Live: Dec 22 2023 Solstice 12 Night Thailand & Vietnam Holiday Cruise!

mahdnc · December 27, 2023

A couple more notes from yesterday. Our tour of the floating market was concluded at about 11:30 am. Our tour for the day was finished. What was left was the 210 km drive from the floating market to the pier which included having to drive back through Bangkok. We arrived at the cruise terminal at 2:30 pm.

Here a couple of interesting trucks that passed us (there were others, but I just wasn't fast enough with my iPhone):

Silkroad · December 27, 2023

I’m enjoying your live review very much indeed. Your reviews always provide the perfect blend of information and photos, and this is one of my dream itineraries. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Silkroad

billc23 · December 27, 2023

Thank you for providing such a great review of your travels. Outstanding photos and valuable information that will be so incredibly helpful to future travelers like me. I really appreciate your time and efforts!

mahdnc · December 27, 2023

Good morning, Vietnam (Phu My)!

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

I will post speed test data later, but suffice it to say that the WiFi onboard Solstice so far is not good even with Starlink.

Two (or three?) nights ago it was not even working. When it is working, it is common to have to upload photos onto this Cruise Critic thread several times before i succeed.

Speeds are comparable to what it was on our prior two Solstice cruises (2018 & 2020) before Starlink was installed.

i thought I was a winner for getting a great deal on the premium WiFi upgrade price. I don’t feel like a winner right now!

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

We were scheduled to leave Phu My at 5 pm. However we are now set to leave at 6:42 pm. We are delayed due to a late shore excursion according to the Captain.

On the way back to port, we passed by a disabled Celebrity shorex bus that had been rear ended. I presume that this was the delay.

Edited December 28, 2023 by mahdnc

Ex-Airbalancer · December 28, 2023

3 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

I will post speed test data later, but suffice it to say that the WiFi onboard Solstice so far is not good even with Starlink.

Two (or three?) nights ago it was not even working. When it is working, it is common to have to upload photos onto this Cruise Critic thread several times before i succeed.

Speeds are comparable to what it was on our prior two Solstice cruises (2018 & 2020) before Starlink was installed.

i thought I was a winner for getting a great deal on the premium WiFi upgrade price. I don’t feel like a winner right now!

I wonder if Starlink does have many satellites in area

Have you talked with the i lounge staff

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

11 minutes ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

I wonder if Starlink does have many satellites in area

Have you talked with the i lounge staff

I don’t know. It was dreadfully slow for the cruise up to and including Christmas Eve (3 days). After e got back on the ship on Dec 26, it’s better. My earlier post about WiFi speeds failed to send yesterday evening. And I was able to resend it now.

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

Today was a 2 ship day at Phu My. Mein Schiff 5 and Solstice.

During our last port (Laem Chabang, Day 2), Westerdam was docked in front of us.

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

@Ex-Airbalancer:

the number of kids on this cruise according to the Camp At Sea lead counselor is......

400

It didn't seem like that many and the kids we did see were pretty well behaved.

We had one instance--and it was today--where there was a young teenage girl who was eating at a table next to ours at the OVC and was watching something on her smartphone while eating breakfast but with the volume turned up all the way. We decided to wait her out and when she left the table, we were good. Good until she came back and took her smartphone out and laid it on the table and proceeded to watch whatever it was with the volume turned up. My wife finally broke down to ask her to not play the program so loudly and I added that she should be using her Airpods Pro which were sitting in a case on the table in front of her by her plate. Without saying a word, she put her Airpods in her ears and then we were good. Oh, and both parents were sitting at the table next to her. They didn't say a word either.

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

We had a good day at Ho Chi Minh City today thanks to our private tour for our group of 8 people from our roll call.

We all gathered at 7:30 am at Guest Relations in preparation for our anticipated debarking at 8 am. We were waiting for the announcement over the public address system that the ship had been cleared by Vietnamese immigration. No such call was made and we discovered that two large lines had already formed above us on Deck 4 to get off the ship. We chose the shorter line to queue up in but quickly found out that it was for Celebrity shore excursions. So we went to the other line which already extended into the casino.

The lines were formed because Vietnamese officers were on board to stamp everyone's Passenger's Landing Card which was delivered to our stateroom the night before. This Landing Card is something that we have to produce each time we get off the ship onto Vietnamese soil.

After getting off the ship at approximately 7:52 am, it took us a while to find our guide despite the clear instructions that I had received. The confusion was my fault and it was due to the fact that some of the private tour guides with signs gathered at a point about 100 meters (?) from the ship. My instructions (and the pin that our guide dropped during our WhatsApp texting) showed him to be several hundred meters down the road towards the gate. So we walked out to the front gate where there was another mass of tour guides with signs. We found ours pretty quickly (8:05 am).

The tour van was air conditioned and seated 11 passengers (3-3-3-2 layout) not counting the front seats. That meant that all 8 of us would have a window seat and no one was stuck in any middle seat. Our guide rode up front in the shot gun seat as we had a dedicated driver for the van.

By 8:30 am we had all boarded our van and we were on our way to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

By 9:40 am, we were dropped off at our first stop: Ba Thien Hau Pagoda which also was our first of several opportunities to access a rest room.

There was some sort of photo shoot going on which was a bit interesting to watch (lower right hand corner in the above photo).

Edited December 28, 2023 by mahdnc

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

Our guide explained the rituals and customs in this temple and some of us participated.

@Bloss20 have two impressive young adult kids on this tour with us. The older one, pictured below, is a primary school teacher and has ambitious plans to spend 5 months traveling to southeast Asia and Australia (I am sure there were some countries or areas I left out). She is burning a spiral incense stick.

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

Here we are watching other Vietnamese people at the pagoda.

chemmo · December 28, 2023

Your truck shots brought back many happy memories of our numerous trips to the Far East. Do they load up lorries and take bets on the likelihood of them reaching their destination?

We once followed a truck full of water bottles…The big ones for offices…Every corner we cringed as they slewed one way then the other…Our Tuc Tuc driver was gleefully gesturing to us what he expected to happen when the lorry driver turned off sharply to the right at speed and the inevitable happened…Needless to say our Tuc Tuc driver had to stop to ‘help’ the unfortunate driver with many gesticulations of advice! We also remember clearly seeing two cyclists one behind the other cycling through a busy thoroughfare of Bangkok carrying a large glazing unit…We took bets on that one…We contemplated leaving our evening beverages to follow them until what we felt must be an inevitable end…

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

At 11 am we stopped off at a coffee shop on Le Thanh Ton Street near the Ben Thanh Market.

When we arrived the employees set up small stools and a wooden table to seat all of us. We were all sitting at the street corner right by the curb. It might sound kind of awful, but it was a very cool and authentic feeling experience.

Here is a photo of our group of eight. We only met each other briefly at the sail away party on embarkation day--but we got to know each other fairly well at the conclusion of today's tour. @grizzlyt, from Arizona, are seated at the extreme left and right in this photo:

We were served a Vietnamese coffee (iced) which was pretty good. We were told that Justin Trudeau had coffee at this shop several years ago. Our guide, Xuan, is seated at the right in this photo below. His English is pretty good and he is quite articulate. Best of all, Xuan has a warm and friendly personality.

Our guide took this photo of my wife and me:

Here is @Bloss20's family. They hail from the UK. Their son is seated to the left and will be graduating in a year with his aeronautical engineering degree (aka rocket scientist!).

Edited December 28, 2023 by mahdnc

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

The highlight of the trip was the 30 minute rickshaw rides through the streets of Saigon. I read about these rides on some of the tours mentioned in Cruise Critic, but the actual experience was amazing.

Here we are--of different size and weights--sitting in our own rickshaw manually propelled by people we felt very sorry and grateful for.

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

The street and traffic scenery during the ride was mind blowing (as good as the boat ride we took through the floating market in Bangkok). In some ways I felt like I was in a Disney ride (where authenticity is artificially replicated on a world class scale) or in a Jason Bourne movie. Watching the rickshaw drivers weave in and out of traffic (cars, buses, scooters) was pretty impressive. And the street scenes, oh my, it was amazing to see all the shops and small businesses. Let's just say that I put my camera to great use (took so many photos that it was like being back at the Galapagos).

Here are a ton of photos to give you an idea of what we saw--I hope you don't find them too repetitive. I very much enjoyed watching the people and taking their candid photos.

The next 3 photos were taken on a street where all the shops repaired scooters:

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

Edited December 28, 2023 by mahdnc

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

Sorry, I am not done yet.

Edited December 28, 2023 by mahdnc

mahdnc · December 28, 2023

We then went to the Ben Thanh Market where we got to experience first hand the Vietnamese way of gently coaxing an unsuspecting victim into making a sale. None of our group of eight emerged from the market unscathed. That included me who stood there with arms folded refusing to buy anything until they separated me from my wife and then broke me. We did not stand a chance.