cmrog20

Thanks all

Yes we were indeed very lucky, it was very very unpleasnt and one of our number was quite poorly overnight with the stress of it all. We certainly would never travel so far from the ship again unless with the Ships tour. We only did it this time because the offered an itinerary that the ship didn’t. The problem was the tour guide going off piste and adding things to boost his income ( lunch, river cruises, potentially a police bribe....) that wasted our time. We were running right to the wire and if all had gone ok on the journey back we would have been ok...unfortunately it didn’t!

I hadn’t realised that Cruising Excursions were an agent for local companies but thinking about it I suppose the ships tours are booked in much the same way, no one has staff all over the world! interestingly the last time I looked they were no longer offering Laem Chabang/ Bangkok as an option so maybe it is just too much trouble there.

Princess were holding all our passports centrally because of the various immigration/ visa complication for Vietnam and I imagine that is why they were going to leave us an officer to help (standing there in his uniform with an overnight bag bless!), I certainly expected them to leave and was pleased beyond measure that they didn’t ( and that they were so pleasant about the trouble that we had caused!)

One other lesson learnt is to take a phone charger/ power pack ashore, it was amazing how quickly my battery started to run out.....

We recently had an absolutely dreadful day in Bangkok which was booked through Cruising Excursions not through the ship. (No need for further details as they have subsequently handled things very well with full refunds given and the tour guide in question is no longer employed by them.) we were over an hour late back to the Sapphire Princess, who luckily had waited for us.

as we boarded the head of security told me that if they had had to leave they would have left a crew member ashore to assist us and also offloaded our passports.

So my question is

Would that always happen or were Princess being extra impressive ( possibly because we were a group of 18 &/ or because the next port was Vietnam)

I must admit I had always thought that if the ship went that you were on your own apart from assistance from the port Agent but maybe someone knows what would actually happen?

Agree re the playing on the balcony but you might be able to find a quiet spot somewhere.....

Take it anyway, I’ve just been on Sapphire Princess in the Far East and they were running a Ukelele band ( as well as a drumming workshop- both were awesome!) , someone like you would have been VERY welcome!