Cruise Ship - Boards at 4pm

We're in line to get on the Silja Line Symphony cruise ship. It's a one night trans Baltic Sea cruise from Helsinki to Stockholm.
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We arrived at the Silja Line Cruise Terminal right on time and got in line with the other motorcycles waiting for the ship to board. There was a guy from Stockholm on a BMW, a guy from Scotland on a Suzuki, and a guy from Finland on a Harley. We had a good 40 minutes to chat about our respective routes. Pretty much everyone was impressed that we went to Russia, several thought we were crazy – but they were also the ones asking the most questions. They’ll be going next year we’re sure.

Everybody likes us.
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The ship was pretty big. It was certainly no luxury liner, but it held thousands of people and had 12 floors to explore, including a shopping promenade, a spa, casino, night club, and over 6 restaurants. Everything was quite mediocre – but we had a good time.

We left and did the waving thing that everyone is supposed to do when a ship leaves (why?). We were part of a three ship caravan all going to the same destination. Clearly popular. The view as we left Helsinki was pretty amazing as this part of Finland is a huge archipelago of hundreds, if not thousands, of islands.

Making more friends in the line to get onto the ship. These were the best kind - bikers! Just as crazy, or almost.
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Dinner was pretty… disgusting. It looked good when we got there, lots of seafood on a raised platter. It wasn’t. You also pay a fortune for everything – this isn’t one of those everything included ships that we’re used to. There were kids everywhere. The ship seemed to be made for them, with play areas dotting every corner. Even a TV section where you can dump them. We were definitely the only people from the U.S. on board.

We went back to our room - which Jon thought was a closet but was actually quite large for one of these ships. About that time we were surprised (once again) by how late it was. This happened to us practically every night and we just can’t get used to it. Part of the problem is the sun is up as if it’s full daylight very late. In St. Petersburg it was up until near midnight. Regardless – we didn’t go out to party (Jon and Alex are big partiers) with the rest of the crowd. We did get a show, however. A huge lightning storm hit over the Baltic Sea and lit up the sky. Jon even got a picture which we included for your viewing pleasure. Check out the picture and note it was well past 10 pm when the picture was shot, and it was as bright as it gets during a thunder storm.

Bikers come in different sizes. Cute kid. Now get off the bike.
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The next morning put us on the deck of the ship working on… well… this. The weirdest part happened after we docked and drove off the ship in Stockholm. There were eight Swedish cops spread out conducting breathalyzer test on every driver leaving the ship. We thought this was fun (Neither Alex nor Jon had ever done one), but given the amount of drinking we’re sure some people did not agree.