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NOT LIVE, MS EUROPA Travemuende-Hamburg, UK, 8/11-8/25/18, blog, PHOTOS


Catlover54
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I thoroughly enjoyed Fowey. Many tourists stay here several days, see the gardens, shop, dine, boat, and go further out on the islands. People were friendly with a sense of humor and food was good.

 

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I would love to return.

 

We had an invitation this week to dine with complimentary champagne and wine,with the captain, hotel director, and the wonderful entertainment director David Wilms, who was superfriendly and animated, plus two more ( chief engineer from Rumania

and also the staff captain).This was in the Italian venue, five courses, and you had a different officer at your table for eight with each course, modeled after speed dtaing.

The captain,Olaf Hartman, is a very nice, thoughtful man, clearly enjoys passengers, and has a great baritone ( end of the cruise he sang a funny ballad about a herring engaged to a mackerel)

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Day 12, Wednesday August 22, Isle of Wight, Cowes

 

Our excursion was an “Old Timer” drive around the Isle of Wight. Twenty or so pax shared 10 classic old cars over a few hours. Periodically we stopped at scenic spots, including a village with “Winkle Street" that had old houses with thatched roofs, and some castle ruins.

 

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We would change cars after each stop so we could experience different ones. A 1929 red Austin convertible with 12 horsepower was my favorite car and had my favorite driver, and an old black 1948 police car with a loud tooter was a close second. Some of the cars were driven by the owners (very enthusiastic to show off their vehicles), others by friends or employees of the owners. Apparently one man had a collection of 60 cars garaged on the island. One driver barely talked at all, another talked when pressed, two (owners) were very enthusiastic, and one mechanic and driver was the kind of down to earth person you would love to joke around with in a pub if you had more time and he were off the clock.

 

 

One driver said he moved to the peaceful Isle of Wight because where he had previously lived rurally in Kent police seemed more interested in taking it easy and in peacefully eating their lunch, than in protecting his property against bands of traveling thieves ( he used a different word) who repeatedly broke in and stole his tools and other property. He is very happy on the Isle, with his car club and low crime rate.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi Catlover, enjoying your report very much as usual, but must point out that Fowey is not in the Isles of Scilly. It's on the English mainland in the county of Cornwall.

 

Nice photos of the Isle of Wight. I've lived in England for many years now and never visited it, will add to my interminable list!

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Oops, thank you so much, Isklaar, for correcting my error about Fowey’s location! I knew it was Cornwall, but somehow got the idea from crew on the ship it was at the tip of a Cornish island. I should have looked at a map instead of posting an error.

Please let me know if I post any other errors about your beautiful neck of the woods!

It actually makes it even better for me for revisiting that it is not on an island, because then one could drive to it without having to use a ferry.

 

I am wondering what took me so long to start visiting the English countryside, as it holds its own with France, Italy, and other scenic parts of Europe, and I think it was the rumor that British food is not very good, but certainly that is not very true now if you look carefully, know what you are doing, and do internet searches.

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Winkle street take two, with old roofs:

 

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Old mill grounds, cafe and rest stop:

 

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Pheasants on roof of old mill building:

 

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Cowey entrepreneur’s cutesy cafe:

 

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Castle ( we did not have time to go in, just had a rest stop below:)

 

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That evening we enjoyed this version of Beef Wellington in the restaurant:

 

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Day 13, Dover and Sissinghurst Gardens

 

After admiring the fogged in white cliffs of Dover, (during which time the German guide said nothing about WW2 to the German audience and I silently remembered the movie Dunkirk and stories my parents told me about their wartime experiences in Europe), we did an excursion to the famous Sissinghurst Gardens. Though beautiful, I found myself vaguely irritated instead of soothed by all the dead ends in the gardens, deliberately designed to private separate little subspaces. I preferred the bigger expanses:

 

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Views from the top of the tower:

 

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And inside:

 

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At the back of the gardens are also paths going into the woods and to two lakes, which was my favorite area, in part because there were almost no people who made it that far and it was very peaceful and quiet. It is a pleasant one hour or so loop walk.

 

 

 

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The modern history of Sissinghurst gardens and Vita Sackville-West, its bisexual founder, is interesting.

 

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/who-was-vita-sackville-west

 

At the gardens when we were there, we saw a feminism oriented exhibit and a movie about how most gardening jobs for women were not open to women until World War 2. Then access improved, as Vita and others hired women to do work at Sissinghurst during the war and beyond. Gardening was portrayed as a breakthrough for feminists seeking power in the workplace.

 

There was a small collection of artifacts including this:

 

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It relates to the “Cat and Mouse” Act, passed in the suffragette era, when some women who got ill after hunger fasts during jail time for vandalous acts, and then some:

 

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Near Ashford on the way back to the ship, the guide noted that the historic tank on display there without a canon muzzle is called a “female tank” ( Mark IV, WWI).

The feminists from Sissinghurst apparently have not objected or called for renaming ( maybe because the guns on that tank were off on the side, as opposed to non-existent).

 

 

 

 

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We headed back to the bus, and on the way heard two women garden workers covered in mud angrily arguing with each other about something relating to what they were planting.

 

That evening was the second formal night of the cruise. MDR food was, again, wonderful.

The crew put on their usual farewell gala performance, where they sang sea songs, as did the captain, and they held auctions for a Philipines childrens fund, and for the crew towel ( went for 1300 Euro, with two gentlemen good-naturedly competing for it at the end, who shook hands after one of them lost).

 

They also gently and humorously reminded pax about the crew cash donation pot, which looked quite full of 50 and 100 Euro notes by the time of disembarkation two days later ( this was optional extra service tipping, along with the crew towel auction and any individual tips pax chose to quietly give to MDR personnel or stewardesses). There was, however, still room in the pot to add British pounds and dollars, after filling out the written evaluations and dropping them at reception.

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Day 14, Sea Day

 

We kept breakfast deliberately tiny, as we were saving our stomach volume and fat cells for the Bavarian beer garden festival on the Lido deck at lunch. The weather cooperated by not showering anyone until after it was over. I love this presentation of traditional stick-to-your bones German food, head cheese, blood sausage, schmalz, Leberwurst, a whole roast pig, roast veal, gravy, salads, pretzels, complimentary beer and Schnapps. The band played German beer festival music and servers wore dirndls or Lederhosen.

 

 

My initial plate ( before desserts). The white blob in the upper left is schmalz, which eventually made its way onto the bread, and to its ultimate destination.

 

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The Lido outside, before people came. A beer barrel was unceremoniously placed over the elegant sculpture:

 

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I am not sure what the Indian headdress was doing here:

 

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Staff told us that not uncommonly children raised in cities become frightened when they see the chopped up suckling pig, complete with head:

 

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Staff poured complimentary beer and spirits, Schnapps, in unlimited amounts.

 

People who wished to avoid this commotion could eat lunch in the peaceful MDR or the Italian venue, Venezia, or could focus on the sad task of packing for disembarkation the next day.

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Where have all the socklets gone?

 

I noticed that as the cruise progressed, the number of pairs of special thin dark cotton socks I had declined. I suspected they were disappearing in the bowels of the ship’s laundry. There is no laundry facility for pax self-service, BTW.

 

On my final laundry deposit, two days before the cruise ended, I therefore carefully tracked the number of pairs of dark socks I gave to wash, four to test how many returned. Only three pairs returned, plus a stray white sock that did not belong to me. I alerted my stewardess with a note and a picture of the incriminating evidence. Not much later, the head of housekeeping came to my suite ( after politely first confirming by phone that the time was ok for me) and we had a focussed discussion about the missing socks. She intently studied this picture showing my three brunette pairs that had returned, accompanied by the lone blonde they had picked up, but missing the fourth dark pair, with the same level of seriousness and attention a police inspector might give upon investigating a felony:

 

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I told her I was not so much concerned with the relatively minor value of the missing socks (a German quality brand, Falke, a bit hard for me to get in the U.S.) but with the issue of disappearing laundry in general on the Europa, and specifically that another passenger was missing a white sock. I thought management should know there may be a problem in the laundry, where small items somehow slither away into dark recesses, never to return. She encouraged me to fill out a claim form, which I did, listing value, and the next morning I had credit on my account. She said most people do not bother with a claim, and she wished they would. She took detailed notes and said she would launch an investigation through the hotel manager to avoid future disappearances I was happy with the interest in improving service.

 

 

 

 

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Day 15, disembarkation, and Hamburg

 

Though organized into color groups, for unclear reasons ( perhaps because the captain personally said goodbye to everyone as we exited and some pax had longer conversations), disembarkation took over a half hour, much longer than usual on HL. Suites were to be vacated by 9, and the ship by 10. Breakfast was available in all the usual venues, and snacks and drinks were in the main lounge.

 

 

There is plenty for tourists to do in modern Hamburg for at least few days, either pre-cruise or after, and definitely if it is a port stop ( though it might be best for women and those who are frail or nervous to stay away from some areas with limited police presence and relatively more crime, such as St. Georg, Steindamm, and other areas around the central station, according to my Hamburg friends, who are locals). Gentrification and clean-up is ongoing, but is nowhere near complete, as there is resistance to it.

 

We were picked up at the approachable cruise port by another friend of mine who lives in the very nice Lokstedt area of Hamburg, previously called the old “ top hat” area of Hamburg. After dropping off my Europa cruise friend at the easily accessible airport in the once again pouring rain, we walked the downtown areas of Hamburg by foot a bit and ate lunch at one of Hamburg’s many fantasic restaurants.

This one was in a shopping district, and was called Tschebull, authentic upscale Austrian cuisine using local ingredients,

 

tschebull.de.

 

That evening we went to an outdoor jazz concert in the trendy area of Eppendorf, and the next day got lucky with shining sun, and walked along the Alster waterway parks and watched sailboats and families enjoying the weather:

 

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Getting home and final thoughts:

 

 

Of course it was cloudy and pouring again for my British Airways flight to LHR and then connecting in LHR back to sunny California. I worried if I would have another airline delay fiasco getting home like I did coming to Hamburg. Instead, we had no mechanicals, just usual travel annoyances:

1.

I got selected for secondary screening of my totebag carryon at three of the four security areas. The most disturbing was the personnel disappearing with my totebag on a tray for 15 minutes, out of my sight, and returning with all the zippers open, and my money, passport, ID, credit cards and tiny toiletries and notes were all spilled out of their compartments lying loose in the tray, which security personnel casually tossed back to me.

2.

I also landed up having to sit near a couple of aromatically challenged businessmen who had taken off their shoes probably for the first time in a week, and had not put on flying booties to replace them.

3. Icing on the cake was having a stewardess spill a full glass of sticky orange juice on my light linen trousers, with several hours flight time remaining The latter is one of many incidents that illustrates the need to carry a change of clothing in carryon luggage, (though I might also have to add noseplugs. )[emoji849] But considering the way my flights went on the way over, these were all just minor annoyances, part of the usuala indignity of modern commercial flights.

 

Within two weeks of arriving home, I had received acknowledgment and confirmation feedback on my on-ship cruise review, as I had on prior cruises. It is nice that someone at HL actually reads pax specific feedback. With SB I am never sure anyone reads them as I never get comments. I suspect a key reason HL changed their 19 cent a minute internet policy to one free hour per day plus cheap packages based on data usage, is intense feedback from customers.

 

In sum, this was another excellent MS Europa cruise with a wonderful itinerary, and I would not hesitate to cruise with her again, on the right itinerary, and even endure more airline torture, to get to her.

 

 

DH fortunately did not mind my being gone, as he was busy with many other things, but I hope to bring him with me again on a future HL cruise.

 

With persistence, HL should keep up the quality, as they certainly keep up the prices.

 

If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer them. I hope you learned or enjoyed a bit of my blog and iphone pictures.

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Catlover ,

once again many thanks for all the pics and the reviews - i only will be on MS Europa once next year for a short cruise with the gastronomical event "Europa's beste " - i do prefer the ms Europa 2 despite the absence of the Bavarian lunch. That was one of the complaints made by the Germans after the 2 was launched.

 

Sorry to hear about your not so pleasant experiences on Heathrow and with BA - i can imagine it ! Once in business i was seated next to a man who emptied some 5 beers with the meal and was "unwell" afterwards :mad:

Sometimes in a plane you have bad luck with neighbours unless you travel first what i cannot afford.

 

If you are in Hamburg a next time maybe try the following Fischereihafen restaurant or Hummer Pedersen , a not so expensive fish bistro .

 

Wishing you the best for your next SB cruise !

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