The evening before we were due to arrive in Helsinki was an informal one. I never know the difference between informal and casual. I understand that there are no fashion police aboard any MSC ship which is surprising since it is an Italian Company. An Italian can wear a sack of spuds and still come out of it looking like Armani!! Whereas most Brits wear a sack of spuds and they end up blending in with the contents of the sack!! However, there are far more German&...

St. Petersburg. This vibrant city is said to be (arguably) one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It is often referred to as the Venice of the North or the Paris of the East. This city has crammed a massive amount of history in to its paltry 300 years existence. From Peter I through to the Siege of Leningrad, the city has seen much drama, intrigue, treachery as well as glamour, over indulgence and the odd rich oligarch!!St. Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningra...

At 4pm on the dot, the MSC drew its anchor and once out of the port took a 316 route towards the town of Tallinn, Estonia. No we had no idea what this meant as well!! I suppose one of the navigation crew has to make it look like it's all very techie; too technical for us mere mortals.We decided to venture in to the Teatro dell'Opera after dinner for the 11:00pm performance of 'A Touch of Classics’ featuring 'the Grace Strings’. When I ...

No need for an early 'get up' today. So far the sailing and crossing the Baltic has been remarkably calm. The Captain’s blog has not risen past ‘’smooth’. Today was a full day at sea. A chance to ‘join in’ and see what activities there are and generally mooch around.I think it was Benjamin Franklin who once said: ‘Nothing in this world is certain, except death and taxes!’  He obviously hadn’t been on ...

Our bags arrived at our cabin within 10 minutes. I heard a noise outside and went to check it out. Looking left and the right, there was no-one there except our bags. 'How did they get here?', I thought. ‘Surely they didn’t walk here themselves! They would have never found the cabin for one thing without being directed by the crew!!Maybe they did. After all we are still in the land of fairytales although I don’t recall any tales of walk...