Copenhagen, Denmark: Best Port Program – Ever.

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Class Afloat Student Alex B.

While motoring into the city of Copenhagen, we were greeted by one of the largest bridges in the world connecting Malmö, Sweden with Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, not a single cloud in the sky and there was no wind. Even though we were all focusing on studying for the upcoming exams, we tried to enjoy the sun as much as we could. We had mixed feeling about Copenhagen as it was our last port, so everyone wanted to enjoy it in all its colours, however, simultaneously, everyone was stressed out because of the upcoming exams. Cody came up with the brilliant idea of doing our port program in the second oldest amusement park in the world so everyone could enjoy themselves at least for one day.

Hanna & Enric walking back to the Gulden Leeuw through a small but beautiful garden.
Hanna & Enric walking back to the Gulden Leeuw through a small but beautiful garden.

We made fast into the centre of Copenhagen just next to a beautiful little garden. On the other side of the river, we could see a huge and interesting modern structure, the opera house.

Passing by the huge bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark while enjoying the weather.

On the second day in Denmark, it was time for our amazing port program. As we entered the big gates of Tivoli Gardens, we were greeted by a beautiful atmosphere. All of the buildings were made in an antique style. There were huge gardens with thousands of different flowers and plants. The park had many different sections, one was inspired by Arabic architecture, the other by Chinese and European, but they all had one thing in common: they were all beautiful and surrounded with plants. The park would have been worth while just to experience the beauty of the gardens but at the end of the day, we went there for the rides. There was one that brought you up into the skies where one could overlook everything, and since the park was located directly in the city centre, the view was breathtaking.

Peacock chilling in front of an Arabic style building in Tivoli Gardens.
Peacock chilling in front of an Arabic style building in Tivoli Gardens.

There was also this one rollercoaster where one could experience the ride with a virtual reality headset and fight evil along side a traditional Chinese dragon, pretty impressive. And finally, there was the flying planes. You were sitting in a small plane connected to a huge metal arm, which could rotate like a gyroscope, but as if that wasn’t enough, it also accelerated so fast that one experienced more than 5 G’s which means that you get pulled into your seats with a force 5 times grater than our earth’s gravitational field. It was so strong that some of my fellow students couldn’t withstand the pressure and passed out, others just had to throw up afterwards. All in all, it was by far the best port program. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, we all were allowed one free spin at the lottery wheel for a chance of winning a huge chocolate bar. Of course our group won the main prize.

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Our group winning a huge GULD chocolate bar.

On the second last day, we could experience the U.S. COAST GUARD passing by to anchor just ahead of us. The huge and impressive tall ship made our 70 m long ship look like a kid’s toy. As if the beautiful white, blue, red body of the ship wasn’t impressive enough, they put up the biggest USA flag I have ever seen. It was so big, we could have used it as our course sail. On top of that, the ship had red blue and white lights installed to light up the masts during the night, an impressing spectacle.

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U.S. COAST GUARD Flexing with its oversized flag.

On the last day, many people stayed on the boat to study while others continued to explore the city through heavy rain and winds. Most went out for a final diner to celebrate the end of this fantastic year. All the second semester “boys”, including myself, decided to go to a fancy restaurant. After we emptied our bank-accounts in the way of an expensive city, we scraped our last coins together, got a tasty ice cream, and went on an electric scooter ride to experience and enjoy the city one last time in all its beauty. We liked the city so much that we were tempted, really, and I mean, really really tempted, to sneak out in the middle of the night at 2:00am one last time and go for a nice bike ride in the lit up city of Copenhagen, but of course, that would be against the rules, so we decided not to. Copenhagen was a beautiful city and the perfect place for our last port of Class Afloat.