to visit multiple cities or the constant unpacking and packing involved on such a trip. I picked an itinerary that I thought would satisfy us both: Two-day stops in Stockholm and Copenhagen, which are known for their child-friendly attractions, and three days in St Petersburg, a city I had wanted to visit ever since I had learned Russian history in college almost two decades ago. Helsinki wasn’t of particular interest, but we would be there for only a day after Stockholm.
In Stockholm
The trip began in Stockholm. Symphony was docked a 15minute drive from the city’s downtown, and we boarded around noon. After a bevy of greetings from smiling crew members, a porter ushered us to our light-filled stateroom.
Instead of getting acquainted with our surroundings, we hurried to grab lunch in the main dining room so that we could head out for an afternoon of sightseeing. Although Crystal offers group excursions at every port, I was fairly certain that most weren’t likely to keep a fidgety 8-year-old engaged for long, and so I booked private guides for portions of our journey; we explored on our own the rest of the time.
Our Stockholm guide, Linda Naslund, gave us a sense of the city’s geography of 14 islands connected by more than 50 bridges with a leisurely drive. We stopped at Junibacken, a museum devoted to Swedish children’s literature, namely works by Astrid Lindgren, who wrote one of Meenakshi’s favourite books, Pippi Longstocking. From there, we walked to the Vasa Museum to see the nearly intact 17th-century Vasa, a massive ship that sank early in her maiden voyage.
Later, we made traditional Swedish peppermint sticks at Gamla Stans Polkagriskokeri, a family-run candy store in the city’s mediaeval centre, Gamla Stan. In a state of mint-andsugar euphoria, we walked through the neighbourhood’s streets, which were crowded with locals finding their way into restaurants and bars for a sun-filled night out.
Ship Life
Up until now, our third day into the trip, we hadn’t familiarised ourselves with Symphony. We had also ignored the two newsletters placed outside our door each day – “Reflections” detailed the ship’s movies, classes, guest speakers, nightly shows and other happenings for adults; “Surf Runner” had the lineup for children. Although travellers over 50 are Crystal’s most popular cruisers, summer itineraries attract families with young children, and our trip had around 40 other children within a 5-year age range of Meenakshi.
In the little downtime we had throughout our trip, Meenakshi raced to the kid’s club for activities like jewellery-making, mural painting and scavenger hunts. I kept busy with work or by hitting the gym.
Crystal’s cruises are all-inclusive, and the food, drinks (including premium alcohol) and staff gratuities are included in the cruise price. This approach presented a conundrum: When we had to be on board, we enjoyed the freedom it afforded us – I could order as much wine or whiskey as I wanted, and, for Meenakshi, there were unlimited scoops of Ben & Jerry’s from the ship’s ice cream stand.
In St Petersburg
Following a stop in Helsinki, Symphony spent three days in St Petersburg, and they were the heart of the trip. To me, the city matched Paris in both beauty and number of attractions, and we tried to take in as much of its majestic feel as we could. A hydrofoil ride down the Neva River took us to Peterhof Palace, often called the Russian Versailles because of its extensive gardens filled with ornate fountains. We also saw the ancient gold-filled rooms at the Treasury Gallery at the Hermitage Museum and the sparkly jewel-encased Easter eggs at the Faberge Museum.
At home, Meenakshi’s bookshelf was adorned with a bright red matryoshka or Russian nesting doll that a friend had given her; in St Petersburg, we painted our own matryoshkas with a local artist, Tatyana, in her studio. We also toured the immaculately clean Metro stations and marvelled at their gilded columns and frescoed walls, and caught a ballet performance of Anna Karenina, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy, at Mariinsky II, a concert hall that opened a few years ago as an addition to the 19thcentury Mariinsky Theater. And with the light still bright, we pulled late-nighters with 11pm dinners at restaurants and 1am strolls along the Neva, ice cream cones in hand.
In Copenhagen
Copenhagen was Symphony’s last stop before the cruise ended in Hamburg, and, like Stockholm, the city seemed almost designed for children. Meenakshi and I were delighted by Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park dating to the 19th century. We rode the 1914 wooden roller coaster and also drove the bright red dragon boats on Tivoli Lake, the picturesque man-made body of water at the centre of the park. Meenakshi would tell you that her biggest thrill in Copenhagen was going to the National Aquarium and feeding the two sea otters, Mojoe and Agnes.