We hadn't been to America in almost a year. So, here we go with our 9 suitcases and 2 small children getting on a red eye flight to Copenhagen. We decided to take a small detour on the way home to the states this year...and that is a Disney Baltic cruise. We were so excited to get the heck out of Saudi!!
Finally landing in Copenhagen! Traveling 8 hours isn't nearly as bad as 16!!
We found all of our friends and got started exploring! Copenhagen is a beautiful city. We had fun just walking around. The weather was gorgeous and most of the locals were out sunbathing-some topless!!
Josh's obligatory beer picture
There is only an hour time change to Denmark-but leaving anywhere at 2 in the morning will make you sleepy!
We ended the night with ice cream and an early bedtime!
We started off our morning with a great spread of breakfast in the lounge at the Marriott. The girls loved getting their special juices each morning.
We headed out to Tivoli gardens! This was so much fun! It is a very small version of a Disney world. There were a lot of fun rides for the kids and adults!
How could I not let them get this?!
Claire's first official roller coaster- she loved it!
Claire did not appreciate driving her own car! She was much happier when Elise got in her car!
The flowers were everywhere and so pretty!
We were all exhausted after a long day of playing. We sat outside for dinner and went to bed early to get ready for the cruise.
Our first official day on the cruise was so much fun! It was a windy day in Copenhagen! I tried hard to get some cute pictures of the girls outside of our hotel!
Wes managed to rent out an entire bus for our shuttle to the cruise! The kids loved it!
When you check in to the cruise, Minnie Mouse is right there taking pictures with everyone. The check in process was relatively smooth. It took about 45 minutes from start to finish.
Our first stop was the kids club and it did not disappoint! I think Josh would have stayed!!
On our way to kids club, we ran in to Cinderella. She was so nice and took a picture with the girls. Claire stopped staring just long enough for me to take a picture.
When the boat left Copenhagen there was a huge deck party.
Claire was crying because Goofy wasn't there.
Josh took Elise down some of the slides while Claire and I went to see Donald Duck. The weather in Copenhagen was pretty mild and we were worried it would be too cold at the other ports for the slides. We were right--our whole trip ended up being pretty cold!
Our first dinner was at Animator's Palate and it ended up being our favorite dinner spot. There were screens all over the room that would showcase various Disney animations.
They starting singing Happy Birthday to me the first night we were there! They give you a birthday pen- and the rest of the day all of the employees would say "Happy Birthday" every time they saw me. We rotated the pen around the group the rest of the week! =)
Elise had been looking forward to sleeping in the double decker (bunk) beds for a month now! I was so relieved we had them and that Claire let her sleep on top the first night!
Cookies and milk before bed? Why not?!
Our first official day on the cruise was an "at sea" day. We had so much fun! I actually wished we had more at sea days because they were so relaxing.
Sophia was near our room so we were able to get some pictures with her first thing.
The staff was so nice about us being able to take our own photographs.
The breakfast spread was usually pretty good!
We had booked a "princess gathering" photo op prior to the cruise. Disney has several of these available where you get tickets to see certain characters/princesses. It's all included in the cruise, but it does cut down on your wait time in lines.
Claire and Savannah were having a very silly conversation!
Love these ladies!
Even Mickey dressed up for formal night.
One of my favorite parts of the cruise was the amazing Broadway shows that were on board. They were the perfect length and all the kids loved them. We would get there about 30 minutes early to get good seats.
Their matching pajamas turned out so cute!!
The next morning we woke up some very sleepy girls!
One of the servers this morning wrote Elise's name in fancy lettering in her autograph book.
It was so fun running into all the characters on the boat!
Our first port was Tallin, Estonia and it was one of our best weather days the whole trip. It was a medieval town and was a lot of fun!
This was our husbands the entire trip!
We climbed up some steep stairs to get to this cafe! The views were incredible once we were up!
Getting Claire up the stairs was a little more difficult!
Disney had a free shuttle service in to all of the towns. It worked great except our day in Stockholm.
This night we sent the kids to kids club for dinner and we all had an adult dinner at Palo's. It was delicious!
Russia was a very long and interesting port day! Unfortunately, the weather was cold and dreary the entire day! We saw lots of museums and palaces!! We stayed with our tour guide the entire time. In fact, the guys were even escorted in to the Starbucks.
Elise absolutely loved wearing the headphones and listening to the tour guide. Claire was more concerned about where giraffe was and how many times Mommy could hold her.
This was me-pretty much the entire time in Russia-- holding giraffe and wanting to know where the shops were
We did a little bit of shopping. We were only taken to one shop and felt very rushed inside the store! No worries--we were still able to purchase things. =)
We had a pretty decent dinner in St. Petersburg also. We were escorted in to the restaurant and then also out. We were never allowed to be anywhere without our guide.
We made it back to the boat by 10 PM! We had a surprise in our room! This morning I had ordered breakfast for room service since we docked at 8 AM. Our food never showed up, so I called and canceled it. This is why Disney is so awesome! Not too many places have this great of service!
Even though we were exhausted, we still managed to squeeze in some characters!
The next morning we were able to sleep in a little bit and go to our Character breakfast.
The many faces of Claire...
After our breakfast we headed out to explore Helsinki, Finland
Elise was so excited to get fresh blueberries and strawberries!
This night, "Tangled" was playing. This was my girls favorite show!
The next morning we were able to sleep in a little and ordered room service for breakfast.
It was really fun to come in to Stockholm's port. We sat outside and thought it was amazing!
We let the girls pick what they wanted to do today and Elise really wanted to see Pippi Longstocking's house! So, we went to Junibacken which is a really cute museum that was designed by the author of the Pippi Longstocking books.
We met the Longs for a very good lunch on the street!
When we got back we sent the kids to kids club and sat out on the balcony and enjoyed the scenery!
There was a fun frozen deck party on board this night! The girls loved seeing Anna and Elsa!
Our last official day was another "at sea" day. We were glad to have a day where we could relax and just hang out together. Also, the girls had been looking forward to this day because it was the Bibbidity Bop Boutique day!
We had gone on scavenger night the day before and were awarded with some Frozen chocolate treats!
The boutique was truly magical!! It was so much fun!
They had a huge kids club celebration the last day where all the kids got to go up on stage! Claire was so happy to be on stage.
Our last dinner was at Animator's palate and we got to design our own animation and they all went up on the screen! It was so fun!
It was a magical trip for all of us! We made memories for a lifetime.
