Word: oldendorff
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...cargo ship, many of them said they had always wanted to try it but had no idea how to go about booking a trip. It's simple to inform yourself by Internet. The biggest online travel agency catering to cargo cultists is at freighterworld.com. You can reach the Egon Oldendorff line directly, at www.oldendorff.com. If you fancy French cuisine, CMA CGM is a major, French-owned freighter line operating transpacific routes, at www.cma-cgm.com. If you're a pre-cyber holdout, Cadogan Guides publishes a guidebook called Travel by Cargo Ship, by Hugo Verlomme...
...modern containership is a magnificent machine, a floating factory with a pleasant little village attached to it, which can be operated by a complement of 25 officers and crew. When one first approaches a freighter such as the M.V. Ingrid Oldendorff, its physicality is overwhelming. The poop deck, which houses the accommodations, common areas and the bridge, soars 51 meters from hull to antenna, the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa; the length from bow to stern is two proverbial American football fields, including the end zones. Davien and I were the only noncrew passengers aboard (supernumeraries...
...Most cargo ships that accept passengers have room for two to eight people; the Ingrid Oldendorff has a family suite, a living room and two sleeper cabins, each with its own head and shower en suite. Our cabin wasn't superluxurious, but it was as comfortable as most of the cruise-ship accommodations I've seen, attractively furnished and fitted out with a little fridge and a stereo. Davien and I swapped off using the lone desk, which had an inspiring view of containers piled high (and the sea beyond), until I discovered a boardroom by the captain's office...
...lunch at noon and dinner at the faintly ridiculous time of 5:30 p.m. The cook was an ebullient, roly-poly Czech named Victor, who had had a previous career as a lounge singer in the U. S. The cuisine was the only category in which the Ingrid Oldendorff failed to match the standard of the cruise ships I've sailed with: the meals were ample, well cooked and tasty enough but monotonous, with an emphasis on meat and potatoes and garnished alternately by pickles and pineapple. (We did have ice-cream sundaes, on the appropriate day of the week...
...most enjoyable entertainments on a luxury cruise is observing the flirty machinations some passengers will employ to wangle an invitation to sit at the captain's table. Davien and I, as supernumeraries, sat there for every meal. The master of the Ingrid Oldendorff is Oleksandr Ponomarenko, a tall, handsome Ukrainian man, who genially introduces himself as Alex but is never called anything but "Captain." Like many intelligent seamen, he has a melancholy disposition, which he constantly tries to lighten with humor...