Live from the Queen Victoria--Princess Elites sail Cunard QV to the Baltic

[MawganTr]

My husband and I are are on this voyage and some of your suspicions are correct - we have, indeed, not called at Warnemunde. At 8am this morning Captain Philpott announced that due to the stormy weather and lack of shelter in port it would not be safe to dock. Another day at sea is the result....it's a hard life! The ents team put together a programme of activities. Copenhagen as planned tomorrow.

[cwn]

My husband and I are are on this voyage and some of your suspicions are correct - we have, indeed, not called at Warnemunde. At 8am this morning Captain Philpott announced that due to the stormy weather and lack of shelter in port it would not be safe to dock. Another day at sea is the result....it's a hard life! The ents team put together a programme of activities. Copenhagen as planned tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the update. Love those sea days but what a shame....especially for the passengers planning to go to Berlin. We did a river cruise roundtrip from Amsterdam last year. Then drove to Potsdam for five days. Used the lovely small city as a base and did day trips, one of which was into Berlin by train. What a wonderful day. Potsdam is a great place also!

[cwn]

I don't know to which society PunkiC is referring, but I am just not local having moved there 11 years ago. And I do not feel any sort of distress with the locals. They are just the type of community that opens up very slowly to non locals - 5 to 10 generations later one is accepted........

 

You made me laugh...we moved to a small town near the Texas hill country 30 years ago. The town was settled in the early 1830's by German immigrants and many people still spoke German at home. The town was a friendly but a very close knit community. We were told if you weren't born here you would always be an outsider. Well, 30 years later, we are still here and love it, but it took a long time before we broke the local ice!

 

Thanks for the info on Warnemuende, put it in my Baltic file. I have read that there are interesting places to see nearby without doing the long ride into Berlin. One of these days we will do the Baltic again.

[GCurry]

You made me laugh...we moved to a small town near the Texas hill country 30 years ago. The town was settled in the early 1830's by German immigrants and many people still spoke German at home. The town was a friendly but a very close knit community. We were told if you weren't born here you would always be an outsider. Well, 30 years later, we are still here and love it, but it took a long time before we broke the local ice!

Thanks for the info on Warnemuende, put it in my Baltic file. I have read that there are interesting places to see nearby without doing the long ride into Berlin. One of these days we will do the Baltic again.

I know all those town's CWN, some better than others.

 

My question is the weather, is this normal?? I came through the area from Bergen to Amsterdam on Eurorail some years ago in June and it was beautiful for three weeks. Being in the Energy Bidness for a long career, I know of the North Sea, but thought the Baltic wouldn't enjoy the same weather What say you cunardadiict?

[cunardaddict]

I know all those town's CWN, some better than others.

 

My question is the weather, is this normal?? I came through the area from Bergen to Amsterdam on Eurorail some years ago in June and it was beautiful for three weeks. Being in the Energy Bidness for a long career, I know of the North Sea, but thought the Baltic wouldn't enjoy the same weather What say you cunardadiict?

 

Yes, it is somehow normal. The north of Germany is at the same geographical level as southern Alaska. So the sun has the same intensity if visible. The difference to Alaska makes a 21C warm water stream in the Atlantic Ocean called the Gulf Stream. This equalizes extremely cold temperatures with an effect reaching app. 300km in land. If winds send the hot air from Africa we will have hot temperatues like we had in June and July. If the wind changes and brings Polar cold we have a situation like now.

 

Significant differences between water- and airtemperatures causes strong winds, but only very occasionally a tornado. Right now the water is 21C and 3C warmer than in an average summer due to the early heatwave this year.

 

Summer is not guaranteed at our beaches.

 

But overall its acceptable because winters are usually mild at the southern Baltic.

 

No global warming effect is involved.

[GCurry]

Yes, it is somehow normal. The north of Germany is at the same geographical level as southern Alaska. So the sun has the same intensity if visible. The difference to Alaska makes a 21C warm water stream in the Atlantic Ocean called the Gulf Stream. This equalizes extremely cold temperatures with an effect reaching app. 300km in land. If winds send the hot air from Africa we will have hot temperatues like we had in June and July. If the wind changes and brings Polar cold we have a situation like now.

Significant differences between water- and airtemperatures causes strong winds, but only very occasionally a tornado. Right now the water is 21C andC warmer than in an average summer due to the early heatwave this year.

Summer is not guaranteed at our beaches.

 

But overall its acceptable because winters are usually mild at the southern Baltic.

 

No global warming effect is involved.

Thank you for that, it explains a lot and let's say that I'm more than familiar with the science. What in your opinion is the best time frame for a Baltic cruise??

We toured and cruised down from Alaska based on weather, in early June.

[cunardaddict]

You made me laugh...we moved to a small town near the Texas hill country 30 years ago. The town was settled in the early 1830's by German immigrants and many people still spoke German at home. The town was a friendly but a very close knit community. We were told if you weren't born here you would always be an outsider. Well, 30 years later, we are still here and love it, but it took a long time before we broke the local ice!

 

Must be the town of Boerne. My wife has some family at New Braunfels...

[cwn]

Must be the town of Boerne. My wife has some family at New Braunfels...

 

I know both well and we have enjoyed many a summer afternoon around New Braunfels and other German communities deeper in our beautiful hill country. NB and Boerne are slowly becoming suburbs of San Antonio. We are a bit more East and North and are slowly becoming a bedroom community of Houston. By the time my children graduated from high School they were approaching being multi-lingual....English, German and Spanish.

[PunkiC]

Live from the Queen Victoria--Princess Elites sail Cunard QV to the Baltic

 

Day Ten: Warnemunde????

 

We are currently in a fresh gale, supposedly headed to Warnemunde which is to the Southwest of our current position. Oddly, however, we are headed Northeast so I am beginning to suspect that we might skip the German port. Of course we may just be riding it out, and will turn back around once the weather settles down. We are currently only 7 miles from the port and as I am watching the Captain’s Log, Paul Simon is singing “Slip Sliding Away” which clearly describes our current situation—the nearer our destination, the more we’re slip sliding away.

 

Shortly after DH returned from the gym, just minutes after 8:00 a.m., the Captain announced that we would not be docking in Warnemunde. They had boarded the pilot and carefully evaluated the weather situation and decided that, since a full gale was anticipated, it would not be safe to dock. Of course, missing any port is a disappointment but we have visited Germany more often than any other country in Europe so it is not as big a disappointment as it would have been had we missed Tallinn or St. Petersburg, which are both in countries we had never previously visited.

 

Our goal is to visit 100 countries while we are still ambulatory. That might seem like a small number to those of you who live in Europe where countries are so very close by, but we can fly 6 hours East, 7 hours Southeast, 8 hours North, 3 hours due South, and 7 hours west and still be in the U.S. For all I know there may be 100 countries within those flight times from, for instance, London. The only countries we can visit without taking a really long flight are Canada and Mexico.

 

No one seemed particularly distressed that we missed Warnemunde as most folks had simply planned to enjoy “free” wifi while they sampled a local brew and uploaded their St. Petersburg pictures. I know that is pretty much all we had intended to do although I would have liked to have the opportunity to buy some contact wetting solution for something less than the $9.00 that it costs for a small bottle on the ship. I think I can hold out on the wetting solution until tomorrow.

 

Berlin is a little too far away for comfortable day visit from Warnemunde and none were even offered by Cunard to the best of my knowledge. Our darling daughter performed in Berlin a few years ago and we traveled there by train from Hamburg with our Swiss friend who is also a big fan. His mother had been a German Jew who left Germany and married his father in Switzerland right before the war—lucky for her. In the subway station at the Brandenburg Gate they have a wonderful museum that shows the history of the Gate from the time it was first constructed until the present. Our friend had tears in his eyes as he perused the displays. I wish US subway stations were more interesting instead of looking like prison tunnels. We actually have what is probably the most beautiful and simultaneously useless subway in the USA in Seattle. The station is beautifully tiled, but it only runs from the downtown train station to the center of downtown, a distance of about a mile at the most. We once (back in the late ‘60s) had access to Federal Funds for the building of a real subway system, but our politicians messed around so long deciding what to do with it that the government ended up giving the money to Atlanta instead. Their gain, our loss.

 

We wandered around the ship most of the day talking with other passengers and enjoying the improvised onboard entertainment which consisted of a magic show in the atrium and tango lessons, among other things. We don’t particularly like the teaching style of the dancers who teach the classes because they tend to get way too carried away with advanced details for beginning lessons. As a result, the novices really don’t end up retaining much. The staff member who teaches the line dance classes, however, does a really good job. There is sometimes a great gap between the ability to do something very well and the ability to teach someone else to do it. It is amazing to me how rapidly the Cruise Director Staff can scramble together a new slate of entertainment and even print a new program.

 

After a lot of visiting with friends and a late lunch, I decided to take nap. I slept for about two hours but DH went up top to take photos. He said it was so windy that he was having difficulty standing up on the deck on the windward side.

 

The headline entertainment for the evening was a vocal trio called “The Spinnettes” who sing ‘40s music, in the style of the Andrews Sisters. We had met them earlier in the day and enjoyed chatting with them for a while. They are all three West End singers and dancers who decided to put together this act to fill in during the time when they are “on vacation”. Both our daughter and our grand-niece who lives with us are entertainers so we are well familiar with the peculiarities of the lives of young people in show business. The house was totally packed for their show and they were totally truly enjoyable both on and off stage.

 

Tomorrow, we will be in Copenhagen, or at least that is the plan. If we had to miss a port, I would have chosen Copenhagen as we have previously been there, once to see our daughter perform and to spend some time with her former host family, and another time to visit with a friend when we were on a cruise of the Nordic countries. When you travel, however, you have to learn to roll with the punches.

 

Responses:

 

cunardaddict writes:

I don't know to which society PunkiC is referring, but I am just not local having moved there 11 years ago. And I do not feel any sort of distress with the locals. They are just the type of community that opens up very slowly to non locals - 5 to 10 generations later one is accepted...

 

So you better ask PunkiC.

 

I don’t believe I said anything about any society. I was simply referring to the fact that you sound very happy with your situation in life and appear to be able to travel extensively, as are we. That puts us, probably all of us on this board, including GCurry and maybe even Salacia, into a very small minority to which most of the people in the world would love to belong. Pretty much everybody who is able to cruise regularly is privileged, and should be extremely aware of that fact and grateful for their good fortune. I know we sure are and I hope you are as well. I am always amazed at people who are lucky enough to be on a cruise who do nothing but complain about how miserable they are over little tiny things that honestly just don’t matter one bit.

cunardaddict, your community is much slower to accept newcomers than our community where folks begin to feel like they really belong after only 30 years or so. We have 8 houses on our block and three of them have been occupied by the same families for over 60 years. We have now lived in our home for 40 years and are beginning to feel like real Queen Anne people. Of course most of the people who remember when we moved into the parish are now dead and we are all-too-rapidly becoming the older generation. The State of Washington hasn’t even been around for 10 generations although we do have many families in our parish that have been there for over 5 generations, while we are still praying we will make it to three. ;)

 

GCurry writes:

 

We toured and cruised down from Alaska based on weather, in early June.

 

We have taken five cruises to Alaska and I used to travel there quite often for business and it is pretty much impossible to predict the weather. When we were there last August, it was colder at the glaciers than it has ever been before, even in early May. We were not only bundled up in all of our cold weather gear, but also wrapped in pool blankets and were still freezing. On the other hand, I have been in Ketchikan in May when it was 90F and once in September when it was raining so hard and blowing so hard, sideways, that we weren’t able to cross the street to buy a bottle of wine and we were pretty motivated. ;)

[Mrs. Wilburforce]

We have 8 houses on our block and three of them have been occupied by the same families for over 60 years. We have now lived in our home for 40 years and are beginning to feel like real Queen Anne people. Of course most of the people who remember when we moved into the parish are now dead and we are all-too-rapidly becoming the older generation. The State of Washington hasn’t even been around for 10 generations although we do have many families in our parish that have been there for over 5 generations, while we are still praying we will make it

 

My son lives in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. We're heading there for a visit in a couple of weeks. That's what keeps us from cruising...very worthy and good reason :) His family can't stand the hot Midwest summers, nor the frigid winters. DS claims Seattle has made him soft :rolleyes:

We love your neighborhood. My DDiL and I always take a drive around to gawk at the lovely homes.

We've taken one 10 day cruise on QM2, and I joined my sister on a 10 day Princess Panama Canal trip. I slept on a roll-a-way cot on Princess to escape the hard mattress :eek: so I agree with your assessment of Cunard vs Princess. Each line has it's strengths and weaknesses.

I have really enjoyed your writing style and your attention to detail. If I only take one more cruise, and that may be our reality, this would be my itinerary of choice. Thanks for allowing me to live vicariously through your travel blog.

[Calliope]

Thank you for posting that. I can never remember who said that, but I've always thought it was a great line.

 

 

I think, emphasize think, that it was Groucho Marx whom said that he would never want to join a club that would have him as a member anyway.

[Salacia]

I think, emphasize think, that it was Groucho Marx whom said that he would never want to join a club that would have him as a member anyway.

 

You're not alone in thinking that:) See the heading on post #148

[brigittetom]

Thanks Salacia.....it guess it does pay to actually read the heading....I had to look. I'm too embarrassed to say who I thought it was. :)

[cunardaddict]

Thank you for that, it explains a lot and let's say that I'm more than familiar with the science. What in your opinion is the best time frame for a Baltic cruise??

We toured and cruised down from Alaska based on weather, in early June.

 

It is difficult to predict on a long term. In Finland the summer happens usually on a tuesday as the people there say.

 

The eastern Baltics may be best in June and July, hot in August, our area can be nice throughout the whole summer but in some years only September is a good month. It depends very much from the winds.

[English Voyager]

It does appear that Cunard, in docking at Warnemuende, no longer offer an excursion to Berlin.

 

Perhaps this is due to the fact that the length of stay in the town has been drastically reduced-- arrive early morning, leave afternoon.

I wonder if that is to save on Port charges?

 

I remember on our cruises, with both Celebrity and Seabourn, some years ago arriving very early morning and leaving at midnight.

 

In fact, having checked, Celebrity's cruises docking in Warnemuende arrive at 09.30 and depart at 23.59

[English Voyager]

As for quotations of Grouch Marx:

 

" I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."

 

" The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

 

" Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife."

[cunardaddict]

It does appear that Cunard, in docking at Warnemuende, no longer offer an excursion to Berlin.

 

Perhaps this is due to the fact that the length of stay in the town has been drastically reduced-- arrive early morning, leave afternoon.

I wonder if that is to save on Port charges?

 

I remember on our cruises, with both Celebrity and Seabourn, some years ago arriving very early morning and leaving at midnight.

 

In fact, having checked, Celebrity's cruises docking in Warnemuende arrive at 09.30 and depart at 23.59

 

Interesting question.

 

I do rember the Berlin busses being delayed on their return from Berlin by hours last year. The journey from Warnemunde to Copenhagen is only a few hours if not going all around Sjaeland like last night.

[English Voyager]

Interesting question.

 

I do rember the Berlin busses being delayed on their return from Berlin by hours last year. The journey from Warnemunde to Copenhagen is only a few hours if not going all around Sjaeland like last night.

 

I do remember from one of our earlier cruises Americans who had taken the ship's excursion to Berlin complaining that there was no air conditioning on the train.

 

So are excursions from Warnemuende to Berlin now conducted by coach?

[cunardaddict]

I do remember from one of our earlier cruises Americans who had taken the ship's excursion to Berlin complaining that there was no air conditioning on the train.

 

So are excursions from Warnemuende to Berlin now conducted by coach?

 

It seems to vary. Earlier this year the tracks and trains have been modernized - with air conditioning now - but last year rail traffic was interrupted during summer due to trackworks.

Edited August 21, 2014 by cunardaddict

[English Voyager]

It seems to vary. Earlier this year the tracks and trains have been modernized - with air conditioning now - but last year rail traffic was interrupted during summer due to trackworks.

 

Thank you for the information.

[cunardaddict]

I do remember from one of our earlier cruises Americans who had taken the ship's excursion to Berlin complaining that there was no air conditioning

 

Air conditioning is in Germany as useful as a central heating system in Southrn Florida. We have an average of 8 days a year with temperatures over 24C and private houses are generally not equipped with a cooling system. Modern public and commercial buildings sometimes need air conditioning, but we try to avoid this energy consuming cooling by using other methods.

 

Modern trains and most cars and buses do have an air conditioning system now.

 

If air conditioning is provided the inside temperature should not be more than 5C cooler than the outside temperature. So sometimes the US visitors do not realize that in fact a cooling system is active.

[3rdGenCunarder]

I do remember from one of our earlier cruises Americans who had taken the ship's excursion to Berlin complaining that there was no air conditioning on the train.

 

So are excursions from Warnemuende to Berlin now conducted by coach?

 

It was done by coach when we did it, way back in the days of Caronia. I know we left VERY early and were back in time to have dinner. Can't remember how late the ship stayed in port.

[fantasy51]

private houses are generally not equipped with a cooling system.

 

They are in the UK. It's called a window! (Unfortunately it only works when the outside temperature is lower than the inside temperature. After that it becomes a heating system.)

[cunardaddict]

they are in the uk. It's called a window! (unfortunately it only works when the outside temperature is lower than the inside temperature. After that it becomes a heating system.)

 

:d:d:d:d

[GCurry]

Song by Jimmy Buffett, and August/September are our prime times.

We're currently rivaling Mumbai for heat and humidity, so we go from heavily air conditioned homes to heavily air conditioned cars and back. Energy costs are not an issue. We have two seasons, HOT and cold separated by days of indecision. About half of Texas was settled by Germans, Czechs, and Poles as good land was cheap and available (comfort not included). This is why our people enjoy a visit to European Summer which we best describe as winter with leaves!!:)

A cruise is really a great way to see a very expensive part of the world, and if you can afford the classic luxury sold by Cunard, so much the better. My wife and I dance ballroom (don't tell the neighbors), and there are no finer ballrooms at sea than offered by Cunard.