Why a Suite is SWEET!

A few of our friends and family have asked to see pictures of the suite we stayed in on Holland America's ship the Ryndam.  Our cabin was on the 10th deck and we were room 004.  We had an amazing time.  Since having Caden, we tend to spend more time in our room than we would have otherwise.  Staying in a suite made things a lot more easy and relaxing.  We had a lot of space, extra services - including laundry and dry cleaning, a special breakfast just for suite guests, special parties, lunches, and other perks.  If you are able to save a little more and splurge on a suite then do it.  This was our second suite to stay in, first on Holland America.  We stayed in a penthouse suite last year on Norwegian Cruise Lines and that was really nice too.  We feel extremely spoiled when we stay in a suite.  Cruise ship suites are special and so are the services, I highly recommend getting a suite if you can.  If you are unable to get a suite then I recommend splurging on the laundry service.  We used it almost daily and it was so nice to have most of our clothes clean when we returned from our vacation.  It takes me 3-4 hours to do one load of laundry in Germany, so the laundry service was really worth it to me.

By the way, this year we were blessed with a free upgrade to the deluxe suite about a week before our cruise.  We paid for a balcony cabin and they offered us the oppurtunity to upgrade for $349 per person. We decided we didn't have the extra money in our budget even though we really wanted to do it. About a week before our trip I received an email to reprint our cruise tickets because our cabin had changed.  When I went on Holland America's website I was ecstatic to see we were staying in a suite. Thank you Holland America and thank you Cathy (our travel agent) for helping us have such a wonderful vacation.

Here are some pictures of our cabin and balcony. 

King size bed

Living room area

Dressing area where we put Caden's bed at night

Awesome balcony!

Caden trying to escape to ride in the elevators

Bathroom, not too big and not too small

Jetted tub

Oslo, Norway

Vigeland Sculpture Park

On June 3rd we visited Oslo, Norway.  I loved this port town.  There was a lot to do and see.   We took a 1.5 hour bus tour around the city and stopped at the famous Vigeland Sculpture Park.  We have never seen so many interesting and somewhat disturbing statutes.  It was a huge park, with a playground, and had lots of statutes made out of granite.

Along our bus tour we saw the Akershus Fortress, the Parliament building, the Royal Palace, and the Nobel Institute.  We also passed the Viking Ship Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum, and many other places that we could have stopped at.  We were planning going to the Kon-Tiki Museum but decided we wanted to eat lunch on the ship and we would go back later.  The weather was so nice that day that we ate lunch then let Caden play out our balcony as we enjoyed ship and people watching and the nice weather.  The captain gave us a bottle of champagne so we ordered room service and had a drink on our balcony.  We would go back to Oslo.  We really liked it.  I posted a few more pictures from Oslo here.

Vigeland Sculpture Park

Vigeland Sculpture Park

View of Oslo from our balcony

Caden playing with Play-Doh on our balcony

Skagen, Denmark

One June 2nd, we went to Skagen, Denmark.  Skagen is a fisherman's village.  We took a boat tender to shore.  Caden fell asleep in my lap on the way to shore.  I think he woke up before 6am that day and was pretty tired.  He slept for almost 2 hours.  Skagen is not a city I would have gone to as a primary destination but it was nice. 

Since Caden was asleep and it was quite windy and cold, we walked through the town, stopped in a few shops, and decided to stop for drinks at the Brondums Hotel.  This hotel was one of the stops for a shore excursion and was very nice.  For two drinks we spent $25.  Like I said, Denmark is expensive.   I had hot chocolate and thankfully it was some of the best hot chocolate I have ever had.  We sat and talked in this sleepy town and enjoyed the rest.  After Caden woke up when went back through the pedestrian walking zone and walked to the other side of the main street.  Collin stopped for a waffle and ice cream with Caden, I went on to look in a few more shops.  The prices were outrageous and there was nothing worth spending money on.  Except for a Skagen watch.  We looked in the watch store at the famous Skagen watches but ultimately decided that $300+ for a watch was not part of our budget right now.  However, we did end up getting Skagen watches, on our ship.  We lucked out and bought them on our ship for half off.  We love them, they are light weight and exactly what we have been looking for.

Skagen is a cute sleepy town.  There are sand dunes, if it was not so windy, we had considered seeing them.  We attempted to go in the Skagen Museum but when we got there we found out that strollers were not allowed.  It would be a great city to bike in but overall there was not a lot to do with a young child.  Most other cruises seemed to shop and sit at the cafes.

Caden's favorite thing was stopping in this toy store

Waffle Man

Caden and I walking downtown

Fishing Town

Picture of our ship from the boat tender



Copenhagen, Denmark

We docked in Copenhagen at 6pm on May 31, 2011.  That was during dinner so we did not go out.  I also had a spa appointment at 7:30pm which I did not want to miss.  I got a facial, massage, and pedicure.  This is something that I don't normally do.

We explored Copenhagen the following day on June 1st.  The main thing we wanted to do was go to Tivoli Gardens amusement park which did not open until 11am.  The mornings is the best time of day for us.  Caden woke up around 6:30am almost everyday.  A few times before 6am.  The sun rose at 4:30am which woke us all up early.

The first thing we did in Copenhagen is took the ship's bus to town.  Then we walked around the peditrian only area, explored the shops (all of which were too expensive to buy anything), and ate lunch at McDonalds.  We are not big McDonalds fans, however, we did not want to spend $40+ on lunch.  I think it cost us around $20 at McDonalds, which is expensive for McDonalds considering we got two Happy Meals and one cheeseburger (we try and save money when we can to save and spend on other things).  After lunch we went to Tivoli Gardens.  Caden was free, our tickets were around $30 each whcih did not include any rides.  If you wanted to get unlimited rides the ticket jumped to around $75, I believe.  Or you can just pay for rides as you go, which is what we decided to do.  The rides cost anywhere from $5 per person to $15 per person.  The only rides Caden could ride cost $5 since he's small.  If he was older we would have bought the unlimited ticket.  We only spent around $25 for rides and sadly only road 2 rides.

The park was neat though.  There was an aquarium which of course cost money but we got to see them feed the fish.  There was also a nice playground which Caden loved.  We enjoyed our time at the park and are glad we chose to do that.

We bought Caden a Build-a-Bear from Copenhagen.  He named his bear, Cranbear.  He enjoyed making the bear and playing with the computers to register the bear.  Copenhagen is a nice city.

Yikes!  We became those parents!! 
We turned our back to pay and Caden climbed up on the computer station.

Tivoli Gardens

One of two rides we road



A Sad Day

I have to interrupt my cruise posts with a life update.  While I love living in Germany and have a lot of great friends here, most of them eventually move away.  One of the hardest things for us when we moved to Germany was leaving our wonderful friends and family in Texas.  It has taken a while to finally develop closer friendships with some people here.  Today I found out our good friends Jon and Kristine Miller, are moving tomorrow!  That is Army life.  While we are not a military family, most of our English speaking friends are part of the military.  Kristine called me this morning to tell me.  Caden and I went to her house and said our goodbyes.  We ate lunch with them and left.  Her son, Matthew, is one of Caden's friends.  It's hard when people move away.  She is one of my few friends over here who also practices attached parenting and is financially savvy.  I like talking about finances and it seems like a lot of other ladies don't.  So when I find a friend who is interested in that topic we bond quickly.  We were also in MOPS together.  I wish you the best of luck, Miller Family.  Although I doubt they will ever read this post - I have never shared this blog with my friends in Germany.  Maybe when I move back I will.  Anyway, it has been a sad day for me.  On the positive side, they are moving back to the States because Jon was accepted into flight school.  So congratulations, Jon!

Helsingborg, Sweden

Our first port of call was Helsingborg, Sweden, on May 31st.  Since we are traveling with a toddler we decided it would be easier for us to do our own shore excursions.  It's cheaper and we can tailor them to our needs.  We look at the shore excursions offered by the ship and then we decide what we want to do from there.

The Swedish people were very kind and welcoming.  Most everyone spoke English.  We decided that going to the open air museum would be the most enjoyable for our family.  Caden loved it and it was one of Collin's favorite activities we did.  the open air museum is called the Sofiero Gardens.  We took the local bus to the gardens and walked up the hill.  It was about a 15 minute bus drive from the town center, very easy to get to.  The bus driver even told us when to get off.  The gardens had a lot of neat things in it.  You learn about farming and how to grow a garden, there are farm animals, a children's activity house where kids draw pictures of what they saw, we even got to hang Caden's picture on the wall.  It was a beautiful place to run around and explore, perfect for a little guy with a lot of energy.

After touring the gardens we headed back to the town center.  I wanted to buy a dress from Sweden. Lucky for us there was a H&M.  H&M has less expensive clothes than many places and the style is usually more alligned with what I would wear.  Sweden is expensive, not as expensive as some of the other places but more expensive than Germany.  I lucked out with finding a beautiful blue and white dress for half off. 

Collin enjoyed going in one of the electronic stores and seeing a 3-D TV.  On the ship we met a man who had a 3-D video camera, which was neat.  I'm not a big TV person so it will be a long time before we make a purchase like that but it was neat to see.

Baltic Cruise

We just got back from a wonderful vacation.  We took a 7-night Baltic Cruise on Holland America Cruise Line.  We sailed on the Ryndam.  I have been wanting to take a Baltic Cruise since we moved to Germany.  I am so glad we finally were able to go.  This was the "last" big vacation I had on my list of things to do while we lived in Germany.  This was our second Holland America cruise and mine and Collin's 4th cruise, Caden's 2nd cruise.  We sailed from Rotterdam, The Netherlands.  Before our cruise we spent one night in Delft, The Netherlands, which is about 20 minutes from Rotterdam.  Delft is known for their pottery and we actually were given four Delft pottery coasters for free as a gift from Holland America since we were past guests.

We were blessed with a deluxe suite on this cruise.  We really lucked out as we were upgraded for FREE about a week before our cruise.  We are past guests and did pay for a balcony suite (which on this ship was just a balcony).  So when we were upgraded to a deluxe suite we felt very blessed.  Our room was beautiful and spacious.  I will do a post just on our room with pictures to share.  If you ever get a chance to stay in a suite on a cruise ship, I highly recommend it.  Not only was our room twice the size of the balcony cabins but we had special privileges such as free laundry and dry cleaning throughout our cruise.  We were also able to have special breakfast in the specialty restaurant, priority boarding on and off the ship, a nice lounge just for suite guests, and more.

Holland America, the Ryndam

I will write about each country we visited in a separate post.  As an overview we visted Rotterdam, The Netherlands (which is a beautiful city); Helsingborg, Sweden; Copenhagen, Denmark (where we spent the night); Skagen, Denmark; and Oslo, Norway.  Caden has now been to 17 countries.  Not too bad for someone who is almost 2.  He is becoming a world traveler and picking up new words from different languages all the time.

A neat thing we did before our cruise was visit the Noah's Ark replica in Dordrecht, The Netherlands.  We were hoping that it would be open but it is not quite finished yet.  So we drove by and took some pictures.  It is really neat looking.  The man behind the ark is filling the ark with life-size animals and is going by the measurements used in the Bible.  Once it's finished he is going to sail it around the world so many others can enjoy it.  We hope to go back once it's finished in The Netherlands since it is only about a 5 hour drive for us.  Hopefully by the end of the summer or fall it will be completed.

Noah's Ark is behind a tall fence

I also have to mention that we have some of the best neighbors.  When we arrived home last night they came out and greeted us.  They asked us if we had had dinner.  We had not.  They had made dinner for us and were waiting for our return.  We felt very loved.