Cruise ST

14 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

 

I have made a spreadsheet to help answer your questions.  Here is the link and look at the "Shorex Details" tab (tabs are at the bottom of the spreadsheet)

 

The 3 tours with Xuan Le are very good.  He personally conducted the tour at Ho Chi Minh City (where he lives) and it was the best of the 3.  In fact the HCMC tour was flat out awesome.  Because of his personal travel expenses to get to the other locations and conduct the tour, he needed a minimum group size of 8 for our tours at our port stops at Nha Trang and Hue/Danang--consequently he subcontracted that work out to a person that lived in that area (one for Nha Trang and one for Hue/Danang.  The tour guides were good but not as great as Xuan himself.  So my recommendation is to be sure that you get a group of 8 in order to get Xuan himself to do the tour and confirm that he is doing the tour.  Because he lives in HCMC, there was no group minimum required to get him--just be sure you book early before someone else does.

 

I think this would be of interest to you--and I am willing to offer it if you want--if you send me your email address to mahdnc at yahoo dot com, I will in turn forward my very detailed critique of the tours that I sent to Xuan.  It was long because I knew that Xuan wanted to always improve his tour and he also wanted to exert some quality control on the tours he subbed out to other guides.  The email I sent highlighted the pluses and minuses.  If you do send me an email, post here that you did it so I know to look for it.

 

The two days of Bangkok tours that we took with Thai Tour Guide were terrific.  The second day was shorter than the first but personally I found it more amazing--we visited the Railroad Market and a floating market.  A big plus is that they take care of all the pick up and dropoff so you don't have to worry about arranging transportation from the ship to Bangkok and back. I highly recommend the tour and felt that we got great value for the money.

 

I have always wanted to see Halong Bay and so we splurged and booked the Halong Bay overnight cruise through Celebrity.  It was very expensive but and you don't have to worry about getting to the bay cruise boat on time and getting back to the ship on time the next day.  On the other hand you pay dearly for that and it is so expensive that most Celebrity passengers did not book it.  The cruise was great but I only recommend it for the most die hard fans of Halong Bay.  If you are able to book a Halong Bay cruise (overnight or a straight day cruise), you can save a lot of money compared to buying it through Celebrity.  The trick is being able to get to the bay cruise pier and the cruise ship pier in time--they are relatively close to one another but a car is needed.

 

Our single tour that we took in Hong Kong was done by Virginia Chan who has her own company, "Humid With A Chance Of Fishballs".  We booked her through ToursByLocals.  It was also very expensive (all Hong Kong private tours are) but while I can't say that it represented good value for the money, we certainly got our money's worth!  The highlight of her tour was our trip to one of the few old authentic tea houses left in Hong Kong for dim sum.  Amazing!  Eating there involves a lot of strange and intimidating customs (like how to get a table) which would frighten away most tourists who have never been there.  But with Virginia there, she taught us everything and we ended up with a truly rare Hong Kong experience.  I totally recommend her and her tour and I think you would enjoy any of the tours she offers.  Her tours are actually recommended in the Lonely Planet guide book on Hong Kong.   My money saving advice is to book directly through her website to avoid the 35% markup from ToursbyLocals.    

 

If you have more questions let me know.

Hi David. Just sent you an email. Thanks for all you invaluable info. 

On 12/15/2023 at 1:44 PM, mahdnc said:

After coming home from our Xpedition Galapagos sailing a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I are heading out again to do another cruise, this time to Asia over Christmas and New Year's.  It's been a bit of an unusual coincidence for us as we typically take only one cruise a year.  However this Asia trip was originally booked in Dec 2019 (for a Dec 2020 sailing)--some 4 years ago.  But Covid and the slow world recovery kept pushing this cruise back 3 years in a row when it finally slid into a spot right after our Thanksgiving Galapagos cruise.  So we shrugged our shoulders and decided to take both cruises.  That was our form of post-Covid revenge travel.

 

Here is our current trip plan (link)

 

 

 

 

When we originally booked this sailing for Dec 2020, it was a 14 night cruise aboard Millennium.  There were overnights at Singapore and Hong Kong which are now missing on our current 12 night sailing.  We had planned on staying pre and post cruise at Singapore and Hong Kong.   So when the overnights got dropped with our current sailing, I decided to book five nights pre-cruise in Singapore and five nights post-cruise in Hong Kong to make up for it.  It probably works out better that way.  So this trip will have 3 phases: Singapore (5 nights) + cruise (12 nights) + Hong Kong (5 nights) 

 

Originally when we booked this cruise, our two adult children were set to go with us--it would have been our 15th Celebrity cruise as a family.  But now 3 years later a lot has changed--they are unable to go with us for a variety of personal and work reasons.  So that is another casualty for us from the Covid cancellation/delays.

 

Today we plan on flying out of Chicago (ORD) and we will fly to San Francisco (SFO) for a 7 hour layover designed to allow us to have dinner in San Francisco with our son and his wonderful girl friend at Mister Jiu's restaurant.  I suggested that he pick the place to eat since he knows San Francisco so well after living there for over five years.  I told him that since we are headed to Asia for almost a month, I preferred we not eat Chinese food during our stop in San Francisco.    Well Mister Jiu's is a Chinese restaurant--a Michelin star one--but still a Chinese restaurant.  So that is where we are going today.  It will be nice to see our son and his girl friend.

 

Our flight then leaves SFO at about 11pm local time.  We will then have the pleasure of flying on United Airline's flagship route designated as Flight #1 which makes it very easy to remember.  But the nonstop flight from SFO to SIN will be about 17.5 hours long.  Our car comes to pick us up at 9am, so here we go.....

 

David and Marcia

HI David I am on the same cruise this Nov 2024. I have read your itinerary and hoping you can give me recommendations now you have done the tours. What would you recommend ? Was the tour of HCMC with Juan good? What about the other tours? Thanks so much Sharon