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Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas – Balcony Stateroom

I’ve always wanted to go to St. Petersburg in Russia, and when I was booking my holidays, I knew this was the trip I was going to make it happen! I needed to start crossing things off my “must see” list. I quickly looked a lot of cruise lines, and picked Royal Caribbean as I’ve traveled with them the previous year and loved my trip! Now that I knew this brand was worthy of my time and effort, I found this ship that stopped at my port! I booked it and here’s the stateeroom we stayed at!

My first cruise many years ago was a balcony stateroom. Ever since that cruise, it is the only option we choose as we never realized how much we actually use the outdoor quiet space! We always have the 2 beds pushed together, and these beds were really neat as it’s not rectangular! It’s perfect as I don’t hurt myself as much when I run into the corners! It does have enough room as well, probably because we are short!

Right next to the bed was a little seating area, which is great! We actually sit there if we want, or put thing there. It’s nice to have some living space and it’s large enough. I believe some of the rooms, this is a pull out sofabed, but I do not know if ours was! We left it as it is and used the little table. Sometimes, we’d sit here and eat off the little table, if we’re not doing that on the balcony! It’s quite nice to have options!

Then, the bathrooms onboard are always more compact and only essential things should be brought onboard these cruise trips. We had plenty of space as there’s only 2 of us and I’m the one that has “stuff”. There is storage behind the corner mirrors but there’s also a lot of storage throughout the room too!

Showers can be difficult if you’re use to a lot of space, or if you’re more wide/broad. Even I hit my elbows on the walls when I’m trying to wash my hair, but I can move around.. so I never needed to upgrade to bigger bathroom staterooms or anything like that. But, it’s something to consider if you feel like you spend a lot of time in the shower, or simply won’t fit.

The last part to the stateroom would be the desk/vanity area. It offers everything here! From outlets, to sitting area, mirrors, drawers, and more storage area! It’s the main area for us as we come in and out and put everything in this area.. we do try to clean it up nightly so it’s not clutter.

I did a small room clip as well, but these cabins/staterooms are plenty of space for 2 and sometimes 3 people. I would personally think it’s really crammed for more guests. This cruise that we took was the best cruise to date and we visited Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallinn, Saint Petersburg and Helsinki! Although I’ve been to a few of these places before, Eastern Europe and Scandinavian places are my favourite!

The clip above is the tour of the room! Like I mentioned, it’s enough space, but small if you’re use to North American luxury hotels!

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Cafe Churchill – London, England

It was a cold, rainy London morning in September when we decided to take a walk through the touristy area. When we got towards Westminster Abbey, I realized how hungry I was — and there wasn’t much food options nearby. So, we walked towards the Parliament buildings, we found Cafe Churchill where we quickly popped inside to dry up and fill up on our bellies.

This location was really cute, with little table outside – which I can’t see anyone utilizing in the rain, but probably perfect for the nice days without the rain! Once we walked into the cafe, we saw this pastry display where I got excited! I love pastries!

We both sat down and asked for some English Tea and I wanted mine with lemon. It was so nice to have and anything hot like teas really warmed me up from the inside out! I know it’s just a normal tea, but it was just great timing for this tea.

From entering the cafe, one of the first things I saw was croissants and I noticed a Giant Almond Croissant so I knew that was something I would need to order. The croissant was nice and fresh, crispy layers, subtle sweetness from the powdered sugar, and the sliced almonds made a for a delicious treat!

I thought a croissant for the 2 of us wouldn’t be enough, so we also ordered a Ciabatta Salmone which is a great sandwich of smoked salmon, cream cheese and lettuce on a ciabatta bun. This was a little disappointing compared to the giant almond croissant. This only had 2 thin slices of smoked salmon, and there wasn’t much cream cheese or even lettuce either! The bread was really good as I believe it was fresh. None the less, I ate it up and continued on my journey.

Overall, it was a great experience, and it definitely gave you a small town feel in this cafe! If I’m there, I’d definitely stop by for an almond croissant again though!

Cafe Churchill

Westminster/Millbank
49 Parliament Street, Westminster
London, United Kingdom
(020) 7930 7676

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New Armouries Café – Tower of London

Okay, I know it’s not a restaurant review, but it was a perfect snack review as we were looking for a little sugar in our system during our visit to the Tower of London. we popped into a cafe called New Armouries Cafe and it was almost a cafeteria style cafe – where you pick up what you’d like to eat/purchase and the pay for it.

As we were here only for a little treat, when we walked by the Raspberry and Almond Bakewell Tart, that was the solution for our sugar rush! These tarts are priced at £3.50 which isn’t cheap, but they sure were taste!

Once we cut into this tart, it was a Crisp pastry, raspberry jam and a dense almond topping! The overall taste was really good with the raspberry jam, with a hint of sweetness, and the nice crispy tart was a great balance. The contrast between textures and tastes was magnificent!

The Tower Of London
London, UK
(020) 7488 3668

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Aji Japanese Canteen in London

We walk by the Aji Japanese Canteen every time we walked from our hotel to the tourist areas and every time we did, there always was a nice crowd inside – which made me think it’s not bad! It’s located on the South bank of River Thames just after you cross the Waterloo bridge. One evening, we finally popped in as it was a cold and rainy evening… and they had free internet which we were looking for a place to sit down and use!

It’s a different concept in this restaurant, or what they call Canteen as the space is large, but it is a seat yourself like a food court. Then, you order from the menu an they servers will bring you your food. We each ordered our own dish, and the food came out really quickly. They didn’t mind us staying there longer than we needed to, or anyone doing that actually!

I ordered the Kara Age Don which was ginger flavoured crispy fried chicken, boiled eggs served in a bowl of rice with shredded cabbage, Japanese QP Mayonnaise and Shiso flavoured Sauce

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The other entree we ordered was a Soup Noodles, where you got to pick the kind of noodle you wanted, the type of soup, and the topping you’d like! So, this was fun as we got to personalize our noodle dish. We chose to have Ramen, which is a thin egg noodle, (one of our favourite types of noodles) with Shoyu soup which is a chicken broth that is kind of “soy sauce” flavoured. Then, we topped this bowl of ramen with Cha-Shu and garnished it with bean sprouts, shitake mushrooms and bamboo shoot.

Overall, this place is decent. It’s not the best, but it definitely hit the spot and it served our purpose of getting some nice noodle soup in our bellies, use the internet, and wait out the rain. This isn’t a location I would return to mainly because there are a lot of Japanese resturants that have opened up along the banks of River Thames.

AjiZen Japanese Canteen

Waterloo
Riverside Building County Hall
Waterloo, United Kingdom
(0871) 962 0035

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Belgo Centraal London

My sister really wanted to introduce Belgo Centraal to us in London at Covent Garden, so we all went to eat an early dinner there – which they called Express Lunch. The express lunch was available daily 12-5pm and for £7.95 it came with a choice of Belgo Pils, a glass of house wine or a soft drink with the selected lunch.

I ordered the Salmon Filet with leek mash and mustard cream sauce, and even though the salmon looks like it’s over cooked, it was actually cooked to perfection! It was flaky and still tender inside. The leek mash was divine and it was smooth and creamy. While both these contents sat in some mustard cream sauce, it really tied the dish together. It was a perfect pair.

We also ordered the Pork and Leek Sausages with stoemp mash and berry jus, and I have got to say the stoemp mash was better than my leek mash! It was pretty much a mashed baked potato and it was truly something memorable!

My sister ordered a Bowl of Traditionelle mussels served with frites, and of course I stole a few of both mussels and frites (fries). The mussels – they sure know how to make them here at Belgo, and they were really fresh with absolutely no fishiness to them at all. The portion of this bowl is huge and is a great dish to share!

We were having such a good time here at Belgo, we decided to order dessert! We ordered 2 to share between the 3 of us and it really was the perfect amount! Our first dessert was the Strawberry Pavlova which was not only insanely beautiful to look at, it was insanely delicious as well! The pavlova was nice and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. I’ve had a few pavlovas and they tend to be very chewy on the inside.

We ended this fine express lunch with the very heavenly Belgian dark chocolate cheesecake! The Belgium Dark chocolate wasn’t so dark that the entire cheesecake turned bitter or anything, and the texture and creaminess of the cheesecake was to die for.

This was one of the best meals I’ve had the entire trip, and I would recommend it to anyone! The location does seem strange as it is in the lower level where it appears it’s the entire building! The concept of this restaurant is phenomenal, and the food is extraordinary!