Vancouver to Beijing 9/17

[mikefang]

A little late but here are a few comments on our 9/17 cruise from Vancouver to Beijing; 22 days on the Diamond.

We paid for a guarantee, obstructed oceanview, and after 2 upgrades ended up in a balcony, C734.We hadn't read too much about the Diamond but found her to be in good shape with a great crew. The cruise staff was the most engaging we have encountered on Princess and we are sure Emma is related to the Energizer Bunny.

With domestic and international flights involved we elected, for the first time in our cruising history, to not take formal clothes. This meant we stayed away from the MDR (late traditional) on formal nights and it caused us no problems or regrets. We saw a lot of people looking good in formal clothes. We were at a table for 8 and on the last formal night all our tablemates joined us for dinner at the Horizon Court.

Alaska has been commented on many times and despite some ongoing rain remains beautiful and 2 days of glacier cruising was memorable.

Whittier is a good stop to utilize the laundry.

Six days of relaxing transpacific cruising was wonderful for this old Navy veteran.

Our stops in Sapporo, Vladivostok, Busan, Qingdao, Dalian and Beijing were outstanding. We took ship tours in each of those stops and enjoyed them all with no problems.

We chose the Princess debarkation tour to the Great Wall and an overnight stay in Beijing. The tour and all arrangements went well. We chose to fly out of Beijing late in the afternoon and the Princess folks on scene arranged a tour for us to the big square and Forbidden City. Made for a really long day but a half empty red eye flight on Canada Air allowed for lots of sleeping room.

There is no International Cafe but the Lobby Bar did well with the coffees.

We made good use of the coffee cards and one Ultimate Kids Package which did well for DW who does not drink alcohol but enjoyed the mocktails, sodas and milkshakes.

Pretty general comments from a great cruise and if you have any specific questions please let me know.

Mike

:)

[Working 2 Cruise]

Thank you for your review! What a fabulous cruise this must have been. Glad you enjoyed it! I wish upon a star... :)

[generichandle]

Doing that same cruise in reverse, in May. My 1st time in Asia. I have some questions.

 

1. How easy is it to cross the language barrier to interact with the people there? I am on a three-day pre-cruise tour in Beijing. Will there be impediments due to language?

 

2. Did you see people play chess? Playing wei-chi [go]? I wanna! Vladivostock looks likely for chess, a game played heavily in Russia. Wei-chi in China, Korea, and Japan. I wanna find locals and intrude! I am a rabid board gamer.

 

3. How are temperature ranges? I imagine cool in Alaska and on the long sea voyage, but was it more temperate in Korea, Japan, China? I am uncertain what I need to take for clothes, and how being out on deck will be.

 

4. How were prices and availability for items on the Asian shores? How about local dining?

 

5. Is it as exciting as it feels getting ready? *bounce* :D

 

Thanks, and for any other advice you feel free to offer.

 

Doug

[mikefang]

Doug,

 

You can expect some language barrier. In South Korea they are more used to hearing English than the other stops but still some difficulty. Our tour guides were students in some cases but in two they were teachers who had become tour guides because of the low teacher's pay (Vladivostok and Beijing). We had no problems in our Beijing hotel but in walking around the area in the evening we found few who actually spoke any English beyond hello.

 

During our morning tour of Tienemen (sp) Square and the Forbidden City several groups of young (late teens or so) Chinese girls came up to DW to get their pictures taken with her. None spoke any English.

 

We saw no one playing chess or like games but were not looking for that so can't really comment. In most areas we were tied up in commercial pier areas not in places where folks might be gathering in parks.

 

We were on the cool and rainy side in Alaska, layers always work. On the transpacific portion it went from cool to moderate. By the time we got to South Korea and China I was wearing T shirts. Recommend zip off type pants and light shirts with poss light jacket-you will have a good idea of the weather before going ashore. Lots of hills and steps so wear good walking shoes and a hat of some type.

 

We found most prices, shopping and such to be pretty reasonable. In Busan and Vladivostok there were a few vendors in the pier area who spoke some English and would take US dollars. Basic tourist stuff with bargaining the order of the day. In large stores no bargaining. In China and Vladivostok tours generally include a shopping stop at the government sponsored department stores. Good for tourist stuff in Vladivostok, not so much in China-at least for us.

 

We bit the bullet and changed about $25 US into local currencies at the airport before flying out ($50 in China's currency). Just kept it in the room safe and that sufficed in each port except Beijing where we had no trouble changing some currency at the hotel. Yes the airport exchange fees were a little more but we found ATMs harder to find than advertised and we did not have to waste any time looking for one in any port. We found ATMs to be less plentiful than we had heard. Plastic accepted without problem in all stores except street vendors.

 

Local dining was limited for us. In the Dalian tour we had an included lunch which was very authentic Chinese and bore little resemblance to what we think of as Chinese food while the included lunch in Beijing was excellent 'American Chinese' food, at least to us. A McDonalds near the hotel in Beijing used a picture menu to order---do not order the chicken sandwich-they don't eat a lot of chicken around there.

 

Sorry to be so long. Anything further just ask. It was great!

Mike

[gerryl12]

Doing that same cruise in reverse, in May. My 1st time in Asia. I have some questions.

 

We took the same cruise in May this year.

1. How easy is it to cross the language barrier to interact with the people there? I am on a three-day pre-cruise tour in Beijing. Will there be impediments due to language?In the real touristy areas a few people spoke some English. There was a lot of sign language going on though. Make sure you hotel writes in chinese how to get back and where you want to go. None of the taxi drivers speaks any English.

 

2. Did you see people play chess? Playing wei-chi [go]? I wanna! Vladivostock looks likely for chess, a game played heavily in Russia. Wei-chi in China, Korea, and Japan. I wanna find locals and intrude! I am a rabid board gamer. We saw a few people playing games but I don't remember what they were. Some were card games.

 

3. How are temperature ranges? I imagine cool in Alaska and on the long sea voyage, but was it more temperate in Korea, Japan, China? I am uncertain what I need to take for clothes, and how being out on deck will be. The temperature in Beijing was reasonably warm but can be a little cool in May. We went to the silk market and bargained on light coats ($20) for the Alaska portion of the trip.

 

4. How were prices and availability for items on the Asian shores? How about local dining? The shopping can be quite reasonable if you bargain like crazy and are prepared to just walk away if it doesn't look low enough priced. Bargain, bargain, bargain.

 

5. Is it as exciting as it feels getting ready? *bounce* :D

If you have never been to China it is extremely exciting and so different.

Thanks, and for any other advice you feel free to offer.

 

Doug

Have a great trip.

[pmd98052]

Not been to Beijing via a cruise but been there a number of times for work.

 

1. Language barrier is hard - don't expect anyone to speak English. Its not a problem per se but make sure you have the hotels address written in Kanji so you can give to the taxi drivers. Most hotels will write out the addresses of places you want to go in Kanji for getting there....

 

2. Shopping - Head to Silk Market in Beijing and you can buy anything (clothes, handbags, custom suits, glasses, electronics) at pretty good prices but remember they'll start at tourist prices. Most will likely be counterfits so be aware of that! Case in point on price - Buying a toy "Dragon" for my kid. 650 RMB starting point. I ended up paying 50 after walking away 3 times. My Chinese friend thinks I overpaid 10 or so RMB.... So do watch out and bargain super hard.

[sailaway5]

Thanks for all your input. We are taking this cruise in the reverse in April, 2013. We are also taking the 8-day precruise in Beijing. Did you talk to anyone that took that portion? Hoping to read a review on that too.

 

Thanks again for the information.

Cheers,