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Scenic Mekong river cruise.

markperth

By markperth,
in River Cruising

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markperth

markperth

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Hi guys, I will be going on the scenic spirit Mekong river cruise 26 august. we booked this 4 years ago and due to Covid it was cancelled 3 years in a row. We are going with our best friends and it was originally for the girls joint 60th birthday. They now 63. 🤣. Any way will post a full report when we get back. But will be happy to answer any questions on an on going basis. Leaving from ho chi min and going up stream to Siem reap. We will be in the panoramic suites. We have previously done Budapest to Amsterdam with scenic so it will be interesting to see how this one compares. Regards. Mark 

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Kristelle "Live from...." Rare

Kristelle

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Mekong river cruise is on my 'to do list'

 

we have been to Vietnam before on land trip with Wendy Wu (very good) but not to Cambodia so our intention is to start Ho Chi Min City and sail to Siem Riep, spend few days on land there.

or reverse itiniary, which ever is available.

 

Both Scenic and Wendy Wu do combination land/ river trips of  above.

 

 

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franski

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We did this itinerary with Emerald in February - and it was fantastic!!  Many of the crew members go back & forth between the Emerald and Scenic ships.  

 

I am sure you will have an amazing trip!!  It is a very different type of river cruise.  Many of the stops on the river are tendered in.  But, the guests numbers are small, so embarkation/disembarkation is quite smooth.  If Scenic handles things the same as Emerald, you will have your own dedicated guide throughout the trip (we had 3 groups, 3 guides along the way.

 

Fran

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markperth

markperth

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17 hours ago, worcestergal said:

Looking forward to hearing about your trip. We are scheduled for this cruise in March. Are you going to Hanoi as part of your trip with Scenic?

No Hanoi for this cruise. It starts in. Ho chi min 9 days cruising and then 3 days in Siem reap which is still part of the scenic trip.

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markperth

markperth

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4 hours ago, franski said:

We did this itinerary with Emerald in February - and it was fantastic!!  Many of the crew members go back & forth between the Emerald and Scenic ships.  

 

I am sure you will have an amazing trip!!  It is a very different type of river cruise.  Many of the stops on the river are tendered in.  But, the guests numbers are small, so embarkation/disembarkation is quite smooth.  If Scenic handles things the same as Emerald, you will have your own dedicated guide throughout the trip (we had 3 groups, 3 guides along the way.

 

Fran

Hi Fran, I believe there is only 30 or so guests. So I am sure we gonna be spoilt. 

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markperth

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16 minutes ago, terry&mike said:

DH and I sailed the Mekong with Scenic in January of this year, had a wonderful time. If you are interested in reading about our experiences, here is a link to our post - 

I read ever word of it when you posted. I thought it was great and informative. I was very happy that someone took the time to post about scenic on the Mekong. Very little info on line about real world experience. 👊

 

 

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worcestergal

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I also read everything @terry&mike had to say about their experiences. It sounded absolutely amazing!  (I have even gone back and reread it a couple times…just to feed my anticipation for our trip)  😉. We are doing a Scenic land/cruise package, starting with time in Hanoi then HaLong Bay, before flying to Siem Reap for a couple of days before getting on the boat. 

 

@markperth I am very much looking forward to your comments. 

 

 

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franski

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On 8/21/2023 at 6:54 AM, worcestergal said:

I We are doing a Scenic land/cruise package, starting with time in Hanoi then HaLong Bay, before flying to Siem Reap for a couple of days before getting on the boat. 

 

Are you doing any extra time in Hanoi?  We flew in 3 days early so we could do a bit of sightseeing on our own before beginning our tour with Emerald.  My husband wanted to see the B52 lake, the Hanoi Hilton & HCM mausoleum while in Hanoi.  Only the mausoleum was included in the city tour.  I found a private tour that did all of these things - figuring we would just see the mausoleum twice.  

 

Well, it was a good thing we went on our own as our included visit to the mausoleum was scheduled for a Monday - and the mausoleum building is closed on Mondays!! We only saw the outside of the building when we went back. 

 

I also wanted to see the railway market, but it had been closed to tourists.  Our guide was able to get us in so we enjoyed an egg coffee while soaking in the ambience (and then watching the train fly by!!)

 

Fran

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franski

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On 8/26/2023 at 6:55 PM, worcestergal said:

Yes, we are getting to Hanoi a few days before starting the Scenic package. We will need time to adjust after the crazy long flight and I want some time to experience Hanoi. Our plan is to hire a private guide for a couple of days. 

We hired a guide through Tours by Locals - and were able to see everything my husband had on his "must see" list.  I have used them before at various times in Europe and was quite happy with the tour in Hanoi.  

 

We also booked a day through them in Bangkok on the way home - and had a great tour.

 

Fran

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franski

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2 minutes ago, worcestergal said:

Thanks, @franski .  Do you happen to recall the name of the guide you hired?

Give me a day to look at their website and see if I can locate him. I just went on the site and picked a tour that gave us what we wanted.  The beauty of Tours by Locals is that they will customize a tour for you - so you can see what you would like.

 

Fran

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franski

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On 9/4/2023 at 9:00 PM, worcestergal said:

Thanks so much @franski. I have used ToursByLocals in the past and I have been pretty pleased with the guides. Some are definitely better than others, though, so it would be terrific to have a firsthand recommendation. 

Hi - I went back into my account, and looked up the tour --> the guide we booked with is not available any more.  The guide we ended up with was named Harry - and he was great - but not listed as one of the current guides. 

 

The places we saw were Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (including seeing Ho himself), the One Pillar Pagoda, the Tron Quoc pagoda, the museum of Ethnology, the B52 lake and the Hanoi Hilton.  We also got to have egg coffee by the railway market (it is now open again) and had lunch at a street restaurant (we had Bun Cha - the only thing on the menu so everyone got it - and it was awesome!!) Many of the places are included on tours currently on their website - except no one mentions the B52 lake.  My husband is a bit of a history buff and wanted to see that (rather underwhelming in my opinion - but he wanted to see it...) and we would have never found that on our own. It was a full day.  Only supposed to be 6 hours - but we were over 9 by the time we got back to our hotel.   All entrance fees & lunch were included in the cost.

 

Fran

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Sachasmom

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On 8/21/2023 at 3:54 AM, worcestergal said:

I also read everything @terry&mike had to say about their experiences. It sounded absolutely amazing!  (I have even gone back and reread it a couple times…just to feed my anticipation for our trip)  😉. We are doing a Scenic land/cruise package, starting with time in Hanoi then HaLong Bay, before flying to Siem Reap for a couple of days before getting on the boat. 

 

@markperth I am very much looking forward to your comments. 

 

 

We are doing the same tour starting January 17, 2024. Can’t wait. What are your dates?

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markperth

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Ok here we go.

 

this won’t be a day to day blog but observations and information that I hope will help potential future cruisers. Terry and Mike did a fantastic blog that was very informative .

 

I would encourage everyone to pour over the on line brochure, it is a very accurate information source.

 

If you had previously been on a European cruise you need to know the Mekong is not comaparable to that.  The sailings are at most 3 - 4 hours per day and no nighttime sailing. This is due to the nature of the river, I.e. small boats fishing at night, large logs etc that cannot be seen at night. The Spirit does not have sufficient radar capability to minimise the risk. 


The scenery is mostly of jungle foliage most of the time, there are no castles around every turn 🤣.

 

pre cruise.

We stayed at the Caravelle Hotel  in  Ho Chi Min City. This is the pickup point on embarkation day. If you are contemplating this hotel, consider the club room option. It was well worth the extra cost.  The staff were extremely friendly and attentive.

 

We were given a welcome pack from Scenic the day before pick up, which listed meeting times and what was needed. I.e we needed to handover passports and relevant visas. It also included a name badge for myself and my wife. We were a bit iffy about wearing them, but it did prove an easy ice breaker when meeting other cruisers and was also helpful to the staff and tour guides.

Prior to leaving from Australia, Scenic sent information that stated that the Spirit would arrange Cambodian visas for us. We needed passport photos and us$80.00 cash. .. once on board we did not need either.🤦‍♂️.    The cost was charged to our on board account, and they used our actual passports.

 

We were advised to meet at 8.30am in the Hotel foyer on the day of cruise and we would then meet our cruise director and hand over documents and luggage.  Our bags would be delivered to the ship before we arrived.

This was going to take approx 45 min.  We would then be picked up at 10.30 am to be taken to the ship. As it turns out the meeting was about 5 min and we were being picked up at 12.30 for transfers 🤦‍♂️.   

 

There were 34 people travelling, but the group was split 14 and 20 with each group having its own cruise director who stayed with us for the duration of the trip.  Having two small groups worked very well especially for all of the day tours and lunches etc .  It was much more personalised.

 

At 12.30 we boarded our bus and were taken to a nearby restaurant for a lunch and a chance to chat to our group members. The trip to the cruise port then took approx 2.5 hours.

 

Once we arrived, we were greeted by all the butlers and were escorted to the ship and greeted by the captain, hotel director and other associated staff. After a glass of champagne we were escorted to our cabin by the butler. Out luggage was in our room…..👍

 

The ship.

The brochure does not misrepresent the ship in any way…… our cabin was the Royal Panorama suite, and the other suite was occupied by our friends. The cabins in all categories are larger than the European ships with staff numbers almost 2 to 1.

 

Our 2 suites shared the head butler who was pleading with us to utilise him. He was incredibly helpful and proactive, always offering to fill up the Spa, bring us snacks, drinks or anything we might require.  As we are very self sufficient we did feel that we let him down by not requesting very much from him! 😂
 

Food / Drink/ Entertainment.

I advised scenic that I had some dietary requirements and had a meeting with the Head Chef to discuss options, as did 2 other people. Well, each breakfast and lunch, (buffet style) I was greeted by the chef and he went through which dishes were gluten free. At diner he would make specific alterations to any meal that I chose. 💥. The food was 6 star quality and you would be hard pressed to be critical of any meal you chose. Breakfast had the same options each day, but lunch and diner was changed and obviously had a local leaning. 
 

We were invited to a 10 course degustation meal.  Each one of my courses was specific to my needs and amazing.  The Wine pairing was very well thought out. All guests on the top level suites are invited to this meal. 
 

Throughout the entire Cruise our drinks were constantly topped up and the variety is what you would expect from Scenic.

 

The waitresses were so attentive, I am sure they would cut up your food for you if they could! 😂

3 main ladies were Lin, Mom and Smiley. You will understand if you meet them. 
 

There were arranged entertainment nights with local dancers and lion dancers on 2 occasions, there was also a live 2 person band one night.  The Hotel Director Timea arranged a pool party one night which was a lot of fun, a few cruisers stumbled to bed at around 2am 😁

Aside from that nothing to speak of on other nights, so after diner each night most people retired to their suites. You could certainly stay up and have a few drinks in the lounge or around the pool, but pretty sterile really. To be fair the day trips and weather did take it out of you, so most people were pretty tired.


I won’t deep dive into the day trips, as they can be very subjective. But we did the killing fields trip, and interesting village walk and helped teach some children English. But happy to elaborate further if you guys have questions.

 

the saddest day of the trip was disembarking 😢. There were genuine sadness from some of the crew that we spent most of the time with. Oh a

this was the other occasion was saw the captain.

 

we had a 3 day add on option in Siem reap and it took 5 hours in a bus to get there😩. As part of the trip we were accommodated at the raffles. What a great historic hotel and the Cambodian staff were outstanding.

 

we had a number of trips over the 3 days and our tour director was with us.

 

the absolute highlight of the trip was the farewell diner. It would be the welcome diner if you were do the reverse itinerary. I won’t give any details as it would spoil the occasion, but Wow.

 

I am more than happy to expand further on any queries you may have, so feel free to ask away.

 

in summary a wonderfull experience and could not rate the crew the ship and locals any higher.

 

regards. Mark

 

 

 


 

 

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