Live: Dec 22 2023 Solstice 12 Night Thailand & Vietnam Holiday Cruise!

[mahdnc]

 

When we got back to our hotel room, we changed clothes and rushed off to Ozone, the self proclaimed highest rooftop bar in the world which was located at our hotel.  The day prior, we asked the hotel concierge manager, Marshall Sze, to make 10 pm reservations for us.

 

 

We actually had to take an elevator from the 111th floor (where our room was) back down to the 103rd floor (hotel lobby) and then we took the elevator dedicated solely to Ozone up to the 118th floor.

 

 

 

When we got there, the place was pretty crowded since it was Saturday night.  Our roped off table was in a very nice spot in the bar--it was in its own private corner with large viewing windows of Hong Kong from two sides of the building.  That was really nice.

 

 

 

My wife and I ordered some snacks, dessert, and a couple of drinks.  Service was a bit slow, but we had no where else to go and the commute back to our room would take all of 5 minutes. So we just relaxed and took in the view of the Hong Kong skyline and of the people at the bar.

 

We got a couple of nice unexpected complimentary drinks.  The first one was from Ozone.  The drinks were carried to our table enclosed in a glass smoking cloche.

 

 

Our waiter was Mario from Thailand.  He finishing up his 6 month internship before returning to Thailand.

 

 

The second one was from Marshall.  There were two drinks, a toy Ritz Carlton lion, and a delightful handwritten note--concealed in a fog inside a smoking cloche.  That was very thoughtful of him and it made our night even more memorable.

 

 

 

Edited January 6 by mahdnc

[billc23]

Awesome review!!! You have provided so much insight and tips for future travelers to this part of Asia. I must complement your photos and writing style - both are superb! The vast amount of useful, relatable information you have provided will allow me and others to have an elevated experience on a similar itinerary. More useful than any travel guide I have used. Thank you so much for taking the time to educated me with your blog!

 

Now I have to check any other trip reports you may have written...

[shuyak]

@mahdnc, thank you for taking the time writing these very detailed reports - pre/during/post cruise!  The specifics are extremely helpful for future cruisers! 🙏

[RenRan]

Thank you again for your valuable information. It will help us in planning our 5 days in Hong Kong. Have a safe trip home and a Blessing 2024!

[Miaminice]

On 1/3/2024 at 7:04 AM, mahdnc said:

We get to the front of the line only to find out the taxis here in modern day Hong Kong take cash only, no credit cards!

Hi David!

Hope you and your wife are doing well.

We are back home and busy catching up with things here.

 

FYI: In HK you can use the uber app for taxis. Small booking fee but then payable via the app. That’s what we did because I didn’t want to exchange any money just for the day. 
Oliver

[mahdnc]

3 hours ago, Miaminice said:

Hi David!

Hope you and your wife are doing well.

We are back home and busy catching up with things here.

 

FYI: In HK you can use the uber app for taxis. Small booking fee but then payable via the app. That’s what we did because I didn’t want to exchange any money just for the day. 
Oliver

 

Hello, Oliver.  I hope you and Birgit are doing well.  We have been using Uber quite a bit the last few days.  We still have some HKD and an Octopus Card that we will use up in the next 24 hours before we fly out of Hong Kong.

[mahdnc]

We just had a wonderful dinner with @educated palate (Lael), her husband (Guiliano), and her daughter (Michela)..  They picked a very nice Chinese restaurant in Kowloon for tonight.

 

 

[educated palate]

11 hours ago, mahdnc said:

We just had a wonderful dinner with @educated palate (Lael), her husband (Guiliano), and her daughter (Michela)..  They picked a very nice Chinese restaurant in Kowloon for tonight.

 

 

It was a pleasure to enjoy a finale dinner in Hong Kong with you and Marcia.  I look forward to following your future adventures. Hopefully, we can meet up again.😀

[pumpkin_dee]

Thank you so much @mahdnc for taking the time to write this amazing review and for posting such awesome pictures. 
 

We are on Solstice at the beginning of March from Singapore to Hong Kong with 3 days in Singapore first, and your thread has been so helpful and interesting. 
 

The link to this was advertised/ promoted on my Facebook feed, presumably because I’ve been searching for similar information myself, so I guess you’ve gone viral! And rightly so! 
 

Thanks again and have a safe trip home! 

[Dr. Pam]

I will also add my thanks for a fantastic review that offered so much insight and tips for this Asian Cruise. I appreciate the time and effort that you put in and I have lots of "take-aways", that I will use for our upcoming Solstice cruise. Safe travels home.

 

:)Pam

 

 

 

[mahdnc]

5 hours ago, pumpkin_dee said:

Thank you so much @mahdnc for taking the time to write this amazing review and for posting such awesome pictures. 
 

We are on Solstice at the beginning of March from Singapore to Hong Kong with 3 days in Singapore first, and your thread has been so helpful and interesting. 
 

The link to this was advertised/ promoted on my Facebook feed, presumably because I’ve been searching for similar information myself, so I guess you’ve gone viral! And rightly so! 
 

Thanks again and have a safe trip home! 

Thank you and you’re welcome. 
 

We checked out of the Ritz Carlton a few hours ago. Sigh.  I left a letter at the Concierge Desk addressed to our wonderful Concierge Manager, Marshall Sze, who was off today.  It was a short letter of heartfelt thanks and a little something for his daughter. 

 

 

 

Our final sightseeing objective in Hong Kong was,,,,,,,,,,,the Cup Noodles Museum!  I got through college and grad school on those things so it was a must-see. 
 

 

To burn some of the remaining Hong Kong cash that we had, we took a taxi from the hotel to the airport ($273 HKD, but I rounded it up to $300 because of all the bags the driver had to mess with). 

 

We are doing something’s but unusual to get back to Chicago. The good news is that we are flying business class which we’ve never done before.  However we are connecting through the capital city of Ethiopia to do it (Addis Ababa) because we are flying on Ethiopian Airlines which is a member of the Star Alliance that United Airlines is part of. 
 

We will be taking two 12 hr overnight flights with a 16 hr layover in Addis Ababa (ADD). So it is not a time efficient way to get home.  Our business class fare (99,000 United miles per person) includes a hotel stay at the Skylight Hotel at the airport in Addis Ababa. I’ve arranged for a 3 hour city tour while we’re there. So that will be cool. 
 

The flight to ADD includes a one hour refueling stop at Bangkok (BKK). The flight from ADD to Chicago (ORD) involves a one hour stop at Rome (FCO). 
 

Although this is not why I booked these flights, we will have essentially flown around the worlds in this cruise trip—flying from Chicago to San Francisco to Singapore.  And then flying from Hong Kong to Bangkok to Africa and then to Rome and finally to Chicago. 
 

So between our Galapagos cruise in November and this cruise in Dec/Jan, my wife and I will have touched five continents—North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. I know Europe really doesn’t count since we don’t get off the plane in Rome, but this is the closest we will come to bragging about jet setting. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 8 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

38 minutes ago, Dr. Pam said:

I will also add my thanks for a fantastic review that offered so much insight and tips for this Asian Cruise. I appreciate the time and effort that you put in and I have lots of "take-aways", that I will use for our upcoming Solstice cruise. Safe travels home.

 

:)Pam

 

 

 

Thank you and it’s good to know that some of this information is useful. That’s why I’m doing it. 
 

There are plenty of currency exchange offices at HKG including on the secure side of the airport. I got my last remaining Hong Kong cash ($340 HKD) changed to USA currency near the gate. 
 

Our 787’s doors have closed, so I’m signing off for now.  Hopefully this plane has WiFi. Either way, it’s Africa, here we come. 

[mahdnc]

Well, we’ve landed in Bangkok. It’s 2:12 am right now.  There was only 5 passengers in Business Class for this leg. We will pick up more passengers here shortly. 
 

This flight between Hong Kong (China) and Bangkok (Thailand) by a carrier foreign to both countries (Ethiopia) is an example of a fifth freedom flight (more information). This is the first fifth freedom flight I have ever been on although I’m not getting off in Bangkok. 
 

We are right now surrounded by an army of cleaning crew as we wait for fuel and new passengers.  The flight crew has left as new crew have rotated in for the leg to Addis Ababa. I hope they’re more awake than I am. 
 

During our flight, we’ve overtaken Solstice even though she had a five night head start.  I think she docks in about 3 more nights at nearby Laem Chabang. 

During this flight, I was watching a movie that I downloaded from Amazon Prime. It’s called Plane. It’s a 2023 film that stars Gerard Butler.  It’s probably not a good film for me to watch as it’s about a commercial jetliner that crash lands on an Asian island. Hits too close to home right now. 

Edited January 8 by mahdnc

[WinterCruiseLover]

Thank you @mahdnc for the wonderful information in this whole topic!  We will be sailing on this same itinerary on March 2, 2024 and this has been so helpful.  I have one question for anyone on this forum that has successfully applied for the visa to Vietnam.  I have seen multiple posts on other forums, but the answers vary.  When you applied for the visa for Vietnam, did you file for a single entry or multiple entry visa?  

[mchell810]

9 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Well, we’ve landed in Bangkok. It’s 2:12 am right now.  There was only 5 passengers in Business Class for this leg. We will pick up more passengers here shortly. 
 

This flight between Hong Kong (China) and Bangkok (Thailand) by a carrier foreign to both countries (Ethiopia) is an example of a fifth freedom flight (more information). This is the first fifth freedom flight I have ever been on although I’m not getting off in Bangkok. 
 

We are right now surrounded by an army of cleaning crew as we wait for fuel and new passengers.  The flight crew has left as new crew have rotated in for the leg to Addis Ababa. I hope they’re more awake than I am. 
 

During our flight, we’ve overtaken Solstice even though she had a five night head start.  I think she docks in about 3 more nights at nearby Laem Chabang. 

During this flight, I was watching a movie that I downloaded from Amazon Prime. It’s called Plane. It’s a 2023 film that stars Gerard Butler.  It’s probably not a good film for me to watch as it’s about a commercial jetliner that crash lands on an Asian island. Hits too close to home right now. 

 

Thanks for the info on Fifth Flights. 

        And, not to overstep, but maybe choose a different movie 😜

Edited January 9 by mchell810

[mahdnc]

6 hours ago, WinterCruiseLover said:

Thank you @mahdnc for the wonderful information in this whole topic!  We will be sailing on this same itinerary on March 2, 2024 and this has been so helpful.  I have one question for anyone on this forum that has successfully applied for the visa to Vietnam.  I have seen multiple posts on other forums, but the answers vary.  When you applied for the visa for Vietnam, did you file for a single entry or multiple entry visa?  

I didn’t know what to do and so I selected the multiple entry option because I was guessing that this would be the more conservative choice. This decision also raised the e-visa fee. I read afterwards on cruise critic that others have chosen single entry.  
 

So I can’t tell you what the absolute correct answer is, but I can tell you that my e-visa was electronically approved and was not rejected by the Vietnamese immigration officers who were onboard Solstice. 

[billc23]

15 hours ago, WinterCruiseLover said:

Thank you @mahdnc for the wonderful information in this whole topic!  We will be sailing on this same itinerary on March 2, 2024 and this has been so helpful.  I have one question for anyone on this forum that has successfully applied for the visa to Vietnam.  I have seen multiple posts on other forums, but the answers vary.  When you applied for the visa for Vietnam, did you file for a single entry or multiple entry visa?  

Single entry is fine as long as you do not enter another country and then return to Vietnam. For example, If you are doing a B2B on the Solstice, then you will need a multiple entry visa. 

[mahdnc]

I was wrong about the second leg being a 12 hr flight. It’s 17.75 hr flight from ADD to ORD which includes a stop at Rome (FCO). Oops. 
 

At least this flight as full lay flat seats in business class. Our flight from Hong Kong to ADD has near lay flat seats (aka angled seats). 

Edited January 9 by mahdnc

[Ex-Airbalancer]

2 hours ago, mahdnc said:

I was wrong about the second leg being a 12 hr flight. It’s 17.75 hr flight from ADD to ORD which includes a stop at Rome (FCO). Oops. 
 

At least this flight as full lay flat seats in business class. Our flight from Hong Kong to ADD has near lay flat seats (aka angled seats). 

If you have hiatal hernia  angle seats are better 😉🤣

[mimmy52]

Thank you for this wonderful review and beautiful photos. I doubt I will ever be able to take such a trip and cruise, so your journey lets me vacation vicariously. I know this took a lot of your time, and I’m very appreciative.

 

[mahdnc]

We’ve landed in FCO. It’s almost 4 am local time.  
 

This is a stop for refueling, re-supply, and crew change only. No passengers getting on or off. We are not even at a gate. Instead we are parked in a remote area of the airport with a portable stair ramp providing the only means for access. 
 

When I booked this flight 11 months ago, this stop was supposed to occur in Dublin and not FCO.  However due to regulations that have since put (or affected) a cap on night flights in DUB, Ethiopian Airlines moved the stop for their ADD - ORD route from DUB to FCO. 
 

So far we’ve enjoyed Ethiopian Airline’s Business Class. The hard product is a bit dated as the seats are not pods and are not the 1-2-1 configuration which gives everyone aisle access. But because we’ve always flown economy prior to this cruise, it’s been a treat for us and it has made the long flights quite bearable. And although dated, it is well maintained and in good shape. 
 

The service is very attentive and polite as you would expect. Food quality is decent and it is plentiful. We’ve probably gained weight. 
 

After a steady diet of Asian cuisine for 3 weeks now, my wife has just informed me that we’re going to order a pizza for dinner when we get home. 
 

We’re starting to taxi now. Shortly we will begin our westward transatlantic cruise from Rome—at 39,000 feet. At our next stop, we’ll need winter clothes….

Edited January 10 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

We just entered USA air space.  Venus greets us in the pre-dawn sky (upper right hand corner).
 

[Ex-Airbalancer]

There you are 🤣

it is a boring morning 🥱🤣

[mahdnc]

 

We arrived at ORD after 7 am on Jan 10--about half an hour behind schedule.  My body felt like it was about 10 pm in the evening.  

 

Being in Business Class, we were among the first to get off the plane.  With Global Entry's kiosk facial recognition system (no finger print or passport scan), getting through Immigration was very quick and easy.  All we needed to do was claim our 3 checked bags and then we get to go home (1 hour ride) to see our dog.

 

 

That's when we encountered the only real problem with our flight back to the USA--baggage claim.  It was probably the worst baggage claim experience I have had so far.

 

At 7:40 am, we arrived at baggage claim happy as clams (tired clams, but we were happy).  We stood at the empty baggage claim carousel for what seemed like an eternity.  Then the bags started to trickle in very slowly in small batches at a time.--as if there was a single small pickup truck that was off loading the bags from the plane.  Although there was a large crowd of people gathered around the carousel, very few passengers pulled their bags off the rotating carousel and so the carousel slowly became overloaded.

 

 

Because the feeding conveyor kept shutting down due to the carousel being overloaded, the baggage handlers asked the passengers crowding around the carousel to back away so they could begin pulling random bags off the carousel to create space and setting them on the floor.  Now passengers had two places to hunt for their bags.

 

There were still tons of passengers from our 787 aircraft crowded around the carousel (and also looking at the pile of bags that were put on the floor).  Getting around and getting access to the bags on the floor or on the carousel was quite difficult.

 

 

I was lined up at a prime spot by the carousel.  There were several requests from passengers behind me asking if I could pull their bag off the carousel.  No problem, except most of the time the response was, "oh, sorry, that isn't mine, could you please put it back?".

 

The baggage claim process was so slow that a few passengers were worried that they would miss their connection at ORD.

 

At 8:30 am (50 minutes after arriving at baggage claim), we got our first of three bags.  

 

At 8:55 am, we claimed our second bag and new bags were still arriving from the conveyor belt.

 

At 9:30 am, we are told by the baggage claim supervisors that all the bags from our flight have been offloaded.  That meant our 3rd bag was missing and we had to spend about 2 grueling hours at baggage claim to figure that out.

 

Ethiopian Airline's app has bag tracking but it was not very good.  You have to manually enter your flight number, date, and baggage tag number to get results.  Their app suggested that our bags had arrived in Chicago.  

 

We had AirTags in each checked bag, but their location information was not that useful either because the bags had not been "seen" for a many hours.  By the time we went to bed that evening, our AirTag location was updated and it showed our bag at the airport in Addis Ababa.

 

 

Today at lunch time, we got a call from Ethiopian Airlines informing us that our missing bag was accidentally left behind in Africa but it had now arrived in Chicago and they wanted to confirm our home address so that they could deliver it us (in 24-48 hours).  Good news.  

 

 

When I went to bed this evening, the AirTag showed our missing bag was indeed at ORD.  Fortunately the missing bag was the least important bag of the three suitcases that we had checked.

[mahdnc]

 

I wanted to circle back to talk about our time in Addis Abba. 

 

Our Ethiopian Airlines flight would take about 47 hours to get back home to Chicago from Hong Kong which included a 17 hr layover in Addis Ababa (ADD).  We took this very time inefficient route home because we could get business class seats for 99,000 United miles per passenger.  We also thought that it would be interesting to see Addis Ababa as we have never been to Africa before.

 

If you have an Ethiopian Airlines layover in Addis Ababa that is at least 8 hours long but less than 24 hours long and if both connecting flights are international ones, Ethiopian Airlines will issue you a free voucher for a hotel stay along with ground transportation, meals, and visa (link for more information).

 

As business class passengers, we had two choices for hotel.  There is one located on the air-side of the airport (aka in-terminal hotel as indicated on the sign in the next photo below) which means you don't have to pass through immigration to get to it.  The second one is located next to the airport.  They are both operated under the name of Skylight Hotel.

 

 

When we landed at ADD, we went to the Layover and Transfer Desk located not too far away from our arrival gate. 

 

 

Given a choice on which Skylight Hotel to be booked into, we opted for the hotel located outside of the airport since we had booked a tour of the city.  We were both issued a voucher which also was stamped so we could get through immigration.

 

 

Getting through Immigration was fairly easy with very little wait:

 

Our passports were stamped when we processed through.

 

Once we got to the airport lobby area, we saw an area to participate in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony which we skipped because we wanted to check into our hotel:

 

Next to it was some type of ceremony being performed and filmed:

 

Near the airport terminal front entrance we found a seating area to wait for our hotel shuttle:

 

After about a 15 minute wait, our shuttle arrived:

 

We took the five minute ride to the Skylight Hotel.  The hotel consist of two separate buildings.  This is a photo of the first phase building which was completed in 2019 (news link)

 

A model of an Ethiopian Airlines jet sits proudly in the lobby:

 

As business class passengers, we were assigned to the newly completed hotel expansion (news link)

 

 

I don't have photos of the room (I was too tired).  However suffice it to say that the rooms were modern, clean, well furnished, and had plenty of space for two people.  It wasn't the Ritz Carlton and our window did not have a nice view, but it was more than adequate for us to spend our long layover in.

Edited January 12 by mahdnc