I am instantly so incredibly glad that we did our ferry check-in first thing in the morning and have our key cards, the crowd is enormous, easily a few hours in length. We get our stuffed bags out of the luggage locker and head to the gate, the man checking the tickets says “Hey!” instantly causing Tatevik to stop in her tracks, but as we would later learn “Hey” is the Swedish version of “Hi” apparently.As we cross up the ramp photographers take snapshots of all the passengers, for sale later on. The photographer catches Tatevik and I mid-stride carrying all our bags, it’s a pretty expensive picture at nearly 10 euros. The photographers print all the photos and pin them up and while handling the large A4 clip it struck me as a pretty nice memento, and buy it. Later on Tatevik and I would have a contest to try and find the worst photos, some people were certainly caught with less than their best smile, a whole wall of scowls, confused looks, kids picking their noses, etc.
We board the ship and head to our cabin on the 6th deck,
we’ve got a seaside cabin and you can still see Helsinki out the starboard window (I think starboard is left..) Tatevik is exhausted and still feeling her cold, so she slumps on the bed while I head to the top deck to see the harbour a last time. I walk the windy deck taking photos of this and that and head back in too. I lie down next to Tatevik and fall asleep, only waking to hear the faint rumble of the engines and to see the scenery slowly move past out the window.We wake up and unfortunately high winds are causing a noticeable tilt in the ship. I don’t really mind but since Tatevik isn’t feeling well anyways we get her a pill for motion sickness. We walk the decks to explore the ship, there’s a cinema showing movies but its 10 euros for a ticket, the same is true of spending 1 hour in their pool up top. Instead we head to the lower deck and buy some duty free for our room. Loaded with booze and snacks we make
a few drinks and head out to catch the last few minutes of the tight rope walking act. Afterwards we watch a “preview” of the midnight show which really should have been a warning to avoid it later on. We head on to the top deck where they have Karaoke but all the singers are doing Finnish songs, so its not only bad singing but also boring. We head down to the Irish pub and watch curling on TV as Tatevik slowly gets sleepy. She takes a power nap while I finish my beer and her shandy, while listening to the troubadour sing old Elvis classics. Tatevik comes down refreshed and we waste time, playing slot machines and air hockey, until finally the midnight show comes…imagine the worst opera-style singing and cheesy wardrobe, and then mix in some dance numbers, and you basically have the midnight show…at least we had some good seats.A shot at the bar helps me loosen up before breaking out my disgraceful moves on the top deck dancefloor, before finally calling it a night…
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