As we now get back to discussing the northern half of the Atlantic Isles trip, we should first discuss the ship itself, and then in the next posting, the places visited and the Norse expansion westward.

MS Deutschland   This trip is my fourth on the Deutschland. In 2000, when we resumed European travel after our personal upheavals of the Nineties (see Avant-Propos in website menu), we went to Europe on the QE2, and came back on the Deutschland, sailing transatlantic from Cuxhaven, in Germany west of Hamburg, and making stops in Plymouth and Waterford, then Saint John’s, Newfoundland and other stops in Canada on the way to New York. In 2004 I took it on a Caribbean trip, round-trip out of Santo Domingo; in 2006, it was a round trip out of Kiel to Norway and Spitsbergen; and now in 2012, the “Greenland trip” out of Travemünde to Stavanger, Shetland, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland, returning to Iceland for the flight home.

The Deutschland is the only German-registered ship in the world, owned by Peter Deilmann Reederei (Shipping). She was launched in 1998, and is decorated in a neo-Art Deco Style, similar to many of the classic ocean liners, such as the Île de France and Normandie. She carries 513 passengers and 260 crew and has seven passenger decks numbered 3-9. Between my third and present trips on her, Peter Deilmann Cruises went through a bankruptcy and lost its entire river fleet, and is now operated by another company. Even though it has always striven to serve an English-speaking as well as a German-speaking market, they had to close their US office in Alexandria VA, and I was in danger of losing touch with them. I found them online, and got on their German-speaking mailing list to maintain contact. I didn’t expect their annual signature Greenland trip would be reinstated immediately, and was surprised in January when I found out online that it was. I jumped at the chance, particularly when I saw it would fit right behind my previously planned trip to the islands further south. They did have a US agent, John McGlade of Small Ship Cruises in Nyack NY, and he was very helpful in making arrangements for me.

One advantage of sailing on the Deutschland is that they have single cabins, so I don’t have to pay a single supplement in a double-cabin-for-one. I’m still fuming that I had to pay a 100% single supplement--double fare--for my inside cabin on the Regatta last year in the Amazon, something that everybody I got to know heard about. Anyway, although the Deutschland has single cabins, the outside ones were sold out, so I took an inside single on Deck 4.

Then I began thinking about upgrades based on the following: The economy is weak. Deilmann is trying to recover market after its troubles. I’m a fourth-time repeat customer. This trip is lengthy, and can’t have come near to selling out. These were all reasons for me to ask John McGlade to ask for a free upgrade to me. It wasn’t until I was in Hamburg, just before departure, that John emailed me the good news. He got me moved from lowly Category B, an inside single on 4, to Category H, an outside double on 5. Not only was there no single supplement for use of the double, the Category shift alone was an increase in value of 29% (see deck plan below).

The Deutschland was used as the locale for the TV show “Das Traumschiff” (The Dream Ship), similar to the US show “The Love Boat”, as well as another later spinoff. In addition, just one month after this trip was over in late June, starting late July the Deutschland was used by the German Olympic Committee as a hospitality ship during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. I also understand she did similar service for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and perhaps others.

This shows the Deutschland (click to enlarge) sailing one river over, on the Elbe. Above and to the right of the name, note the Olympic signage, and note “Das Traumschiff” on the front of the stack. The five-star “D” insignia on the stack is new since 2011.

On this YouTube video of the Deutschland, note these details:

Ship Gender   This is of more importance in other languages, but can concern English. In French, all ship names are grammatically masculine. That means, when you want to say “the”, your choices being “le, la”, you choose “le” no matter what. So if you’d otherwise say “Vive la France”, the ship was called le France. If you were a fan of the ship, which we sailed on in 1971, you could say “Vive le France”, and French speakers would know exactly what you were referring to. When you say “Liberté, Égalite, Fraternité” all those words are feminine, that is, use “la”, but in 1961 we sailed to Europe on one of the last voyages of le Liberté (2004/16.2). We recently spoke of (la) Normandie, but the ship that burned (2010/1) was le Normandie.

German does something similar, but ship names are always feminine. Your choices for “the” are “der, die, das”, and you choose “die”. So, even though the following places would use “das”, as ships you say “die Deutschland, die Bremen, die Europa”. The fact that you also say “die Queen Victoria”, that is, feminine ship name for a female person, is a coincidence.

English doesn’t use gender like that, and it’s word for “the” doesn’t vary. But there’s one well-known exceptional quirk, which I can refer to as the “feminization of vehicles”. In English all mechanical vehicles, plus related words such as “motor” or “engine”, which would normally be referred to as “it”, can familiarly be referred to as “she” (or, as needed, “her”):

OK, so: the Deutschland? She’s a beautiful ship.

The Voyage   This “Greenland” voyage lasted almost three weeks, actually 19 nights, 20 days, running up to the end of June. Since the voyage last year on the Regatta to the Amazon was my 49th, I’m glad to be able to say that the Greenland trip was my 50th sea voyage. However, I always need to clarify that, because there are always those people, who define sea voyages in a rather restricted manner, as only trips of great prestige, which they relish calling “cruises”.. I avoid the word “cruise”, since it has overtones of snobbishness. I just enjoy a trip at sea, enjoying stopping here and there if it’s not transatlantic or similar. I remember reading about short coastal voyages historically, even overnight ones, such as from New York to Boston, or Sydney to Brisbane, which were the norm before other forms of transportation took over. Short overnight coastal voyages still exist, but, following today’s needs, they carry cars, and are called car ferries, but still have comfortable cabins. Some are simple, others glitzy. I count as a sea voyage any overnight on a ship, even one night (or two), such as Oslo-Kiel; Melbourne-Tasmania; Nova Scotia-Newfoundland. Others, and I met an American woman on the Deutschland who fits this category, look down their nose when I include anything but glitzy “cruises”. Too bad. I also include in my list of “sea voyages” (one freighter voyage in that group), two river voyages and one canal voyage, and I’m now very pleased to be up to 50, dating from 1957 to 2012.

I take ships because of their destinations, and rarely just because I want to sail on that ship and will go wherever it (she?) goes. But with the Deutschland, it’s also the additional matter of wanting to have a venue on which I could get back to speaking German, which happened with ease on this trip.

Early on, it was announced which passenger nationalities were on board. There were 273 from Germany, 7 from Austria, and 9 from Switzerland (most likely, the German-speaking part), for a total of 289 German speakers. There were five others, 1 from the Netherlands, 1 from South Africa, 2 from Sweden, and 1 from the US (guess who?). I calculated that the ship was at that point sailing at 57% of capacity.

But I’d assumed that this voyage, from Travemünde to Reykjavik, was the only scheduled trip, after which new people would get on to go further, but was surprised to find that there was an “overlay” trip in this case. When we got to Reykjavik the first time, some 60 new passengers got on for a shorter voyage, round trip to Greenland from Iceland. Therefore, assuming no one got off then, these new passengers brought the total up to 354, or up to 69% of capacity, which is seven passengers for every ten spaces, still far from full.

But there was more, a double surprise. All of the people who got on were American, so my German-only world from then on became bilingual, depending on who I was talking with. I also found that the average noise level and degree of boisterousness in public areas tended to rise from the more staid atmosphere that had been--but let’s not go there. The other surprise, more pleasant, was that all these people were American travel agents, each allowed to take along a traveling companion, all at a discount, since Deilmann was trying to reach out once again to its American market. Good for them.

From that point on, all announcements were bilingual, which is how it had been on other trips, and usually is. (I’m also pleased to say that I found out that Australian friends Janet and Peter have sailed on the Deutschland out of Sydney.) It would be no surprise that the largest number of English speakers I ever encountered on the Deutschland was the first one, that ended in New York. (I might as well mention here that, when we got off in New York in 2000, we heard that a planeload of people that were to replace many of us to sail on to Panama were killed. That was the famous Concorde crash in Paris, booked by Deilmann to go to New York for the Deutschland, which was the beginning of the end for the Concorde.)

When the Americans came on board, along with bilingual announcements, the staff started issuing the English-language daily newsletter, but I continued with the German one, just to keep a European flavor. Each issue started out with international plus German news, but each day, there was also a Schweizer Seite / Swiss page, and a page of Nachrichten Österreich / News (of) Austria. Still, I was surprised, but pleased, to see a small article on the Tony Awards in New York, which I had missed, pointing out that the musical “Once” had won many awards. I’ve since checked to see that it had had eleven nominations, and won eight, including Best Musical, Best Actor, and Best Book. There was also a daily quote, often forgettable, but I did like this one from Goethe, and copied it for posterity, with my translation:

I was unaware of something about the ship until I began writing up these notes and found something new. Only after having been on the Deutschland on two trips to the north, to Spitsbergen and to Greenland, do I now find that the Deutschland is classified as “Eisklasse E1”. Ships that are built to an ice class have a thicker hull, a stronger framework for more structural integrity, bulkheads that are more watertight than normal, heating arrangements for fuel tanks, plus other features for operating in ice. The Deutschland’s E1 Ice Class is the lowest in the German system, which operates this way: E4-Extreme Ice Conditions, ice up to 1 meter thick; E3-Heavy Ice Conditions to 0.8m; E2-Average Ice Conditions up to 0.6m; E1-Light Ice Conditions up to 0.4m; while E denotes a normal ship. While seeing occasional ice in Spitsbergen, and passing many icebergs in Greenland at some small distance, we were never involved in any ice situation of any concern, but at least the ship is up to handling the light ice conditions it might come across.

The ship had good internet connections, including right from the cabin, but I have major complaints about how it was run. First, they charged an incredible €20 an hour (US$ 26), which could be used piecemeal by minutes, by signing off. However, their count-down clock was impossible to find. Also, you couldn’t sign on from your room, but had to go to reception to purchase the first and all subsequent hours, all of which is contrary to common hotel and ship practice. They had a one-day, two-day, and weekly reduced rate, but had to be used all at once. At those rates, why pay when you’re asleep? The service was good, but the system they worked with was medieval.

Ship Dining In the 1930’s, during the Golden Age of ship travel, the Italian Line decided to alter its image to increase passenger volume. North German Lloyd had captured the Blue Riband speed record with both its Bremen and Europa, and Italy wanted to do the same, with its magnificent flagship the Rex (1931), which did, in 1933, and its sister ship, the Conte di Savoia (1932), which came close. The Italian Line wanted to emphasize that it used the “sunny southern route”, and carried out a publicity campaign for its two largest ships to reflect Mediterranean beaches on board, such as Venice’s Lido Beach on the Adriatic. Both ships were referred to as “The Riviera Afloat”, and to carry out the beach theme, the upper deck was called the Lido deck and beach sand was spread around the outdoor swimming pool, highlighted with multicolored beach umbrellas. And casual dining, in contrast to the formal dining room below, was available from an adjacent Lido restaurant.

Fast forward to today’s ships. In addition to the regular, usually quite formal dining rooms, every ship today has something akin to a Lido deck (sans sand) up at or near the top, with an outdoor pool, and with a nearby buffet restaurant, often called the Lido (restaurant). On the Deutschland’s Lido Deck, deck 9, its restaurant is called the Lido Gourmet, and rightly so. While on some ships the buffet restaurant has an overly casual atmosphere, the Lido Gourmet is casual, yet elegant, which is why I pointed out the white linen tablecloths on the above video. On the three Gala evenings, they also had candles on the tables.

Over the years, I’ve altered my dining habits on voyages. Perhaps many years ago, when trips were long with little entertainment, it made more sense to spend three entire meals being waited on in the main restaurant, but it’s been many years since I’ve had either breakfast or lunch anywhere other than in the Lido-style restaurant of a ship. As for dinner, I always have enjoyed the main dining room on Cunard ships, and I’ll give it a try the next time I’m on one, but as for now, I’ve given up dinner as well in the main dining room. It started on the ship in Hawaii, also in Tahiti, and on the Regatta in the Amazon last year, I was almost always in the buffet restaurant.

This is how it went this trip. The first night, everyone was unpacking, so I went to dinner in the Lido. The second night, was the first of three Gala evenings. I had schlepped my tuxedo all summer long, since occasional dress-up is fun, and that second night was the only time I ate in the Berlin restaurant. The table conversation was OK, perhaps a bit strained, and the service, even with the waiters hopping, ended up being glacial. Others waited, while some of us had the soup course. Then I and others waited, while some had the fish course. It was so frustrating, and after two and a half hours went by, and I was about to be late to a film presentation, I excused myself before dessert, and that was the last time I had dinner in the Berlin restaurant. Even the other two Gala evenings later on I dined in the Lido Gourmet--still by candlelight and in a tux--and enjoyed myself much more. (The film I managed to make the 22:15 (10:15 PM) screening for in the cinema was “The King’s Speech” (2011/11). Normally, I don’t like to see dubbed versions, and am more than willing to read subtitles, but in this case, since the topic involved language and speaking, I wanted to see how they handled it in German. It was almost as entertaining as the original.)

I was delighted with the meals in the Lido Gourmet. After you found yourself a table, you simply served yourself. Unless I got into a conversation with someone, I was usually out in 20-25 minutes, with plenty of time to do other things on board, including writing, or in port. This is going to be my policy in the future, except, as I said, for dinner on Cunard ships, and even there I’m keeping my options open.

I found I ate lighter in the Lido. I never used the carving station, and skipped most main courses (how can anyone eat a big main course both for lunch and dinner without breaking the scales?). I was usually happy at both lunch and dinner with one of the two self-serve soups offered. In French style, one was always a thin bouillon type, and the other a potage, or cream soup. (I remember learning the word “potage” on the Liberté in 1961.) I’d then have a nice green salad, or something from the vegetable selections. Breakfast always included a glass (or two) of the sparkling wine, all-inclusive, next to the cheese table.

The cheese table!! Unlike the Regatta, where you HAD TO call someone over to serve you, on the Deutschland it was self-service, so you could easily take less of this and more of that, including nice dark German ryes and pumpernickels on the side. There was Stilton (a favorite), Camembert, Brie, Roquefort, Limburger (a favorite--note the dark breads) and so many others, including a new one for me, Morbier, which I grew to like very much. I’d like another crack at that cheese table right now. I have to admit that I visited it to end all three meals a day. They also served homemade ice cream in exotic flavors.

While I say I didn’t take many main courses, among the generally international cuisine (Asian, French, Italian, others), I kept an eye out for German favorites. Two main-course favorites they served are Königsberger Klopse (meatballs in a white sauce with capers--look at all those capers!) and Rinderrouladen (beef rolls--and don’t forget that Rotkohl / red cabbage!).

On the side one should always take, when available (and they were) Spätzle (tiny, tiny dumplings), or Kartoffelknödel / Kartoffelklöße (full-sized potato dumplings--here being prepared). On the sweet side, is Austrian Kaiserschmarrn (shredded, sweet pancakes with sugar and fruits) or Apfelstrudel. You don’t go hungry with choices like these.

Deck Plan It will be easiest to give the reader a feeling of the ship, in addition to the above video, by looking at its Deckspläne / Deck Plans. At the top, note the Categories of Accommodations, where I was upgraded from B to H. Then move to the bottom, where I’ll describe the ship going upward.

Deck 3 is used for embarking and disembarking to tenders, and to low piers, with Deck 5 being used for higher piers. Otherwise, 3 has the hospital, which I had to visit. On an excursion in Iceland, which I’ll describe later, I fell onto my back from some rocks I was climbing down from, but catching myself with my left hand below me, wrenching my wrist. After a day it became swollen, and the doctor was actually able to take an x-ray on a small machine, then bandage the wrist up for a few days. All is well.

Deck 4 is where I would have had my inside single, cabin 4150. Near it is also the Bügelraum / Ironing Room, which I used that first evening to get the creases out of the tux and other clothes after three weeks of travel. Note the lifts in red. That one on the left is useless, and only connects a few decks. The two main ones are next to grand staircases.

Deck 5 is where I ended up, in 5067. It also has the Eingangshalle & Empfang / Entry Lobby & Reception Desk.

Deck 6 is where several places on the earlier video are located; Restaurant Berlin, Salon Lili Marleen, Kaisersaal / Imperial Ballroom. On this deck and the one above are large busts of famous Germans, such as Goethe, Heine, Schopenhauer, and others. Decks 6 and 7 midships are the only places down below that you can step outside, but you’re peering from underneath the lifeboats.

Deck 7, starting on the right, is the Kaisersaal balcony, the colonnade shops, the Vierjahreszeiten / Four Seasons Restaurant, and the pub Zum Alten Fritz. This restaurant is free, and by reservation only, but it’s far too upscale for my interests when traveling. Friedrich der Große / Frederick the Great was known colloquially as Der alte Fritz / Old Fritz. There’s a bust of him there, and it’s a cozy bar-with-piano atmosphere. Note the covered deck area outside to its left, which is a good place to sit outside for the view, in any weather. In addition, all day long there’s something very German available there: a pot of Frankfurter Würstchen (but not with potato salad, as in the picture), which are ALWAYS served, not with a sliced bun, but with a typical German hard roll. It’s a good combination, but I eat it my way, by slicing the roll in two, the frankfurter in three, adding German mustard, and eating it as a closed sandwich. It tastes best while viewing the sea and ship’s wake from the covered area outside.

Deck 8 has the Kino / Cinema, and the Adlon Lounge, listed his as the Bibliothek / Library. There was, of all things, a Spanish class held here in the mornings, which I stopped in to take a look at one day. There were four people learning Spanish with a native teacher.

Deck 9 is the Lido Deck and the de facto top deck, with the so-called Deck 10 just being an extension of it, reached only by outside stairs. It’s the only deck where you can walk entirely around the ship (worth doing). Note how frequently the word “Lido” is used here in names. Here is “my” Lido Gourmet buffet restaurant, where every morning at 11, the old seafaring tradition of serving hot bouillon is maintained (great in nippy weather). Midships is the outdoor Meerwasser-Pool / Seawater Pool, a very nice place to sit in deck chairs, and where a Frühschoppen (see below) was held twice. On the right is the Lido Terasse, a lounge, to the right of which is an open area with the best forward view on the ship. Normally, my most frequent route was between my Deck 5 and Deck 9, the Lido Deck, and secondarily to the Kaisersaal on 6.

You may have noticed that something one usually sees on ships is missing. The Deutschland, thank goodness, has no casino, or any trace of one. I’ve always felt a casino lends a tawdry atmosphere to the travel experience, and wondered why that atmosphere wasn’t on the Deutschland, until I finally realized, on this my fourth trip, that there’s no casino. You don’t miss what you don’t care for.

After traveling eastward across the Atlantic further south--where the weather was ideal--it was of course cooler crossing westward here in the north, and I relished that as well. We were actually in a subarctic area, and the weather was often jacket weather, with occasional windy days requiring sweaters and knit hats. As an example, I noted down from the daily newsletter that on 14 June, sailing between the Faroes and Iceland, the expected temperature was to be a maximum of 11°C (52°F) and a minimum of 7°C (45°F). That far north, the sunrise that day was at 3:02, and the sunset at 23:37, almost midnight. As for the midnight sun later on, we’ll discuss that in the Greenland posting.

While we had occasional overcasts, we also had some very nice weather. There were a few full days at sea, and on at least two, in and around Greenland, the sun shone brightly and I sat in a deck chair around the pool with my book. Other sunny days, the weather was more invigorating, and a jacket was best.

Outside the Lido Terasse, on that open area with a forward view, a German naturalist held whale watchings twice a day when at sea. I didn’t go all the time, since this location tended to be very windy, but I saw dolphins, and twice got good views of whales. One time there were three Schnabelwale / beaked whales cavorting nearby starboard; the naturalist said they’d be about 5 meters/yards long. My other time was even more spectacular, yet further distant: over to port there were several whales spouting out of their blowholes again and again, a spectacular sight.

At lunch one day, I sat down with the naturalist and his wife at the next table. She turned out to be the Spanish teacher, which explains why Spanish lessons were being given. At this point, I found the first of a number of connections between the first, southern part of the trip, and this northern part. They both lived in the resort area of Tenerife, at the southern end of the island. At this point, I moved the conversation into Spanish, since I really hadn’t had much opportunity of Spanish conversations in the Canaries other than with hotel workers. We talked for about a half hour about the Tenerife Tram and Audiotorio de Tenerife, and found they didn’t have much too good to say about either, and I included some of their opinions in the Tenerife writeup.

Frühschoppen I’ve mentioned this topic in the past but never researched it as far as I now have. Twice during this voyage, at 11 AM, a Frühschoppen mit Freibier (with free beer) was announced. I knew what a Frühschoppen was, but now I know the background, which I find interesting.

“Schöpfen” means “to draw (liquids)” as from a tap. That’s (Standard) High German, and the Low German form is “schoppen”. The verb became a noun and having a Schoppen began to mean having a drink. It entered French, where it became “[la] chopine” and then came back, but this time to High German, again in the form “[der] Schoppen”. In any case, in both German and French (the French word is even more frequent in Canada), the word refers to both a standard shape of a glass, usually used for beer, and also a measurement. These glasses are all Schoppen (or chopines). All German glasses used to serve alcohol publicly must be marked with the amount they hold, and if you look at the glass on the left, and read backwards on the other side, you’ll see it holds “0.5 l”, or half a liter, which leads us to the measurement side of the question. It depends on the region, but a Schoppen can hold anything between a quarter-liter and half-liter. So now we have our glass, and our measurement.

If you find it confusing how the same word can be both a measurement and a glass that holds that measurement, just think of the British use of “pint”. If you’re going to a pub to have a pint, you’re not talking so much about the measurement as the pint-sized glass that holds beer. It’s the same thing.

From this has developed two other words, involving the time of day. “Früh” means “early”, in reference to the morning, and a Frühschoppen is a “morning pint”, more accurately a “late-morning pint”, since 11 AM is typical for it.

“Dämmern”, which is related to English “to dim”, means “to be twilight [at dawn or dusk]”. It appears in the name of Wagner’s Oper “Die Götterdämmerung” (The Twilight of the Gods). Therefore a Dämmerschoppen is a “twilight pint” in the late afternoon or early evening. Still follow?

But practically, today a Frühschoppen is 1) a “late-morning pint” of beer; or 2) #1 plus a regionally variable German version of a brunch (the English word has appeared in German as “[der] Brunch” since the late 19C); or 3) #1 + #2, plus also an indoor or outdoor music event. This last one is what the Deutschland puts on during every trip, and twice on the Greenland trip. Sitting around the pool, you can have as many Schoppen as you want, there’s a full outdoor buffet as a brunch, and the ship’s band is in the corner, playing away. The first time, I managed a beer, and had a bite, even though we’d just had breakfast, and lunch was soon. The second time, I managed one beer only, and nothing else. While food on a ship does tend to go to excess, still it’s fun.

While this posting just discussed the ship en route, the next posting will discuss the first three stops made.