(attempt at!) Live/semi-Live - 1st time HAL cruiser - Westerdam Hong Kong to Tokyo

[mooseridge]

Thank you for your postings.  Awesome.  So hope your experience on the Westerdam/Holland is wonderful.   Will really appreciate your viewpoint on your 1st Holland cruise.

Your photos are terrific.  Big thanks for taking us along!!  We're on the Westerdam in June for the new 28 day Alaska Soltice cruise.  Love Holland.

 

Very best wishes,

Mooseridge

[Riversedge]

Since we weren’t able to go on this cruise I would love to see the daily program.  If you have time of course!  Enjoy your cruise.  

[Tigerlily75]

On 2/2/2024 at 10:42 PM, Kristal Blade said:

Well done, you got your “sneakers”. Goretex and vibram soles elevates them to hiking shoes in my opinion!

Yes! Technically, they are “trail runners” but ..  I won’t be doing any running on any trail.. but it’s a good comfortable shoe that can take you from city to country! 

[USN59-79]

@Tigerlily75 You are a great spokesman (spokesperson?) for Hong Kong.  I remember a great goose restaurant we used to go to and now I want to go there again.

Ray

[Tigerlily75]

We are on board and sailing! It’s a little rocky, hoping my SeaBands stand the test of time. I will be back later to update properly and post the last of my Hong Kong photos. 
 

Meanwhile I need to finish my coffee, shower and get myself coherent before heading to guest services to beg for my passport for Shanghai. Shanghai Disneyland will absolutely not let us in without a physical passport. They don’t accept copies. HAL already made us get unnecessary visas by not telling us until yesterday that the 144 hour visa free channel will indeed be open, they can at least give me my passport with my visa inside! 
 

There’s a Shanghai port talk and Q&A at 10am, which sadly clashes with the cruise critic meet and greet. But if guest services don’t really know the answer I might have to skip it and go seek an answer there, which would be a shame. Stay tuned! 
 

On the upside - the ship is beautiful, our upgraded cabin is fantastic, and dinner was delicious! It’s going to be a great cruise. 
 

More later! 

[cruiseaholic78]

The Port talks are usually repeated on the ships TV so maybe you can do both.

Have fun and enjoy Asia on the Westerdam.

[Tigerlily75]

A quick update on the passport situation. I spoke to a lovely man at guest services, and the passports are with Chinese immigration officials who are onboard processing them. He understood our situation perfectly and they’ve had this problem before. Bottom line - it’s up to the Chinese officials if the actual passport will be released in time, it’s really out of HAL’s hands. We will be given a stamped copy of our passport, and can only hope we get the actual passport too. He took our cabin number and will follow up with us. 
 

If not, we can then hope the fact our copy is stamped by immigration officials might be enough. I suspect not, but we could always try. And failing all that, then we just don’t go into the park. That’s just the way things go when travelling to foreign lands. And we already know we’d like to come back to China in the future and see it properly, so we could always just do it then! 

[Tigerlily75]

Finishing up in Hong Kong - I totally could have stayed another week or two! 
 

We skipped the hotel breakfast again (seriously, don’t book a hotel package with breakfast in a place full of good food, it’s just a waste!) and headed out for dim sum: 

 

 

 

 

 

It was so good! 

[Tigerlily75]

And some last pictures from around town. The star ferry, Peninsula Hotel, Pottinger Street, a dragon lantern 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the offerings at McDonald’s! 
 

 

some streetscapes:

 

 

[Tigerlily75]

Bye Hong Kong.. 

 

taxi to the port from Eaton HK - HKD$108 (US$14)

 

 

Hello Westerdam! 
 

 

 

 

[Kristal Blade]

Hong Kong is so vibrant and your pictures really captured that.

Looking forward to seeing more, hopefully including Disneyland.

[sunviking90]

Really enjoying your trip report so far. I hope Disneyland happens for you,  it you have a great attitude about accepting travel hiccups.

As another Disney girl, I appreciate you including reports of  the Happy Place in other parts of the world! I’m hoping we can squeeze in Tokyo Disney before our transpacific in April, but DH is not so sure 😜 

Edited February 4 by sunviking90

[albingirl]

Thank you so much for posting. It's fascinating. Beautiful photos.

[omago4th]

???

 

is there any Ballroom dancing?

 

 is the Ocean bar floor  covered with carpet so no dance floor.?

 

 

[Tigerlily75]

On 2/7/2024 at 4:22 AM, omago4th said:

???

 

is there any Ballroom dancing?

 

 is the Ocean bar floor  covered with carpet so no dance floor.?

 

 

I believe ocean bar is all carpet, I will check again when down there next. There’s ballroom dancing around 5pm in the rolling stone lounge. Will double check that too. I will come back for a proper update soon, it’s been a very busy time in Shanghai! 

[omago4th]

thanks,   I have an issue with "ballroom dancing" at dinner time. that's what has been on my last 2

cruises.

 

 gone are the day's of  wonderful ball room, nice music,  songs we knew with words we understood.  showing my age I guess.

[ldog]

1 hour ago, omago4th said:

thanks,   I have an issue with "ballroom dancing" at dinner time. that's what has been on my last 2

cruises.

 

 gone are the day's of  wonderful ball room, nice music,  songs we knew with words we understood.  showing my age I guess.

Its all to recorded music now. 

[Tigerlily75]

What a busy few days. I present to you.. 

 

SHANGHAI DISNEYLAND!!

 

We made it!! 

 

And it was incredible. There was wonder and magic at every turn. So much detail, beautiful costumes, shows, parades, theming, happiness everywhere. If you ever go, DO NOT MISS Pirates of the Caribbean. Amazing. Also, get a free standby pass for the Mickeys Storybook show when you enter, it was great. The staff were amazing and kind. There’s not much English but it’s totally fine, charades is a universal language! 

 

If you need the wifi for the app, go to guest services and they will set it up for you (you need a Chinese phone number) and get your pass for Mickeys Storybook. We had our home phone plans, but still needed some help. There are people there that speak English. 

 

For the females, when you enter a toilet block, there’s western toilets at the end. (good to know, right?) 

 

We used Mr Orange Transfers to drive us there and pick us up after the fireworks. They were fantastic!! It was like having friends in China. With all the passport angst I asked them and they rang Disneyland for me. They also gave us weather reports and clothing recommendations and stayed in touch the whole way through. Just great. 

 

We got our passports back at the very last minute. But somebody else got in fine with the stamped copy! 

 

Ok, here’s the pics: 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[oakridger]

I love the castle and fireworks picture!!  Your excitement comes across the internet!!  So happy to hear you had a fantastic time.

 

~Nancy

[Kristal Blade]

Fantastic, you made it! Looks like a full day of Disney magic.

[Tigerlily75]

And now for Shanghai proper - day 2. This was a bit of a disappointment, not the city itself but how little time we had there! We were docked at Wusongkou Cruise Port, and the free shuttle takes about an hour each way. The last shuttle back was at 3pm. Of course, you don’t want to cut it too fine, so we wanted to be back at the shuttle stop by 2.30pm latest. So maybe 4-5 hours in the city. 

 

We went to the Yu Gardens first, then wandered through old town. Old town is beautiful with lots of lovely shops, and decorated for Chinese New Year. We could have spent a fortune here! And would have if we had more time! 
 

 

 

 

Then we took the metro to the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Center, wow is this a hidden spot and a little hidden gem. It had moved from its original location, so I had to guess from peoples comments online, and made myself this little map to get there from the Jing’an Temple. Basically just roughly guessing where it was. Well, it was correct, and a little weird to walk into a random building and just hop in the elevator to the seventh floor like I belonged there. But there it was! No photos allowed, but I bought the postcard pack! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we caught a DiDi (like Uber) back to the park near the shuttle stop, and walked part of the Bund. You can’t download the DiDi chuxing app anymore, but you can use the mini DiDi app inside Alipay. I had attached my Australian Mastercard to Alipay and it worked perfectly! 
 

 

Then we wandered old town again and had to get a soup dumpling, the large xiao long bao you stick a straw in! Alipay again to the rescue, they did not accept cash. 

 

 

 

 

Back to the shuttle at about 2.30. We read my plan for the day again when we got back, and couldn’t stop laughing at what I had thought we could fit in versus what we actually did! But still, it was a fun day. We got to ride the metro, take a DiDi, eat soup dumplings, see old Chinese architecture, glance at a temple, do a little bit of shopping and see the (somewhat smoggy) view of the tv tower! 

[Tigerlily75]

Souvenir time! Shanghai, China. 
 

 

 

 

[AncientWanderer]

Great photos!  So glad you made it to Shanghai Disneyland!  Never thought about it before, but doing the parks in the order you are -- Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo -- seems just right.  You build up to the most exciting park at the end.  

Love all the souvenirs!  😊

 

[Riversedge]

We would love to see more posts of your trip!

[sunviking90]

Also eagerly awaiting more posts 😊