"well, Mein Schiff 3 is the first that was built for TUI (it came after the ships they had bought from Celebrity - which are now at Marella).It compares well to a Solstice-class from Celebrity and the service was a hundred times better...."Read More
It may have been somewhat of a gamble to cruise on Mein Schiff 3, from a German port (Bremerhaven) that isn't even listed on CruiseCritic ... but we sure enjoyed it and would do it again in a flash. My wife and I are Belgian, so we understand German and speak it a little - but we are far from fluent. Then again, we reasoned that a lot of the staff- and crewmembers would not exactly be native ...
I've never considered cruising to be something I would enjoy, however, when Wacken Open Air (German Heavy Metal Festival) announced the first Full Metal Cruise, my husband and I booked up straight away and we departed from Hamburg. The ship was wonderful, it was like living in a 5 star hotel with a music festival on the doorstep.
The food was fantastic and although I'm vegetarian, I always found ...
Our German cousins asked us to cruise with them to Norway. We let them do all the planning and they chose Mein Schiff 2 sailing out of Kiel. We arrived 4 days early and stayed at the Nordic Astor hotel in Kiel. It's a nice clean hotel with a great buffet breakfast on the top floor with a wonderful view of Kiel.
Two days prior to our cruise, my wife who speaks fluent German called TUI Cruises to ...