We eagerly flew off to Copenhagen for two days to start our Baltic cruise vacation. Copenhagen is definitely on our list for a return trip. The city is lovely, people friendly, food expensive but good. We booked transfers to the hotel with Princess, and it really was an easy process. Had I known how really close the Radisson Blu is to the train station, I might have tried that, but with both of us still recovering from surgery, I had not wanted to risk starting the trip with any difficulty.

Emerald Princess is much like the other Princess ships we have sailed on, too much Las Vegas glitz for my taste, but Princess has really good itineraries, good prices, and up until this sailing, we have been happy with them. We were the last of the Baltic sailings and perhaps that had something to do with the lack of anything interesting to do on sea days, ring toss in the Piazza, really!! The port lecturer was excellent, as good as any we have heard. The big problem for us was the food quality. Second night out, I sent my dinner back twice, and finally opted for another menu choice. Some nights, the beef had a decidedly odd aftertaste. One night, the potatoes looked so odd, like the old Playtex nursing bottles. One of our table mates suggested that the head chef really needed to look at what was being served. I don't expect real gourmet when so many passengers are being served, but after five cruises on Princess, we are sailing on Celebrity in January to try them out.

We did book our shore excursions with one of the Russian agencies and were very happy with that decision. We saved a lot of money and had wonderful days.