erMarina

Ask erMarina's own FAQ whether the boat actually leaves the dock, and the answer undercuts the marketing photos before anything else does. "Unser Schiff liegt in der Regel fest im Hafen," the site says: our ship is normally tied up fast in the harbor, working like an ordinary restaurant that happens to float. It casts off only for named occasions, Mother's Day, the Seenachtsfest, other festive outings, or a couple who books it exclusively. There is one hull behind that sentence, not a timetable of departures and not a fleet to pick from: a single 1956 motor ship called MS Kreuzlingen, trading today under the name erMarina, moored at Hafen Ermatingen on the Untersee stretch of Lake Constance. A couple who charters it gets that one boat, at whatever size she happens to be, or nothing.

A route boat that lost its route

In 1953 the Schifffahrtsgesellschaft Untersee und Rhein first proposed building two new motor ships. The pair, MS Kreuzlingen and MS Stein am Rhein, cost the company roughly CHF 600 000 between them. MS Kreuzlingen was launched and christened in Kreuzlingen's own harbor on 18 July 1956, and her sister ship entered service on 6 April 1957, the same year the older steamship Hohenklingen was retired from the same route. Certified for 350 passengers, she often carried 450 or more during the decades she ran scheduled service, according to the company's own account of her history. That timetable ended around 1999, when a fleet reorganisation and that year's severe flooding on the Rhine led the operator to offer her for sale; the site records that people along the Untersee and Rhein pushed back, worried she would be sold abroad the way the old steamer MS Munot had been. What happened to her in the years between that sale and 2021, when the family firm Stedi-Schiff GmbH bought and restored her, the site does not say. Stedi-Schiff also runs the ERMARINE shipyard on the same stretch of harbor, and it gave the restored ship her current trading name.

200 aboard today, 350 stamped on the old permit

The vessel carrying that history is not large. Her hull runs 38.55 metres long, powered by the original 1956 Sulzer diesel engine, a 450 PS, 6-cylinder unit, driving a fixed "Ostermann" propeller with 3 blades past 9 watertight compartments below deck. None of that has changed since she ran the scheduled crossing. What has changed is the passenger count: today's certified capacity, printed on the ship's own "Eckdaten" page, is 200 people, close to half the 350 she was licensed for as a working ferry, before her interior became a restaurant, an event deck and a panelled Salon Achtern rather than rows of bench seating. A couple planning a large wedding is planning against that reduced, current number, not the historic figure the site's own history page still quotes elsewhere on the same domain.

CHF 1'500 to sit in the harbor, CHF 3'990 to leave it

Because there is only one ship to book, erMarina's site prices the charter in tiers rather than offering a fleet's dropdown of vessels and sailing times. Renting the boat exclusively while she stays in the harbor, for what the site calls "geschlossene Gesellschaften," starts at CHF 1'500. Booking just one of her spaces instead, the open Sonnendeck (the winter SeeChalet takes its place in the cold months) or the Salon Achtern, comes with a CHF 3'000 minimum consumption rather than a flat charter fee. Taking her out onto the lake itself, with a full departure and return, starts at CHF 3'990. The FAQ sets one more floor under all 3 options: any outing lasts a minimum of 2 hours, because the crew and the full team travel out specifically for that booking rather than running to a standing schedule. Catering is not outsourced. The kitchen on board, the "Kombüse" in the site's own restaurant copy, cooks every dish, sauce and dressing to order, the same team that runs the daily restaurant menu rather than an external caterer brought in for the day. There is no line on the site offering couples their own outside florist or decorator the way some competitors' pages do; what erMarina sells is its own team handling the whole event.

A pastor married them, not the captain

A Google review from a couple named Nila and Vithi, describing their wedding in May 2024, is the most concrete account on the site of how a wedding here runs in practice. The ceremony happened on board, and the party continued that evening in a tent on land, both organised by the same erMarina team. Their own account credits "der Pfarrer," a pastor, with performing the ceremony itself, not the ship's captain, and it lists the team's job as the decoration, the aperitif and drinks, the tent's setup and teardown, and the cleaning afterward. That is a fuller service than a bare boat rental: on this one account, the couple describes a package the venue assembled around them rather than a hull they had to furnish themselves. The business backs that impression with an outside credential too, the Swiss Location Award for 2023, 2024 and 2025, scored at 8.9 out of 10 by a combination of 58'394 event organisers and visitors plus an independent jury, according to the site's own awards page.

Where the site stays quiet

The page this listing was built from, erMarina's own "Heiraten" page, is thin: a hero paragraph and a highlights list, no capacity figure, no price, nothing about how a booking for a foreign or English-speaking couple would actually run. Every number and process detail above came from the site's history, technical specification, general charter, FAQ and reviews pages instead, not from the dedicated wedding page itself. The general charter copy does state, in passing, that "standesamtliche oder freie Trauungen," both civil-registry and symbolic ceremonies, can take place directly on the ship, though it never explains how a registry official would conduct that away from a Zivilstandsamt building. Nowhere on the site does erMarina say whether its team, its captain or its kitchen work in English; every page read for this listing, including the FAQ and the charter copy, is German only. The FAQ does answer a few practical questions a travelling guest would ask: the ship is accessible by a small ramp for wheelchairs and prams, though stairs remain elsewhere on board; dogs are welcome on a lead; and payment runs by card, cash or Twint.

One boat or nothing

This fits a couple who wants privacy over choice: one historic hull, one crew that comes out specifically for their date, one kitchen, and a guest count capped well below what the same ship carried as a working ferry decades ago. It does not fit a couple who wants to compare vessels, sizes or sailing slots the way a scheduled operator's own booking form allows, because there is nothing here to compare against; erMarina's own pages describe exactly one ship, moored in exactly one harbor, that leaves the dock only when someone charters her. And a couple planning the day from abroad, in English, will need to establish that directly with the team before booking: the site itself never confirms it either way.