To Russia, with love
Sue Lawler has always said she's "not a cruise person," but this deal seemed too good to pass up: $1,900 for a two-week voyage on Norwegian Cruise Line through northern Europe, including Russia.
"This was really the last part of Europe I hadn't been to, and it intrigued me to go to Russia to see where communism started," said Lawler, 42, associate dean at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.
Just six weeks before the ship set sail, Lawler and her friend, Kim Kozimor, booked the last cabin on the boat. Armed with wristbands and Dramamine to prevent sea sickness, Lawler flew to England and boarded the Norwegian Dream on Sept. 14 for her Baltic Capitals cruise.
Her first impression of the ship?
"It was definitely dated," she said. "There were pictures of Diana Ross all over. She christened the boat."
The $1,900 per person cost got Lawler and Kozimor an interior cabin, which is cruise speak for no view. It was too chilly on the deck to lay out, but the women did take advantage of the outdoor hot tub. Unfortunately, so did a couple of elderly Russian men.
"It was our first night in the hot tub, and this old Russian guy stripped down to a little red Speedo. His friend had a bad toupee," Lawler said. "They spoke broken English and we tried talking to them. They got kind of pesky, so we ended up having to kind of brush them off."
At this point, it may sound like the Chicago woman isn't having much fun. But that's not really the case. Sure, there were elements of the cruise she wasn't keen on:
• • She and her friend were by far the youngest passengers. "I'd say 70 was the average age," Lawler said.
• • The "freestyle" cruising concept gave them the flexibility to eat when and where they wanted on board, but it also meant they sometimes had to wait in line half an hour before being seated for dinner.
• • The port excursions, which tacked on an extra $860, mostly entailed quite a bit of time on a bus. "You're really rushed when you're on land," she added, "You can't just stop for a cup of coffee and linger somewhere."
But the food was "excellent," the price was right and the cities they visited were fantastic, Lawler said. And she didn't even get seasick.
"To go to eight countries and see all the places we did in that amount of time and for that amount of money, it was worth it," she said, "especially the way the dollar is doing and the fact that these are some of the most expensive countries in Europe."
After sailing away from the white cliffs of Dover, England, the first stop was a German town called Warnemunde, where most passengers boarded a bus for a long ride to Berlin. Lawler and Kozimor decided to stick around Warnemunde instead.
"I had 10 euros on me," she said. "We found a guy who rented us two bikes and we just rode around and had fun."
They then spent a whole day cruising up the Baltic Sea before arriving in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. "It was very untouched by capitalism," said Lawler, who spent the day shopping in the medieval town.
The next two days were devoted to Russia's St. Petersburg, a picturesque city called the Venice of the North thanks to an abundance of canals. Lawler booked an excursion to the State Hermitage Museum, whose collections total some 3 million works of art. But Lawler had her heart set on seeing one in particular: Rembrandt's "The Return of the Prodigal Son."
"We had a bathroom break on the museum tour and I just happened to see the painting," she said. "No one else was there, so I had it to myself for 10 or 15 minutes. It was incredible."
Russia definitely made Lawler's wallet lighter. A silk scarf she bought at the Hermitage set her back $180. A basic set of traditional Russian nesting dolls, called matryoshkas, cost $50. She even had to pay an extra $5 for the privilege of snapping photos in the museum.
Of all the Scandinavian capitals she visited, Oslo, Norway, made the biggest impression on Lawler.
"I'd love to go back," she said. "The port was much more appealing than the others. We got to visit a Viking museum and see the ski jump where they had the Olympics."
While a future trip to Oslo may be in the offing, another cruise probably isn't.
"Except to Antarctica -- that's really the only way to do it," Lawler said. "I'm still not a cruise person."