We spent our last day and a half at some pretty amazing places in St. Petersburg. We visited the Summer Palace of Catherine the Great and toured the Peterhof Gardens as well. Catherine the Great's Palace was out of this world. The outside is a beautiful blue with white trim and gold accents. The inside….holy moly! All of the rooms that have been restored to their original conditions are the definition of opulence! There is not a bit that is not covered in s...

This morning started with a briefing with a diplomat. It was very informative. He told us about the current safety concerns as well as updated us on the growing tensions between Ukraine, Russia, Europe and the USA. After the briefing we returned to our room to get ready for a day out on the town in St. Petersburg. We really relaxed this morning and didn't get off the ship until around 11am. We had been told their were a few buses that would then take you to ...

Today is day three on the ship since we have left Norway. It has been an incredibly busy few days (mostly because we are drama folks). Our first evening back on the ship we had a talent show rehearsal. We have about an hour of shipboard community performances and then for an hour the crew performs. The rehearsal went really well. The Resident Director, Margaret, who was in charge of coordinating the event was fantastic and so "type A" organized that we were ...