LIVE from the 2018 HAL Grand World Voyage!

Not even close! I only had 70 days going into this cruise (this is only my fourth HAL cruise). If I spend enough money I will be four star for my next cruise.:D

I didn't start ocean cruising until Jan 2015. I didn't think I'd like the big ships [i had been doing river cruising in Europe up until then] boy was I wrong - but it helped that I picked the right cruise line and I started out on Maasdam and went right over to Zuiderdam - same day.

I thought for sure you had been on a lot of HAL cruises. You do pick the good itineraries though.

I hope things keep meeting your expectations, I will be in Puerto Vallarta, when you return so no sail-in/sailaway thread for me that day. Watch out for pirates!!

Carole

Another wonderful review of your day in port.

Very wise to do only the museum after lunch to be certain that you got back to the ship on time.

Yea -- I got 4 out 5 questions.

No problem waiting for the pictures.

Rizal Park is really nice. On Sundays, the park is packed with locals. So glad that you had an opportunity to see so many things.

Jim

You didn't make it to the huge Mall of Asia n Manila? ;)

USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. She was named in honor of John Paul Jones' famous frigate, which he had named in the French language equivalent of "Good Man Richard", in honor of Benjamin Franklin, the U.S, ambassador to France, at the time. The name Bonhomme Richard is derived from the pen name of Benjamin Franklin, the author of Poor Richard's Almanac. LHD-6 is home ported at San Diego, CA. Marines from the 3rd Marine Division are currently on board.

My supervisor's son (a Marine) is currently on the Bonhomme Richard! He's been in Okinawa since I think October or November then went on the ship recently. They are returning to San Diego sometime in May.

My good friend's DH was on it when it was first commissioned back in the 90's. He was Navy, now retired. I got to visit it once. The thing is big!

How exciting will look forward to reading your posts

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For those who might enjoy being on board a large Navy ship, The Midway Museum in San Diego is worth your money. Be sure to set aside several hours for the experience. Amazingly, the place is basically staffed by volunteers, very few paid people are involved.

When I was in boot camp in 1966, the 'old' Bonnie Dick went sailing by (different class ship). It was an amazing sight to see.

Jim

Pictures are now posted for those reading the blog.

Great pictures.

It was worth the wait.

Pictures are now posted for those reading the blog.

Thanks Kathi :)

They are great - as always :D

At Sea – March 7, 2018

The ship was rocking too much for water aerobics so I slept until 9:15. Then to Sit and Stitch where we had the biggest group in a while.

Morning trivia only had four of us playing. We managed to get 11 while the winners had 13.

1)What is the national flower of the Philippines?

2)Who has the record for being the shortest player in NBA history?

3)10 nautical miles equals how many statute miles?

4)What is the favorite food of the Tennage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

5)Who is the Greek Goddess of wisdom?

After trivia I processed my pictures of Manila and got them posted.

In arts and crafts we made a millefiori necklace.

Read and knitted by the pool until afternoon trivia. We had five players but only managed to get 9 correct. The winners had 13.

1)Which vitamin is also known as pantothenic acid?

2)What part of the human body is known as the hallux?

3)In what year did Henvy VIII become king?

4)In which year were the first Academy Awards presented?

5)Name the five busiest airports in Europe.

Only four of us for dinner. We said good-bye to Antonio who is leaving in Hong Kong.

I take an excursion to Macau tomorrow. It is 9.75 hours!

Morning trivia…

1)sampaguita (I don’t think anybody got that one)

2)Mugsy Bowes (sp?)

3)11.5

4)pizza

5)Athena

Afternoon trivia…

1)B5

2)the big toe

3)1509

4)1929

5)London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Frankfurt

(I am ashamed to say we missed all 5 of these. :(

Good chances tomorrow's post will be late!

Kathi, I did guess four of the five largest airports right, but I missed the first four questions in the afternoon trivia, so I am still not doing as well as your team is in trivia. Enjoy your trip to Macau when you dock in Hong Kong. The trip on the jet boats are about an hour each way, so I don't know what else they will have you doing for the other 7 hours. They are mostly just casino's now, but the older parts of Macau are nice to explore. I haven't been there for many years so I am sure it has changed significantly. Hope you enjoy it.

On the ferry to Macau (with great free high speed Wi-Fi) right now. Unfortunately, it has been cloudy and rainy all morning. The guide said we won’t get back to the ship until about 7 tonight.

On the ferry to Macau (with great free high speed Wi-Fi) right now. Unfortunately, it has been cloudy and rainy all morning. The guide said we won’t get back to the ship until about 7 tonight.

Yay on the great high speed internet, Kathi.

Boo on the rain and clouds. Hope the weather clears up for you to enjoy Macau (yn).

Great reports.

Longs like you have a long day of touring again.

Hong Kong – March 8, 2018

What a long day! My tour left the ship at a little after 8 a.m. (I found out later the ship was not cleared until after 10 and all the other tours were delayed) and I returned a little after 8 p.m. That is why this post is late.

Since I had been to Hong Kong twice before, I wanted to see Macau. Like Hong Kong, Macau became a SAR (Special Administrative Region) in the late 1990s when both were turned back over to China. They were guaranteed to continue to have their own laws, lifestyle, economic system, passports, currency, etc. for at least 50 years although China is responsible for foreign affairs and national defense . Unlike Hong Kong which had been a British colony, Macau had been a Portuguese colony.

Portuguese traders first came to the region in the early 1500s and made a permanent settlement in 1557. It remained a Portuguese colony until 1999 being the last European colony in Asia. Even today the official languages are Portuguese and Cantonese although very few speak Portuguese.

My tour was called “Magnificent Macau” and scheduled to be 9.75 hours. We left the Queen’s Lounge shortly after 8 and started the trek through customs and immigration and the terminal (more about this later) to the bus. We left about 8:30 to go to the high-speed ferry that would take us to Macau. Our tickets were for 10:15 so we waited for over a half an hour to board.

The ferry is supposed to take about an hour to go the 40 miles between Hong Kong and Macau. We had a somewhat bumpy ride but they had excellent high speed internet and I used most of the time to eliminate junk e-mail (which is so slow to do on the ship’s internet), and send a couple of e-mails.

When we arrived in Macau we had to go through immigration again and were finally on the bus and ready to go about noon. Cheryl was our guide. We started with a tour around the area and saw the terminal where an average 15,000 Chinese cross the border each day – many of them come to gamble which is illegal in the People’s Republic of China. Macau is actually a peninsula attached to China although it once had been an island. She told us that the people from Macau can travel back and forth between the People’s Republic and Macau but those in China had to get permission to travel to Macau.

Today, Macau’s main claim to fame are the casinos. There are 39 of them right now and many consider Macau the gambling capital of the world. We passed a number of them as we rode to our first stop – the ruins of St. Paul’s.

The Church of St. Paul (also known as Mater Dei – mother of God) was built by the Jesuits in the early half of the 1600s and was the largest Catholic church in Asia for quite some time. It was built by both Italians and Japanese (who were driven out of Japan due to their religious beliefs). In 1835 a fire started in the neighboring St. Paul’s College that destroyed both. An ornately carved façade is almost all that is left and it has a number of interesting images. While we were there an engaged couple came to have their wedding photos taken. The bride was wearing white for the photos but would be dressed in traditional red (sign of happiness) for the actual ceremony.

Next to St. Paul’s is the first temple to be allowed in what was then considered the “Christian” portion of the city. It is the Na Tcha Temple built in 1888. In 2005 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We had a slow walk back to the bus and were able to look in some of the small shops as well as getting five minutes in a small souvenir shop. With all the people in there, the best I could do was buy a $4 magnet (luckily they took US$ as I had no Hong Kong dollars or Macau patacas)!

Since it was now 1:30, we drove to our lunch site – the Macau Tower. We rode up to the 60th floor to a revolving tower where they had an amazing buffet – Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Western foods as well as salads and desserts. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy, rainy day (and only in the 50s!) so the views were not spectacular. The food, however, was fantastic!

When built in 2001, the Macau Tower was the tenth tallest freestanding building in the world. Today, at 338 meters, it is 13th. While we were eating we saw one person doing the skyjump and a number of people being given instructions on what to do.

After lunch we headed to the A-ma Temple dedicated to the Chinese sea-goddess built in 1488. It is believed that Macau got its name from a misunderstanding between the natives and the Portuguese (not speaking the same language) when the sailors asked the name of the place. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Our final stop was at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. After walking around taking pictures and looking in the windows of the high-priced shops (where, I decided, many items cost more than I paid for the world cruise) I sat and used their amazingly fast Wi-fi. I was even able to catch up on facebook and some of my friends’ blogs.

We took the 5:35 ferry back and it was smoother than the ride over. We had to go through immigration again and then we had to go down a number of flights to get to the bus which was underground. This is where I got into trouble. Throughout the day we had had to go up and down escalators. I can go up one (usually) but those who know we well know I don’t like down escalators. I have escalaphobia – yes, it is a real thing. I had made it down four over the course of the day (more than I have done in the last 20 years put together!) but at the fifth one I totally panicked. I just could not get on. The guide of one of the other ship’s tours saw me and the lady from the Shore Excursion desk who went with us (I need to find out her name) stayed with me to help find a lift. We were given a number of wrong directions and wrong floors but finally made it to the basement and back to the buses.

The buses got back to the ship at about 7:45 but then we still had the terminal to navigate. The Kai Tak terminal (site of the old airport) is in the middle of nowhere (kind of like the one where we were in Sydney) but it is built like a maze. It is fairly normal looking from the outside but once inside you have to continually turn and go up and down a couple of times. Even the walkway from the ship to the terminal has five turns! It has to be the most user-unfriendly terminal I have ever seen. When I was here in 2014 we used the Ocean Terminal which is right in the middle of the action – near the Star Ferry and Nathan Road. It is attached to Harbour City shopping mall and is very convenient.

When I finally exited the maze and made it back onto the ship it was 8:10. I went to my cabin, picked up my knitting and went to claim my spot for the cultural show. There were a number of acts and was somewhat different from the one I saw last time.

I had planned to go to the Lido for a late dinner after the show but I had run out of steam. I ordered a salad, club sandwich, and a piece of cake from room service. I managed to get my pictures processed before I went to bed.

You certainly did have a long day.

But I do think it was well worth it for what you saw. Too bad it was a rainy day and the view from the 60th floor where you had lunch wasn't great.

Wonderful report and great pictures.

I feel your pain. I, too, cannot use escalators.

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At Sea – March 7, 2018

 

The ship was rocking too much for water aerobics so I slept until 9:15. Then to Sit and Stitch where we had the biggest group in a while.

 

Morning trivia only had four of us playing. We managed to get 11 while the winners had 13.

1)What is the national flower of the Philippines?

2)Who has the record for being the shortest player in NBA history?

3)10 nautical miles equals how many statute miles?

4)What is the favorite food of the Tennage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

5)Who is the Greek Goddess of wisdom?

 

After trivia I processed my pictures of Manila and got them posted.

 

In arts and crafts we made a millefiori necklace.

 

Read and knitted by the pool until afternoon trivia. We had five players but only managed to get 9 correct. The winners had 13.

1)Which vitamin is also known as pantothenic acid?

2)What part of the human body is known as the hallux?

3)In what year did Henvy VIII become king?

4)In which year were the first Academy Awards presented?

5)Name the five busiest airports in Europe.

 

Only four of us for dinner. We said good-bye to Antonio who is leaving in Hong Kong.

 

I take an excursion to Macau tomorrow. It is 9.75 hours!

 

Morning trivia…

1)sampaguita (I don’t think anybody got that one)

2)Mugsy Bowes (sp?)

3)11.5

4)pizza

5)Athena

 

Afternoon trivia…

1)B5

2)the big toe

3)1509

4)1929

5)London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Frankfurt

(I am ashamed to say we missed all 5 of these. :(

 

Good chances tomorrow's post will be late!

If Jack and Sandy are playing Trivia, please say hi to them from Jaap and Patty

( Prinsendam Trivia Spitsbergen etc. 2017)

Thanks,

Jaap

Hong Kong - March 9, 2018

I spent a wonderful day doing basically nothing! Even before the 12-hour excursion yesterday I had been considering staying on the ship today. After walking through that horrible maze in the terminal, I decided it was a good idea. There was nothing I really wanted to do so I decided a day with no timetable would be great.

I had been hoping to get a pedicure today but the lady had the day off. The first date that my schedule meshed with theirs is March 18 so I took that. I decided to go ahead and get my hair cut. Pretty good but expensive cut and she didn’t even try to sell me anything.

Since I hadn’t done my blog for the 8th, I worked on it, had lunch, worked some more, read for awhile, then finally posted it.

There was trivia at 4 but none of my teammates were there so I played with Dorothy, Rosalie, and Helen. We only had 6 (out of 15) while the winners had 10.

1)What do you call a baby codfish?

2)What was H.G. Wells first novel?

3)What name was given the January 5, 1905 Russian massacre?

4)In what century was the English Civil War?

5)What is the biggest Scandinavian country?

Returned to my cabin after trivia to be ready for the 4:45 muster drill.

Watched the sail-away from my deck.

Helen and I played “Name That Tune – Elvis trivia” and got 11 out of 20. The winning team had 13.

Dinner was interesting. Two of the couples at Table 64 decided to change tables so we got 5 people that boarded today – John and Margaret from Sydney, Australia, Kay from Arizona, Katy from South Carolina, and Stephanie from California. Everything seemed very congenial.

The show tonight was called Eterni Amici, an English duo who sang and played the piano and sax. They were very good.

We gain an hour sleep tonight and are at sea tomorrow.

..................................The guide of one of the other ship’s tours saw me and the lady from the Shore Excursion desk who went with us (I need to find out her name) stayed with me to help find a lift. .........................................

A'dam's current asst. shorex managers are Yamila, Deimante, Kim and Stacey. Really good to hear one of them was able to provide assistance to you!

Hong Kong - March 9, 2018

 

 

There was trivia at 4 but none of my teammates were there so I played with Dorothy, Rosalie, and Helen. We only had 6 (out of 15) while the winners had 10.

1)What do you call a baby codfish?

2)What was H.G. Wells first novel?

3)What name was given the January 5, 1905 Russian massacre?

4)In what century was the English Civil War?

5)What is the biggest Scandinavian country?

You want us to work on this now? :-(

At Sea – March 10, 2018

Since our third Cruise Critic Meet and Greet was this morning, I skipped water aerobics to prepare. Spent about 45 minutes at Sit and Stitch before the meeting.

I was surprised to see about 60 people turn out for the Meet and Greet. Lynn, one of the Future Cruise Consultants, came to the meeting and offered her interior cabin for our cabin crawl. There is also another slot pull scheduled.

For me, the highlight was getting to meet Bev. In 2014 when I took my first world cruise, I had no idea how long it took to upload pictures for my blog on the slow ship wi-fi. After spending 10 minutes and still not getting even one picture uploaded, I was ready to give up. I asked in my blog for any ideas. Bev responded and suggested I get the app “iResize” for my iPad. I did and have used it for all my previous blogs. She got on the ship yesterday and I was able to thank her in person.

As we were leaving the M&G, we were discussing trivia. We lost two teammates when Tom and Jeanette left us in Hong Kong. I told her we needed another player. In the “it’s a small world” category, it turned out she was put at the same dinner table with teammates Rodney and Marilyn. They had invited her to join also! So, Bev is now one of our teammates.

We did very well in morning trivia with 11 correct and we tied for first place!

1)In what year was Elvis’ first concert?

2)What are flora and fauna in the bottom sediments of a lake called?

3)What is the name of the river that forms the eastern section of the border between England and Scotland?

4)Who invented television?

5)What is the smallest type of tree?

Back to my cabin after trivia to put together my twisted cowl shawl. I had finished the knitting a few days ago but hadn’t finished it (I really don’t like that part).

In arts and crafts we made a beaded bracelet and tomorrow we will make the matching earrings.

It is still cool and was quite comfortable sitting by the pool and reading and knitting on my next scarf.

We were not so lucky with evening trivia. We only had 9 while the winners had 16 out of 17.

1)In what country is the world’s oldest brewery?

2)In what decade was Charles Dickens born?

3)What condiment were fifth century Japanese court officers given as part of their salary?

4)Of the 88 keys on a piano keyboard, how many are black?

5)What is the most common first name in the world?

We sat and talked until 6 pm after trivia.

After getting ready for dinner I listened to Jamm. Tonight was Disney night.

Another interesting dinner. Kay and Katy who joined us yesterday, found friends from a previous cruise and changed to anytime dining so we are down to six. About 9:30 the general alarm sounded. I don’t remember that ever happening except for drills on any of my cruises. A few minutes later the captain came on and said that excessive smoke had been detected by the incinerator but they were taking care of it. By 9:50 the captain announced that all was well and he would not be interrupting our evening again.

I skipped the pianist tonight.

Another sea day tomorrow.

Morning trivia…

1)1954

2)benthos

3)Tweed

4)Baird

5)dwarf willow

Afternoon trivia…

1)Germany

2)19th

3)soy sauce

4)36

5)Mohammed

You want us to work on this now? :-(

Sorry about that!

Trivia…

1)codling

2)TheTime Machine

3)BloodySunday

4)17th

5)Sweden

Nice to hear of the help from the shore excursion person with finding elevators and rescuuing you from the escalator.

Sounds like a busy, but wonderful day.

Nice that you could meet Bev in person and thank her in person. :)