Spirit HK-Istanbul

[Dorinda]

Hi kids! Anyone on the Spirit March 16 to May 10? We are starting to plan and get ready for this lovely long cruise. We booked it on board the Pride on the TA in the Spring of 2007 so we've been waiting a long time!

 

Hope to see some CC members on board.

 

Cheers!

Dee and John

[hugandger]

Hi kids! Anyone on the Spirit March 16 to May 10? We are starting to plan and get ready for this lovely long cruise. We booked it on board the Pride on the TA in the Spring of 2007 so we've been waiting a long time!

 

Hope to see some CC members on board.

 

Cheers!

Dee and John

 

We will board the Spirit a month after you, in Dubai, and we go also to Istanbul. We start planning our shore excursions.

We hope to meet you during the sail-away-party in Dubai, on april 15.

[Dorinda]

Hello Hugandger! We will look for you in Dubai. Are you planning to spend time in Dubai before the cruise? I'd be interested to know what you decide on for shore excursions.

 

Cheers!

Dee

 

PS Welcome to CruiseCritic and congratulations on your first post!

[Seabourn-nail]

Like Dee already said:

"Welkom op dit "Seabourn Board"!

I think you will like it!

Marja

(from Holland)

[hugandger]

Like Dee already said:

 

"Welkom op dit "Seabourn Board"!

 

I think you will like it!

 

Marja

(from Holland)

 

Marja,

 

"Dank voor je vriendelijke woorden"

We follow this board for several monthes....We hope to meet you some day on a Seabourn cruise...

 

Hugo and Gertrude

[hugandger]

Hello Hugandger! We will look for you in Dubai. Are you planning to spend time in Dubai before the cruise? I'd be interested to know what you decide on for shore excursions.

 

Cheers!

Dee

 

PS Welcome to CruiseCritic and congratulations on your first post!

 

Dee and John,

 

We will stay 1,5 day in Dubai pre-cruise. Due to celebrations in our family we can't come earlier. But we go back to Dubai next year. This year we will "concentrate" us on the 'Burj Dubai'-area. We will stay in a brand new hotel next to the tallest building in the world. Next year we can visit old-Dubai and the Jumeirah area.

 

We plan to organise 3 shore excursions ourself:

- a long one day excursion to Luxor from Safaga port

- a day excursion to Petra (Jordan) from Aqaba port

- a day excursion to Cairo (museum + pyramides) from Sokhna port

We are inspired by Steve and Chris (from Australia) who did more or less the same last november.

We look now to the ports of call between Alexandria and Istanbul.

 

We will certainly look for you when we board the Spirit in Dubai.

 

Hugo and Gertrude

[Tony & Trevor]

Good afternoon Dee & John,

 

We embark in Shanghai and disembark in Singapore.

 

See you onboard.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony.

[Seabourn-nail]

Marja,

 

"Dank voor je vriendelijke woorden"

We follow this board for several monthes....We hope to meet you some day on a Seabourn cruise...

 

Hugo and Gertrude

That would be nice!

I wish you a wonderful cruise!

Marja

[Dorinda]

Dear Tony and Trevor - have you given any thought to what you will be doing when we are in Viet Nam? I was surprised to find that Hanoi and Hue are so far from the port...Have you traveled in this part of the world before? Hope to meet you both when we board in HK!

 

Hugo and Gertrude - how nice that you will get to return to Dubai next year. I would be interested to hear about your Safaga and Aqaba port excursions. As for the ports after Alexandria - we have been to Santorini and Rhodes recently and to Patmos and Istanbul some years ago. We'd be glad to help if we can.

 

Cheers!

Dee and John

[Tony & Trevor]

Dear Dee & John,

 

Thankyou. Look forward to seeing you both.

 

Yes the tours we are taking are in one of the previous threads-Shore Excursions Vietnam etc

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[Dorinda]

Hi Tony - I see you are also "Peakrill" - right? How lucky you are to live in the Peak District. We have enjoyed some lovely drives in that area. Are you having snow now? The pictures of London were lovely but it must be terribly hard to get around.

 

Getting a bit closer now...must admit we are excited to be doing such a nice long cruise on Seabourn. We booked it to celebrate our 30th anniversary.

 

I've been doing some research on ports but still more to be done...How great that you are going to Angkor Wat!

 

Cheers,

Dee

[Peakrill]

Dee,

 

Thank you. Won't be long now!

Yes we had about 7 inches of snow-live at over 1,000 feet about 25 mins from Chatsworth. Every where looks lovely. We are fed up of getting in our news 'ad nauseum' the 'severe wintry weather '.

 

All over the top

 

Have you decided what tours you are doing. Seabourn is looking for some alternatives for us.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[Dorinda]

Tony - we've been to some of the ports before so won't bother with tours there- like Saigon. I think we will just enjoy wandering and shopping and eating. Vietnamese food can be wonderful. And we have been to Bangkok a couple of times. Will Seabourn have a shuttle into town in each port do you think? We are almost Seabourn virgins, having only done one TA before, so don't know what to expect. And where do you leave the ship for the Angkor Wat trip?

 

Cheers - and stay warm!

Dee

[surfersgirl]

We did the trip last March through to Athens and the only bad thing was we got too used to the Seabourn.

Just curious if the ship is docked in Bangkok itself or down in Laem Chabang (3 hours from the city)?.

If you are out at LC try arranging to go to the tiger temple. We were lucky enough to spend a morning there with the monks and volunteers.We were responsible for a tiger cub (my husband even got in an enclosure with a couple for an hour or so whilst they "played") and walked the large tigers to the waterhole for their exercise. It was an unforgettable experience despite getting up at 4am to drive from Bangkok. The tour wasn't arranged by the ship but by a local agent.

The head housekeeper on the Spirit complained that the staff were spending too long taking care of our cabin because they kept checking out the photos cycling through our computer when we weren't there.

[Dorinda]

Surfersgirl - yes, I know it's going to be hard when we leave the ship...54 days of Seabourn will be terrible to "get over." We have 4 days in Istanbul at the end...in a mediocre hotel...with restaurants with prices on the menu...it's not going to be easy.:eek:

 

Yes, we do dock in Laem Chabang. I'm surprised we aren't closer to Bangkok. I expected that one of the perks of being on a small Seabourn ship was that we would be closer to town. I think we are right in Saigon anyway...

 

Thank you for the info on the Tiger Temple. I will check it out. Any other info you care to pass on will be appreciated.

 

Cheers!

Dee

[wripro]

Dorinda,

 

Are you sure SB docks at Laem Chabang in Bangkok? I'll be on the Spirit on Feb. 14th and we dock at Klooey Tong, about 20 minutes away from the city.

[surfersgirl]

Laem Chabang port has a reasonable size "souvenir" area and there is desk outside where you can arrange a taxi to Pattaya Beach. But if you want to go into Bangkok it would be best to prearrange your transfers online beforehand since it is a long 3 hr drive into the city. We were there on a massive ship in dec 07 and there were still disembarking passengers waiting to try to get into the city at 1pm, people had not realised how far out the pier was.

Have you been to the water puppets in Saigon?.It is only an hour show but it is only place we have ever seen them.

Jean

[GrannyLorr]

We were at the Tiger Temple in November...think there were more pigs than tigers! :eek: But the tigers were beautiful....I now have hundreds of photos of tigers........

[jagi]

Just got off Spirit and we were not docked in Lan Chebong(?) That's where the large ships dock. There's a 30 minute shuttle into the shopping area of Bangkok and you can board the sky train there for a short ride to the Shangri La and take the public boat up the river to all the sights. We took a taxi from the shuttle to the Shangri-La and would not recommend it. Too much traffic. Sky train is much faster.

Ship shuttle goes directly into Saigon and cabs are cheap when the shuttle isn't available. Don't get the taxi at the pier. Walk outside and get a metered cab--but make sure they have the meter turned on. Floridaphilly warned us to wait for cabs that are numbered 27 27 27 and either 28 28 28 or 26 26 26 (Phyllis, can you help me out here?) as these are the most reliable. Ship's dinner tour goes to Mandarin restaurant, which some passengers booked independently for half the cost. We went to Lemon Grass which was fabulous and, suprisingly, inexpensive. Highly recommend it for superb food.

[Dorinda]

Wripro - you are right! We aren't in Laem Chabang but in Klong Toey - that's great - it's much closer in.

 

Jagi - thanks for the info on getting into Bangkok. We've never been on the Sky Train so we'll enjoy trying it. I was thinking about Lemon Grass. Did you have to pre book?

 

Yes Jean, we have seen the water puppets. We've been to Saigon 4 or 5 times but it's always fun and the food and shopping are great.

 

How about Cai Lan...anyone docked there before? Or Da Nang? Those are both new ports for us.

 

So Granny - are you recommending the Tiger Temple or not???

 

Cheers!

Dee

[GrannyLorr]

Well the Tiger Temple wasnt quite what I expected......didnt see any sign of a temple! It is just a huge dusty hot property a couple of hours out of Bangkok, where any animal that wanders in is taken care of by the monks...a wild pig wandered in one day, was fed, left, and came back the next day with all its relatives....they all stayed......but YES I would recommend going there.....I have never seen so many tigers up close before....anywhere with animals attracts me! We also saw the Bridge on the River Kwai that day and the Cemetery.........very sobering.....

We werent on a cruise....just having a few days in Bangkok....

[Peakrill]

We did a very interesting side trip from Bangkok. A nice

change from the heat and bustle of the City and environs.

We went to Nong Nuch Village ( Pattaya )-offers folk shows-quite fascinating-elephants-no tigers lorraine!

lovely gardens. The village provides a pleasant break from sunbathing.

 

kind regards,

 

Tony

[surfersgirl]

Hi Dorinda,

In Vietnam we only did one of the ships tours - Halong Bay Kayaking, it wasn't difficult or hard paddling in the calm waters and we enjoyed it more than driving into Hanoi.

 

In Danang (the ship was berthed a distance from the town and there are taxis outside the port gate but you have to bargain hard) we arranged a private tour to My Son Holy Land an area that Richard Nixon declared off limits for more bombing during Vietnam war due to its historical significance and then lunch etc in Hoi An followed by a drive back to the ship via China Beach.

Yes the Tiger Temple is dusty but how often do you get a chance to actually play with a tiger cub or give a full grown tiger a bath ( only if you do the morning at the temple not the usual tour) - got the photos to prove it. We were so dirty and damp when we got back to the ship that I think a few passengers thought we were on the wrong ship.

Now I've got to work out when we can get back to India to go tiger hunting (with a camera) again.

Jean

[Chairsin]

Dorinda,

For more info on ports, etc. look at my post yesterday on the Spirit Mar. 14 Port Question thread.

[Dorinda]

Thanks Chairsin - I did read your post.

 

And thanks for the input GrannyLorr, Tony and Jean. I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on the planning for this cruise.

 

But how about Oman? Any advice for Khasab or Muscat? (We've been to Salala.) Anyone been to these ports?

 

Cheers!

Dee