Who's been to Sihanoukville, Cambodia before??

[kjets]

An excursion ("Wat Krom, Villages & Market") offered by Princess Cruises says in the description:

"Drive to a typical Khmer village. You'll see a typical house and meet a family. Then you'll visit a school where you'll meet the children and observe the activities in the kindergarten. The kids are enchanting and you

may want to bring some small gifts to share with the children

."

For those taking this excursion, I'm wondering what types of small gifts might be appropriate for the children? ...actual school supplies? ...toys? ...candy? ...something else?

A girl friend of mine works in a school in Sihanoukville and she asked me for certain things when we went last year. She needed things that would help with basic english like tiled letters, books with one picture and one word on each page, and BIG jigsaws with few pieces. Things that our four year old would like.

 

You may want to drop Princess an email asking them if there is anything in particular. If there isn't I would go with the lightest things as you have to pay for luggage, say pencils?

 

No candy as they don't have access to dentists!

[pieshops]

A girl friend of mine works in a school in Sihanoukville and she asked me for certain things when we went last year. She needed things that would help with basic english like tiled letters, books with one picture and one word on each page, and BIG jigsaws with few pieces. Things that our four year old would like.

 

You may want to drop Princess an email asking them if there is anything in particular. If there isn't I would go with the lightest things as you have to pay for luggage, say pencils?

 

No candy as they don't have access to dentists!

 

We will be traveling there next Christmas and would love to bring some things also. Do you know what ages the kids there are and how many there are generally?

[Gamelan1971]

I've been on cruises stopping in Sihanoukville twice. The first time, we left the ship in Singapore, flew to Angkor and spent a couple of days there touring the temples, and then to Phnom Penh where we had a short tour and lunch and then back to the ship by coach to Sihanoukville. It was a pricey ship's excursion but well worth it since I was travelling with my mother and I wanted a safe and high quality experience. I had been to Angkor previously and knew what to expect and found it was quite worthwhile- our guides were excellent and our trip was five star. I highly recommend making the effort to see Angkor, whether through the ship or on your own.

 

The next time we stopped in Sihanoukville was on a cruise three years later. We took a local tour through the ship (since I'd been to Angkor several times before) - we visited with a local family and went to a nearby city (I think it was Kampot) and also visited an old temple. I appreciated the chance to see rural, less touristed Cambodia on that trip. Our dining mates on that second trip opted to get off the ship, travel to Angkor, and then flew to meet the ship in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

In and of itself, Sihanoukville is nothing special but the stop affords the possibility to make a side trip to Angkor, explore the Cambodian countryside, a day at a nearby beach, or look around Sihanoukville. Not bad choices!

[Kiwi_cruiser]

I started this thread back in 2014, as we where planing to go to Sihanoukville, Cambodia on the Sapphire Princess, but as the flight costs, where too high at the time, we cancelled that cruise and did something else.

 

We have now been to Sihanoukville on the Queen Mary 2 and I just wanted to come back to this thread and say Thank you to everyone who replayed to this thread, very helpful :)

[hillside]

We were in Sihanoukville on the Volendam February, 2016, and I booked a tour with Sihanoukville Seaside Tours. info@sihanoukvilleseasidetours.com

You can check them out on tripadvisor. We were 3pax and I found 4 others to join us on our CC rollcall. The cost was $65 each and included a coffee break and lunch at a hotel training school where young people were trained for the hotel industry. It was run by a charity. We were contacted by Mr. Sothy who was an excellent organizer. We had a wonderful day visiting a fishing village, the market place, beaches, waterfall, and 2 pagodas. I like to limit my private tours to 8 or under passengers and have a van. This is what we did and were very comfortable, saw a lot, and had a great day. I was very glad we had prebooked a tour. We were met by Mr. Sothy, who had several groups that day, and on our way. We had a guide and driver. BTW, at this port, only ship's tours were on the dock. There was a free shuttle to get you to the port entrance. It wasn't clearly marked at the ship, but we found it. Coming back the shuttle was right at the port entrance. You can also walk, but it was a very hot day and we used the shuttle.