World Cruise Day 152/163 Viking Homelands - Stockholm, Sweden - Ding Dong, Quarantine's Gone!

Cruise day: 152/163

Ports days: 81
Sea days: 71
Countries: 28
Continents: 5
Ports: 61

I took this just after midnight - that counts for today, right?

I was up early this morning to catch the sail into Stockholm.  I went to the Explorers' Bar for the view from the front on deck #7 from 5AM until 7:30AM. The approach varies from a wide and open channel to a really narrow passage.  Here is a photo dump of the views.  There were tons of little islands - most with houses on them.  It was beautiful and definitely interesting.

So many little islands everywhere - navigating this without modern navigation equipment must have been a nightmare

Oh - don't hit that set of rocks over there...

That passage was really as narrow as it looks

There were so many tiny islands with houses - what a beautiful place to live

Look out for buried cables!

Of course, plenty of gulls followed us in

This island was super tiny

There were also tons of swans

Finally approaching the city

Those are interesting towers - I wonder what they are

Note to self when getting back on the ship tonight - we're "Viking", not "Viking Line"...we docked right behind them

Ahh - now I can tell - those towers are part of an amusement park

Such an interesting skyline

I got back to the room around 7:30AM...and waited...and waited...until...

After ten days in isolation, Arlona made her triumphant return to our stateroom!

I had the best breakfast ever as I had the best view at breakfast ever

This afternoon, we took the included Panoramic Stockholm bus tour.  We spent a couple of hours touring the city before getting off and wandering in the old town area before catching the shuttle bus back to the ship.  There are 57 bridges crossing Lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea that connect the 14 islands that make up Stockholm.  The Stockholm archipelago consists of roughly 30,000 islands, so that explains all the water. 

Our guide said that if you view Stockholm from the air, you would see 1/3 blue (water), 1/3 brown (building roofs), and 1/3 green (green space).  One million folks live in Stockholm and another million live in the Stockholm outskirts.  That makes up 20% of Sweden's roughly 10 million residents.

We stopped to take a look at the City Hall.  It sits by the water because, well, nearly everything in Stockholm is by the water.

Looking across the water from City Hall

We continued our tour of the city.

The Royal Dramatic Theater

At the Royal Palace.

We headed into the old town area and wandered around, taking in the sights.

Court's Administration House

Nobel Prize Museum

The Royal Palace

House of Nobility

Royal Swedish Opera House

Parliament House

As we waited for our shuttle, we were treated to a flyover from a couple of Eurofighter Typhoons.

Twelve of us from the World Cruise had a last meal together in The Restaurant.  It was a nice way to bring this chapter of the cruise to a close and say some more goodbyes.  While we were eating, we were informed by Cruise Consultant Hamed that we all needed to be in the Atrium at 8PM as Captain Olav, who is back on the ship as of today, wanted to get a photo with all the world cruisers.

It sure seemed like Captain Olav was herding cats

These are the people that we have shared the last 152 days with (except the few that got on in L.A. - that's 135 days).

Captain Olav

Cruise Consultant, Hamed

Cruise Director, Katy

Our amazing General Manager, Wendy

The best Guest Services Manager on the high seas, Mara

While everyone was distracted - I was a rebel

It was a night of goodbyes, hugs, and wishes for safe travels.  It has been an amazing ride.  It is pretty amazing that we have been on this ship for five months as of today. We will be continuing on solo for the next 11 days and plan to enjoy every minute. We will be in Stockholm on Wednesday and Thursday before heading back to Mariehamn.