Still, all the old doubts flooded back at the first view of the Symphony. The ship was a 55,000-ton, five-story monster that stretched as long as a city block and towered over the Helsinki port .
As we wheeled our luggage along with scores of other passengers, we told our three children of the possible pleasures that awaited them (if not us): the sauna, the all-you-can-eat meals, the bunk beds, the pinball arcade, the freedom to explore on their own. They said little as they gazed at the spectacle ahead -- an experience that would have no equivalent in our years of travel around the world.
We boarded the ship after a 5 -minute walk up a switchback runway and were immediately greeted and posed for a picture by the ship photographer. Then we entered what seemed like a street of shops, or an opulent hotel lobby with an impossibly high ceiling. We were directed to our "family cabin" (the second stop on the elevator), where we struggled to squeeze with our fat pieces of luggage into a tiny space that had five fold-up beds and a sliver of a bathroom.
We adults were ready to sleep until we got to Stockholm, but the boys, ages 9 and 11, left for pinball, and our 14-year-old daughter just left . . . to wander, we guessed.
After leafing through a thick directory detailing the Symphony's many wonders -- Bjorn Borg once played tennis on board -- and closely studying the ship map, we also decided to explore, at least until we found our children.
The boys were easy to locate, set up in the arcade room, mesmerized by an air hockey game. When the money ran out, they begged for more, which we promised to provide -- later. We found our daughter on deck. After a stroll and a few games of miniature golf on the shipboard course (some of us blamed the poor putting on the big boat's motion), we took a seat on deck as the Symphony left Helsinki.
