This morning, the Serenade of the Seas returned to Stockholm. When we got up about 6:30 a.m. it was sailing through the Swedish Archipelago on glassy smooth water, with the sun up and another beautiful day in store. We ate breakfast about 7:30 and it was very hard to find a place to sit because there were so many people eating early in preparation for disembarking.
The ship docked shortly before 8:00. We had put our large luggage out the night before to be collected, so we only had our small carry-on bags with us. We were in group #19 to disembark. We assembled in the assigned area about 8:30 to wait for our group number to be called. But we didn’t have long to wait. Within 5-10 minutes, our number was called and we left the ship. Walking into the cruise terminal, we found all our bags right away in our group #19 area. So we walked outside and asked for a large taxi from the long lines of waiting cabs. We were in the cab and driving into Stockholm before 9 a.m., sooner than we had expected. The cab driver quickly delivered us to the Hilton at Slussen again.
Our rooms weren’t ready so early, so we left the luggage with Hilton’s bell captain and went upstairs to the executive lounge to get something to drink. Then we walked to a not-busy Gamla Stan and beyond to Norrmalm. The sun was very warm; the high was in the 80s. We did some souvenir shopping and returned to Gamla Stan, where we stopped for coffee and pastries at a shop with outdoor tables in the square. We watched the volume of tourists grow gradually. Then we walked back to the Hilton and found that our three rooms were ready.
After resting and recharging, and watching some of the World Cup final match in the executive lounge, we all met in the lounge again and went out to dinner about 6:45. We walked to the Italian restaurant we had eaten at before we went on the cruise, Da Luigi. We were lucky to get a table outside on the pedestrian-only street, where we watched the people walk by. Both the restaurant and the street were very busy. Then we returned to the hotel, where we turned in early in order to be able to get up very early for our flights home tomorrow.
Lori's Travels 