The port stop for today is Copenhagen, Denmark. We visited here for three days in 2016 at the end of a Ft. Lauderdale to Copenhagen Transatlantic cruise, so we picked out a couple of different things to do on this visit. The ship was already in port when we woke up, having a 5:00 AM scheduled arrival time. The plan for today was to visit the Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerod, about a 45 minute commuter train ride north of Copenhagen.
We got off of the ship about 7:30 AM, and a lot of the passengers that were disembarking today had already left since the ship arrived in port this morning at 5:00 AM. Apparently, there are a lot of early flights out from here to the US, so the ship tries to get here really early so that passengers can make their early flights. About two-thirds of the passengers were disembarking today, and being replaced by new passengers for the 14 day transatlantic cruise segment to New York, starting here in Copenhagen.
We headed over to the Information Kiosk, just a short walk from the cruise terminal, to purchase a 24 hour Copenhagen Card, which covers the entrance fees for many of the sights here, and is also the transportation ticket for anywhere in the Copenhagen area. We were not sure if they were going to be open this early, or if it was going to be crowded, but they were open and there was only a couple of other people inside.
We requested two Copenhagen Cards, but when we went to pay, the machine would not accept our credit card. Thinking there was possibly a problem with our card, even though it had worked flawlessly for the past several days, we then tried our Debit/ATM card from another bank. This one did not work either, which was very perplexing. I asked if they had used the credit card machines today, and they had not, but said they worked fine yesterday. Our only option was to go back to the room, and get a backup credit card from a different bank, and try that. We did not have any Danish money, so it was plastic or bust.
To get back onto the ship, we had to go through security at the terminal, and then go through security on the ship. We ran into a large crowd disembarking the ship to travel home, and it was like swimming upstream to get back up the gangway. We headed up to the room, and got both a second credit card and second ATM/Debit Card. We had not used the credit card on the trip to date, so there should not have been any reason it would fail from any possible fraudulent activity.
We then had to make our way back off of the ship and walk back to the Information Kiosk to purchase the tickets. When we tried to pay with the different credit card, it was also rejected, so we were fairly sure it was their machines not working and not our cards. The man helping us literally dusted off the manual credit card machine that communicates via wireless, not directly wired through the cash registers, and once it was booted up, it worked fine, except that he could not print us out a receipt, something was wrong with the printer or paper. At least we were happy that we did not have an issue with our credit cards, I actually used the original one we tried first this morning to pay, and all was good, except for the receipt problem. I didn’t really need a receipt, but the man sort of insisted that he call someone and make it happen, so we wasted another 10 minutes with that.
In the meantime, another person came in to buy the same Copenhagen Card, and his credit card did not get accepted either at first through the automated credit card reader, only after doing the charge with the manual machine, manual meaning electronic, just that the charge total is entered manually, not automatically by the cash register.
Finally, we just told our sales person to forget about the receipt, and we went over to the bus stop to take the city bus to the train station. The bus that was already there went to the Osterport station, which was not the closest one to the port, but would get us to the correct train, and it was leaving now, not in another 20 minutes, which was the departure time for the next bus to Norreport Station where we had intended to go.
It was only about a 10 minute ride before we arrived at the Osterport train station. We thought it was a “station” with a building, but it was only a train stop, with just a few platforms. We were hoping to find a restroom inside the station, but the building there was not part of the train system at all, even though it looked like it had been a station in the past. It had been converted into something else.
Frederiksborg Castle
We had to backtrack a little, and finally found the correct platform for our train to Hillerod, where the Frederiksborg Castle is located. It was a 45 minute ride, the commuter train stopped at quite a few stations on the route. Once we arrived at Hillerod, which was the end station, we went outside to get on the city bus to the castle. There are several different buses that go to the castle, and we asked the driver to confirm it was on his route. It was a different bus number than I had in my notes, but according to our driver, it was going to the same stop for the castle as we wanted.
It was a short ride, and then a short walk to the castle from the bus stop. It was really sunny now, but we could see clouds approaching. It was also really windy.
Pipe Organ In The Castle Chapel
There were not a lot of people here yet, only one tour group of Asians. We went inside, stored our backpacks in a free locker, and got our tickets. We used the restroom, we are always glad they are available in most every museum or castle, and then headed inside.
The castle was interesting, but the various rooms inside were more dedicated to the life of certain individuals in the Danish Royal Family. There was some authentic furniture, but we were not ever sure what these rooms had been since they were not meant to represent the castle itself, but more to give information about the royal family members.
There was a large gardens outside the castle that we could see through the windows, and were anticipating a nice walk through them in the sunshine.
Garden View From Inside the Castle
However, once we were through with the castle tour itself, which took about 90 minutes, the clouds had moved in once again. We headed outside to the gardens anyway, but with the clouds and wind, it was a little chilly, and of course, not really nice for photos of the castle from the gardens.
We had a little difficulty getting into the gardens, there were closed gates, and we did not see anyone entering through them. We walked to another side, but once again only saw closed gates. Then we saw someone just open them up and exit, so what we has assumed were locked gates, that clearly had deadbolt locks on them, were not locked at all, maybe the locks are used for later when the gardens is closed for the evening.
Chuck & Stephanie – Frederiksborg Castle
We walked through the gardens and stopped for some tripod photos of ourselves, but it was probably too cloudy for them to be any good, we will see. We exited the gardens on a main road, and thought we knew the direction back to the train station from there. We walked one way and found a bus stop, but it was not for the bus we had taken to the castle, We were trying to avoid walking all of the way back to the castle entrance from this far end of the gardens.
The bus station had a map, and it did not appear far to the train station, but we were not sure of the direction. There was also a local metro train station there, but we decided we would head off in the direction for the bus that we thought was correct. It was not, we found another bus station, and discovered we were going the wrong way. We headed back to the original bus station, and then over to the metro station, which had a route map and showed the train station was the next stop on the metro. We boarded the next metro train that came by, and we found out that we were glad we had not tried to walk to the station from there. Although the castle is walkable from the train station to the castle front entrance, it was a long way from where we were in the gardens, it took several minutes on the metro train, and it was only one stop.
We boarded our commuter train for the ride back into Copenhagen, and were getting off at the stop closest to the main area, Nyhavn, where we had stayed last time we were here.
Nyhavn
When we got off the train at the Norreport Station, we had to take the metro one stop to the Kongens Nytorv metro station to walk to Nyhavn. We recognized the metro station exit that led into a department store from our last trip here. The bottom floor of the store has eating shops and a grocery store and is directly accessible from the station. We had eaten at one of the sandwich shops on our last trip, and ate lunch there again this time. We both ate hot ham and cheese sandwiches before heading over to Nyhavn to look around.
Nyhavn was really crowded. There were a couple of other ships in port here today, but it was also Saturday, and sunny once again, so everyone was outside enjoying the weather. We took some photos and then headed over to take a canal boat tour, which was also included on the Copenhagen Card. We ran into a giant rally, it appeared to be for supporting the elimination of pollution through recycling. There were thousands of people in the street marching. It was wreaking havoc with the traffic.
View Of Nyhavn From Canal Boat
We purchased our ticket using our Copenhagen Card to obtain a voucher, and waited in line for the next canal tour boat. These boats must hold at least 200 people, so it took a while to unload and reload them. About the time we got on the boat, the clouds moved in again, and it was a chilly ride. We had done this same canal boat ride the previous trip to Copenhagen in 2016, and knew it is a nice relaxing ride and it gave us a chance to rest.
The Royal Family Yacht
After the boat ride, it looked like the clouds were here to stay, so after walking around In a shopping area, we headed back to the Kongens Nytorv metro station for the short ride to the the Norreport train station and then onward to the Osterport train station to catch the bus back to the cruise terminal. We could have taken a bus from the Norreport Station, but opted for the familiar route from this morning, and the two train stations are only one stop apart from each other.
There were some confusing signs at the bus stop, and we were not quite sure which buses came here, mainly for the bus direction of travel. There were a couple of other folks here, some from our cruise and some from another cruise ship at the same location. What we did figure out was that we luckily had made it back here in time for the last bus of the day, there were later buses departing here on Monday – Friday but not on Saturday. And then the bus was late, making everyone nervous.
The bus took a different route back to the port from the one we had taken this morning to the train station, so everyone on the bus was confused and nervous, but the driver assured us he was heading to the terminal for our ships.
Copenhagen Port From The Ship
Finally, after going in a really confusing route through the port, we arrived back at the ship and exited the bus for the short walk to the terminal. After going through security, we boarded our ship.
We dropped off our gear in the room, and headed back out to Vines for some wine. We had already decided to eat at Alfredo’s for dinner, so after a while at Vines, we headed upstairs one deck to Alfredo’s to eat. It was about 7:45 PM and the ship was not leaving until 10:00 PM. Out of habit, we asked for a window table, forgetting that the ship was not sailing, and all we would get was a view of the cruise terminal….. we had a good laugh with our waiter.
After dinner, we headed to Crooners. We were already missing our Australian friends, they had all gotten off this morning, and everything tonight on the ship was really dead. There were hardly any people at Crooners. Maybe everyone who boarded today was tired from their overseas travel to the ship.
We did not stay out long, but were already noticing that the average age of the new passengers for ‘the Transatlantic Cruise segment was way up, and the average mobility level was way down, as compared to the people that had gotten off today that we had seen been around since we boarded in Warnemunde.
We headed back to the cabin for the night at around 11:00 PM.