HAMBURG
Day 1 – Wednesday 3 January
Well here we are again, gluttons for punishment, off on a mini cruise to Hamburg. This time we are sailing in the good ship QUEEN VICTORIA as part of a plan to try out other Cunard ships. Heaven knows why, as it is not as if we can afford any more huge expenditure for holidays.
With typical Shacklepin planning and luck, we managed to pick a voyage that coincided with the tail end of Storm Eleanor and, not for the first time, I wondered why we had arranged a holiday to a cold place across the North Sea in January. Of course, the answer was that it gave Jane a break, and me a further opportunity to integrate with my fellow man once more, and practise one of those New Year Resolutions of being less misanthropic. Well, we can all try.
Embarkation was a little more long-winded than we were used to, with long queues and delays. Certainly the ‘priority boarding’ advertised for us privileged Princess Grill World Club Gold Card passengers did not seem much in evidence; maybe everyone else in the queue carried the same badge, with the steerage passengers loaded by a coaling chute somewhere else, lower down, on the opposite side. Glancing around at my future shipmates (surely not also Princess Grill?), I could not resist a raised eyebrow at the gentleman with the football scarf and what appeared to be the Scunthorpe and District Trans Shot-Putting Team. There were quite a few single-sex couples too – well, more than you get on Melbury High Street – and we wondered idly what attracted them to this particular voyage. I also noted, with some disquiet, several toddlers. It dawned on me, rather too late, that short cruises were probably popular with the more (how can I put it) salt-of-the-earth flat-voweled members of the British population because they were relatively cheap. This was a lesson I should have learned from Australia, where people embarked for short trips around the coast, occupied the (normally) more expensive cabins, and lowered the average IQ. Hey ho, can’t have everything.
Our cabin, 6102 on the port side, was good, but somewhat more cramped than in QUEEN MARY 2, being long and narrow. The bathroom was quite small and really could only accommodate one person unless the other one sat in the bath. There was, however, a dressing room, and a pleasant sitting area with sofa and bar at the far end. Bizarrely, there were two televisions (one for bed and one for sitting), though this was a dubious advantage as nothing of note was being shown. No change there then. Pleasingly, a bottle of sparkling wine on ice awaited us, together with chocolates and strawberries: a nice touch befitting Gold Card (soon to be Platinum) Demi Gods such as we. Unlike last year, Jane could enjoy both, but she was remarkably restrained.
After a brief luncheon, we explored the ship. The first thing we noticed about QUEEN VICTORIA was how much more compact she was compared to QUEEN MARY2: she was definitely much easier to explore as, quite simply, there were fewer places to visit and less distance to cover. The decor was (as you might expect) Victorian, but every bit as good as QM2 though, inevitably, the ship lacked the grand scale and majesty of her larger sister. The theatre, occupying three decks and incorporating traditional boxes, looked grander and more conventional, and we preferred it. The bars, on the other hand, seemed cramped as if stuffed into thoroughfares against the ship’s side as an afterthought. Mrs Shacklepin declined to walk around the upper deck, so more on the ship’s fittings, davits and general deck maintenance later.
The safety brief was better than the one on QM2, as they checked everyone off as they arrived in the assembly area – something they did not do in QM2. I always wondered, on the previous voyage, how they knew that everyone had been evacuated from their cabins. We sailed at 1650: an odd time to one used to sailing on the hour precisely, and gently made our way down the channel in the dark. We were warned that it would get stormy at about 1800 as we exited the Solent but, in fact, the movement was not marked (or didn’t seem that way to me). I am delighted to report that dining in the Princess Grill restaurant, high on Deck 11, was an absolute delight: exclusive access via a special lift key, huge picture windows looking out over the sea, people properly dressed (some men even wearing ties), and excellent cuisine. I actually felt a little under-dressed in Naval Dog Robbers, as most other men wore suits. Oh dear. Food-wise, I started with crab and crayfish cocktail and Jane had crab cannelloni; we both followed this with turbot. What started as the intention of a sensibly cautious glass of white wine became an entire and excellent bottle of chilled hock. See how one of our News Year’s Resolutions fell at the first post. The show that evening was the ‘New Amen Corner’, a pop group playing a confection of 1960s pop music that I rather enjoyed, but which Jane declared merely as ‘all right’ (damned by faint praise). We almost went dancing, as our route aft from the theatre took us through the ballroom, but we were fairly zonked by that time and the clocks were going forward that night, so we retired to bed. There then followed the best night’s sleep both of us had had for months.
Day 2 – Thursday 4 January 2018.
Thursday dawned late on a flat grey North Sea, position roughly between Norfolk and Holland, sea state calm to moderate, 9C, drizzle. Having almost over-slept, we took a leisurely breakfast in our greenhouse on the top deck then tried out a few lounges where we could relax and read The Times. We are, after all, on holiday.
Now here’s a funny thing. What is it with these men sitting in a restaurant and wearing a hat? We first noticed in The Gainsborough back home, but here they are onboard doing it again. It looks bizarre and uncouth. Didn’t their mummies ever tell them that ladies wear hats indoors and gentlemen take them off? Definitely not PLU. Of course, it occurs to me later, they may carry that Excuse Card that explains everything: a badge that says ‘Foreign’. American, perhaps, or German. That’s all right then.
Jane has the cruise bug again. Not the tummy-ache one, but the expensive one. She has decided that she likes this life of good sleeps, top cuisine, doing nothing but people watching and generally chilling out. So part of the morning was spent looking at trips to New York and back in the QUEEN MARY 2. We looked at the prices. Ouch. Far cheaper to serve as a deckhand on your husband’s yacht and visit Staines on Thames, I said, and received a sharp look in reply. Nothing, apparently, is that bad. What it is to be Captain Bligh, but I like to think that I bear the burden stoically: just one of God’s little soldiers fighting the skirmishes of life and surviving most, with the optimistic hope that someone will buy me a drink.
After lunch in the eerie, we took a further stroll round the internals of the ship, rather as a tourist visits the zoo. This time we wandered through the Lido Restaurant to eye up the decor and the customers and to try to find what the latter found so attractive about a buffet restaurant that we equated to a works canteen. You see, I have never liked self-service restaurants since I was a Cadet in HMS SKEGNESS where the food was served onto a single stainless steel tray with little compartments for the food. I can still remember how the soup poured into the custard and the custard into the gravy as I staggered back to the messdeck to eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in a Force 8 gale. I shudder at the memory. Anyway, looking at the Lido with its quite pleasant, light, and airy feel, we could – at last – see the attraction. The food was plentiful and was not served on stainless steel trays. It covered a wide range of options, looked good, and could be revisited for seconds as often as one wished. Looking at some of the clientele, the latter opportunity had been adopted several times. And there it is. We had eaten a very light lunch in the style of nouvelle cuisine and felt a bit guilty; others preferred something more hearty and had no conscience or control at all.
After the zoo visit I exited to the after deck where, to my amazement, people were disporting themselves in the outdoor pool in the cold and drizzle. Judging by the steam coming off, the pool was heated but, all the same, I ask you. You can’t beat the British for making the most of a holiday. Mustn’t grumble.
As the mist and drizzle descended outside and the temperature dropped, Jane and I repaired to bed for an afternoon snooze, which we later revived with a glass of yesterday’s chilled sparkling wine. What? But my dear chap, what else was there to do? As I said earlier, we were on holiday. Hamburg tomorrow, in the rain and sleet. Of which more later.
Day 3 – Friday 5 January 2018
Alongside in Hamburg, port side to. 6C. Overcast with rain showers. Wind Force 5 from the north west.
We spent a very relaxing evening last night as there were no shows worth watching and the lecture programme is very sparse. After our rack of lamb, which was cooked at the table, we indulged in a little Latin American dancing and then just drifted around the communal areas listening to classical music. I am pleased to report that, after my disparaging comments on embarkation day about our fellow passengers they have – after all – come up trumps in terms of evening dress. Paradoxically, the general sartorial standard exceeds that of QM2 and almost everyone has made a significant effort to look smart. We only saw one tee shirt and jeans ensemble and the wearer stood out markedly. There are no formal nights on our four-day trip, but some women still wore long dresses, and some men wore dinner jackets. I am embarrassed to report that I looked a bit of a scruff in comparison (knew I should have brought that plum-coloured smoking jacket and the Paisley cravat), though Jane, as ever, looked chic. Of course, some women’s ideas of what looks good do vary (‘Is that tight dress from ten years ago really the best idea, dear? You look like a badly squeezed tube of toothpaste’; ‘Hmmm, white shoes with black tights – no dear’; ‘Blimey, look at that backside – it looks like the helicopter landing platform of an oil rig’). On the whole, though, a very good effort. It is not often that people take any notice of my criticisms and I am very impressed that the word has got out. Pity it didn’t reach that fat weirdo in shorts, tee shirt and sandals whom we passed on Deck 2 by The Golden Lion pub this morning. Wonder if he’s from Melbury?
Apropos nothing at all, by the way, we have noticed another difference from our last Cunard voyage, and this is the dearth of hand sanitisers. In QM2 these dispensers were everywhere: at lift lobbies, at entrances to all public rooms and theatres, by all external doors, and – prominently – at entry to all restaurants. Sanitising hands several times became second nature as we walked around the ship. With the exception of the last location, this is not the case in QUEEN VICTORIA. Most curious.
My smug euphoria at dining in the exclusive Princess Grill Restaurant high on Deck 11, which is accessed only by special lift key issued to Grill passengers, is severely tempered by the fact that our blasted keys don’t work. We have therefore been forced to exit the lift on Deck 9 with the hoi polloi visiting the Lido Buffet, and complete the remaining two decks by foot. Thus, we stagger into our discreet bijou bistro huffing and puffing like climbers on Everest needing oxygen. This is not at all the sort of entrance that we would wish to make. Must get those key cards re-programmed. By the way, we tried to get our cards changed to Platinum yesterday, having now completed the requisite total 70 nights onboard a Cunarder, but the privilege does not kick in until our return to UK. This is very poor. I expected at least another hat.
Amazingly, last night I saw two guests sporting their World Club Gold Badges in their lapels like school prefects. I joke about it, but they seem to take it seriously. Not sure where our badges are, actually. Perhaps I should have sought them out before joining the ship: we might have received more bowing and scraping as we swept our way around the ship, but somehow I doubt it. Weird.
Hamburg: the birthplace of Brahms, Mendelssohn and the fried mince patty in a bap; the second largest city in Germany after Berlin and the second largest port in Europe after Rotterdam; the home of the Reeperbahn beloved of many a sailor seeking a lady’s comforts and a city with more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined. The city also claims to have the most millionaires in the whole of Germany. A tour should be interesting.
We came alongside in Hamburg at 0700 after a long transit up the River Elbe that took about eight hours. We missed all of that, of course, but there was nothing to see in the dark anyway. In contrast to the previous night, neither of us slept well and – exceptionally – Jane’s tummy was playing up again (as was mine). We concluded that it was either the cheese or the rare lamb from the previous night’s dinner. As we blearily gazed out at Hamburg from our breakfast table on Weathertop it became quite clear that this place was going to be cold. We saw a grey sky, a grey city skyline, a grey harbour, and plumes of white water vapour streaming horizontally from various factory chimneys. Flags cracking and whipping viciously in the wind completed the bleak picture. For once, we had come equipped for the weather and I wore thermal underwear under several other layers but, even so, it was distinctly fresh standing in the bus queue waiting for the shuttle bus. As per the normal pattern, our original plan was simply to walk off the ship and find the city. However, this seemed impractical when it was revealed that even the shuttle would take 25 minutes to reach the city centre. And so it proved: it took a good 15 minutes to get out of the heavily industrialised dock area on the bus, let alone to penetrate the city proper.
Oddly, we had to pass through passport control when disembarking – so much for the EU all-of-one-company ethos; we never had to do that in European ports before in QM2, but here we did. We had the reverse procedure when we returned too, but the immigration staff were very friendly both times and did not demand, ‘Your papers plis’. I was careful not to mention The War.
Shortly after getting off the bus we were accosted by a German lady asking how to get to the Rathaus. Doesn’t this always happen when you are a stranger in a city? I always find it amazing. I could, at least, reply in German that I was sorry but, unfortunately, I was an Englishman and couldn’t help. This impressed the memsahib no end, natürlich, and I swaggered onward with a spring in my step before stepping into a large German puddle and rather spoiling the whole effect.
We quite enjoyed Hamburg. It was clean, orderly, and well laid out, with the graffiti confined to the docks area where the ragged people go. We trudged up streets and across canals in the driving rain; we explored shopping precincts that were mostly deserted; we contemplated the Binnen Alster, a large internal lake that looked as inviting as the Arctic; we missed out the Reeperbahn, lest Jane be too shocked by the German ladies. It all seemed jolly nice. But we were getting wetter and wetter and, as had been predicted long ago, a northern German city was never going to be a pleasant visit in January. So, after an hour or so, we coincidentally found ourselves back at the bus stop with a shuttle bus just about to leave. We looked at each other (as best one can through rain-drenched spectacles) and came to an unspoken agreement. Onto the bus, and back to the ship. So that was Hamburg: litter, Nil; Shacklepin graffiti factor 10%; men on skateboards, Nil; tramps, 2; jackboots, Nil. Must come in the summer next time.
We disembarked a few Germans, and embarked a few, in Hamburg. QUEEN VICTORIA is, apparently, proceeding on to Miami and South America after dropping us off in Southampton. That should be quite a contrast after this trip.
We sailed at 1900, next stop good old Blighty where our friends are pining for us even as I write. Dinner, taken as the ship made her way down the 80 miles or so of the River Elbe, was lovely as we were able to look out at the beautifully houses on the river bank close by, all illuminated by Christmas lights. Delightful.
Must go as Jane has just seen me in that thermal underwear and has a distinct twinkle in her eye. Never turn up an opportunity, however brief.
Day 4 – Saturday 6 January 2018
Mainly overcast. 9C. Wind Force 7, increasing 8, from the north. Speed 16, Course south west. At noon we were roughly level with Skegness and 40 miles off the Dutch coast.
As we are still on Alpha time, one hour ahead of the UK, dawn came at about 0855. The concept of getting up in the dark on holiday was not well received by either of us and we debated whether to skip breakfast altogether. Unlike the last voyage, this trip has no lectures and no daily shows or films of any interest so there was not much to get up for. However, I persuaded Jane out of bed with tea and a promise of a hearty walk around the upper deck. The first incentive sort-of worked, the second failed miserably. As further encouragement, some sailor had turned to with a chipping hammer and was beating hell out of a piece of rust three decks above. Full marks for hull maintenance, none for timing. We got up.
Dawn, viewed from our high breakfast venue, revealed a busy seascape, for the North Sea has become quite populated since I last viewed it from a ship’s bridge (circa 1968). I never did steam up the east coast during my bridge time of General Naval Training, you see, and the remainder of my professional career was spent staring at quivering gauges in the bowels of various warships. Since 1968 (when I sailed with my father) North Sea oil has been discovered and the increased number of ships passing on the sea on their lawful occasions has meant the institution of a lane system in the North Sea and Dover Strait. Thus, we (and several other ships) were heading south west in one lane at various speeds and overtaking each other, with another collection of vessels doing the same thing, but heading north east, in the other lane nearest the Dutch coast. To add excitement, other ships were cutting across the lanes in both directions. Sprinkled in this frothing mêlée of hurrying merchant ships was a motley collection of static oil rigs, visible on all points of the compass. Overall, quite a navigational challenge I would say, but thankfully not my problem.
The day was spent drifting around and reading iPads, pretty much bored stiff. No lectures, no activities worth doing, no cinema. We might as well be on a cross channel ferry. Frustrated, I agreed to meet Jane at the cabin and took a stroll on the upper deck in the rain. I quite enjoyed it: QUEEN VICTORIA has some good areas for sunbathing (not today) with useful sheltered spots and shaded areas. She also has two to three exclusive terraces for the Great and the Good, high up around, and on top of, the Grills Restaurants. As earlier, a few hardy souls were wallowing in the jacuzzis, pretending that it was not January in the North Sea. I would have stayed up longer, but the rain became quite heavy so I repaired to the cabin. But there was no Jane. Where could she be? Floating two miles astern? Finally ended it all after 35 years of nervous exhaustion? I shrugged and settled down to read a book. Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door. I opened it and Jane shot in, spitting like a scalded cat. It seemed that her door key had ceased to work and so she had been wandering round the internals of the ship like the Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas forever. It was not clear to me why she simply had not had the card replaced by the Purser’s Office, but wisely I desisted from asking.
We skipped lunch but, by 1430, regretted the decision and agreed to take afternoon tea instead. This proved to be most enjoyable. Taken high in the Grills Restaurant, with lovely views of the shipping, the meal comprised the traditional sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam and cake, all washed down with Twinings tea. I think I must have consumed my normal year’s quota of sugar in just one sitting. Ho hum, it is not something we do often.
So, as the twilight closed in on our last day we took stock of our latest ship, and compared her with our last voyage. The general view was that she was good in parts. We liked the exclusive access to the Grills Restaurants and Lounge, and the location of the venues themselves, high up on Deck 11. Unlike QM2, the main promenade deck did not pass by the windows so we were not subjected to the stares and glares of passers by as we ate. The QV restaurant also had significantly better views of the sea. The theatre in QV was preferred and the evening standard of dress of passengers was an improvement. On the other hand, our cabin, bathroom and balcony were noticeably smaller than those in QM2, being about the same size as a Britannia Club cabin in the latter vessel. The bars and spaces also seemed less luxurious, more cramped, and (shall we say) somewhat homespun in clientele. The lecture and entertainment programme this time was dire, but that might simply be a function of the brevity of the voyage. Ditto the clientele. Taken overall, we think we preferred QUEEN MARY 2. As to whether we will take another voyage well, only time will tell. Wonder what we did with that lottery ticket?
Back alongside in Southampton tomorrow at 0700, and we will be off shortly after, carrying our own luggage. I expect the house is freezing but, never mind, it is home.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 