‘Magic’al Europe – Day 7
The next day, the Disney Magic was headed to Helsinki, Finland, which was a close distance from the port of Stockholm. Due to the sea being mostly enclosed by land, the Baltic seas were very calm, tricking us to forgetting that we were on a ship at all. Of course, that illusion was constantly shattered when we looked out a porthole.
For breakfast, we headed to Lumiere’s for a more relaxed experience in the morning, as restaurants would have servers bring you food and drinks, instead of needing to walk around Cabana’s to find your food. In addition, the restaurant food in the morning seems to be of a better quality, and we enjoyed this breakfast a lot.
Soon, we were off the ship and on an exploration trip in Helsinki, Finland. We initially saw the Stockmann building from the port exit, so we decided to head towards there to check out an ordinary Finnish Department store, which, to no one’s surprise, was very ordinary.
Next up, we decided to head to the famous Rock Church in Finland. On the way there, we again had some issues with our GPS system, instead relying on our gut feeling and paper maps to get us pointed in vaguely the correct direction. Along the way, we were able to appreciate the architecture and atmosphere, that every single European city appears to exude effortlessly. Other cities around the world would never be able to exude this much personality.
Soon, we finally reached the Rock Church of Finland. Inside, we took some photos as well as met up with some of our fellow cruise-mates, while we admired the architecture of the Rock Church — it was built in a literal block of rock and looked the part as well!
After a short trip to the Rock Church, we stopped by some souvenir shops on our way to the town square, where we managed to take some photos of the ports lining the coastline, as well as the magnificent town centre building. Afterwards, we decided to slowly head back to the ship, after we had our lunch, as we had mostly exhausted our planned activities.
Soon, we encountered some of the famous Finnish street food, such as the creamy salmon soup, and stir fried sea-food along the coastline. We soon found a place to sit down and enjoy our snacks, where we ordered a myriad of fried seafood and salmon soup.
Soon, we headed back to the dock where the ship was located, and managed an amazing photo opportunity of the ship, with people to scale! This really puts into perspective really how huge the Disney Magic is, even though it is currently Disney’s smallest ship in operation. Another fun fact is simply how late the sun sets. Most of the time the sun was out till 10pm or even later, making our days feel way longer than they should be.
Afterwards, we decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get some snacks from around the ship, complementing our lunch with some nice comfort food in cakes from Cove cafe, burgers from around the pool, as well as Buffalo wings!
After our second round of lunch, we headed to the theater for the early show. This time we arrived super early at the theater because it would be airing a new show, Tangled.
After the show, we headed to the O’Gilles pub which we were told was “under new management” to fit the theme of the Tangled show that we attended earlier. Here we got some drinks and desserts before we headed for dinner proper.
At the Grand Atrium, we again took some photos before entering Lumiere’s again for dinner. This time, there was a photographer next to the Whistling Mickey statue, which paid tribute to one of the most significant scenes of all of Disney — the one that started it all.
Finally, it was time for dinner, and we were quickly again directed to our seats, and served bread and our choice of appetisers. For appetisers, we got 2 servings of the Marinated Tiger Shrimp, and 2 servings of Baked Oysters on the Half Shell. For our main course, ZA wasn’t sure what to get as he thought the Lobster Tail would be small, and would not be very filling as a dinner meal. So he asked our server, Jose if it was small. Instead of answering, he said that he could bring two(!) tails for ZA instead. This again was another example of prime Disney service. The rest of us had the Fettuccine with Parmesan-Crusted Chicken, while Ashley had a plain Fettuccine with cheese.
During Dinner, a photographer came over and took some very professional-looking photos of us individually as well as the whole family.
After we had our main course, we also got desserts, of which I picked the Russian Cake, Triple Chocolate Cake (one with and one without Vanilla Ice Cream) and a Grand Marnier Souffle (which is a vanilla creme brulee with banana bread pudding).
Turns out that I loved my Russian Cake so much I had another one to take-away to our cabin so that I could have another serving!
Of course, no night is ever complete without us taking some photos at the Grand Atrium, and today was a Russian themed backdrop, as well as one with the ship.
