MEIN SCHIFF 4, 7th September 2015, Part 5

Tuesday 8th September 2015
Drama started with breakfast, when it was decided to visit the Atlantik Brasserie. All the food was served from a huge trolley which came to our table, and individual selections could be made. I had been told that breakfast in this restaurant would be rather different, and indeed it was. The selection was vast, the presentation first-class and I enjoyed everything I chose. I think we left there after about an hour, having tried all sorts of fruit, meats and pastries, as well as various hot and cold drinks.

I love pink grapefruit

Ship details


We have actually arrived in the port of Copenhagen, Denmark, under a cloudless blue sky, but have no definite plans for the day. Out on deck our attention was soon diverted as we watched the cruise ship MAGELLAN arrive in port and berth nearby. The PEARL SEAWAYS of DFDS was in port at a nearby quayside and across the water I could see the Danish Royal Yacht in a remote berth - such a lovely sight.

Sunglasses on deck

On deck

Pearl Seaways nearby

Magellan arriving

The meerkats were on deck too

On deck

Lovely lines

12 churches or steeples in view

Whales in the Sylt Restaurant area


I took more photographs on my little tour of MEIN SCHIFF 4, including a door leading to the Butchers shop next to the Steakhouse, which was coloured bright red, with a model bull's head, horns and ring through its nose, hanging in the middle. Hmm, how appropriate...

From there on Deck 5 aft it was decided that we should go down to Deck 4 aft to the Cafe Lounge and perhaps enjoy the delights on offer down there. After approaching a staircase I had to stop first to view a mirrored grand piano with the lid up, displaying many bottle of wine standing up inside it. It was in the middle of a bar. A few steps more brought me to a display cabinet showing delicious looking chocolate creations.

Chocolate ship anyone?


Descending a few curved stairs found us all in a very green furnished and painted bar with a wonderful outlook to the water. The menu however offered various coffees to drink, plus various chocolates to drink or eat. That really was an understatement, as several intrepid souls ordered the item that brought them 5 small glasses of chocolate drink with 5 appropriate small chocolate bars to eat. They each made an amazing display, which the rest of us were allowed to photograph. Having been brought up in England and Cadbury's chocolate, this all looked quite overwhelming but it was fun to be given a sip of one of the drinks, and notice that some of our group enjoyed every mouthful.

The chocolate tasting


Back on my tour I saw the Eis counter, with its big variety of ice-creams, the Bakery counter with its appetising selection of freshly baked goodies, the Children's area of the Restaurant with small size portions of fresh meals on offer, the Spa area with its living wall of something green, which looked remarkably like broccoli heads, the nearby forward bar with its wonderful views, the Cabtanz Bar with red roses on the walls, the Neuer Wall shopping 'street' just as in Hamburg, the Japanese food Restaurant area and finally I made my way back to the Gosch Sylt fish restaurant for lunch with my friends. It had been a very interesting morning.

Kids meals

Indoor pool area

Eis Bar

On the way to the Spa area and forward bar (hmm, looks rather like the design on my new T-shirt)

Living wall near the Spa entrance

All on deck 12

The dark Cabtanz Bar, with roses

The roses

Faux-lavender in the day and night bar

In the Hainami Restaurant

In the middle of the Show Bar

Surf and Turf meat display


Buffet Lunch in the Sylt restaurant Deck 12 aft area offered a good variety of food, with the sun beaming down outside. I was pleased to think that I had actually visited the island of Sylt on the Sylt Express ferry, not so long ago, and I have a tiny model ferry to prove it.


Later we met on the quayside to walk along the side of the ship and take photographs of MEIN SCHIFF 4 and MAGELLAN.

Mein Schiff 4 from the quayside

and her stern

Magellan was astern of us

Magellan's stern

The Danish Royal Yacht


We left Copenhagen at 7 p.m. and enjoyed our voyage north, heading for Gothenburg tomorrow. We first watched our ship heading through the Kattegat waters between Helsingor and Helsingborg and I remembered sailing between those ports myself some years ago. This time we could see various ferries in port (HH Ferries) or sailing fore and aft of us as we sailed along.

Aurora of Skandlines

Skandlines aft of us

HH Ferries on our port side, at dusk

Far ahead on the starboard side


Dusk was falling and we soon went for another interesting and delicious dinner. Tomorrow would see us, on board MEIN SCHIFF 4, visiting Gothenburg in Sweden.


Ships seen: Pearl Seaways, Magellan, Danish Royal Yacht, a red-hulled cargo ship in port, Aurora AF forward of us, Hamlet aft of us, and Tyco Brahe in port (I've sailed on her during a trip with the Cinema Theatre Association); HH Ferries two ships Merkandia IV and Merkandia VIII in port.


To be continued...

Dreamland, Margate and other memories

Copyright of the Cinema Theatre Association

This is where I went yesterday afternoon and evening, for a few hours of nostalgia. I remember visiting Dreamland in Margate as a youngster in the mid-1950s, with my parents, sister and a childless aunt and uncle. We were on a short holiday in the Margate area and wanted to see the Amusement Park. Aunty Doris took me on the Big Wheel which we enjoyed until the moment we were nearly at the top of the ride, when it stopped. We sat there, dangling in our seat in space, for probably ten or fifteen minutes. I imagine there was some kind of emergency down on ground level, which had to be dealt with. We finally set off again, without screams or panic, but it is an event that I have never forgotten. Yesterday's talk and film show brought it all back again.

That event ranks high with other memories: riding in a howdah on an elephant in Regents Park Zoo as a child; being frightened by a clown, as a small child at Bertram Mills Circus in Olympia, London, when he spoke to me; as a teenager seeing a motor-bike rider on what was called The Wall of Death who was being kept horizontal by centrifugal force at a certain speed inside a big wooden upright tube, in the Fun Fair at Agar's Plough, Eton; in the 1980s watching a circus performance by a man being fired out of a cannon, into a net some yards away. Many years later I heard him interviewed on the BBC and it seems he was the last man in England to be fired out of a circus cannon.

I shall continue to enjoy ships and the sea...