shore excursions in Asia

[DonSherman]

I am planning a trip to Asia Jan 6, 2007 on the Nautica. Based on comments I have seen in this forum, the shore excursions by Oceania in Asia are not yet up to their usual standards. Have any of you arranged your own shore excursions in Hanoi, Saigon, or Bangkok? Do you have any local tour companies in those cities to recommend?
Thanks,

[threeedogmedia]

We were on the Hong Kong to Athens cruise and used one of Ratt's guides in Bangkok. We were really impressed. (Ratt was booked that day for one of our other passengers) I believe Ratt's email address is : Rat_bkk@hotmail.com. (there is an underscore _ after Rat that doesn't really show up correctly in this response due to the underline of the link) The price was very good and the service was great.

Also, I have to admit that Destination Services is doing a much better job. We were not impressed in three of our cruises with Oceania. This time however, they were extremely informative and most of all happy to help. Juan is truly the best and so were Christine and Cynthia. We were in Saigon two days and used ships tours for both days. We were not disappointed at all.

Have a great time. These ports of call are incredible.
Karen

[jfb128]

We did this cruise last year at the same time. Because this area was new to us and to Oceania we decided to stay with the ship's tours and we were very pleasantly surprised. The tours in Hanoi, Canton, Hong Kong, Bangkok, the Mekong Delta and Singapore were quite good. Only in Saigon were we disappointed but that was due to a rather poor guide. There were 8 bus loads of tours and our tour was cut short by our guide by one hour. There were stops we were to make but he took us the past them rather than stopping.We did find from others that they were pleased with their guide so we got the luck of the draw and lost.

Obviously ship's tours have the large bus tour element that is not present with small private tours. You occasionally have that one person who wants to spend extra time at some souvenir shop or wherever while the rest of the bus waits.

Christine was the tour director and she was very interested in getting feedback for future reference.

You should be aware of are the fact that it is a very long bus ride from where you dock to Hanoi (3 1/2 hours)and a fairly long bus ride from Laem Chabang to Bangkok(2 hours there -1 and 1/2 hours back).

We were so fascinated by this part of the world that we are doing the Beijing to Hong Kong cruise next March.

[a1dolllady]

Hi,

We are booked on the Nautica, Beijing to Hong Kong on March 16, 2007. We will be doing a cruisetour throught Nautica in Beijing and to X'ian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. We are interested in doing private tours in the other cities: Seoul, Shanghai, Hirsoshima, Kyoto, Okinawa, Ishigaki, Taipei, also we are spending 2 days post cruise in Hong Kong. Has anyone used a good tour company/guide in these cities. Also, we would like to join with other couples on the cruise to make the tours more interesting and to lower the cost. We did this last year in the Baltic and this year for our Med. Cruise. It works out really well. We usually hire a van and guide for 6 people, so we need at least two other couples for each tour.

We look forward to hearing from you.
Helen

[digby]

We were on the Beijing to Hong Kong cruise last March and used the ship's tours exclusively. We found them to be good except for one thing. They assume everyone travels just to shop. We don't care about the shopping aspect since we can get most of what you find in Asia or other areas in any major US city especially here in San Francisco One third of an all day tour in Korea was given over to two long shopping stops. No one on our bus bought anything to speak of at either stop. I'd like to see one tour bus leave each day just for non shopers! I don't even care if the lower the price.

[jfb128]

To aldollady:


Please contact me via email at jfb128@aol.com. We are on the same cruise and pre cruise and I have contacted some from last year's cruise who have given me some information.

Jim

[jrkfrk]

DonSherman

We are on the same cruise - I've tried to start a thread, to no avail - I guess we're the only two cabins booked! We will be leaving Detroit on January 4 to spend an extra day in Hong Kong, and staying over in Singapore for two extra nights. I've made arrangements for tours in Saigon, Hanoi and Bangkok and would be glad to share the names and contact e-mails with you as they may have other guides available. We are still looking for a guide in Canton, altho we may just go on a ship's tour. We've never been on Oceania before and are very much looking forward to a new experience! If you'd like to contact us, e-mail is jrkfrkataoldotcom.

Fran (and Jeff)

[smb]

we did nautica Singapore to Hong Kong last December. We used MyExcursions.com for all our tours. Their Canton tour was incrediable.
Our tours were so much better than Oceania.
Sonia

[jrkfrk]

SMB

Thanks - I just sent an e-mail asking for information!

Fran (and Jeff)

[smj]

DonSherman,

We were on the same cruise this year. It was a wonderful trip. We did some private and some ship tours. Overall the private tours were much better. The Oceania tour to Ha Long bay was good. The private tour of Canton and Siagon were especially good. For Canton we used China Highlights and our guide was Penny. In Saigon our guide was Duong Duc Mai whom we booked thru Allasiatravel. Mai was exceptional!

Steve

[lauraleigh9mm]

Hi,

We are booked on the Nautica, Beijing to Hong Kong on March 16, 2007. We will be doing a cruisetour throught Nautica in Beijing and to X'ian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. We are interested in doing private tours in the other cities: Seoul, Shanghai, Hirsoshima, Kyoto, Okinawa, Ishigaki, Taipei, also we are spending 2 days post cruise in Hong Kong. Has anyone used a good tour company/guide in these cities. Also, we would like to join with other couples on the cruise to make the tours more interesting and to lower the cost. We did this last year in the Baltic and this year for our Med. Cruise. It works out really well. We usually hire a van and guide for 6 people, so we need at least two other couples for each tour.

We look forward to hearing from you.
Helen
Helen-
I need info on the cabin you stayed in on the Connie! We are booked into it for a transatlantic!
-Laura

[digby]

I am planning a trip to Asia Jan 6, 2007 on the Nautica. Based on comments I have seen in this forum, the shore excursions by Oceania in Asia are not yet up to their usual standards. Have any of you arranged your own shore excursions in Hanoi, Saigon, or Bangkok? Do you have any local tour companies in those cities to recommend?
Thanks,


We were on the Beijing to HK cruise last March and used Oceania excursions exclusively. We had very few complaints with the tours.

[a1dolllady]

Helen-
I need info on the cabin you stayed in on the Connie! We are booked into it for a transatlantic!
-Laura
HI, Laura,

We stayed in cabin 6111. You'll love the ship. Try the Specialty Restaurant. It is fabulous.

Helen