Imperial Awakening Advice

we just booked the Imperial Awakening Cruise on Nautica for February.

If anyone has done this cruise your advice and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Did you book any private tours or just ship tours? If private with whom?

Tours that we should definitely take and which ones to avoid. What not to miss.

Any other thoughts ar advice?

Thanks in advance

I have not been on that itinerary so cannot answer those questions but suggest you join your Roll Call especially with this cruise coming up so soon. Your fellow pax may still have room on tours available but at this date might be booked. In any case they will have likely research tours including ship excursions

I will be on the cruise that goes from Hong Kong to Bangkok via Vietnam. Yes, the roll call is interesting but none of the people on the roll call have been on the cruise or been on a ship excursion to these ports. I am especially interested in any feedback about Oceania ship excursions (we have lots of OBC to spend). Anyone done ship excursions in Hong Kong, Vietnam or Thailand? Any recommendations?

Also, how do I find where the ship will be docking in each port and how far the dock is from the town center.

Thanks, Mary

how do I find where the ship will be docking in each port and how far the dock is from the town center.

Then, use Google Earth or Google Maps to locate each Port in relation to that town Center.

a source we also use is Whatsinport.com. Lots of good info there.

You didn't say where in Vietnam you were going but Hanoi is about 3 hrs from your port and we took shorex there. If you have an overnight there, the shorex overnight cruise in HaLong Bay is wonderful, then they take you into town.

HCMCity (Saigon) was about a 5 minute shuttle ride into town because the ship was able to dock on the river well inland so that was a DIY for us.

HK was not easy for us. We were docked some distance away from the CBD so we had to use a shuttle, then metro; we didn't get to dock downtown.

O used a shopping center shuttle from the HK dock (i guess it was a good business decision for them, but sucked for us) which dumped us at the shopping center, then the metro to downtown and from there we walked to the Star Ferry Terminal.

If you use the metro you can DIY HK. It took us ~90 minutes to get from pier to Ferry.

Something to look for is the HOHO bus terminal close to where you dock on HK Island and take the HOHO in and around HKong. We saw the HOHO bus and used it on our return trip after ascertaining that it could take us back to the ship. It was not readily apparent that we could have done that when we first got off ship....now we know!!!

Regardless of where you dock in Bangkok, it is NOT a quick drive into town. For that reason, we took shorex because we did not want to get left behind on the return trip; traffic is like nothing we have ever experienced and it can come to a standstill for quite a long time. We liked the shorex we took here.

If you overnight in Bangkok, you might want to spend the night in town and then you could do a diy--just make sure you leave waaay more time for your return that you normally would!

Folks on one of the private tours were very stressed because they were afraid they were not going to get back in time.... they did but wished they had left earlier.

Does shorex mean shore excursion thru the ship?

My husband finally got around to booking this cruise and it’s in February. That doesn’t leave me with a lot of time to do research and book cruises. And I’m stressing out over planning what to see and how to see it, private Tours vs cruise ship tours. Usually I have at least 6 months to plan. But not this time! Oy!

Does anyone have any notes, or specific advice for this cruise to save me some time and anxiety over planning my husbands last minute trip.

we just booked the Imperial Awakening Cruise on Nautica for February.

 

If anyone has done this cruise your advice and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

Did you book any private tours or just ship tours? If private with whom?

 

Tours that we should definitely take and which ones to avoid. What not to miss.

 

Any other thoughts ar advice?

 

Thanks in advance

You haven't posted your itinerary so I have no idea whether my very positive recommendation for Chris Rowthorn in Hong Kong is useful. In Hong Kong, we booked two walking tours: one on the Kowloon side and one on the Hong Kong side. As a useful generalization, the Kowloon tour focuses on traditional Chinese life and the Hong Kong side focuses on history and governmental buildings.

http://www.hongkongprivatetour.com/

Rowthorn's organization was responsive to my inquiries and the two guides were excellent. (Different guides for each of our two tours.) He also offers private tours in Kyoto and in Tokyo.

We did a land Vietnam trip last February. For your Chan May/Da Nang port stop, I would go to Hoi An instead of Hue, although both are nice. You really don't need a tour for Hoi An, so if you can find a transportation only option that would work. Hoi An would be about an hour from the port. If you take taxis stick with Mai Linh (green or white and green) or Vinasun (usually mostly white with some green) - they are considered the reputable companies by the Vietnam area experts on TripAdvisor. Mai Linh is more prevalent in the south, particularly (HCMC) and Vinasun was more prevalent in the North. In HCMC, the war remnants museum, the area around the post office/ Notre Dame Cathedral and Ben Thanh Market were the highlights for us.

I'll see if I can dig up a card for the tour guide that we used to see Hue from Hoi An. Hue does need a guide.

Here is the itinerary.

Bangkok, Thailand

Siahonoukville, Cambodi

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam

Hue/Da Nang (Chan May), Vietnam

Hanoi (Ha Long Bay), Vietnam

Hanoi (Ha Long Bay), Vietnam

Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong, China

Xiamen, China

Shanghai, China

Shanghai, China

did you check the "land" tab on the O website for overlands? I see you are at Cambodia and they often do a shorex overnight to Angkor Wat--totally must see.

i rec'd taking the shorex to Hanoi just because of the heavy traffic--the ship will wait on their shorex if held up by traffic.

Also check and see if there is an overnight shorex offered that permits you to spend the night in Hanoi--then you can do DIY tours or shorex from there and save yourself the long drive back and forth.

Bangkok we did shorex for the same reason as taking the one from Hanoi. In both ports you are quite some distance from the ship.

We found Hong Kong and Shanghai totally doable on your own--both using HOHO buses. Xiamen we took a shorex tour called "a day in Quanzhou." We took a shorex in Saigon called "Good Morning Vietnam"--yep, history of Vietnam War sites.

Vietnam, I think we used Ann Tours or it was ANA Tours. One was in Cambodia and the other was in Vietnam. We saw far more using private tours than the cruise tours saw. Make sure when you are in Saigon, you do the Mekong Delta tour the first day as the traffic is horrendous. With doing the city tour the next day, you will have no problems getting back to the ship before sailing time. I posted a review when I did the cruise a couple of years ago.

Thanks No Fuss. I looked up your review and it was very helpful.