Hi I'm Gary Bembridge of Tips For
Travellers. I'm onboard
Hapag Lloyd Cruises Europa 2, and
I'm going to tell you nine things I
think you need to know about the ship to
help you decide if it's a ship that you
should really actively consider cruising
with. The first thing you need to know
is that this is a small ship operating
at the ultra-luxury
end of cruising. It's an eleven deck ship,
it holds a maximum of 500 passengers and
it is premium priced. It claims to have
the greatest amount of space per
passenger of any cruise ship out there,
and all of the suites on board have
verandas. Europa 2 has consistently had
the highest ratings by many many guides
including the Berlitz Guide to Cruising.
The design is very modern, it's very
contemporary, more of a kind of a
boutique hotel look than a traditional
cruise ship. There are over eight hundred
pieces of original art, including some by
famous artists like Damien Hirst on
board. The second thing you need to know
is that it is a European and very Germanic
experience, being a German line it is
mostly occupied and used by German
speakers. However Europa 2 has been
designated as their international ship
to attract more and more English
speakers. So all of the crew on board are
bilingual, they speak German and English.
All the documentation on board you'll
find that you come in contact with as an
English speaker will be English. There's
also an international hostess on board.
There will always be an English
excursion or if there's a excursion that
you want to do that's in German, they'll
make sure that someone is available to come
on the tour with you to translate it
into English for you. If there's any
talks onboard which are by German
personalities or German speakers a
translation (a live translation) will be
provided. All the safety briefing, zodiac
briefings are always done in English. All
announcements are done both in German
and in English, but it is a very European
experience compared to some of the other
ultra-luxury lines which are much more
American experience - for example the
onboard currency is the Euro not the
dollar. The third thing you need to know
is about the whole dining experience. Now
all food is included within your fare
both the standard restaurants and the
speciality restaurants are all included.
There are seven restaurants on board.
The main dining room is called
Weltmeere, this is an ala carte
restaurant. It's a very beautiful room
and has both a set ala carte menu which
doesn't change and then an ala carte
menu for the day - so massive amount of
choice. You then have the Yacht Club
which is both indoor and outdoor. It's
more informal, it's the buffet restaurant.
So those are the two main restaurants
you never have to make reservations for
those. Then you have Sakura
which is an amazing sushi restaurant
with incredible sushi. One of the very
popular restaurants on board is Tarragon.
Tarragon is a French bistro restaurant, a
great restaurant. One of the most popular
ones on board. Just linked to Tarragon is
the Grande Reserve which is really
focusing on wine tasting and meals. A
great restaurant if you are into Asian food
is Elements. This has phenomenal Asian
food. Probably the most popular of all is
Serenmissima,which is the Italian
restaurant ,magnificent Italian food.
Then of course you have 24-hour room
service, with the breakfast being pretty
magnificent. The other thing, which is
great, which is included is once a week
onboard is a caviar night. These are held
in every single restaurant will have a
caviar feature. On board Europa 2
there are six magnificent bars and
lounges. Collins is a great bar,
particular if you're into smoking or
cigars.
It's the connoisseur bar and it has an
enormous range of gins. They claim to
have the biggest range of gins of any
ship. Club 2 is an evening venue and it
has live music. It has a band that plays
in there. Down in the lobby area is the
Piano Bar, and the pianist at various times
during the day will play the grand piano
there. Out by the pool you've got the
Pool Bar which of course is open during
the day and often, as entertainment or
activities at the poo,l at night. Two
venues which I really like, the first of
which is Sansibar. This is based on a
famous German beach bar. It's also
open-air and it's a great spot for
drinks but in the evening they'll often
have music there - live music or a disco
playing. And then there's the Belvedere.
This is the library and it's also where
you have your coffees and teas. In the
afternoon they have a beautiful
afternoon tea service with choice of great
cakes and of course your speciality teas
and coffees. The fifth thing you need to
know is about accommodation. There are
seven grades of suites on board and
as I mentioned, all of them have a
veranda. The main type of
accommodation on board is a veranda
suite, and there are 141. The veranda
suite is a magnificent suite. It's over
30 square metres with a really big balcony.
It's very plush. A nice big walk-in
cupboard and a great bathroom which has
both a bath and a shower. All of the
accommodation on board is very spacious
and especially is considering it's a
relatively small ship. There's not loads
and loads of entertainment on board but
there are of course some options, in the
theatre they will often be shows and the
shows tend to lean towards more dance
shows so language is less of an issue.
You've got the band I have
mentioned in Club 2. There will also be
special events like the Captain's
Welcome Pool Party. There also will be other
events like gin tasting.
There may be some guest speakers. There's
an art gallery and some tours showing
around those over 800 pieces of art. One
of the facilities that you do
pay extra for is the Mille cookery
classes. But overall the entertainment is
relatively low-key. There's no casino.
There's a daily programme which has
various activities in, but it tends to be
much lower key. The seventh thing you
need to know is about other facilities,
particularly when it comes to fitness and
relaxation. There's a very large spa,
there's a pretty big fitness room. All
the fitness classes are included within
the fare. There's a magnificent swimming
pool which has a roof that closes, so if
the weather is not great they can
close the roof. They also have a quiet
area up on deck 11 with a Jacuzzi.
There's also some golf simulators to
actually practice playing golf. The other
great thing is they have bicycles on
board. They do run as one of the
excursion options normally in most
ports a bike excursion, which is a
paid-for excursion, but then there are
also bikes which you can then just use.
So if you just want to go off and
explore on bicycles you can go and
do that. What's quite exciting about Europa 2
is it has a much
younger age demographic than you'll find
on many other ultra luxury lines. Hapag
Lloyd are actively going out trying to
encourage young professionals to cruise
on Europa 2. The ship is designed and
the facilities are really designed to
cater for and attract a younger Cruiser.
So you're going to find they're sort of in
their 40s and often with families.
That's why many of the cruises on Europa 2
are shorter - so it'll be seven eight
to ten days long which make it much more
appealing. Also there's lots and lots of
incentives to attract younger cruises on
board particularly those with families. If
you are traveling with family, you'll
find if you've got kids up to the age of
eleven if they're travelling in your cabin
they travel for free. If they're between
11 and 15 they just pay a small fee of
around about a hundred euros / a hundred
dollars per child if they stay within
your cabin. They also have family
apartments on board which is a veranda
suite with an interconnecting room which
has bunk beds, bathrooms, lots of toys
which are designed specifically for kids.
You can have a whole family apartment.
They have kids clubs which range from
the Knopf Club, which is for two to three
year olds, kids club for four to ten year
olds and a teens club from 11 to 15
years old. They also have little touches
like, for example, they provide a late
riser service where they'll come and
fetch the kids from your suite, they'll
take them away in the mornings and give
you some you time. They also provide, if
you're coming with young ones, a baby
welcome pack which you can book before
you get on board and when you get on board
you'll have things like diapers, food and
it means that you have to bring much
less stuff with you on board. So it's a
much younger demographic and really
targeting kids. The important thing to
note of course is if you're traveling in
peak school holiday time, there is a
chance that there will be a lot of kids
on board. So for example I was traveling
in mid-july and there were 55 kids on board.
So if you want to avoid kids avoid the
key school holiday times. The ninth thing
I want to talk about is that, although
it's ultra luxur,y it is a pre laid-back
and informal atmosphere on board. So
there's no formal nights, no Gala
Nights where you have to get dressed up.
In fact there's no formal dress code,
although people do tend to dress very
smartly - so you'll find gentlemen do
wear jackets to dinner and ladies will wear
some knee-length dresses. Dining is open
seating. On board
it's pretty refined, quite cultured. Europa 2
is rated consistently as one of the
best of all the best cruise ships around.
It operates at the ultra luxury, the
premium end. It attracts a much younger
crowd of people. It's also the
International ship so it's completely
bilingual. As an english-speaking
traveler, if you're looking for an ultra
luxury line I definitely
would strongly recommend you
take a look at it. If you enjoyed this video,
I'd love it if you watch many more of my
Tips For Travellers videos. The goal is to
help you make much more of your precious
travel time and money with travel
inspiration, advice and tips.