At sea

Cruising the Baltic Sea between Gdansk and Helsinki: My favorite days on a cruise are the sea days - no bus to catch, no schedule - just relaxing and finally (drum roll please) enjoying glorious sun!

A sunny day!


DT, enjoying the sun on the terrace outside our room

We slept late. Wonderful, and easy to do onboard Oceania Cruises. They offer the Tranquility Bed in every stateroom. The Tranquility Bed is firm, but with a light featherbed over, goose down pillows, fluffy duvet and fabulous linens. It is nearly as comfortable as being in our bed at home! (Figure-in that we don't have to change the sheets on the Tranquility Bed, and it is better than our bed at home!)

DT ran - I'm not kidding - 75 laps and then we went to the dining room for lunch at 1 pm. (It is about 13 laps to a mile on the jogging track above the pool - you do the math.) Today, the theme in the ship's dining areas is Italian, which is a bit ironic as we have reservations in the Italian restaurant tonight. I had eggplant parmesan for lunch and a small panna cotta for dessert. DT had a fabulous, huge, Italian salad with sliced chicken breast. For dessert he had a frozen cappuccino ice cream thing served in a tall stemmed parfait glass. It was nearly too pretty to eat and was garnish with the Oceania logo painted in gold on a diamond-shaped wafer of chocolate. Prego!

After lunch we went for a walk and climbed every stair on this 10-deck ship to take photos of the ship, for you, Dear Reader. Everyone was at the pool, so I was able to snap photos of most of the rooms in pristine order.

The busy pool from the jogging deck


The Grand Dining room


Dining room lounge


DT in the Martini Lounge - the bar just next to the casino


Fitness Center

There are several fireplaces on board! They are laid with birch logs and look as if someone is going to light a match at any moment, but I am assuming they are fake-fireplaces. The casino has about 4 gaming tables and about 30 slot and video poker machines. We haven't tried our luck yet, but it is very lively in the evenings. One wonderful thing about this ship is it is non-smoking! There is one place outside, on a rear deck and one tiny room inside the ship for smokers. You cannot smoke in your room and you cannot smoke on your deck! This is a very popular attraction of the cruise. I have heard several people say they are using the cruise to stop smoking. Guess it would be easy to substitute food for cigarettes, wouldn't it?

The ship also has a full-service hair salon and a spa for massage, manicure, pedicure and a full gym with a large row of treadmills and other exercise machines, and exercise classes each morning and afternoon. There is a computer room, Oceania@Sea, with about 30 laptops available to access the internet or burn your digital photos to CDs. Three people staff the computer lab all day and the lab is open 24 hours. For a one-time $25 fee, they will set-up your laptop for use in your stateroom. There is a large, comfortable library (with fake fireplace, of course) with hundreds of books and magazines. Take what you like and replace when finished. There is a large card room - always full with bridge games. A doctor and nurse are on board if you have need. The Destinations desk is staffed with helpful people to help you plan your shore excursions or help you route your own tour. There are two small shops. One is pretty high-end, selling duty-free merchandise and designer goods and perfumes. The other shop sells Oceania souvenirs, toothbrushes, etc., and has a huge Tommy Bahama department, just in case DT didn't bring enough silk shirts. On our deck, four coin-operated washer/dryers are always busy. Sending your laundry and pressing out is very reasonable. Our room has two attendants. Every time we step out, someone comes in and refluffs the pillows and folds the toilet paper end into a triangle! Our ice bucket is always full, bottles of water magically appear, chocolates are always on our pillows at night and the bed is always turned-down when we return in the evening. I think we may have an elf living under the bed.

Besides the Grand Dining Room, there are two smaller restaurants available upon reservation - Toscana Italian and the Polo Grill steak house. The Terrace Cafe is a buffet - perfect if you want something quick and simple. You are served your drinks at the table and then walk down the buffet line and you are served your choices - no self-service on the Regatta. There is a pizzeria and an ice cream kiosk. There are nine bars - most are small and outside the three main dining areas, but Horizons is a huge bar on the top deck, over the bow, providing a great vista out to sea. There is also a more casual bar at the pool, serving fruity potions with umbrellas, etc., but because of the weather, today is the first time we have seen it open. There is also a small burger bar at the pool. At 4 pm daily, tea is served in the Horizons Bar. Room Service is available 24 hours a day. We usually have coffee delivered and have it on our deck - weather be damned.

This, Dear Readers, completes the tour portion of my report.

Added later: Tonight we enjoyed a delicious meal in Toscana - the Italian restaurant on Deck 10, aft. Again, Dagmar served us and we did not lack for a thing. She was chatting away and again, we could catch about half of what she said. She is a fabulous girl, everyone adores her and she makes you feel like you are the only passenger on the ship. DT asked about her fiancée (the ship's pastry chef) and she beamed. One of the women at our table asked if he smelled like chocolate and she replied, "Dar-link, he taste like choko-lot."

I'm all about Dagmar.

I had three appetizers for my meal tonight, and I couldn't finish the third. Again, I had the Caprese and then I had fabulous veal sausage rolled up in eggplant. For my entree, I had an appetizer portion of their spaghetti with red sauce. It was enough for a family for four, and I only had a few bites. Dagmar insisted that I try the crème Brule, as her fiancé had developed the recipe and had prepared it just for me. (Me, and 600 other people.) It was divine. So divine, in fact, that Dagmar took a photo with my camera for you all to enjoy.

After dinner, we listened to the end of the Gypsy violinist and then went to the Martini Bar to listen to Tonee Valentine. He was just finishing his set and I gave him the promised CDs I burned. He left, and a Polish jazz quintet (don't laugh, they were very good) played for a bit. A few moments later, Tonee came back and sat down and said the Buffett song I had burned for him was perfect and he was going to learn it and play it on every cruise. (I am speaking about "Lovely Cruise".) We enjoyed the Polish jazz and called it a night.

While we were dining, it started to rain. The ship was listing quite a bit. As we left the restaurant at 10 pm, we enjoyed a beautiful pink sunset. When we returned to our stateroom at midnight, we could still see a pink sunset in the distance and I can't honestly say it is "dark" outside. It is trying. It has, however, stopped raining... but we are not expecting good weather in Helsinki.