Star Flyer 3

On our last day we visited the German holiday island of Rugen.  One of the German guys explained Rugen was formerly part of East Germany and has been rediscovered by the former West Germans.  And boy has it been rediscovered.  When we arrived at the main pier in the town of Binz we were confronted by wicker beach baskets as far as the eye can see. We non Europeans were awe struck by these beach baskets which open into a double seat with a hood.  Quite nifty.

 

When we arrived back at the beach later that day every basket that you could see was occupied. 

And we thought Smith's Beach at Phillip Island was crowded

 

Now as you can imagine these baskets aren’t the only confronting sight when you arrive at a popular German beach destination.  These ranged from the amusing boot scooting class to the positively horrifying sight of an older, larger woman bending over to put her bikini bottoms on.  The German boys also kindly let us know that there was nude bathing at one end of the beach.  We decided that a ride on the old steam train might be more appropriate for everyone.

 

The steam train ride was quite ‘jolie’, but when we got off at our destination we discovered that we didn’t have enough time to see the lovely old pier that is the highlight of the town.  So we wandered around, had ice creams and got back on the train.

Once we set sail that afternoon, we took our final opportunity to venture out onto the bow spit.  I went out for a short time for the photo op, but Dale actually enjoyed the sensation of the water rushing below the rope nets and stayed out for about 15 minutes taking photos.

 

On our last night on the boat we had the Captain’s dinner.  I am assured that this happens on many cruises.  Tracey and Debbie popped on stunning dresses accompanied by the jewellery that they’d been purchasing along the way while we went to the supreme effort of donning sports jackets.  The dinner was nice and Captain Klaus gave a delightful, and delightfully brief, speech.  I was then bemused and amused by the sight of the crew entering the dining room waving national flags and singing ‘We are the world’. 

So despite some (deserved) cynicism we did enjoy the cruise and would do a cruise again with Star Clippers.  However here are some observations about the oddities of the cruise.

Hotel staff.

The Hotel staff were fantastic and seemed to delight in entertaining themselves with towel art, which was most amusing. 

 

We were not surprised at being asked to tip the hotel, restaurant and bar staff at the end of the cruise and were given guidance about how much might be appropriate.  However, I was very surprised when the cruise director decided to use the guilt trip tactic of saying that we really needed to tip these crew members because they’re not paid very much.  We were absolutely astonished and felt like screaming – well pay them properly you exploitative capitalist slave traders!! It kind of worked because you felt that you had to do something because they clearly work for such a crap employer.

There are theme nights. These happened each night, after dinner, in the Tropical Bar.  The Tropical Bar had a tatty feel to it because it was on the open middle deck covered by a tarpaulin (including on both sides).  One night in the Tropical Bar there was frog racing.  This required you to pull a wooden frog, with a hole in the centre, along a 20 metre length of rope by jiggling the rope.  Who thinks up this nonsense?  Nevertheless, Dale, Debbie, Tracey and I were sufficiently drunk to get involved and managed to come last.  This was especially annoying because the nuisance Danish boy was on the winning team with some of the crew and a couple of days later he decided that he would practise his English by calling us losers. 

There was a crew talent contest another night, which was truly appalling.  The cruise director decided that she would sing an Enrique Iglesias song (that I didn’t recognise of course), in such a banal way that I had to keep waking myself up.  The Sports Team (more about them later) decided to dress in drag and danced (badly) to Ring Ring.  We were actually surprised by the Indonesian crew members who played guitars and could actually sing.  A passenger was finally allowed to sing because he had apparently starred during the music quiz night a couple of nights earlier.  Well he was completely flat so we decided that we couldn’t take anymore, said goodnight to the girls and slipped away to the strains of whatever the poor man was attempting to sing.

There was a sports team and a water sports team.  The water sports team were in training because there were no water sports being offered.  However I didn’t see much training happening.  They seemed to spend most of their time in bars in port.  The actual sports team consisted of 2 guys who were very nice and did organise and run the mast climb.  I think there were morning exercises available on deck for those who were interested and there was some mention of water aerobics.  But other than this I didn’t see much evidence of any sports activities yet I presume the cost of all these people was being built into the cost of the cruise.

The Evening Meal.  The food was excellent and abundant as the scales later attested.  However I found it quite disconcerting to be presented with a display of all the available meals each evening.  It was like a live version of the photos you see in many Asian restaurants.

 

Day excursions.  We had been warned that these would be offered and would be a rip off (because they apparently always are on cruises).  However we decided that we should try the first couple and although they were expensive we enjoyed them.  Then all the remaining ones were cancelled due to lack of interest.  The German cruise director blamed this on the large number of German passengers on board who she said did not like organised tours.  Ok, but could you help us out with information about what we might do in port?  Of course she wanted to be very helpful but actually had no meaningful information to give!

There was no professional entertainment on the Star Flyer.  I awarded brownie points for this but our German (former Lufthansa hostess) friend was very amusing in her criticisms about the lack of entertainment.  She was even more scathing about the crew talent competition than we were.  In her view it would have been very easy for Star Clippers to find actors and opera singers who could have been giving master classes!  This was very entertaining but I don’t know if she realised that the look on my face was one of horror and not agreement.

Sails not being used on a sailing ship.  The ship was always under power and the sails were rarely used in a meaningful way.  This must be false advertising as Star Clippers make a big deal about the ships being recreation clippers and the magic of sailing!  They are however quite adept at marketing.  Every time we left port they whacked up the 3 main sails and played opera very loudly.  This was charming and exciting for the first time as we left Stockholm but we became more cynical once we realised that the sails were for show and not functionality.   When we were delayed leaving Visby they did actually deploy 16 sails and this was magnificent. 

 

The cruise ended in the German port of Travermunde, and we took a short taxi ride on to the Hanseatic League and World Heritage listed town of Lubeck where we spent our last full day with John.  We had decided months ago that we wanted to see Lubeck rather than spending our last day in Hamburg, but I started to get worried on the cruise because everyone else was going on to Hamburg.  However we just adored Lubeck.  I’m sure Hamburg is wonderful and I would like to get back to visit some time.  But I’m incredibly glad to have seen Lubeck.

Has anyone seen my spirit level?

One of the surviving city gates

St Petri

 

St Mary's

We walked around stupefied by all the glistening verdigris of the many church and town gate spires.  In addition many of the town’s central streets are cobbled and a lot of heritage buildings have been retained.  I particularly loved the Lubeck Cathedral (started 1173ad) which had arches spanning wide distances and whitewashed walls and ceilings, giving an atypically light and bright atmosphere.  Too many European churches are dark and forbidding inside.

Lubeck Cathedral

Not sure what the religious significance is of foie gras in Germany

 

We also did a spot of shopping (glass vase), which thankfully John has safely transported home in his hand luggage.  Yes Dale continues to indulge in his vase fetish, but who can object to such a lovely object d’art.  I’ve already mentioned that the cufflink collection is expanding rapidly.  Here are the words for cufflinks in a few relevant languages.  I’ve left out Finnish and Estonian as it is too hard to pronounce.  I’ve also thrown in Spanish just for fun:

·        manschettknappar (Swedish)
·        manchetknapper (Danish)
·        manschettenknöpfe (German)
·        boutons de manchette (French)
·        gemelos (Spanish)

While we were out shopping, John did a great barge tour around the rivers that encircle Lubeck.

Driving in Lubeck?  Not that much fun



Political graffiti in English?

It's not summer in Europe without generous servings of ice cream

 

We stayed in another Trip Advisor selected Hotel in Lubeck and I’ve started making reviews.  I won’t ever be Rodney747 but I’ll do my best.

Quite a long day of travel on the Sunday.  We left the Hotel in Lubeck at 9:30am and after a bus, 2 planes and a shuttle bus, we arrived in Chamonix about 12 hours later.  John also flew home to Melbourne at about the same time as we left Hamburg.

Next time:  Le Tour de Mont Blanc 1