13 June 2018, Wednesday
Today, I’ll be leaving Stockholm for Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It will be the 11th country I’ll be setting foot on since departing Singapore 44 days ago. For those who are unaware, the concept I had for this trip was to take one flight out of Singapore to Europe and to make my way home by land. And that was the inspiration for the name of this blog – One Flight Out.
I started this grand adventure on 1 May 2018 when I took a Scoot flight from Singapore to Athens in Greece. Since then, I have travelled across 10 countries mostly by train and occasionally by bus. There was one leg of the journey on Day 28 when I had to take a ship from Puttgarden in Germany to Rødby in Denmark, but that sea crossing was part of the train journey from Hamburg to Copenhagen.
Today, I will be taking an overnight cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki. You may say I’m “cheating” because I am not strictly travelling by land transport only. Sweden and Finland do share a land border and it would have been possible to travel by land. However, it is much more economical to travel by ship.
Stockholm and Helsinki are located about 400km apart but if you look at the map, you will see that they are separated by the Gulf of Bothnia. To travel overland around it will require many more days of travel and expenses. Hence, I chose to take the cruise for practical reasons. I believe it still retains the spirit of my One Flight Out concept as I am not taking the quickest way out – a flight from Stockholm to Helsinki takes only around an hour. In comparison, it takes about 17 hours by cruise ship.
My cruise was due to depart Stockholm only at 5:30pm so I still had the early part of the day free. However, I had to check out of my Generator hostel before 10am, so I rented a large locker (50 Kr/S$7.93 for 24 hours’ usage) to store my backpack while I explored Stockholm in the day.
I wanted to treat myself to a nice breakfast today. From the hostel, I walked for about 10 minutes and reached STHLM Brunch Club (click here), located at Dalagatan 24. It was a chic and hip café with understated and casual décor. I ordered a full English breakfast and a cup of latte. The bill came up to 194 Kr (S$30.75) and I paid by credit card because it was a cash-free establishment.
After the delicious breakfast, I walked to Odengatan, a major street nearby. I popped into Gustav Vasa Church for a quick look. I then walked past Hard Rock Café before going to the supermarket to buy some food supplies for my overnight cruise, spending another 143 Kr (S$22.67) in the process.
I wasn’t in the mood for more shopping or sightseeing so I returned to the hostel at about 12:30pm to pick up my backpack. From Generator hostel, I walked for about 10 minutes to Cityterminalen, the bus terminal. I bought a single-use Travelcard for 44 Kr (S$6.97) from the tourist info centre. You can also buy the Travelcard from convenience stores like 7-Eleven. At 1:07pm, I boarded bus number 1 outside Comfort Hotel and alighted at Frihamnen port at 1:41pm. Upon alighting the bus, I followed the blue line markings on the ground to Frihamnsterminalen, the ferry terminal.
Check in for my Princess Anastasia cruise ship starts from 2pm and closes at 5pm. I was slightly early but I wasn’t the first to arrive. I presented my passport and booking number, and was given a boarding card (which also functions as the room key) and a €10 shopping discount voucher (with minimum €100 spend at the Duty Free Shop on board). After going through security checks, I proceeded to board the ship.
Princess Anastasia was a huge cruise ship. It had a passenger capacity of 2,500 seats, 834 cabins and a car deck for 580 cars. It also offered a whole array of services and facilities including a spa, cinema, restaurants, bars, disco, casino and more. I’m not a huge fan of cruises so I haven’t taken that many cruises before. I was quite impressed when I saw how big the ship was.
I booked the cheapest accommodation option – a two-bed cabin of 9 square metres, with no ocean view of course. It cost €71.50 (S$119.97), which was pretty cheap for a 17-hour journey. When I entered my room, I was happy to see that it was actually quite spacious and comfortable. It came with an ensuite bathroom and shower so it was definitely an improvement from the hostel dormitories for sure. The best part was that no one took the other bed so I had the whole room to myself, which was great!
I had checked in super early and there was still three hours before departure at 5:30pm, or rather, 6:30pm. The check-in staff told me to adjust my watch to one hour ahead because from now on, all the timings on the ship will follow St. Petersburg (Russia) time. It is because this cruise ship is operated by Moby SPL, the result of a merger in 2010 between St. Peter Line (a Russian operator based in St. Petersburg) and Moby Lines (the largest Italian ferry operator).
Moby SPL (click here) operates regular cruises between Helsinki, Tallinn (Estonia), Stockholm and St. Petersburg. The cruise is very popular because foreigners travelling on ferries may enter Russia without a visa for up to 72 hours (3 days) as part of an organised excursion group. This makes St. Petersburg an attractive destination for a short trip because it is normally quite cumbersome and expensive to obtain a Russia visa, so joining a cruise provides an easy alternative.
As I had three hours to spare, I went for a walk around the ship to check out what Princess Anastasia had to offer:
I spent my time reading, writing my journal and visiting the top deck for some fresh air. I didn’t have Internet connection because Wi-Fi was chargeable at $4.99 for 1 hour, $8.99 for 2 hours and $13.99 for 6 hours. I also visited the Paf Casino and “invested” €5 (S$8.13) on a jackpot machine and it kept me entertained for about 20 minutes, which was not too bad. I didn’t see anyone playing on the tables though.
When I finally got bored, I went to the show bar Columbus at Deck 7 for some live entertainment. I bought a beer for €4 and took a seat at the lounge. The line-up included singers, dancers and a clarinettist. It was pretty entertaining and kept me occupied for an hour.
At about 11pm, I went to the Night Rabbit disco for a look. The dance floor was empty and the DJ was entertaining himself with some techno music that I haven’t heard before. After some time, a couple bravely took to the floor and I joined them, but the music wasn’t good so we all left shortly after. The DJ should have dropped some MJ tunes or classic disco songs and the crowds will come for sure, seeing that most of the cruise passengers belong to the older demographic. I then decided to call it a night. It wasn’t an eventful day but I’m excited about tomorrow. Helsinki, here I come!
