Timmer's 2017 44 Day Cruise from Hong Kong to Vancouver

Today we board the MS Volendam in Hong Kong and begin our 44 day cruise to Vancouver, BC. On this cruise, I am joined by my wife, Angela, and our 15 year old granddaughter, Anastasia. It's her first trip out of the USA, and hopefully she can keep up with us.

I'll do periodic posts here, and I also keep a detailed daily blog at http://www.timmer2017asia.blogspot.com. It already covers our trip so far.

Come along with us as we've never been to the upcoming Asian ports of call.

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What a fabulous trip for your granddaughter! You, too, of course, but she has a fantastic opportunity here! Hope she appreciates this generous gift.

I'm looking forward to riding along on this cruise; I took it myself a couple of years ago, and it was a real thrill. (but those short days trans

(sorry, something funny is going on with posting on CC tonight. there was more in my original reply, but it disappeared into the ether.)

Suffice it to say I wish you a fantastic time.

Best wishes for a wonderful cruise.

The other day came across the sticker you gave me at the Meet and Greet on board the Maasdam .

Hope you all have a fantastic cruise.

Thanks for the link to your blog.

Did the airbnb host supply the breakfast food?

Have a great cruise.

What memories your granddaughter will have.

Thanks for the link to your blog.

Did the airbnb host supply the breakfast food?

Yes, we had eggs, toast, apples, bananas, Asian pears, juice, cereal & milk, AND a box of chocolates!

While the apt was just a bit bigger than a HAL stateroom, it worked for us and was out of the tourist area. We also had great WIFI.

Best wishes for a wonderful cruise.

 

The other day came across the sticker you gave me at the Meet and Greet on board the Maasdam .

We really liked that cruise. I have more stickers for this cruise.

Thanks for your reply.

Wow - what an adventure for your granddaughter! Enjoy the whole experience. It is on my bucket list!

See you in Yokohama on April 25 ;)

We just did a two hour stroll down to the Ma Tau Kok public pier where we could see the Volendam waiting for us. On the way back we strolled through the Hoi Sham park with its Fish Rock sculpture. It's going to get to 73f today which makes for nice walking.

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Will follow along. We were on the Volendam twice in 2016, enjoyed our days cruising Southeast Asia on her.

Have a wonderful trip!

We boarded the Volendam at 11:45am in one of the smoothest embarkations we have experienced with HAL. The terminal is huge.

Lunch in the Lido was wonderful and Anastasia was impressed with the food. We gave her the big picture tour of the ship including the SPA.

The muster drill is at 7:15 followed by a movie and the production show 'Listen to the Music'. The Hong Kong light show is at 8pm and sail away is at 11pm.

We're unpacked and ready for the adventure ahead.

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Anastasia's really thrilled with Club Hal! That's really cool!

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Hope you all enjoyed the Hong Kong light show.

We just arrived in Shanghai after two days at sea. It's a pretty spectacular view from the ship. We have a couple hours before we clear immigration and start our two day tour.

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Have a grand time. I really enjoyed my two days in Shanghai.

What are you going to be doing/seeing?

Btw, my portable WIFI device is working well for internet access although FB and Google are blocked.

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On our first day in Shanghai, we made it out to the Ancient Water Village and three things stood out: the gondola ride, a visit to the ancient post office, and a wonderful meal at a local restaurant.

Returning to the city we went up in the TV tower for some hazy views of the city. It was about an hour and a half wait to get up there but worth it. Our bus drove us back to the ship in the dark, and the building lighting is spectacular and very creative.

The disembarkation process actually went smoothly once it began. HAL shore excursion participants got off first (600 plus of them) and we followed at 8:45am ish. I'll describe the process in more detail when I update my blog. While I can post to my blog via email, it's blocked here so I can't review what posts. I'll do that when we get to Korea.

Our granddaughter really liked the shore excursion today, but we can still out pace her. Old people rule! ;-)

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You mentioned that shore tour people disembarked first. Is that a hard and fast rule now with HAL when docked? I know it's been that way for tender ports, but before when docked others could get off quickly, even before shore tours left. This will be an issue for us at two of our upcoming ports (Incheon and Kushiro) as we have private guides meeting us and we are not 4 or 5 star.

I can't tell you if it's hard and fast. It was just the way it was to accommodate the immigration process in China. We requested the earliest possible disembarkation time and 8:45am was assigned to us.

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We're in Incheon this morning lined up for our immigration inspection on the ship which is a different process than for Shanghai.

I've updated my blog through yesterday at sea.

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The immigration process on board the ship was quite smooth and we were through in under ten minutes. We're now in our private mini van on our way to Seoul.

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