OzKiwiJJ

When we did the Princess Hawaii/Tahiti cruise in 2019 I was a bit concerned about the sections of 4 or 5 sea days in a row. But at the end of the first 5 day section I actually found myself feeling a tad disappointed that the next day was a port day! It disrupted our new routine! 🤣

Interesting comments about trivia. Yes, some people are way to competitive but who cares! For us the point is not winning but testing our knowledge and learning new facts. We only compete with ourselves, hoping to improve our scores.

Not necessarily. Sedate doesn't mean they don't offer things to entertain people, it just means the entertainments are different. Sure, Princess doesn't have flow-riders, water slides, ziplines, and so on but the Princess Patter is full of activities.

Yes, they are. We wait until we are outside the terminal and standing by the pick-up zone before ordering the Uber. Then we just watch for it to arrive.

I want to hear all about it! We're doing Princess Grills on Cunard next month.

We had a great tuk tuk ride today. Imagine about 16 tuk tuks all belting along in a double column convoy! Those things can really motor! It is seriously hot and sticky though. Our included exursions are all in the morning which helps.

This morning we leave the ship and transfer to Bangkok for three nights. We are doing tours in the mornings, including today, then have free time (pool time 😊) in the afternoons. Our whole group is going to Bangkok which is nice. I don't think I'll be able to post any more reports and photos until we get home but I'm making lots of notes.

We're both still feeling a bit tired. We did the Mekong Delta tour. It was OK, a bit touristy but given the amount of time it took to get there and back, 2 hours each way, they packed a condensed version of Mekong Delta life into just a few hours. But it wore us out so we've cancelled the rest of our excursion. We're just taking it easy. The port was really just a container port, no other cruise ships. There was a tiny market. It was closer to Saigon than Phu My, thank goodness.

We're docking at Tan Cang Hiep Phuoc Port (a banner says "Saigon New Port) which is a container port. About 26km from HCMC. Google says fastest route 1hr 14 mins due to traffic conditions. Our Mekong Delta tour goes to My Tho first, about 1 hr 45 mins.

I actually did a three day Mekong Delta private tour many years ago when I tagged along on one of Rolf's business trips. It was brilliant. I had the same guide and driver as the person who wrote that edition of the Lonely Planet Vietnam guidebook, Ni and Si. Ni, the guide, was an older gentleman, highly respected in the South Vietnam tourism industry. Si was a young guy - Ni reckoned he had a girlfriend at every overnight stop! 🤣 Of course Rolf didn't get to do that tour as he was working so the tour tomorrow is for him.

I'm.out of iso, and Rolf gets out at 8pm tonight - they base it on 24 hour period from the time you test positive. We're doing a Mekong Delta tour tomorrow. I hope it won't be too much for us. We chose the small group tour so it should be a bit better but it's a long day. I'm really interested to see where we dock in Saigon. We're doing a post- cruise package in Bangkok. Three nights with excursions in the mornings and free time in the afternoons, plus transfers to Bangkok and to the airport.

You can't walk off the wharf now. There was some earthquake damage sometime between our first NZ cruise Dec 2015 and our second in Feb 2017. They moved the docking area further in and no longer allow walk-offs.

It may very much depend on what's happening, ie roadworks or construction, at the time. Usually they try to have one near Te Papa and the Information Centre, and the other somewhere along Lambton Quay.

It think it depends on whether you book a promo fare that includes them.

I suggest your husband gets an internet package and sets up something like WhatsApp to communicate with his business colleagues.

Thanks. The anti-virals are working their miracles. I'm feeling almost back to normal today. Officially my iso ends tomorrow morning but Rolf's doesn't end until the evening, as he tested later than me, so I'll stay in our suite until the following day as well. Hopefully I'll get a few more chapters up by then.

Thu 9th Nov - Disembarkation - Transfer to Tokyo We didn't have much left to pack up so didn't have to wake up too early. We were out of our cabin by 8am and had a leisurely breakfast in the MDR. Our disembarkation time wasn't until 9:45am but by the we'd finished breakfast and made it to the P.E.S disembarkation lounge they were calling our group - about 40 minutes early. Yokohama cruise terminal is so efficient. As soon as we started picking out our bags a porter was there with a trolley for us - well, actually we needed two this time as we had further to wheel them so less risk of something falling off with two trolleys. We had a crazy taxi driver. He seemed to be having great fun ducking through the traffic and whenever he did a tricky maneuvre he'd turn his head and grin at us. However he got us to our Tokyo hotel OK with only one wrong turn. It's actually a bit tricky to get to this hotel by car, you have to approach it on the correct side of the road. We got to the hotel just before 11am so expected to just be able to drop off our bags but we were lucky, our hotel room ready on arrival. We quickly unpacked what we needed for the next two days then headed off to get some more cash, top up our Suico cards, then find the right platform for the train to Asakusa. It took a while - Shimbashi station is huge and also links through to Shiodome station - but we got there in the end. As usual it was very crowded when we arrived in Asakusa and we'd come out of an exit from the train station that we didn't know. However I managed to orient myself very quickly - we just had to cross the road to the temple gate. Our first priority was lunch. After wandering around for a while we found a nice-looking restaurant that had tasty looking Tempura. Oh heck! The table they offered us was traditional Japanese seating albeit with a footwell. I managed to get down and seated. Getting up again will be a challenge. The tempura was delicious. While enjoying our meal I worked out a relatively easy way to get up - I swung my legs out of the footwell (not very gracefully) then shuffled along a bit on my butt until I was alongside the step up to the dining area. Then all I had to do was swivel and put my feet down to the floor below the step. Then I could stand up. Phew! We wandered along to the temple to find out our fortunes. you pay 100yen, then shake a metal cylinder until a stick comes out. The stick has a number in Japanese characters. Match the number with one on an array of little drawers, open the drawer and take a paper. If the fortune is good you keep it, if it's bad you fold it then tie it on a rack to be burnt. My fortune was mostly good but came with warning a warning "You should be careful in health all the time during your trip". The Temple buildings were hard to photograph because of the crowds. Our main reason for going to Asakusa was to find the shop that sold beautiful, high-quality chopsticks, many of which are dishwasher-safe. We'd bought some last time we were in Japan, in 2018, and really wanted some more. At first I couldn't find the shop. I was fairly sure I knew where it was but it had moved. I found it eventually and we each picked out four pairs of chopsticks. Then we headed back to the station. This time we were taking a different line as we wanted to stop in Ginza. I recognised that entrance to the station immediately. The train was very crowded so we ended up standing initially. There were three schoolgirls sitting in front of us. At first they tried to pretend we weren't there but after a couple of stops they stood up and offered us the seats. Since my back was still acting up I was very thankful for that. We stopped at a very fancy cafe for refreshments, then found the Uniqlo store, which was new since we were last in Tokyo. Our eldest GD loves their clothes, they are very good quality and much cheaper than Australian brands e.g. identical look and quality tshirts in Australia - Uniqlo $20, Sportscraft $69.99! Rolf likes their tshirts but I usually can't find anything to fit me. However I had found two nice oversized jumpers before we left home. The Uniqlo store is quite narrow but has 12 floors, so we went up to level 10 and worked our way down. Of course it was all winterwear so nothing that interested Rolf. We got a taxi back to our hotel as we were feeling tired. After a rest and a shower it was time to meet up with our friends, including Stickman1990 who used to travel to Japan regularly for work, and who knows his way around Tokyo quite well. He recommended a restaurant nearby where they used to do kaiseki dinners and that had great views. When we got there they no longer did the Kaiseki dinners, which would have made ordering very easy. However they could offer us a private room but not with views. We decided to do that even though it meant Japanese seating again. After a fair amount of discussion we decided on sashimi, beef steak, pork, and cucumber pickles. We were served pickled lotus roots as a starter. Then we had to work out the drinks - beer, wine (I suggested a chablis) or sake. It was a bit chaotic but we ate well. Somehow the price was a lot less than we expected (I'm sure they missed charging us for the wine). After dinner most of us decided to go for drinks at the nearby Conrad, which also had great views. I had a Remy Martin which was very reasonably priced. We headed back to our hotel after one drink but the others stayed on for a while.

Wed 8th Nov - At Sea Our final sea day on the Diamond cruise. No alarm for us this morning, we slept in so had to go to the buffet yet again for breakfast. That also meant we were too late for trivia. We went to the Good Spirits Bar so Rolf could get a decent espresso. Getting espressos in the Horizon Court was more miss than hit! We scored a good spot by the window. I had a pot of tea which takes me longer to drink than Rolf's espresso. We had lunch in the MDR then went back to our cabin to tackle the packing. Again we had to pack strategically - clothes for the couple of days in Tokyo, and clothes that wouldn't be needed until we boarded the Regent cruise. We had one suitcase that was mostly still fully packed with hotter climate clothing so just added a few things to that. We had a final cocktail in the Wheelhouse Bar then headed down for dinner. I finally got to try one of the Japanese appetisers I'd been eyeing all cruise - marinated octopus in soy broth. It was delicious. Rolf had eggplant hummous. I stuck to the Japanese theme with braised pork belly with vegetables while Rolf had a New York Striploin steak. I can't remember what I had for dessert, Rolf had the Baked Alaska which was served as an individual portion not a slice of a big Baked Alaska. It came with a message written on the plate. Thank goodness they didn't have the usual Baked Alaska parade through the dining room - on that ship it wouldn't be practical with one large MDR aft and four small ones mid-ships. Instead they paraded around the Plaza deck so could be acknowledged by passengers on all levels of the Atrium. Much better and no grotty napkin-waving! Our wonderful waiter Ana Joy, is in the middle nearest us but facing away from us. There were the usual speeches. The band then took over so we hit the dance floor for one dance before retiring for the night. It's been a great cruise!

It was far easier on Princess and the hot food arrived hotter. However we have a much greater choice on Regent as they have five restaurants as well as the buffet and pool grill. At least one of the restaurants is open for lunch every day including port days, and different one(s) each day. Neither of us is feeling like drinking alcohol at the moment. I've just been having tea. Getting decent espresso is a bit of a challenge so Rolf can't be bothered trying room service coffee at the moment.

We both have Kindles loaded with plenty of books.

Yes, we did a couple.

At a port it also depends which way the ship is facing when it's docked - we caught the afternoon sun yesterday because of that. Some of the food presentation has been good, it really depends which restaurant we order from. We order through room service and they pass it on to the restaurant I guess.

Our last booster was in May. We were due for the next this month or whenever it is released. Oh well, I guess we got our " booster" the hard way! 🙁

Yes, the variants are changing rapidly plus we've been exposed to people from all parts of the world so who knows which variant we caught. Apparently we're the only ones onboard with it and hadn't mingled too much before being diagnosed. Hopefully we haven't passed it on to anyone. So far the group we are travelling with are OK.

Room service has been a bit hit and miss unfortunately. I'll try to remember to take some photos. Yes, we have a lovely balcony. It was too hot sitting on it yesterday at Okinawa. Today at Keelung it's been a bit showery but it might clear up later. The balcony is covered though.