Viking China

[Kodi'smom]

Has anyone gone through customs and taken just a plain old taxi to their hotel? If so did you have any problems at the airport? Was the taxi seamless or problematic? The reason I'm asking is, I'm trying to decide whether or not to hire a car or just take a taxi in Shanghai. We are arriving early so we are on our own for the trek from the airport. I've heard if you hire a car they come into the airport and help you through the airport. Also if you hire a car what kind of cost are you looking at? Phew, that's a lot of questions.

[caribill]

Has anyone gone through customs and taken just a plain old taxi to their hotel? If so did you have any problems at the airport? Was the taxi seamless or problematic? The reason I'm asking is' date=' I'm trying to decide whether or not to hire a car or just take a taxi in Shanghai. We are arriving early so we are on our own for the trek from the airport. I've heard if you hire a car they come into the airport and help you through the airport. Also if you hire a car what kind of cost are you looking at? Phew, that's a lot of questions.[/quote']

 

You can check with your hotel to see if they offer a car service and what the cost is. No doubt it will be more than a taxi, but you may feel it is worth it after a long journey.

 

If you take a taxi, it is essential that you have the hotel name and address in Chinese. You may be able to get this from the hotel web site. Of course you will need to pay for a taxi in Yuan which you can get at an ATM at the airport.

[Turtles06]

Has anyone gone through customs and taken just a plain old taxi to their hotel? If so did you have any problems at the airport? Was the taxi seamless or problematic? The reason I'm asking is' date=' I'm trying to decide whether or not to hire a car or just take a taxi in Shanghai. We are arriving early so we are on our own for the trek from the airport. I've heard if you hire a car they come into the airport and help you through the airport. Also if you hire a car what kind of cost are you looking at? Phew, that's a lot of questions.[/quote']

 

I can't imagine you'd have any trouble getting a taxi at the Shanghai airport, but you should be sure to have the name and address of your hotel written in Mandarin. This may be available on your hotel's web site; if not, email the concierge and they should be able to send it to you. (Same advice for anytime you take a taxi in China, as noted in other comments.)

 

We flew into Beijing, early. We booked a car in advance from our hotel, deciding that after half a day flying around the world and landing in China, this would be a splurge well worth doing. I can't speak to how your hotel would handle it, but we were met at the end of the jetway by a hotel rep who escorted us to immigration and then to baggage and then through the airport (a back way around the crowds) to our waiting car. Bottled water and towels awaited us, and we had no concerns about whether the driver knew where to go or whether he was going the best or shortest way. Yes, it cost far more than a taxi would have, but it was money well spent, for us.

[tommui987]

we were met at the end of the jetway by a hotel rep who escorted us to immigration and then to baggage and then through the airport (a back way around the crowds) to our waiting car. Bottled water and towels awaited us, and we had no concerns about whether the driver knew where to go or whether he was going the best or shortest way. Yes, it cost far more than a taxi would have, but it was money well spent, for us.

 

We came into Shanghai and had instructions written by our hotel in Chinese (incidentally the characters in Chinese is the same in any of the Chinese dialects). As we were going down the line towards the taxi stand, there were many, many hawkers for taxis. One fellow had a hotel uniform on, asked our names, looked at some list, and got us and our luggage to a taxi - think it was a Mercedes or some large car - and got us straight to the hotel. (Hotel was a Raddison located on the People's Square).

 

Never did find out whether the fellow at the airport was really a Raddison employee or just an enterprising fellow with a Raddison uniform!

[Kodi'smom]

I've suddenly thought of lots of questions as our trip approaches. We often see people arrive in Vancouver from Asian countries wearing face masks. How polluted are the big cities? Did any of you take those white surgical masks with you? If so, did you actually use them? Neither of us are particularly sensitive to bad air but my husband had asthma as a child and is allergic to a few things (like cats) still.

[caribill]

I've suddenly thought of lots of questions as our trip approaches. We often see people arrive in Vancouver from Asian countries wearing face masks. How polluted are the big cities? Did any of you take those white surgical masks with you? If so' date=' did you actually use them? Neither of us are particularly sensitive to bad air but my husband had asthma as a child and is allergic to a few things (like cats) still.[/quote']

 

We had some with us last year (in August) but never had to use one. We saw very people people wearing one during the entire time of our Viking tour.

[seanf]

Has anyone gone through customs and taken just a plain old taxi to their hotel?

I did this last time I went to Shanghai and it was very easy. As other posters have mentioned you need to have the name and address of your hotel in Chinese. Once you are through customs follow the taxi signs and there will be an assistant outside at the taxi rank to help you. Ignore anybody that approaches you inside the airport, as you will end up paying at least 3 times as much with them

 

Sean :)

[H2Otstr]

I've suddenly thought of lots of questions as our trip approaches. We often see people arrive in Vancouver from Asian countries wearing face masks. How polluted are the big cities? Did any of you take those white surgical masks with you? If so' date=' did you actually use them? [/quote']

 

We had one lady who wore one a good deal of the time; I think that she was getting over a bout with cancer. She and her husband both wore them for our interChina flights. She mostly wore the mask when we were in crowded, public places. Several Chinese people wore them, too.

[Kodi'smom]

Could you watch movies on the TV in your room while aboard the

emerald? What activities did they have in the evenings on the ship?

We've only ever been on Ocean cruises with lots of activities so I'm

wondering what to bring, our own movies, cards, board games, puzzles, etc.

[caribill]

Could you watch movies on the TV in your room while aboard the

emerald? What activities did they have in the evenings on the ship?

We've only ever been on Ocean cruises with lots of activities so I'm

wondering what to bring' date=' our own movies, cards, board games, puzzles, etc.[/quote']

 

Dinner was normally around 7 PM

 

After dinner entertainment was about 9:15 PM

 

1st evening: Jazz night in the Lounge

2nd evening: Live music in the Lounge

3rd evening: same

4th evening: Crew Cabaret Show (crew talent show)

5th evening: Live music in the Lounge

 

They had a jigsaw puzzle out for passengers to work on

 

In general, you will be probably be too tired to do much after dinner.

[roothy123]

I suppose I could call United to confirm, but I was wondering if anyone who flew United can comment on this: We are using Viking-arranged flights, which are on United. Will I get air miles for our flights?

[caribill]

I suppose I could call United to confirm, but I was wondering if anyone who flew United can comment on this: We are using Viking-arranged flights, which are on United. Will I get air miles for our flights?

 

Yes. Call United to give them your FF number for the flights.

 

Also, if any internal China flights are on Star Alliance partners, you can get miles for those flights. Try to arrange at the Chinese airport once you have your boarding pass. If that is not possible, keep your boarding pass to send to United when you return to the USA.

[roothy123]

Oh, thank you very much! The timing is great, as apparently my United miles will expire soon due to non-use, since I don't travel for work any more and haven't flown United in a while. Thanks especially for the info on Star Alliance flights - I hadn't even thought to look up if there was anything I could get on the inter-China flights!

 

Guess I'll have to see what the Star Alliance includes and be prepared!

[caribill]

Oh, thank you very much! The timing is great, as apparently my United miles will expire soon due to non-use, since I don't travel for work any more and haven't flown United in a while. Thanks especially for the info on Star Alliance flights - I hadn't even thought to look up if there was anything I could get on the inter-China flights!

 

Guess I'll have to see what the Star Alliance includes and be prepared!

 

If you have any Continmental miles, you can move them into your United account (since United now owns Continental) and that should extend your UA miles,

[Peregrina651]

Back to the question about buying fabrics. I asked our guide Larry and here is his answer. "The fabrics should be available in market in Beijing. There is one called Ya Xiu Market. They can take a cab to go there from the hotel." Hope this helps.

[H2Otstr]

Oh, thank you very much! The timing is great, as apparently my United miles will expire soon due to non-use, since I don't travel for work any more and haven't flown United in a while. Thanks especially for the info on Star Alliance flights - I hadn't even thought to look up if there was anything I could get on the inter-China flights!

 

Guess I'll have to see what the Star Alliance includes and be prepared!

 

Not sure if you are flying Economy Plus or regular coach, but United has a special going on for EP seating. You can fly EP flights for a year for $425. We paid over $600 extra to fly EP. There is 5 extra inches of leg room in that section. You can go to their website and check it out.

[roothy123]

Not sure if you are flying Economy Plus or regular coach, but United has a special going on for EP seating. You can fly EP flights for a year for $425. We paid over $600 extra to fly EP. There is 5 extra inches of leg room in that section. You can go to their website and check it out.

 

Thank you, yes, we learned about Econ Plus from this thread and we've got economy plus seats. I think the cost was $425 per person. We did it in mid-summer, I think.

[roothy123]

It sounds like I will have quite a few chances to send email while on my trip, but now I'm wondering about how to send a photo with each email. I'm also debating about whether to take my netbook or not. For the hotels which have internet access in the lobby or business center, can I use my netbook there? In other words, I guess what I'm asking is whether they have wifi or not. I really don't want to pay to use my netbook, if I take it, in the room at the hotels, so I'm planning on using the free internet in the hotels and on the Emerald.

 

When you're using computers in hotel business centers (or lobbies or whatever), are you allowed to plug in your camera with a USB cord? Is there generally any photo editing software on hotel computers? I don't want to send a large file. Can you use a thumb drive in the hotel's computers?

 

On Viking's Fontane last year in Europe, I was able to get wifi (though slow, and also it (understandably) cut out when we approached a lock!!) in the cabin on my netbook most of the time. Did anyone do that on the Yangtze on the Emerald, or do you have to go use Viking's computers? I don't mind doing that, but again, I wasn't sure if I could pull a picture off my camera, compress it, and send it using a computer on the ship. Also, as I understand it, the ship is Chinese, not owned by Viking, so things may be a little different from the Viking ships I've cruised on in the past.

 

Are there any techies reading this (and/or serious photographers!) who can help me out here? I don't want to bring more "stuff" (netbook, thumb drive, cords) than necessary, but I'm a pretty serious photographer, and would love to be able to share a picture every day or so with a few friends. (Turtles, are you there?! Aren't you a photographer?)

 

If it makes any difference, we're staying at Westin Chaoyang in Beijing, Pudong Shangri-la in Shanghai, and Golden Flower in Xian. My netbook will accept a thumb drive but there's no disc drive. I have Adobe Photoshop on the netbook.

[caribill]

It sounds like I will have quite a few chances to send email while on my trip, but now I'm wondering about how to send a photo with each email. I'm also debating about whether to take my netbook or not. For the hotels which have internet access in the lobby or business center, can I use my netbook there? In other words, I guess what I'm asking is whether they have wifi or not. I really don't want to pay to use my netbook, if I take it, in the room at the hotels, so I'm planning on using the free internet in the hotels and on the Emerald.

 

When you're using computers in hotel business centers (or lobbies or whatever), are you allowed to plug in your camera with a USB cord? Is there generally any photo editing software on hotel computers? I don't want to send a large file. Can you use a thumb drive in the hotel's computers?

 

 

Can't answer most of your questions, but here are a couple of answers:

a) In the hotels we stayed at (including the ones you are at in Shanghai and Xi'an) we used our netbook in our room. At least one time we used a cable we had brought to connect to the network. Other times there was wifi.There was no charge for internet usage in our rooms at the hotels we stayed at.

b) On last year's ship there was no wifi and we had to use the ship's computers

c) It is unlikely that you will find photo editing software on any hotel computer

d) Be sure if you bring your netbook that you have the conversion plugs you need to plug your elcetrical cord into a Chinese electrical outlet.

[Turtles06]

Are there any techies reading this (and/or serious photographers!) who can help me out here? I don't want to bring more "stuff" (netbook, thumb drive, cords) than necessary, but I'm a pretty serious photographer, and would love to be able to share a picture every day or so with a few friends. (Turtles, are you there?! Aren't you a photographer?)

 

If it makes any difference, we're staying at Westin Chaoyang in Beijing, Pudong Shangri-la in Shanghai, and Golden Flower in Xian. My netbook will accept a thumb drive but there's no disc drive. I have Adobe Photoshop on the netbook.

 

Well, here I am...:)

 

A few things... there was no wi-fi on the Emerald in May, any computer use was on the boat's computers. As posted above, I doubt there's any photo software on them, but who knows. More to the point, they are very slow, you are supposed to only use them for quickie checks of email and the like. I would not try to send pictures from them (I can't even imagine how long it would take to load one if you even could).

 

If you are intent on sending a picture or two from China, I would do it from a hotel, on your own laptop. We did that easily from Beijing, using the wi-fi in our hotel room (this was before the Viking part of our trip, it was not a Viking hotel). Our Beijng Viking hotel, the Ritz Carlton, had free wi-fi in the lobby, and I used our netbook down there, and could easily have emailed photos then if I'd wanted to. You should be fine with your netbook and wi-fi in hotels.

 

Do you have a smartphone? Another way to share photos easily and relatively cheaply is by phone (e.g., MMS is not a voice call, but text with a photo). I realize you'll be using your main camera, but every now and then, if you have a smartphone, take a pic that way and send it.

 

Did you read that article in the Wash Post this week about the widespread spying that goes on in China on visitor's computers? I doubt Viking pax are high on the target lists, but it indicated that everyone was vulnerable and made me really think about this (particularly the insertion of spyware). Even before reading that article, I would never put any of my own hardware (like a thumb drive) into a hotel computer, or use a public computer to access programs that require me to use a password. I sure wouldn't do it in China after reading that.

[t60]

It sounds like I will have quite a few chances to send email while on my trip, but now I'm wondering about how to send a photo with each email. I'm also debating about whether to take my netbook or not. For the hotels which have internet access in the lobby or business center, can I use my netbook there? In other words, I guess what I'm asking is whether they have wifi or not. I really don't want to pay to use my netbook, if I take it, in the room at the hotels, so I'm planning on using the free internet in the hotels and on the Emerald. snip....

 

When I send holiday pix with an email I use Nitro PDF Reader to convert the pix to PDF format before sending, as i was told this makes them quicker (therefore cheaper if paying for internet use) to send.

Nitro is a free download

Sandy in Spain

[caribill]

Did you read that article in the Wash Post this week about the widespread spying that goes on in China on visitor's computers? I doubt Viking pax are high on the target lists, but it indicated that everyone was vulnerable and made me really think about this (particularly the insertion of spyware). Even before reading that article, I would never put any of my own hardware (like a thumb drive) into a hotel computer, or use a public computer to access programs that require me to use a password. I sure wouldn't do it in China after reading that.

 

Here is a link to the article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-china-business-travelers-take-extreme-precautions-to-avoid-cyber-espionage/2011/09/20/gIQAM6cR0K_story.html

 

Also, you may find some web sites you use blocked when trying to access them from land based internet in China. Even a site I had built to display weather information was blocked in the hotels. I was able to access it on the ship.

[windsongco]

I suppose I could call United to confirm, but I was wondering if anyone who flew United can comment on this: We are using Viking-arranged flights, which are on United. Will I get air miles for our flights?

 

We and another couple flew United out of Denver. We all paid the $50. to Viking so we could travel together and pick the airline to get credit with MilesPlus. We flew Air China (Star Alliance partner) from Vancouver to Beijing over and Shanghai-Beijing-San Francisco back. We received full credit for miles only from United (DEN-YVR and SFO-DEN) and 50% from AC because we flew "Discount Economy". If we had flown "Full Economy", we would have received full mileage from AC. We found all this out after the fact. Since we booked air with Viking, I don't know if we would have had a choice between Discount and Full Economy and, if so, whether the additional cost would have been worth the mileage credit. We did not get any credit from the intra-flights because they were not Star Alliance partners.

[roothy123]

Lots of good info here. Where to start?

 

OK, pictures: Guess I'll take my netbook, and send one or two from it while in one of the hotels. I have photo software on my netbook, so at least I can load some n there, compress them, and send them. Guess the Emerald emails will have to be picture-less!

 

Turtles, is the cable you're talking about a special computer cable, I assume? It's not as simple as taking a USB cable to go from a hard-wired computer in a hotel room to the internet, I assume?

 

I just got a smartphone a month or two ago, but have not yet sent a picture anywhere. Does it have to be sent via text message? Our house/dog sitter doesn't do text messages! I guess I'm going to have to break down and see how much Virgin Mobile charges for phone or email or text in China. I looked at their web site and got a bit confused.....so at this point I am planning to take the phone ONLY for our 2 days in San Francisco before and after, and to turn on when we land at BWI. Of course, in an emergency, I would use it - if possible. (Do you have to contact your provider in advance to enable service, I assume?)

 

If I turn the phone on in China to take a picture, will I be charged for overseas/roaming/whatever minutes? (Will I even be able to take a picture?) If I take the picture, what do I do then - email it, text it? Sorry to sound so ignorant, but I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to phones. If it weren't for having to have one for the part time work I do, I probably wouldn't even have a cell phone!

 

I didn't see the Post article about spying, but my husband did and warned me to be careful. I just read it (thanks for the link, caribill) - kind of scary, but as Turtles says, they probably won't target Viking tourists much.

 

As to United miles, I know UA has a page that tells you what frequent flyer miles you'll get, but I was unable to see the ticket category we have on the vouchers from Viking, so I'll need to do a little more snooping around. At least it does sound like we'll get the miles for the big trips (to and from China) so that's good.

 

Thanks for the tip on the free pdf software. I had downloaded similar software (cutepdf writer) on my desktop, but I don't have anything on the netbook.

 

OK, new question. I see Viking is recommending luggage locks for the internal flights. Did anyone use them?

[Peregrina651]

When I send holiday pix with an email I use Nitro PDF Reader to convert the pix to PDF format before sending, as i was told this makes them quicker (therefore cheaper if paying for internet use) to send.

Nitro is a free download

Sandy in Spain

 

You are still asked to limit your use of the computers on the Emerald to text. That means no attachments or photos regardless of the format.

 

In 2010, the computers on-board were extremely slow and there were days when there was no connection at all. Some websites are completely blocked (such as Facebook) and others too forever to load.

 

Ruth, to answer your techy questions, I carried my netbook, a DSLR (one lens 18-125mm) and a USB drive. I have ACDSee Pro loaded on it and used it to download photos from CF cards to the USB drive each day and to review and label the photos while things are still fresh in my mind. The other thing in my electronics kit is a retractable ethernet cable--small, flat and doesn't get tangled. I used that in the hotels to access the free internet service in my hotel room. I'm just happier on my own equipment--and on my own schedule.

 

BON VOYAGE!!