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Mein Schiff 4 - TUI?


Ine
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We are thinking of making a cruise to/ from Dubai on that ship this winter. German language isnot a big problem for us. Having sailed at a.o. HAL, Celebrity, we hope to hear from others if we Will like Mein Schiff? Service, food, entertainment etc.?

Thanks

 

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Hallo Ine onze reisagent is afgelopen maart met Mein Shiff 4 op cruise

geweest hij was zeer te spreken over het schip het eten eigenlijk over

alles hij heeft een filmpje op You Tube gezet zijn naam is Henny Hagenaars

groet uit Zeeland Ineke

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We are thinking of making a cruise to/ from Dubai on that ship this winter. German language isnot a big problem for us. Having sailed at a.o. HAL, Celebrity, we hope to hear from others if we Will like Mein Schiff? Service, food, entertainment etc.?

Thanks

 

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Forums mobile app

 

Hi Ine, Floridiana on this site is very well versed in Mein Schiff cruising. Review the posts by that name, but here is the latest with respect to Floridiana.:

 

We are back from our Western Med cruise on Mein Schiff 6. The ship was fine, but I would never book that many tours again with them. The ports are strenuous. We enjoyed the ones we did ourselves much better. There is a limit to absorb the information from constantly talking guides. We haven't booked another cruise with TUI since we can't find an itinerary we like.

The food was good, often better than on our cruise on Mein Schiff 1, especially the fish dishes. Many servers from Eastern European countries had not yet caught on to the idea of smiling. One Philippino waiter told us that they stress 'friendliness' as part of a waiter's job in the training sessions.

Good luck

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Hallo Ine onze reisagent is afgelopen maart met Mein Shiff 4 op cruise

geweest hij was zeer te spreken over het schip het eten eigenlijk over

alles hij heeft een filmpje op You Tube gezet zijn naam is Henny Hagenaars

groet uit Zeeland Ineke

Dat ga ik even opzoeken. Bedankt.

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Hi Ine, Floridiana on this site is very well versed in Mein Schiff cruising. Review the posts by that name, but here is the latest with respect to Floridiana.:

 

We are back from our Western Med cruise on Mein Schiff 6. The ship was fine, but I would never book that many tours again with them. The ports are strenuous. We enjoyed the ones we did ourselves much better. There is a limit to absorb the information from constantly talking guides. We haven't booked another cruise with TUI since we can't find an itinerary we like.

The food was good, often better than on our cruise on Mein Schiff 1, especially the fish dishes. Many servers from Eastern European countries had not yet caught on to the idea of smiling. One Philippino waiter told us that they stress 'friendliness' as part of a waiter's job in the training sessions.

Good luck

Thanks. On other lines we loved the service of the indonesian/philipino crew, so yes we will be prepared for a less friendly service unfortunately. If the food is good that makes up. Thank you.

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Oh no, I lost a lengthy reply to you Ine. I'll summarize a bit.

 

We loved our Dubai cruise. The ship was great and the ports are different and interesting. They sold hop-on hop-off tickets on the ship in Dubai. It has 3 routes which you can enjoy all day. The bus goes to the pier.

 

The food has many German items, great bread, rolls, cake, rooibos tea in the tea selection, a separate included fish restaurant for a change of pace. Many choices of included cocktails, wine, beer and other alcoholic drinks. All soft drinks and almost all coffee is included.

 

Compared to food on HAL ships: Mein Schiff has more interesting items and more variety. Asian dishes as well. Great Italian gelato. Our next cruise is on the Amsterdam and I don't expect anything from the food, found it bland and boring in the past. It's also the passengers' fault who send anything a little bit spicy back. We booked the Amsterdam cruise for the itinerary.

 

Use the ports as your day time entertainment. The ship doesn't do much or maybe nothing. We didn't go to any events except to the captain's talk which was fun. The sun starved Germans (maybe not this year) hang out on the most crowded pool decks I have ever seen. It must be their main entertainment.

 

Service: It is good but the Indonesians and Philippinos are better because their smiles come naturally. We found a team of three Philippinos on our Norway cruise on Mein Schiff 1 and went to their station every evening. Similar outstanding service from a Turkish team on Mein Schiff 5. The supervisors are really good and help out when the dining rooms get more crowded around 7 p.m.

 

Best is to take the good (long swimming pool for swimmers) with the bad (smoking on balconies is permitted, yuk!) and enjoy the cruise and itinerary as it is. :cool:

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Thank you Floridiana for your report. As we live in The Netherlands we know how much germans and also dutch love the sun. So no surprise it will be busy at the pool. Since we donot sit in the sun that much it will be no problem. Too bad smoking is allowed on the balconies however. We (like you) go for the itinary and ports not so much for the entertainment. So good to read about the food, that is another important factor for us. We certainly want to see as much as possible ashore so the hopon off bus is great. What did you do in Abu Dabi and the other portsby the way? We are no great fans of shipstour.

On some Hal ships you will find an asian section at the buffet, which often is rather good. We love the Tamarind restaurants on some of the HAL ships, but I think ms Amsterdam doesnot have it. We love the size of the Amsterdam.

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In Abu Dhabi, we booked a ship's tour to the hinterland, do not recommend this particular tour. We wanted to see the desert town where the present sheik's father and founder of the UAE grew up. His palace is interesting but the tour should have been better despite the excellent tour guide, three forts and 5 minutes in a date palm oasis just doesn't do it for me.

 

Abu Dhabi: We went to the new Louvre museum on our own from Dubai because we had miscalculated the dates when reserving online. Take a taxi from the pier in Abu Dhabi. The Louvre is visible from the ship, but the taxi needs to go all the way around to the island. I wish they had a ferry, maybe they do in the meantime, who knows. There is more to see on the island, but the architecture of the Louvre is the most unique.

 

At the pier in Abu Dhabi, they had a group of male Bedouin dancers, two men with a falcon, fishermen weaving nets, a woman doing henna designs on your hand. I don't know whether this is the regular pier side entertainment, we were there on the national holiday. If it had been a work day, we would have gone to the date market which is not far from the pier.

 

Are you going to Oman or to Qatar or both?

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Not to be missed in Abu Dhabi, the large mosque. It is the most beautiful building with marble floors and walls from Carrara, inlaid flower patterns, Swarovski crystal chandeliers. Absolutely stunning! We took the ship's tour at night. Wear long pants (not skin tight) covering your ankles and sleeves all the way to your wrists. Cover your hair with a scarf. If you don't fulfill the clothing requirements, they make you rent a gown. I wore my loose linen pants and blouse that I bring to tropical climates for mosquito protection.

 

Same for the other mosques we visited. There were always a few women who didn't believe it. The rental gown for the Oman mosque was the worst, but the mosque was also beautiful. Men need long pants and short sleeves only. Everybody takes off shoes, they have racks for them.

 

If I had to do it again, I would book a mountain tour in Oman. My husband was afraid they would have decrepit jeeps, but they had large new vehicles.

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Thanks again for that information. Unfortunately my husband wears orthopedic shoes due to an accident when he was younger. He cannot walk without those shoes so I am afraid visiting a mosque is impossible for us.

So we will try to find a cab that can take us around to other places or take the hoho bus..

A friend told me about the highrise hotel in Dubai where he had (an expensive but worht it) high tea, so we are thinking about that. Indeed a tour to the dessert would be nice. I will google around to see if I can find a private driver or join a small group.

That mountain tour in Oman was that a shiptour?

Thanks again

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Have you tried the line's website? I don't remember whether we looked at the excursions before or after we booked the cruise, but I remember that we did it at home. Many Germans book right on the ship. There is an area with computers for this purpose and a few live staff to help out. It's very busy on the first day. They also have a presentation in the theatre about the excursions

and the presentations are available on tv in the cabin.

 

They are very picky about the excursion cancellation times. And the descriptions of the excursions are more optimistic about the level of activity than on HAL ships. It did not matter on the Dubai cruise since nobody walks much in the heat anyway (except inside the malls), but it was an issue in Rome where it said 5 km of walking and my husband's watch counted 10 km.

 

The ship will be overnight in Dubai. If you want to see the evening water fountains in the Dubai Mall, just take a taxi there. We booked the excursion because we thought it would give us a better view. Not necessary, the fountains dance every 30 minutes and afterwards people leave. There is plenty of space to get up front for the next session. The music changes each time, it's about 5 minutes.

Edited by Floridiana
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Hello Ine,

 

The ship is a slightly smaller and wow-improved version of Celebrity Solstice. Some issues were inherited (narrow balcony cabins, however the inside cabins are way better), but the result is amazingly refreshing.

This one of a few best cruise ships available at the moment.

The food quality overall (main dining rooms, specialty restaurants, buffet, alternative buffet) is above HAL and Celebrity, and only compares to Oceania.

 

MS 3 and 4 are the best ships built since 2010. These two ship are standing along in the TUI fleet (the product started rollinig down sibce MS 5 - growing suite privileges ).

 

Entertainment (shows) is similar to the large HAL & Celebrity ships.

The poolside sailaway parties are much more interesting.

 

The MS3 is close to 5*-. The MS4 is just a nod below (added verandah of Surf & Turf specialty restaurant slightly compromises the open full-circle promenade deck experience).

 

The spa (included in the price) is huge. The only important miss: no thalassotherapy pool in the spa that is a must for a top class ship. Thus no 5*...

 

The review of the MS 3 is here.

The ship appears at 33:08

 

Happy cruising!

 

Hi Ronbe65

 

This is an excellent blog, and I hope that you wont mind if I post it in my "roll call" forum (incorrectly titled!!)

Tui Cruises Mein Schiff 3 Bremerhaven to Majorca 11 Sep 2018 with the link:https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2534165

 

Kevin

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hey everyone, thank you very much for sharing your experiences!

 

Hi Ine, just booked the Dubai cruise over Christmas with MS4 and can´t wait! :) Just in case you´re thinking about the same one

 

We havenot booked yet due some private things going on, but are thinking about end of November or beginning of December. We hope to make the decision within 2 or 3 weeks however.

Thank you Duffybag for your postings too!

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  • 4 weeks later...
We are thinking of making a cruise to/ from Dubai on that ship this winter. German language isnot a big problem for us. Having sailed at a.o. HAL, Celebrity, we hope to hear from others if we Will like Mein Schiff? Service, food, entertainment etc.?

Thanks

 

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Forums mobile app

 

 

We have travelled with Mein Schiff a couple of times now, and found them extreemly clean in the dining rooms,cabin and in general. Everything is organised with precision, and the food in the buffet restaurant is to die for! Cheese counter outstrips any other we have seen, and the stir fry counter is fabulous with a choose your food and buzzed when ready. The mixologists in the Tui bar are fabulous and put on a great show. The shows are very good, but the comedy was a bit of a problem (with language), singing and dance excellent! I am sure if you book you will have a great time.

Jan

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We have travelled with Mein Schiff a couple of times now, and found them extreemly clean in the dining rooms,cabin and in general. Everything is organised with precision, and the food in the buffet restaurant is to die for! Cheese counter outstrips any other we have seen, and the stir fry counter is fabulous with a choose your food and buzzed when ready. The mixologists in the Tui bar are fabulous and put on a great show. The shows are very good, but the comedy was a bit of a problem (with language), singing and dance excellent! I am sure if you book you will have a great time.

Jan

 

Thank you, it sounds great,Unfortunately due to health problems in the family we still havenot booked yet but we hope to do so soon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am glad that i found this thread, because i booked the Dubai cruise ms4 begin november and i had the same questions. My last cruise was with the Koningsdam in July.

 

I liked the a la carte breakfast in the MDR. Does MS4 have it also or only buffet in MDR?

 

In Germany it is common to go naked in the sauna, what on board.

 

Thanks a lot

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I am glad that i found this thread, because i booked the Dubai cruise ms4 begin november and i had the same questions. My last cruise was with the Koningsdam in July.

 

I liked the a la carte breakfast in the MDR. Does MS4 have it also or only buffet in MDR?

 

In Germany it is common to go naked in the sauna, what on board.

 

Thanks a lot

 

Hello,

the Atlantik Restaurant ist divided into three parts:

Atlantik Klassik: here you get a buffet breakfast, coffee / tea and omelets / div. eggs can be ordered

Atlantik Brasserie: in this part you can have an a la carte breakfast

Atlantik Mediterran: is closed for breakfast

 

And just an advice if you want a relaxing breakfast in a wonderful atmosphere: take a look at the Cafe Lounge!! You have to pay here for the breakfast, but it is really, really great!

 

Enjoy your cruise!

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  • 1 month later...

Hi,

it took some time, sorry :-)

Movies with english subtitles are not in the board TV, so the guys from the TUI Cruises Netlounge told me. There are some movies in different languages, but they couldn´t say, how many and which languages.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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