For the past two days in Copenhagen we have been staying at the Hotel Kong Arthur (“Hotel King Arthur”) a family-owned hotel located near the center city.

I chose this boutique hotel because I knew it would give us more of a European experience. We were not disappointed. The Brochner family now owns most of the buildings on this small block, including another smaller property, Ibsens Hotel. All are cleverly interconnected but have the feel of distinct properties.

The “village,” as Kirsten Brochner Mortensen describes it, consists of the two hotels, the Helle Thorup Spa and three restaurants – La Rocca is Italian, Pintxos has a Spanish tapas theme and SticksnSushi which is Asian. All are situated around a central open courtyard.

The Brocher family manages the two hotels and leases the spa and restaurant operations. “We want people who are passionate about their work…be it food or spa services.” All of these other businesses are open to the street as well and have a lively local trade.

We ended up in staying in two different rooms at the Kong Arthur, one was a “small” and the other was a “mini suite.” Both were satisfactory, but I know that most Americans would prefer the larger space. So if you are booking here, do ask for one of the larger rooms. The rooms feature contemporary artwork, beds that are high enough for suitcases to fit underneath, ironing boards and free wired internet access.

Breakfast is included in many packages and it is ample…yogurt, three granolas, fresh fruit, baked good, eggs, cheese, meats, fresh-squeezed orange juice and smoothies.

There are many, many personal touches in this hotel which makes it fun to stay in and explore. Ibsens Hotel is also quite nice but a bit more minimal…but also less expensive. It was totally renovated and redecorated just a year ago with artwork and furniture produced by local artists. Perhaps “hip” is the best way to describe it. There are few amenities, but again the rooms are adequate and there are five sizes. If you want something less expensive, this is a good choice.

This eco-friendly hotel – it is one of the first in Europe to be carbon neutral – also rents bikes and tiny electric cars to its customers for exploring the city.

To learn more, check it out online: http://www.kongarthur.dk/uk-index.php

Black Diamond

We have had a busy time in Copenhagen thus far. It is a fairly compact city so it is easy to visit its main sights in a couple of days. It reminds me of two other smaller cities of Europe: Amsterdam for its canals and Dublin for its walkability.

Today was Saturday so when we set out at 10 a.m. there was hardly anyone on the streets. We were headed for the canal tour so decided to walk via the Rosenberg Castle and the King’s Garden. We had purchased the Copenhagen Card so we have admittance to all major attractions and public transportation.

Nyhavn

When we arrived at the castle we got our tickets and stood in line to enter only to be told that I had to check the tote bag that I had over my shoulder. (You can carry a small purse but nothing larger.) My husband had seen people paying to check lockers and decided that this was a whole waste of time, so we left the castle without seeing the crown jewels (I am sure they are lovely). It was a perfect example of inconveniencing a tourist…if they had put up a sign at the entrance about the bags, then we probably would have complied. But we did not want to go back and go through the process. I had nothing in my shoulder tote but a small purse anyway!)

We then had a pleasant walk through the King’s Garden and ended up a Nyhavn (“New Harbor”) which, after Tivoli, is probably the city’s second tourism center. Here is where the canal tours depart…the Hop On, Hop Off buses stop…street entertainers do their thing and there was also an antique/crafts market running. (www.nyhavn.eu)

Little Mermaid

We took the canal tour and it was definitely the best thing we did after Tivoli. On this one-hour tour you will see all the city’s main sights, including the new Opera House, Playhouse and Black Diamond (an extension of the library) and many other key buildings including the Parliament and home of Queen Margarethe. And…it takes you right up to the famed Little Mermaid statue in the harbor. This is certainly the easiest way to see it. The open-air tour runs year around and is a must-do. There is live narration in Danish and English and other languages as needed. (70 DKK for adults and 40 DKK for children. About $14/$8).

Another alternative is the Hop On-Hop Off Red Buses and the Jump On-Jump Off Green buses. They take you to all those main sights on land, however, the narration if by headphone. (These are not free with the Copenhagen card, however, there is a 10 percent discount on the red bus.)

Restaurants

Another attraction of the Nyhavn area is a collection of some 25 open-air restaurants along the pier. We stopped here for lunch…mussels and a lovely fish soup…and enjoyed the people-watching. This being Saturday, there were many young Danish families strolling with prams.

This reminds me that I have forgotten to mention one of the most distinctive characteristics of this city, how bicycle-friendly it is. There are bicycles everywhere…many with large front and rear carriers for children. All major boulevards have special lanes for bikes, and you see all sorts of people on them. Many dressed for the office. My new friend Bo Larsen, who heads up Cruise Copenhagen and Cruise Baltic, says that everyone rides and that cars must give way to bicycles. “It is simply a way of life here,” he says. “Almost everyone uses bicycles to get around the city.”

There are many bicycle rentals available to tourists and most hotels have bicycles available to their customers as well. We also noted a number of people kayaking through the main canals. These kayak tours are available to visitors as well. Seeing the city by bicycle or kayak would definitely give you a different perspective.

Tonight we had dinner at a tapas restaurant near our hotel called Pintxos. Dinner for the two of us with a bottle of wine cost about 600 DKK…or about $125. Food and drink are definitely more expensive here in Denmark.

Read the rest of this entry »

We arrived in Copenhagen yesterday at about 12:30 p.m. (their time), which was 6:30 a.m. E.S.T….we had both managed to get about four hours sleep on the plane so thought we did pretty well.

Copenhagen Airport is very efficient and by the time we reached the baggage carousel our bags were already coming off…so we caught a taxi and were into our hotel by about 1:30 p.m. There is excellent service into the city via public train or bus, but being tired and carrying three bags we opted for the more expensive taxi. As the airport is only 6.5 miles from city center, the $50 cab fare did see a bit stiff.

We checked into the Hotel Kong Arthur, a smallish family-run hotel. Our room is small (by U.S. standards) but plenty adequate. It was a bit hot, so we opened the windows (no A-C, which is typical of most hotels)…and soon the room was fresh.

Because it was now early afternoon, we decided not to nap but to “power through” the day and so decided we would walk to Tivoli Gardens, the city’s major tourist attraction. It was a pleasant 20-minute walk in glorious weather.

Tivoli was a good place to start our first visit to this lovely compact city. Built in 1843, it is one of Europe’s longest running attractions. Set over about 10-12 acres, it is a combination of gardens, amusement areas, shopping and restaurants. When Walt Disney visited here in the early 1950’s it is said that Tivoli inspired him to create Disneyworld.

As I said the weather wis lovely, sunny with just a slight chill in the air, and so perfect for a stroll. The bells were tolling the quarter hours, toddlers were playing with their grandparents in the children’s areas while teens were riding the thrill rides in another section of the park. Seniors were dozing on benches in the still-lush gardens. Workers were setting up barricades in preparation for a concert later in the evening.

Tivoli is constantly recreating itself. Right now there is a large exhibit on the Titanic in one of the historic buildings. The Michelin-starred restaurant Paul is about to close after a nine-year run as the British chef has decided to retire. At the entrance, there is a Build-a-Bear store and a Hard Rock Café. There are also shops for Bodum and Ord Nin G7R EDA, both well-known Scandinavian brands. (I discovered that the Bodum products sold here are actually significantly cheaper on the www.bodumusa.com website.)

We met Bo Larsen, head of Cruise Copenhagen and Cruise Baltic, for drinks and dinner. He was full of information about the area and, of course, a great promoter of pre-stays such as ours. I will share more info on his comments in my next post. All  of the lights of Tivoli were a-twinkle as we strolled out to catch a taxi back to our hotel. A magical start to this trip.

Today we are off to explore the city further….and I will post some photos later, too.

I am sitting in the Delta lounge at the Detroit airport waiting to board our flight to New York’s JFK airport, followed by an overnight flight to Copenhagen, Denmark.

The past couple of weeks have been extremely busy as we have prepared for this 21-day adventure.

For one thing, I have been busy following the various “roll calls” for this “Emerald Gems” sailing on the Emerald Princess. If you don’t know what a roll call is, it is basically a thread on a discussion board…in this case, there is a roll call on CruiseCritic and there are two roll-calls on Facebook. When you sign up to participate in a roll call, you are talking to people who are going on the same cruise.

This turns out to be very useful. Many people have arranged to share rides to the port (if they happen to be staying at the same hotel), others have arranged their own shore excursions…for example, booking a van for six and finding two other couples to share it, others located bridge partners while still others found casino friends.

Chet and I – who are traveling on this cruise by ourselves – have already been invited to join a group for dinner the first night aboard after the sailaway. What a nice way to begin a trip!

If you have already booked a cruise coming up in the next year, you should check online for roll calls for your particular voyage. Most are posted on Facebook. Your travel agent or the cruise line should be able to direct you to a roll call for your particular voyage. Princess will direct you from its home page.

I also took the time to send E-cards from AllThingsCruise to all my friends and relatives telling them how to reach us on board, if necessary. It is a nifty service and it is free.

Check on it here…http://allthingscruise.com/cruise-e-cards/.

My next report will probably be from Copenhagen.

These next few months are going to be extremely busy for the AllThingsCruise blogging team. Over half of us will be sailing and blogging from trips that are all over the globe.

Here is what is already scheduled:

David Molyneaux will sail on NCL’s Norwegian Dawn Aug. 19-26 roundtrip from Boston

Barbara Ramsay Orr is sailing on the Nooit Volmaakt canal barge in France from Aug. 26-Sept. 2

Eileen Ogintz is sailing on Windstar’s Windsurf from Venice to Rome, Aug. 27-Sept. 3

Julie Hatfield is sailing with Hurtigruten Aug. 27-Sept. 5 from Kirkenes to Bergen, Norway, on the MS Nordlys

Bob Bone is sailing on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam Aug. 28-Sept. 8 from Barcelona to Venice

Lillian Africano is sailing on Le Ponant Sept. 16-26 from Boston to Montreal

Marcia Raffel Levin is sailing on the MSC Poesia to the Caribbean including Panama and Costa Rica from Nov. 1-10

New blogger Jackie Sheckler Finch will sail on the Carnival Magic U.S. Inaugural cruise out of Galveston Nov. 14-20

And I will be sailing aboard Princess Cruises’ Emerald Princess Sept. 11-29 on a transatlantic cruise from Copenhagen to Ft. Lauderdale.

Whew! Everyone is going to be blogging so we will have so, so much new information for all of our readers!

There is also a good chance that Edward Garrett will be cruising either in Asia or the Galapagos Islands.

It is good to know that our writers are in such demand and we look forward to bringing you their reports here.

Be sure to check in daily for our news!

Most of my friends know that I am a fan of country music. So I always get pumped when cruises feature country music stars. Now there is a cruise featuring sexy Blake Shelton and chances are if he is on board, his wife singer Miranda Lambert will be, too.

Here is the scoop

The first ever Blake Shelton and Friends cruise will set sail on Norwegian Jewel from Miami to the Caribbean on October 14, 2012, for a seven-day cruise. This is the first ever opportunity for fans of Shelton, one of the hottest names in country music, to spend a week at sea enjoying intimate concerts, surprise unplugged performances and more. The week of boot-stomping fun at sea is being presented by Flying Dutchmen Travel and Fan Fair Country Cruises.

A full-blown country music showdown, Shelton will perform two live concerts in the intimate Stardust Theater. In addition, there will be live music every night in at least three different venues around the ship by various country artists to be announced soon. Other exclusive perks include:

Song writer workshops;

A custom version of “The Voice” with a karaoke contest judged by the pros;

Surprise unplugged performances and jam sessions;

Question and answer sessions;

Opportunities to get up close and personal with musical guests;

Late night dance parties with radio station deejays.

Shelton is currently the reigning CMA (Country Music Award) Male Vocalist of the Year as well as one of the judges on the hit NBC show, “The Voice.” Shelton has had a string of singles that has continued with his new album, Red River Blue, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts across all genres. His latest single “Honey Bee” spent four weeks as the #1 single, and holds the record for the fastest-selling digital Platinum single for a male country solo artist.

The Blake Shelton and Friends Cruise will call on San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands; Tortola, British Virgin Islands and Nassau, Bahamas. Guests will also be able to enjoy three relaxing days at sea to experience Norwegian’s signature Freestyle Cruising which includes 11 dining options and 10 bars and lounges on board.

Cruises are priced starting at $1,099 based on double occupancy. For a limited time, guests can take advantage of an Early Bird Discount with rates as low as $899 per person through August 26, 2011. To book the Blake Shelton and Friends Cruise, visit www.blakesheltoncruise.com or contact Flying Dutchmen Travel at 800-248-7471. To learn more about Norwegian Cruise Line, visit www.ncl.com or call a travel professional.

It is always exciting preparing for a cruise and I am in that process now.

We are going to sail on a repositioning cruise of the Emerald Princess, from Copenhagen to Ft. Lauderdale, beginning Sept. 11. We only booked the cruise a couple of weeks ago so we have been busy firming up the details.

On Sept. 8, we will fly from Detroit to Copenhagen via Delta/KLM. I booked the one-way transatlantic ticket through Airfare.com, a consolidator that often offers prices way below what the airlines quote…particularly for one-way flights. And in this case, even though the flight is operated by Delta, the KLM price was much lower.

We are going in a few days early so we can see the Danish capital which we have not visited before. We have already arranged for Copenhagen Cards, which will get us on all public transportation and into many museums. We are going to stay at the centrally located Hotel Kong Arthur (“kong” is Danish for “king”).

Then on Sept. 11 we board the Emerald Princess and sail for 18 days across the North Atlantic, a route we have never taken before. We have taken two previous repositioning cruises, but both were on the southern route. This trip offers many new ports for us. We were particularly interested in Iceland and Greenland. Even though our stays are quite short, at least we will get a taste of these countries.

Princess has sent us several emails in advance of the cruise and they are very helpful. One, in particular, directed us to a Facebook page where I can interact with other people going on the cruise. It is very nifty.

Here is the itinerary:

SUN 09/11/11, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

MON 09/12/11, OSLO, NORWAY

TUE 09/13/11, KRISTIANSAND, NORWAY

WED 09/14/11, AT SEA

THU 09/15/11, GLASGOW (GREENOCK), SCOTLAND

FRI 09/16/11, DUBLIN, IRELAND

SAT 09/17/11, BELFAST, N.IRELAND

SUN 09/18/11, AT SEA

MON 09/19/11, REYKJAVIK, ICELAND

TUE 09/20/11, AT SEA

WED 09/21/11, AT SEA

THU 09/22/11, QAQORTOQ, GREENLAND

FRI 09/23/11, AT SEA

AT 09/24/11, AT SEA

SUN 09/25/11, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

MON 09/26/11, AT SEA

TUE 09/27/11, AT SEA

WED 09/28/11, AT SEA

HU 09/29/11, FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, USA

This past month we added a new blogger to ATC’s pages, my good friend and travel writer colleague Lillian Africano, and she immediately submitted two excellent articles on small cruise ships Le Boreal and MS Europa.

Lillian Africano

This week it was announced that Lillian has been elected to the position of president-elect of the prestigious Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). She will take office this fall at the professional society’s convention in New Zealand and assume the presidency two years later.

We congratulate Lillian on this major career accomplishment and are honored to have her on our AllThingsCruise blogging team.

My friends, Owen and Lesley Morrison from Australia, report on the final leg of their six-week cruise and land tour.

Well, we are on our way back home, we arrived back in Copenhagen yesterday afternoon and we were picked up at the airport by the hotel and for the first time we did not have to pay to get to the hotel. When we leave on Thursday, June 16, we will again be taken to the airport.

They have had a couple of rains the last two days but now the weather is fine and that is good. It was Saturday yesterday and the shops are shut today and we have been told that on Monday there is another public holiday. We struck one in Sweden and now one in Denmark.

We have picked up the bag we left behind in Copenhagen and today we are looking at how we can get all our things in our bags all under the 30kg each, but this time the computer and my coat do not count and Lesley can use the cameras as  extras as we are flying business class. I still think we may need to buy another bag as the one we had is broken and the zipper is busted. We can have two checked bags that make up the 60 kg allowance we have combined.

We are going into town to get a Copenhagen card, so we can travel all around for free as well as getting into a lot of attractions for free.

We walked over to the metro station and found that we needed to have coins or a credit card to purchase tickets. Here they pay for everything from a beer to airline tickets with a credit card using a machine, no operators anywhere, just machines. We did not have enough coins with us. We had notes but they were no good. There was nowhere to get change, so we walked to a large shopping center which was open but no stores were open. So reluctantly we walked back to the hotel to get change to use tomorrow and then we find that the hotel can sell us a metro ticket. That was never explained when we checked in yesterday, ah well, we can do that on Monday.

On Monday we got the train tickets and went into Copenhagen and it took only one station and we were at the Central Station. We found our way out of the station and went to the information center to buy our Copenhagen card which gives us a number of benefits mainly free entry to museums and, best of all, on trains and the metro.

We could have got it at the station, but I thought it would be better at the information center because of the language, but most speak English. We then decided to go on our favorite transport, the hop-on and off buses. Here in Copenhagen there are two choices and after a bit of haggling we went on the green bus and not the red one. We had a lovely almost two hours, only hopping off once because the bus had to go into a secure area where three cruise ships were docked. That was the same place our ship was docked on June 3 and security was tight then also.

We got off at the terminus and got some lunch and then went to a 7 Eleven I saw just up the street and got some chocolate for Lesley and a bottle of diet coke for me as the mini bar costs in our room are huge. We then walked back to the station only to find a 7 Eleven there as well as a number of eating places. Ah well, we will know better next time.

With all the different train’s tracks and the metro we asked the station master and he told us that we needed to find the airport train and that would take us back to where we got on this morning. We found that and went to the platform to find a train waiting and we hopped on and they have a first class area and a second class area and that was where we sat and went back to the hotel. We will have a nana and a poppa nap this afternoon and then catch up with our packing and our paperwork and sorting out our photos. We also have to charge up the batteries for the computer, the camera and the mobile phone. The new part I bought on the ship has come in vary handy over here and the converter does not fall out of the wall anymore.

I have whittled the photos down from over 2,000 to about 300 on the first go and that will be culled again before we show the family.

Tuesday is not a holiday here and we are going back into town and go on a canal tour and hopefully there will not be six cruise ships in town. Today there was a NCL ship, a Celebrity ship, a Costa ship, a Royal Caribbean ship, a Crystal ship and one other I could not see the name of. Most most were over 2,000 passengers. They get over 330 cruise ships a year and the majority are in the three summer months.

We met some Americans at dinner last night and most were going on the Norwegian ship on a 10-day cruise, but one couple had a horrible story to tell. They were on the Costa ship in St. Petersburg and they had their passports stolen and the wife also had her cruise card taken as well and that meant that they could not get back on the ship because they had to show their passports to the Russian border station as we did when we left Russia. They went to the American embassy and got someone before they closed for the day and then had to stay in Russia until a new visa and passport was issued.

To get the visa they had to answer some weird questions like where did you go to school, what jobs have you had over the last 40 years and the name and contact of the boss and what clubs and association did they belong. They made it up and eventually they were allowed to leave some days later and came to Copenhagen to meet the ship. The man could get on the ship here but the wife could not because she had lost the cruise card. So they rang the ship’s agent in London because, believe it or not, Costa does not have a ship’s agent here. The only things they had were the clothes they were wearing the day it happened. They managed to buy a couple of things, but all their money, medicines and clothes were on the ship. We hope all went well today.

We looked at our bags and our clothes and the things we bought while we were away and decided that we may get away with buying Lesley a large hand bag which she entitled to have as well as her carry-on baggage on the Singapore Airlines plane as a Business Class passenger.

If we need to buy a bag, we can do that later in Singapore for her purchases there. If necessary, I guess we can post home some things from Singapore.

My friends Owen and Lesley Morrison have now disembarked from the Seabourn Sojourn and are going to visit Oslo and Stockholm before they fly home from Copenhagen to Australia.

Hello from Stockholm, we are having a great time. The SAS plane trip from Copenhagen to Oslo took a mere 45 minutes and the one from Oslo to here took only 50 minutes and the seats we could pick ourselves as we are SAS frequent flyers and yesterday I picked the ones over the wings to give a little more leg room. Then we find out that as we cannot speak the language we had to move.

Even though the flight was almost full they managed to get three people from the row back to move and then get the bloke that was sitting between us to move a few seats back, which gave us a spare space between us, so we could spread out.

Owen and Lesley Morrison

SAS has been wonderful.

The hotel we picked in Oslo was great for location, but the bathroom was horrible, the toilet was up against the wall and the shower was very small and it was very noisy in the afternoons and evenings, but there is another Best Western on the next street called the bohenin or something similar. The Flybussen ,the SAS airport shuttle, picks up and drops off there and the cost is 150 NOK. A taxi ride from the airport was 880 NOK, a big difference.

We caught the hop on hop off bus around Oslo. It was just down the road and we had a great time at the City Hall where they hand out the Nobel Awards (but not for peace as that is handed out in Stockholm).

They had a music festival and earth day celebrations in the park opposite our hotel in Oslo. We had a look around and then had a rest. At 6:30 we decided to go and see some more music and displays. By 6:45 p.m. they had all finished. The next morning the place was clean and you wouldn’t have guessed that anything had been going on.

STOCKHOLM

The Marriott Courtyard is great, the room are the biggest in Stockholm, and for future reference they do now have a room with breakfast rate. Breakfast is 135 SKK for a continental breakfast and 190 SKK for a full breakfast.

We went out yesterday and caught the hop on-hop off bus and bought a three-day pass which is great as it stops across the road from the hotel and takes you into town on a yellow line and then we can swap to the blue line and do the other parts of the city. There is another line called the green line and, guess what, it commences the day we leave. Also there is a hop on-hop off cruise and that is extra, but we have a ticket for the Royal barge tour but guess what? That also starts on the day we leave.

Today we went out again on the bus and it started to rain but it soon cleared to be a great day. Lesley went to the information center for some, guess what, information., I went to the currency exchange to change some $US to SKK local currency. We are going on a cruise around the islands.

Tomorrow is our last day on the hop on-off bus and on Friday we will do something else.

The hotel we are staying at has a great restaurant and grill downstairs. We have a full breakfast every morning and a light lunch and then a great dinner.

One day I had a hamburger and it was so big and it was delivered on a wooden plate. I had trouble eating it all. It came with a huge bucket of chips, which at first looked as though the cup was pushed in, but it soon became apparent it was china and all the buckets are the same.

We have still not finished our Norway story, but watch this space.