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Peter Deilmann Cruises
m/s Deutschland
Your Rating 
Reviewed by: Steve Langley
Date of Trip: July 16, 2002
# previous cruises: 8
Itinerary: Norwegian Fjords
The following is more a personal journal than an organized review. It originally took the form of several posts, sent back whenever access was available. I've now combined all the posts, juggling where necessary, and added some additional verbiage--some substantive, some stuck in just to provide photographic captions.
Also included are direct links to a lot of photographs. Looking at them all will obviously be much easier with broadband access. You can click on each link (or whichever links you wish) as you go, but should then close the display of that photo, since the next link will open in a new window. Or you can bring up each gallery, links to which are in the daily headings, and click along sequentially within them.
7/12/02--Prolegomena
A cruise ship that struck my fancy was the M/S Deutschland, belonging to a German line named for its owner, Peter Deilmann. This ship was built in 1998, with a capacity of 22,496 grt for 513 passengers and 280 crew. What makes it unusual is its consciously "retro" design. To quote the brochure: "This vessel re-introduces the elaborate crystal chandelier, the imperial ballroom, loom chairs in a palm filled winter garden, fine antiques and original works of art. The décor of our 'Grand Hotel' evokes the splendor of the Edwardian period and the Roaring Twenties through the use of brass, marble, tiffany ceilings, and resplendent upholstery in the lounges. Beautifully appointed staterooms, an elegant Roman Spa, wide promenades and lots of teak complete the setting." This unusual decorating choice appealed to me. Although catering mainly to a German clientele, the staff is supposedly at least bilingual in English, and a conscious attempt is being made to attract Anglophone passengers through flight discounts, English-speaking tour guides, etc. Since I stutter reasonably fluently in German as well, I would not be concerned about any linguistic difficulties.
Rather than spend time typing a room-by-room description of the ship, there is a good one written by someone else at http://www.ruderhaus.de/reviews/sr-deil-deu.htm, which includes links to appropriate photos as well. Less objective but more tempting reviews are here and here. They played a large role in making me want to sail on her.
Starting on July 16, the ship was doing a 16-night cruise up the Norwegian coast. This is a pretty standard itinerary for several ships, but what made the Deutschland's route unusual was that it would continue north beyond Norway, spending three days meandering around the island of Spitsbergen, and visiting the edge of the polar ice cap. This area is home to walruses, polar bears, and other Arctic fauna. Having the delusion that I'm a bear, I couldn't resist such an opportunity to visit some of my relatives on their home grounds rather than in a zoo.
Not many US TAs seem to handle Deilmann, and I couldn't find any offering discounts. After talking to some other American passengers during the cruise, I realized that I should have looked harder. So it goes. The brochure quote from Deilmann's American office for the cheapest single cabin (yes, Virginia, some ships do have single cabins) was $5320, plus $299 for air from West Coast. Since it was a European line, though, I started to wonder how much it would cost Europeans in Euros, so checked their home site in Germany, which showed the cruise-only fare as €4264 ($4218 now, but more like $3900 when I started researching all this a year ago). There was roughly a 30% single premium over the per person price of an analogous double. I figured I could manage my own air and other arrangements for far less than the $1800 difference, so decided to book with a European TA.
Somewhere in my wanderings on the web, I had come across a travel agency in London, which seemed to specialize in booking oddball lines (freighters, adventure itineraries, etc.), including Deilmann. I shot off some email inquiries to them, they were quite responsive, so I sent them a deposit. Oddly, credit cards are far less commonly used over there than they are here, and I had to pay by check (with 2% premium) instead. Sending a check to a TA in another country naturally made me a little apprehensive, but it seemed like a pretty established business, so I decided to chance it. Naturally their responsiveness to inquiries became somewhat less brisk after they had some of my money. Eventually I growled at them enough that they provided the email address of someone at Deilmann's UK office, who was a great deal more helpful (although, as it turned out, not entirely accurate). The cruise documents, sent by regular airmail, didn't arrive until nine days before my departure, which is cutting things a bit close for my taste. Would I deal with this agency, or indeed any foreign agency, again? The bear is unsure.
The cruise was to start and end in Kiel, Germany. Kiel has a commuter airport, but the closest "real" airport is in Hamburg. I got a San Francisco-Hamburg round trip (connecting in Amsterdam) on KLM/Northwest from priceline.com for a $900 bid (that turned into $979.12 after taxes and fees) last December. I monitored such sites as hotwire, expedia, and orbitz both before and after getting this ticket, and never saw a lower fare being offered. Naturally one is inclined to wonder, "Could I have gotten it for a bid of $850 or even $800 instead," but that way lieth madness. Through additional diligent online research, I found and made hotel reservations for a pre-cruise night in Kiel and a post-cruise night near the Hamburg airport. The Hamburg airport website also provided a link to a shuttle bus service between there and Kiel (roughly ninety minutes), so I would know exactly where to go once I landed. All of this--cruise, flight, hotels, transfers--ended up costing me $4945, a $674 savings over booking the all-inclusive arrangement from Deilmann's US office (which didn't include decompression nights before and after). Was all the time I had to spend researching and arranging this, not to mention the aggravation experienced waiting for tardy replies from the TA, worth $674? Again, the bear is unsure. In my younger days, doing this kind of thing was fun. Now it's more of a chore, and I'm more willing to pay more in order to be pampered. Still, it was nice to know that I could still do it.
Pretty much all my pre-cruise errands and purchases have now been completed (including buying a tuxedo, since renting two or three times a year for multi-week cruises is not cost-effective). There is little left to do now besides the actual packing, and then just waiting for a limo Sunday afternoon to take me to the San Francisco airport.
7/13--Ode to Packing
My opinion of the packing process may be summed up as follows: Next time I'm going on a nudist cruise. I had bought an assortment of vacuum bags--the kind out of which you press all the air, so that the contents (clothes in this case) take up less room and are less likely to wrinkle. Supposedly. But correct packing of them required that the articles of clothing be neatly folded, shirts all buttoned, jackets turned inside out and folded lengthwise in thirds, etc. Even underwear was supposed to be folded, but luckily, since I had bought a whole new set in honor of the trip, this had already been done at the factory. Nevertheless a very tedious process. And what does one do with all the space one has saved? Think of more things to pack, of course. Just like additional new freeway lanes fill up almost immediately.
At least it's pretty easy to remember what basic clothes need to be packed. The killer is all the little odds-and-ends. The tuxedo socks. The German-English dictionary. All the appropriate voltage adapters and plugs. And what about the stuff you can only pack at the last minute, because you need to use it immediately before? For an increasingly forgetful anal-retentive bear, life isn't all salmon and berries.
Eventually, though, those innumerable piles of stuff have disappeared. Everything on the to-do list has been crossed off. All that remains are a few suitcases. An incredible feeling of contentment and fulfillment comes over the traveler, for it is at this point that the vacation may be said to truly begin. Savor this moment for a while, because your possessions will never be this neatly organized again for the remainder of the journey.
7/14--Bears 1, Airport Security 0
The limo ride to SFO was uneventful. There was no line at check-in and only a short one at security. The Security Drone opened my main carry-on, scrutinized suspicious looking items like a glasses case, and then, alas, discovered my stash of sixty-five insulin syringes, enough for the entire trip, for which I naturally was carrying a prescription, as per the published rules available online. But nooooo. According to the SD, you're only allowed to carry the number of syringes you need for the duration of the flight. The rest were supposed to be taken back to the airline counter and turned in for the crew to keep during the flight and return to me at its conclusion. I told SD I had never heard of any such numerical limitation, that I had read all the relevant FAA and TSA regulations (for example a TSA document that states, "There is no limitation on the number of empty syringes that you will be allowed to carry through the security checkpoint; however you must have insulin with you in order to carry empty syringes through the checkpoint."), and that I had no intention of relinquishing possession of medical supplies critical to my health. So she went and got her supervisor, who came out with some stapled pages that, according to her, were regulations mandating such a limit. I asked to see the regulations and she refused, citing "security reasons." So I'm to be subjected to an unpublicized regulation that I'm not allowed to see, reminiscent of the "super-secret double probation" in Animal House? I don't think so.
Back to the airline counter I tromp, and talk to some sort of Customer Service Supervisor. He scrutinizes his version of the super-secret rules, can find no such numerical limitation, and says he'll go back with me to Security. He and the Security Supervisor retreat into an office and have some sort of multi-minute conference. Finally he comes out, gives me the thumbs-up sign, and goes away. The Security Supervisor says to me something along the lines of, "Well, there is a limit, but we're going to let you through anyway." Huh??? If there really is such a rule, on what basis can exceptions be made? Or is she just trying to save face, unwilling to admit that she was trying to impose some arbitrary personal interpretation on me and that I called her bluff? How can there be a rule about which people need to know but about which they're not told in advance? Who knows? Who cares? At this point I just wanted it over. One must wonder how many real terrorists might have sailed through while two or three security people were preoccupied with me. I plan to pursue this issue further once I return home. Those who know me will be both astounded and delighted to know that, despite being firm, I did not become confrontational or temperamental.
Somewhere between my triumphant passage through security and my boarding the airplane, I realized my hat was no longer on my head. This was a new hat, being worn for the first time. It is also the second hat I've lost in an airport. There is apparently some sort of potent attraction between airports and hats that cannot be withstood.
7/14-15--The Flight
What good can one say about a 9'45" flight in economy class from SFO to Amsterdam? A few things: 1) It was supposed to be a 10'30" flight. 2) I still fit in a single seat and don't even need a seat-belt extension. 3) I was on the aisle, only four rows from a bathroom. On the other hand: 1) KLM's "seat pocket in front of you" had less capacity than any I've ever encountered, making it impossible to store my usual collection of reading materials. This didn't matter too much, however, because 2) my reading light didn't work. For a while I watched the movie instead. This was 'Monsters, Inc.'. I couldn't find my headphones, so amused myself instead trying to puzzle out the Dutch subtitles. It was certainly very colorful, and must be very popular with people in altered states of consciousness. But what's with all the doors? Eventually I was permitted to sit in one of the staff jump seats for a few hours, and did some reading there.
One way to know when you're definitely overweight: When you can't bring your tray-table all the way down.
There was what I thought was a nice leisurely 90-minute connection in Amsterdam before the flight to Hamburg on a Fokker 70 (for which I won't even try to recommend a pronunciation). The seat-assignment algorithm was very strange on this plane, though. It had two seats on one side of the aisle, and three on the other. Most of the two-seat groups were filled, many of the three-seat groups contained only one person. Go figure.
I landed in Hamburg; my luggage didn't. In fact there were about ten people who had connected to this flight (from different flights) in Amsterdam whose luggage didn't make it. The cruiser's ultimate fear had been realized. The Luggage Lady urged me to continue on to my hotel in Kiel (50 miles away) and said my bags would most likely be on the next flight and would be sent up that evening. With visions of spending sixteen days in the same clothing, I morosely boarded the shuttle bus to the port-city of Kiel.
7/15-16--Kiel
Through an online hotel-finder I had located and made a reservation at a relatively inexpensive hotel ($57) near where the shuttle bus would leave me. So I quickly popped into a taxi (it being easy to pop quickly into a taxi when one is devoid of luggage) and asked the driver to take me there. He had never heard of it, which is never a promising indication of a hotel's quality. Consultation with several other drivers finally revealed its location, and the four-block expedition was quickly concluded.
The "hotel" turned out to be more of a "pension," roughly thirty rooms above a café. My room was on the third floor, there were no telephones in the rooms, and there was no elevator, which provided another reason to be grateful for having no luggage. Fortunately it was one of the minority of rooms that had in-room toilet and shower, but the bear's mood was still sinking. In an unknown city, devoid of such post-flight luxuries as a change of clothing and a fangbrush, facing the possibility of boarding a very formal ship without a tuxedo.
But at least I had packed all my medicines in my carryon. After unzipping the compartment containing them, however, I was vouchsafed another transcendental traveler's insight: Do not transport medicines in bottles with non-childproof caps. Seven bottles had opened up, creating a kaleidoscopically colorful mosaic of loose pills at the bottom of the compartment. Each pill-type fortunately differed from the others in terms of color and/or size, so a half-hour orgy of sorting returned them all to their proper bottles, which were then enclosed in individual plastic bags in hopes of avoiding a repetition of such chaos.
The first bright spot of the trip turned out to be the husband-and-wife owners of the hotel. They called Hamburg several times to find out whether my bags had arrived, as promised, on the next flight. Whoops, that flight had been cancelled for "technical reasons." But for sure my bags would arrive on the first flight tomorrow morning, otherwise known as embarkation day. This vacation was just becoming more and more relaxing. A very unrestful night followed, concluding with the owner knocking on my door around 7:50 a.m. to tell me that the bags had arrived in Hamburg, were already on a truck, and would arrive at the hotel around 10:30. Tentative jubilation. In fact the bags did arrive, as promised, but the experience reinforced the validity of two cardinal rules of cruising: 1) always get insurance and 2) always arrive a day early.
I finally felt composed enough to go out and wander around Kiel a little. It's a pretty modern city, with no quaint old section as a result of World War II bombing raids (due to its having been an important naval center). Since I needed a new hat, I got some Euros from an ATM. One slightly disconcerting feature of ATMs here is that they don't provide receipts. A shopping project always provides a nice pretext for wandering around and interacting with several locals, asking them in this case where men's hats are sold. Eventually I acquired a jaunty Italian straw number. This is the first time in years that I've spent much time in a place whose prices are pretty comparable to American ones rather than being outlandishly cheap, as in SE Asia. A large Coke was $2.15 and even the shortest taxi-ride ended up costing at least $4.00. Not like Bangkok, where a one-hour foot massage costs $8.00.
7/16--Embarkation
Bet you didn't think we'd ever reach this point, did you?
I taxied to the cruise terminal about one hour before boarding was to begin, gave my newly liberated bags to the porters, and sat down to wait. Free champagne and orange juice were provided. This being a German ship, embarkation began precisely at the stated time of 3:00 p.m., accompanied by a seven-piece brass oompah band. The procedure was quite simple: we formed a line at the head of the gangplank, turned in our tickets at one desk, traded our passports for an ID-card at the next desk, and walked on board. A stewardess conducted me to my cabin, opening the door to a space distressingly reminiscent of a Silversea walk-in closet. I exaggerate. Slightly. This was a genuine single, though, of the lowest grade, and expansiveness was not an included attribute. As with pictures of burgers in fast food ads, the room didn't entirely resemble the one shown in the brochure. The bed was a foldout, although this was a blessing under the circumstances. There was one stool, but no chairs, and a couch. It was efficiently designed, though, with adequate storage space (once you finished maneuvering around while transferring stuff from the bulky suitcases to the storage spaces). As advertised, and as the pictures will show, it was decorated very nostalgically, with quasi-Impressionist paintings on the walls, golden fixtures, and an imitation wood-burl covering many of the surfaces. Nice clunky metal keys for door, safe, and a couple of drawers. High marks for appearance, if not reality. The television is not viewable from the bed, but it is opposite a diagonally angled mirror that, through a periscope effect, makes the picture visible from the bed. Coincidence? I don't think so. When the bed is pulled down, it extends a few inches into the space in front of three drawers, making them impossible to open without partially relifting the bed. Siting the drawers a few inches farther to the left would have avoided this. Strange design oversight. The bathroom was serviceable, although the shower curtain and I became more intimately acquainted than is my custom on a first date. The sink faucets are marked with the French words for "hot" and "cold", which provides a slightly incongruous touch. The closet was more like an armoire, with an interesting hanger arrangement, the bars going from front to back rather than side to side. I guess this was another space-saving technique, reducing the required depth of the thing, but it makes looking for clothes and removing them rather more of a challenge. Instead of one of those signs you hang on the outside doorknob, there was an enclosure over the mail-slot with captions on a disk for "Do not disturb," "Please make up the room," "Back on board," and "On Land."
The water was glassy smooth as we got under way, with no ship movement at all. Although we're pretty far north, it was not cold at all. I can't call it warm, but the air was somehow mild and soft. I sat out on deck enjoying this for a while, the first really peaceful moments of the trip thus far. Then went to the buffet for a little dinner. Not much of a selection, and not all that attractive. Hopeful this was just a first-day anomaly. It didn't get dark until about 9:30, so relaxed in a deck chair again until about 10:30, not even needing a jacket.
Somewhat surprisingly for a luxury ship (and contrary to the information Deilmann's London office had given me), there was only one power outlet in the cabin; but the constitutionally pessimistic bear had brought along extension cords, power strip, plug adapters, voltage converters, etc. Unfortunately, while hooking everything up, I forgot that my power strip was not dual voltage; so when I switched it on there was a loud pop, a display of sparks, and several lights as well as the TV went off. This all happened around 11:30 p.m., but I needed power for my CPAP machine in order to sleep, so had to insist that Reception rouse an electrician to repair everything.
Woke around 3:30 a.m., noticing from the bridge-camera channel on my TV that the sky was already turning pink. So went up to the observation lounge and alternately napped and watched the sunrise until rolls and coffee appeared at 6:30. There will be progressively fewer hours of darkness as we get farther north, and eventually there will be none at all.
7/17--At Sea (in more ways than one)
Had breakfast in the main dining room with a delightful Australian couple. Somewhat strange arrangement--there's a buffet section for some items, but other items have to be ordered. Don't understand rationale for this at all. If you want a buffet, there's the Lido. Plan to ask maître d' for clarification. After breakfast there was a meeting of all English-speakers to go over safety procedures. There are thirty-two of us, mainly older British and Australian couples, though I also met a widower from Los Angeles who seems quite pleasant company.
Finally started exploring the ship after the safety drill. The nostalgic decorating scheme is very consistent throughout. Plan to take various illustrative pictures. Searched diligently for some neon, but could not find any. There are busts of various German cultural figures throughout the hallways and public areas, though. Sometimes the juxtapositions are rather funny. For example, right outside the ultra-fancy alternative restaurant is a bust of Arthur Schopenhauer, who was the most pessimistic of all German philosophers, which is synonymous with being the most pessimistic of all philosophers. On the other side of the doorway, though, are four sweetly bucolic Meissen figurines of shepherdesses. Anyone for cognitive dissonance?
As promised, the crew is bilingual (at least), although naturally with varying levels of fluency. I'm using some German occasionally just to try to revive my speaking knowledge of it, but it's really unnecessary. The service staff isn't as gushily friendly as American passengers seem to like. They have more of a courtly formality, which I find a refreshing change. But I am going to mess with their minds occasionally. For example, since drinks aren't included in the price, I'm planning on drinking a lot of ice water (which I like anyway). I asked for it at breakfast, it took about five minutes for a glass to appear, and about ten seconds for me to drain it. Another five minutes had to elapse when I asked for an additional glass. So at lunch I asked the waitress to bring out a whole pitcher of the stuff so she wouldn't have to make extra trips. She planned on leaving the pitcher at a service station, but I asked her to leave it on the table instead. You could see the panic in her eyes. This was simply not the usual procedure. But I insisted, and she surrendered to the masterful bear. Each bottle of mineral water ordered at bar or restaurant costs around $1.80, and we're talking about 33cl bottles (1/3 of a liter) here. Same price and size for soft drinks. Standard cocktails are $4-5, 33cl glasses of beer are $2.40. I obviously can afford such prices or I wouldn't be on here in the first place, but I just hate the concept of having to buy and sign for every liquid, disliking Crystal for the same reason. Am missing Silversea already, where one feels more like a guest than a customer (once one forgets about how much the initial fare was). In another confusing display of inconsistency, though, large bottles of water (both still and sparkling) are provided in your cabin at no cost. The sparkling one is San Pellegrino, my favorite, less metallic tasting than Perrier. Typically one bottle of each is stocked at a time, but I've asked Silvia, my stewardess, (a fairly bubbly Bulgarian) to leave a few at a time to save herself extra supply runs.
Had lunch with my Australian friends at a large table with a German couple and their son. The wife was quite fluent in English, so we all conversed in a weird mixture of the two languages. I guess this linguistic mishmash is going to be typical for the whole trip, which is probably fortunate since it means my social contacts won't be confined to Anglophones. It's really shameful how poor we are at learning foreign languages. Most Europeans seem to be at least trilingual as a matter of course. We're lucky to speak the language that seems to be taking over the world.
I started to write this after lunch, but total jet-lag (or maybe the emotional cost of all the initial snafus) finally caught up with me shortly thereafter, and I went to sleep around 3:30 p.m. for about ten hours, thereby missing the Captain's cocktail party and first formal dinner. Since my formal clothes had not gotten back from the cleaners anyway (despite my having turned them in for pressing as soon as I boarded), this was perhaps a blessing in disguise. I've spent the last few hours writing this and watching the sky lighten and the Norwegian coast get closer on the bridge cam. We land in Bergen in a couple of hours. I'll spend the morning hunting up an Internet café from which to send this. In the afternoon I'm going on a city tour. And in the evening will be dinner at the alternative restaurant.
I apologize for the disjointedness and stylistic inconsistencies of the above. Since my laptop was in my missing luggage, I didn't have the opportunity to write a little at a time, and now am trying to cover too many days at once. As with my spoken German, I'm sacrificing grammar and elegance to the conveyance of meaning. Hope it's enjoyable anyway.
7/18--Bergen
Bergen is Norway's second city, with a population of around 200,000, at the end of a fairly long fjord (2-1/2 hours in from the sea). It looks like a pretty mellow place except when the occasional cruise ship visits. Or, as is the case today, when the occasional six cruise ships visit simultaneously. Tied up at various docks, besides us, were Costa Romantica, Aurora, Sundream, Brilliance of the Seas (on its maiden voyage), and Queen Elizabeth II. This meant up to 8600 passengers and 4000 crew wandering around the place simultaneously.
A 20-minute walk got me to the center of town, where I obtained some Norwegian currency from an ATM (Norway doesn't use Euros, but their ATMs do give receipts) and asked a teller for the location of the nearest Internet outlet, which turned out to be about two blocks away in a seven-story mall. (In both Europe and Asia, shopping centers tend to be more vertical than horizontal, there being less vacant land available, particularly in a city narrowly hemmed in between sea and mountains as is the case with Bergen.) So I plopped down there, looked for a slot into which to insert my diskette containing my current beargram, and found no such slot. This place didn't permit introduction of "alien" input due to fears of possible viruses. Nor did the person running the venue know where I might find another one that would. She did recommend that I ask at a nearby cellular phone shop, and the guy there directed me to another one about four blocks away, uphill. So away trudged the aging bear and eventually accomplished his mission successfully, noticing along the way that unexpected showers must be frequent here.
Bergen works as a city should. There are some wide plazas and pedestrian malls with public sculptures, street performers, benches where average citizens are just hanging out chatting with friends, etc. Hardly any litter (quite a contrast for someone used to San Francisco). The local Chinese restaurant presumably serves sweet-and-sour codfish. Streets with old (or old-looking) wooden gabled houses. An outdoor market at the edge of the harbor selling fresh flowers and fish (some of the fish looking distinctly unhappy to be there), where I had a proper ursine lunch of a salmon sandwich and a basket of raspberries. And then there were the cruise passengers, flowing in and out of the various shops in great waves and jamming the street that led from the piers to the center. Apparently Bergen gets about 135,000 of us per summer season, which must be a nice economic addition.
Norway isn't very cheap either. Alcohol is heavily taxed (half-liter of Guinness in a bar costs $7.50). My salmon sandwich was $6.50, and a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke was $4.75.
Apparently I overwalked, because on the way back to the ship I had to stop and rest frequently, with my legs feeling heavy and weak simultaneously. After a light lunch (speaking German almost exclusively) it was time to assemble for an organized tour of the city and the home of the composer Edvard Grieg on a lake outside of town. Unfortunately I tripped at the head of the gangplank, fell full-length, and had difficulty getting back up because of the continuing weakness of my legs. This panicked the tour manager, understandably I guess, and she virtually insisted I not go on the tour, even though I figured I'd be fine if I just stayed seated on the bus the whole time. So I crept back to my cabin to lick my wounds for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. My calves cramped up severely, and crawling became my preferred means of locomotion around the cabin. I missed yet another dinner (featuring fried chicken stuffed with truffles) and a piano concert of classical music. And so to bed, long before sunset, which was at 11:12 p.m.
7/19--Back at Sea
I awoke around sunrise (4:18 a.m.), with legs still generally achy but not disablingly so. Puttered around and eventually went up to my preferred perch in the Observation Lounge. The sky was lightly overcast, but the water still very smooth. Supposedly we had a few periods of heavy seas last night, including Force 7 winds, but I felt nothing in my aft cabin.
What I call the Observation Lounge (because it's forward on the highest deck) is technically called the Lido Terrace. Its color scheme is predominantly white and gold, with lots of comfy chairs made of wicker or rattan (not sure of the proper technical term), statues and busts of various worthies, cabinets filled with games, a white piano, etched glass designs in the doors, etc. It is used for such activities as early continental breakfasts (pastries, marvelously varied rolls, warmed warm croissants, juices, an excessive choice of sweeteners) and tea-hour, but also was just a nice place to hang out, particularly in the cooler climes above the Arctic Circle.
Some Germans are extremely hardy, or else extremely masochistic. Each morning around 7:00 a.m. I see several of them in the pool-area. But they're not there to reserve deck chairs (of which there is an overabundance): they're actually swimming. And they don't even have fur.
Another interesting German custom seems to be having champagne with breakfast. Since it's offered free as part of the buffet, I indulged today as well. Maybe I'll mix champagne with my morning orange juice in future. Some members of the staff are starting to address me by name. Don't know whether they're doing the same for many people or whether I stand out as the fat American who is prone to falling down.
Today looks pretty easily paced. At 11:00 a.m. at the pool bar is an apparently German institution known as the "morning pint" (Frühschoppen). Free beer and mulled wine, with musical entertainment by the Chris Luca Orchestra. After lunch will find me at a lecture on the first part of our itinerary. The English version of these lectures is typically offered the day after the German version. The subsequent "gala fashion show" at which Karl Neumann "presents his collection of silk, cashmere, leather and fur" does not strike my fancy. Whether or not I'll feel inclined to attend a pre-dinner reading in German of the poems of Joachim Ringelnatz remains to be seen (yeah, right), with a subsequent recital of melodies from various operettas sounding more promising.
The consistency with which the 1920s look is applied is really impressive. It's no great challenge with something like a hallway, but a goodly amount of thought must have gone into the design of the signs for the public bathrooms.
After dinner that evening: The "morning pint" turned out to be a pretty jolly affair. Trays of free beer and mulled wine were passed around constantly, with a new glass or mug being pretty much automatically given you when your previous one was empty. The Chris Luca Orchestra was the oompah brass band that had been playing as we embarked. According to my German friends, however, at most one member of the band is actually German. Their guess was that the other members were Spanish. An unadvertised part of the affair was a little buffet, for those who couldn't survive between breakfast and lunch without additional sustenance. Salads, open-faced sandwiches, wursts, rolls, soup. The captain (who looks surprisingly young) was even in attendance. For some reason I do not remember how many beers I had. Toward the end of the hour, after sufficient lubrication, some people were even dancing a little in lines and circles.
As I'm typing this at 10:47 p.m. an announcement was made that we had just crossed the Arctic Circle. If ice conditions farther north are favorable, we'll get all the way up to at least 80 degrees of north latitude.
After lunch and the lecture, I lay out on a deck chair on one of the aft fantails. There were about thirty people around me, nearly all wearing jackets and hats, with most wrapped in blankets as well. I could not understand this, because to me the temperature was still mild and I was perfectly comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt. Must be my protective layer of blubber. The people were reading, napping, or just looking at the sea. Only occasional snatches of conversation. So a great sense of peacefulness prevailed over all. I permitted myself to enjoy this for about thirty minutes before going back inside. Too much contentment causes one to lose one's edge.
I then napped for about two hours, finally managing to rouse myself and make it to dinner in the dining room for the first time. For some unknown reason, nearly all the Anglophones had switched to first sitting, but my widower friend, Bill, is still dining late, so we shared a table. Had steak tartare topped with Sevruga caviar, some sort of Indonesian potato dumpling, piña colada sorbet, saddle of venison, and cheesecake a la mode. It was all fairly tasty, although the presentation is rather pedestrian. Very small portions. I was surprised when the waitress asked us to make our dessert choices at the beginning of the meal. Her explanation was along the lines of "it's easier for us when you order everything at once." The notion that the server's preferences are supposed to take precedence over those of the passengers struck me as fairly bizarre, but, being in mellow-bear mode, I obeyed.
Tomorrow we tour the Lofoten Islands, about fifty miles off the coast, where a traditional way of life supposedly still prevails (at least for the older people who still live there and have not yet moved away like nearly all of the younger ones.) This will require a tender landing, but it looks like it is organized a great deal better than the norm. There is a set time for the smaller English-speaking tour to tender, three set times for the larger German tour (divided by decks and cabin numbers), and a later starting time for everybody else. I wonder whether there will be any active attempts to enforce this schedule or whether enforcement is considered superfluous because it is expected everyone will obey without question.
A cute surprise awaited me back at my cabin. Like the stewardess on my last Silversea cruise, Silvia has apparently decided to get involved with my two guardian bears, and I arrived to find them nestled together on top of my pillow. I now have moved them on top of sconces at opposite ends of the room, and will be curious to find out where they'll end up next. Silvia was to put them in a different configuration every night for the remainder of the cruise.
It is now 11:10 p.m. With only two minutes left before sunset, the sky is turning pink. Since my tender leaves at 8:05 a.m. tomorrow, Snugglebear now goeth night-night.
It is now midafternoon on 7/22 and we are at anchor in the town of Honningsvåg, gateway to North Cape, the northernmost point in Europe. Actually another point slightly to the west of North Cape has turned out to jut a bit farther to the north, but, since the tourist infrastructure has already been constructed at North Cape and since the other point just dribbles down into the sea rather than being a dramatic cliff, that fact receives minimal emphasis in the tourist literature. It has been overcast all day with occasional rain flurries, so I am typing this at a sheltered table on the pool deck. There was a North Cape tour offered this morning in which I did not indulge, because I had sailed around it in the early 70s on one of my three-month Eurailpass Continental orgies, and it's not really all that interesting except in symbolic terms. Similarly, I drove to North Dakota once, just to verify its existence, but I feel no compelling urge to return there. But enough of this real-time babbling; it's time to get chronological again.
7/20--Lofoten Islands
There are seven main islands, of which five are interconnected by bridges and one mile-long underwater tunnel. Its primary claim to fame is that Arctic codfish spawn nearby from January through April due to the oceanic warmth provided by the Gulf Stream, so a lot of fishing went on. Everybody apparently just sort of hung out the rest of the year, or returned to homes elsewhere. Fishing activity has declined to about 10% of previous levels, replaced by 220,000 tourists per year, both foreign and Norwegian (who come to camp here). For obscure geological reasons, the islands are somewhat bowl-shaped, with three-billion year old jagged granite mountains on the outside, sheltering green flowery valleys and lakes within. The mountains are really very dramatic, apparently due to glaciation, with all sorts of toothy pinnacles and towers, reminding me of the Tetons or the Sierra Crest, albeit several thousand feet lower. There are also a number white sand beaches on the islands, although, with a latitude like Alaska's or Siberia's, the water tends to be a bit nippy for swimming.
This was our first tender port, and we tendered in on the ship's lifeboats in groups of 150. The seats in them were very narrow, with minimal legroom. A cursory glance around the interior revealed no toilet facilities either. If they ever had to be used for real, everyone would be devoutly praying for a very quick rescue.
It was an apparently unusually beautiful morning for the area--a few fluffy clouds but otherwise a clear, luminous blue sky. Still not very cold. On to the bus (also devoid of a toilet in back (aging males notice these things)) and away we go on the tourist circuit.
First stop is the traditional fishing village of Nusfjord. This is one of those UNESCO World Heritage sites that is supposed to be left intact for its historical value. It struck me, however, that there were far too many non-traditional souvenir stands and expensive restaurants (whale steak for $28) in the village for it to look truly historical. Pretty flowerboxes, though.
[Real-time interruption: Being out on deck, I was thinking I'd probably miss the 3:30 tea-hour. But lo and behold a little rolling cart just came by with coffee, tea, and assorted pastries. So the bear will not starve between lunch and dinner.]
The next stop, Flakstad church, was more interesting. It was built in 1780, over a previous 15th century driftwood church. Its external appearance is a bit strange, with an onion-shaped cupola, making one think one had suddenly been transported to Russia. It turns out that the wood came from Russia (there being no trees on the islands) in exchange for codfish. Very pretty interior with 18th century altarpiece and pulpit. Interestingly, there was a model of a boat hanging from the ceiling, apparently as a sort of good-luck charm in the hope that the church's atmosphere would help keep the real fishing boats safe from harm. Perhaps a bit of sympathetic magic from the area's pre-Christian past. This turned out to be a very common feature in all the churches we visited, even the cathedral in Trondheim.
We then went to another village to watch an "artistic blacksmith" create metal cormorants. I'm not entirely sure why.
The process of driving around the two islands we visited was really more enjoyable to me than the stops we made. I do like looking at mountain vistas, and there was a wide assortment of them, with intense green at lower levels. Plus fields of wildflowers, mainly a lupine-like purple one.
There were two other cruise ships in the harbor as well, of neither of which I had ever heard- Ocean Majesty and Albatros [sic]. Ocean Majesty was originally built in Spain in 1966 and is now serving a predominantly British clientele under the ownership of Majestic International Cruises. Albatros has quite a rather interesting history. It's one of the oldest ships still cruising, having been christened as Cunard's Sylvania in 1957, then going through Sitmar and Princess, and now under long-term charter to Germany's Phoenix Reisen.
I don't have any notes for that afternoon, so I couldn't have done very much. I lay out on a deck chair for a while, managing to get tangled up in it and perform another bearflop while trying to arise. Had tea with the Australian couple. Managed to avoid an afternoon nap, so actually ate dinner with Bill, falling into the arms of Morpheus shortly thereafter. This would be an appropriate point to pay tribute to Mark Twain, who said, "Every time I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."
7/21--Tromsø
Our daily cruise-program handout normally showed times for sunrise and sunset, but today's showed only a time for sunrise (1:36 a.m.). No more sunsets for the next several days.
Norway is said to have three capitals. Oslo is the political capital, Bremen the cultural capital, and Tromsø the capital of the Arctic regions. It started as a center for the fur-trade, and now has a population of around 60,000. They had supposedly been having a beautiful summer, with today one of the few gray days. Our guide for the city tour had an interesting background. She was a young Dutch woman who for some reason felt very attracted to the North. So she studied Norwegian for a year at a Dutch university, and then transferred to the university here. Judging by the tone and tenor of her commentary, she just really likes the region.
First stop was the "Arctic Cathedral," built in 1965 with a design of overlapping white slabs, presumably to be reminiscent of ice. Lots of glass, including the largest stained-glass window in Northern Europe. The building is angled to be illuminated by the Midnight Sun in summer. In winter it is lit brightly from within to act as a local antidote to the months of Arctic night. The inside decoration was very spare and clean, with pews made of light-colored wood. I liked it a lot.
Then on to the local museum, which turned out to have a fascinating exhibit concerning the local indigenous people. I always thought they were called Lapps, as in Lapland, but that term turns out to be considered derogatory, and they call themselves Sami. Much of their recent history parallels what was done with Native Americans in the US and aborigines in Australia. From about 1850 until 1950 there was an effort to "Norwegianize" them. The children were sent to schools in which only the Norwegian language was used. The usual drill. Eventually it was realized that this was a dumb idea, and the last few decades have seen a revival of Sami cultural pride, permission to use the Sami language in official matters, etc. The written language looks a lot like Hungarian or Finnish. Roman letters are used, but it looks like they've been assembled at random into words. You just can't see any cognates. Very disorienting.
We drove past various "northernmost" things--botanical garden, Catholic cathedral, Lutheran cathedral, university. Also up a funicular to the top of a peak for what would have been beautiful views of the city and surrounding areas if it hadn't been foggy and drizzling. There was at least a snack bar on top, yet another branch of the Captive Audience World Network, where I had a $3.50 cup of espresso. Another interesting feature of the town is its network of tunnels, some of which intersect each other in underground roundabouts.
The afternoon was devoted to another installment of the unending saga of Bear Searches for Internet Access. The first café I walked to had a coin-operated terminal for web surfing (14 cents per minute), but no diskette access. I was then directed to a second café that would not be opening until 3:00 p.m., leaving me with two hours to kill. So I decided to eat lunch in town. While wandering by all the pretty, multi-colored, gabled wooden buildings, I found very little choice except at the two extremes of fancy restaurants with $30 plates and snack bars with hot dogs made of unspecified ingredients. Salvation came in the form of a Burger King. I neglected to inquire whether it was the world's northernmost Burger King, but it did serve recognizable items, which make for a nice change of pace occasionally. On the way out I failed to notice that the floor was being mopped, so performed another full-length bearflop for the delectation of all and sundry, prompting the manager to put out an ex post facto orange warning cone.
The second café proved no more floppy-friendly than the first. But someone there was kind enough to tell me that the big hotels had Internet terminals as well. So, after tromping all around town, with a sore back from the fall now added to the previous arthritic ankle, I went to try two hotels that were right across the street from our ship. At the first hotel I was initially told that the terminal was for guests only, but I must have looked so pitiful or bedraggled that they let me on anyway. I was able to paste Part III of my chronicles from the diskette to one site only, the other two sites would not display completely, for reasons I don't understand. So off I limped to the other hotel, going through the same routine of initial refusal and subsequent relenting, and managing to post to a second site. Attempts to access the third site brought up an error message that, being in Norwegian, I could not decipher. The site was probably on some security no-no list, and I couldn't hack around it. So, all in all, a painful and frustrating afternoon.
[Another editorial aside. It's now 5:00 p.m., temperature I'm guessing in high 40s or low 50s, and several crazy Germans splashing around in the outdoor pool.]
Matters improved in the evening. I had made a reservation for Bill and me at the fancy alternative restaurant, and found it vastly superior to the main dining room. The presentation of each course (we had six of them over three and one half hours) was really attractive in addition to tasting quite good. My selections were as follows: 1) Carpaccio from salmon and turbot, with ruccola [arugula] pesto, 2) Cream soup from sweet pears with radishes, 3) Wild hare loin filet on blueberry sauce, with a potato bag, 4) Mango with grenadine sorbet, 5) Fried codfish (fresh from Lofoten yesterday) on spinach, beets, and carrots, sautéed tomatoes and wild rice (Bill had Veal steak on a light pepper cream sauce with young leek, beetroots and small baked potato dumplings), and 6) White chocolate parfait with orange salad (Bill had Baked plums with redwine ice cream).
[Continuing to write, slightly more in real-time, throughout 7/23.]
You all may be curious why I haven't provided any discussion of the nature and quality of the onboard entertainment. Simple reason--I haven't attended any of it. At home I'm pretty nocturnal, preferring to sleep late and stay up late. But on cruises my circadian rhythm seems to reverse. I wake up pretty early and after second-sitting dinner am feeling quite wiped out. There are a few second- or third-rate classical artists on board, but I prefer to nap only during performances by first-rate virtuosi such as I can see in the San Francisco area. One of the bars features a pianist, the other a trio, but bears rarely hang out in bars. Here's a picture of one of the singers in performance, taken by my German friends.
7/22--Honningsvåg
Some recent cruise review commented that breakfasts were pretty boring because the same foods were served every day by every cruise line. One way to avoid this would be to try cruising on a line that does not cater primarily to Americans. Star Cruises in Asia, England's P&O, maybe Costa as well, would probably exhibit cultural differences. And the Deutschland certainly does. At the buffet there is a wider selection of juices, including passion fruit and black currant; champagne; a rotating selection of about eight cheeses, several of which are new to me; fish--some smoked varieties and herring sitting in such strange concoctions as curry-sauce; sliced wursts and salami; multiple varieties of rolls and breads topped with different nuts and seeds; two kinds of honey and about eight jellies and jams. Plus the usual scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, and omelette station. The selection of fillings at the omelette station didn't include mushrooms, but when I brought this to the attention of the head steward, he promised they would be provided as of tomorrow (which I guess pretty much obligates me to have mushroom omelettes from now on). A few minutes later, as I was eating my mushroomless omelette, he also brought me over a plate of specially prepared sautéed mushrooms--a nice example of going the extra mile in terms of service.
I had an interesting conversation with my stewardess this morning. It turns out that Silvia knows five languages--Russian, English, German, and Italian in addition to her native Bulgarian. The fact that this combination comes from three totally different linguistic families impresses one even more and puts most American college students to shame. I'm slipping back and forth between English and German more and more easily, now including exchanging casual remarks with other passengers (in elevators, etc.) who may not even realize I'm not German. I'm not mentioning this in order to brag, since I'm basically a very modest and humble bear, but rather just because of how surprised and delighted I am myself at how quickly my spoken fluency revived.
This village is quite pretty in appearance. I suspect that the multitude of colors used to paint the houses is an attempted antidote to the darkness and boredom of the multi-month winter night. As mentioned somewhere above, way above, I didn't go on the North Cape tour, instead just wandering around town on my usual Internet Access Hunt. For once I captured my prey on the first try, at a place called the Park Café, which is across the street from what is perhaps the world's northernmost park (across from which is no doubt the world's northernmost children's ride). Nearly all of the other people sitting in the café were quite elderly, with about half using wheelchairs or walkers. At first I thought I had wandered into a meeting of the town's Mainframe Computer Programmers' Club, but it turned out the café, although public, was located in a block of apartments for senior citizens. Thanks to the negative correlation between age and interest in computers, I had no competition for access to the single PC. I then replenished my Diet Coke supply, this time at a supermarket rather than at a convenience store, as in Bergen. The price difference was quite surprising. In Bergen, the 1.5 liter bottle was 33 kroner (7 kroner equal roughly $1). Here in Honningsvåg at another branch of the same chain it was only 30 kroner, (despite being much more remote). At the supermarket here, on the other hand, it was only 16 kroner. Explanation supposedly is that the convenience stores are open for many more hours than the larger markets. Norway has various complicated "blue laws" regulating when commercial activity may occur, so perhaps this is plausible.
A funny occurrence today at lunch: I had a different drinks-waitress, who refused to leave me a pitcher of ice water on the table. I absolutely could not persuade her otherwise, perhaps because she outweighed me. Much of the afternoon was spent writing the first part of this. Some crew members apparently spent the afternoon fishing, and their catch of mackerel and cod was prominently displayed outside the main dining room. I got up to the Lido Deck (no doubt via the elevator with its attractively inlaid doors) just before dinner in order to take some undisturbed photos of the buffet restaurant (with more etched glass doors), including its trays of cold fish and meat appetizers as well as the cheese selection (which was largely different every day). After dinner, around 10:30, I wandered around on deck some more. Crazy Germans were still using the pool. There was a marvelous diversity of clouds. Low on much of the horizon were threatening dark gray and black ones, but higher up were fluffy white ones as well as patches of blue. The sun was just at the top of the dark band, looking like a white ball as it shined through. Apparently I didn't have my camera with me at the time.
7/23--Approaching Spitsbergen
Another interesting service hiccough at breakfast this morning: I got to the buffet rather late, and remarked to the Omelette Guy that he was out of several ingredients (fines herbes and bacon, as I recall). He answered along the lines of "Yep, you're right, they're all gone." I mentioned this to Mario, the head steward, and he replied that naturally they could be replenished, and he was quite surprised that OG hadn't offered to do so. OG then got admonished. Three observations: 1) The ingredients should have been replenished when they were empty, without requiring a passenger to remark on it first. 2) After the passenger drew OG's attention to it, the latter darn well should have gotten refills. 3) The guy in charge resolved the issue quickly and smoothly once it was brought to his attention, but it should never have had to be raised with him in the first place. This whole incident and associated analysis may seem very trivial and petty, but, in the rarefied niche of luxury cruising, market differentiation is achieved on the basis of the handling of such small matters. Here's another only seemingly trivial difference: paper towels in the public bathrooms rather than Silversea's individual terrycloth squares
At 11:30 this morning was held a ceremony in honor of crossing the Arctic Circle, even though we actually did so a couple of days ago. About twenty-five people had signed up to take part in it, which was going to be held next to the pool. Thinking-outside-the-box-bear went up one more flight to the empty Sports Deck in order to be able to photograph everything from above. Within about ten minutes an additional thirty copycats had joined me up there. Neptune and his queen came out, accompanied by various courtiers in outlandish costumes and green hair. The captain made a flowery speech, asking Neptune's permission to enter his polar realm. Each participant had a bit of hair symbolically snipped with a giant pair of scissors, took a drink from a bottle of something (aquavit?) encased in a block of ice, and then was "baptized," baptism comprising having several ladlesful of ice water (including ice cubes) poured over one's head, back of neck, and back (temperature was around 42 at the time), and then being given a fishy name (e.g., Old Sea-Cow or Stubborn Stonefish). The ceremony culminated with kneeling before Neptune and his queen on their thrones and kissing a large fish at the queen's feet. It was all ponderously silly. The sociologist in me wondered whether cruise lines catering to different nationalities have different ceremonies or whether this was a universally established routine.
After lunch there was a 90-minute lecture with slides by Andreas Umbreit, who runs a Spitsbergen travel agency and is quite knowledgeable about all aspects of the region. It covered t |