Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

"LIVE" - Ovation of the Seas (April 9-26, 2018), Bill & Marie's slow boat to China

PCWalton1
 Share

Recommended Posts

PCWalton1

PCWalton1

Posted
  • Author
Posted

ee55fe41fd78097413269d91c9088582.jpg

 

ced67164e4b1cce968ec610093901955.jpg

 

Not a place to eat but it was there

 

1828c7e47c86c642ec7b2f5a1f6ce5f4.jpg

 

I already shot a few from Windjammer so I skipped by today

 

fd75d5775c53f4cee26cb64ad3ad984f.jpg

 

I heard down to Deck 5 where I got lazy and shot pics of Deck 4 from above.

 

01c110563c201572aa25cf522a6dc557.jpg

 

ca7bb2262c1e63639a10b50ef33d2695.jpg

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S8 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites
PCWalton1

PCWalton1

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I can’t believe Seoul is your final port of call, this cruise has been moving by so quickly!

 

Have a great day today, Bill and Marie :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know. This trip has just flown by.

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S8 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites
PCWalton1

PCWalton1

Posted
  • Author
Posted

OK, sorry but this is the time I rant for a while about what was not a particularly enjoyable day. Lucky for you, this is online so you can scroll past if if you like.

 

I will take a little responsibility for the lousy day but I lay primary responsibility on royal Caribbean. Months ago I set up a private tour for four of us in Seoul. The tour was about 9 hours and extensive but it was that long as it could take 2 hours each way to get to Seoul so it was really just a 5 hour tour. At the beginning of the cruise the ship informed us that Korea would be requiring face to face immigration and we were assigned a group that would not get us off the ship until somewhere between noon and 1 pm. So that meant with transit time our tour would only be an hour or two.

 

Because of this information last week we cancelled our private tour (so we could get our deposit back) and the four of us elected to book a ship's tour Grand Tour of Seoul - English Guide - IH17. This was my mistake, I should have stayed with the private tour and just pushed for an early immigration time

 

This is the tour description:

 

Spend the day taking in the highlights of Seoul. Pass the presidential offices, known as the Blue House. Visit the 14th-century Gyeongbok Palace, home of the National Folk Museum, which features thousands of pieces related to Korean life, culture, clothing and cuisine. Enjoy a typical Korean restaurant lunch. Then look for traditional and modern works of art along Insadong Street.

 

Highlights:

• Gyeongbok Palace: Built in the 14th century, this grand palace served as the royal residence until 1592.

• National Folk Museum: See 4,300-plus items from prehistoric age to modern times, all related to the Korean life and culture.

• Insadong Street: Also known as Mary’s Alley, browse for treasures such as delicate porcelain pieces, hand-pressed papers, antiques and more.

 

What was appealing was we would be off the ship by 10 -10:30. So as I said we cancelled our private tour. Well a few days later they announced to us if we had a private tour we would have the opportunity to be with immigration as early as 8:45. Gee thanks for telling us now after we already cancelled. To rub salt in the wound at 10 am when we were with immigration they made the announcement that anyone could now go to immigration. But the scare tactic of waiting till 1pm had us on a ship tour.

 

When we got on the bus we now found out that Gyeongbok Palace and the National Folk Museum are closed every Tuesday, something the Royal should know as it is that way every Tuesday. So a lesser palace (Deoksugung) was substituted and the Folk Museum was out. And it just got better from there (sarcasm on full).

 

As we were leaving Incheon the guide announced our first stop would be in Seoul for lunch at a buffet restaurant which made sense as it would be around noon when we arrived in Seoul. However some of the passengers now revolted stating they had just eaten (not my problem) and they wanted to go shopping, They coerced others into agreeing so the guide decided we would go shopping for about an hour then to lunch.

 

So off we headed to Insadong Street for an hour of shopping which turned into more like an hour and a half. We then spend most of an hour driving in circles as the driver tried to get us close to the restaurant. Not succeeding we all got out and walk 10 minutes to the restaurant. A place that was on the fourth floor with a broken escalator and one small elevator.

 

After lunch and a walk back to the bus we headed to Deoksugung Palace which was the high point of the day. On the way there a group of women from New Jersey began whining they did not get to do enough shopping and we needed to do more. So the guide cut our stay at the palace to 40 minutes. Some of us complained that the tour was not suppose to be just shopping and the most vocal of the Jersey girls actually started yelling, that she paid for going shopping and if we did not like it we could just stay on the bus. Really?

 

So we went to the palace and explored for a while, even were lucky enough to see what I think was a changing of the guard ceremony.

 

Then it was back on the bus and off to another shopping area. Sorry but this place mostly had stuff you could buy in Walmart (and cheaper there too). After that it was back on the bus and the long drive back to Incheon. We left the ship at 10:30 am, arrived back around 7:30 pm and spent 40 minutes getting culturally enriched.

 

Rant over, on to the pictures,

Link to comment
Share on other sites
suesnake2002

suesnake2002

Posted
Posted

Holy cow, what a let down after all your wonderful experiences. I would be pissed and fought tooth and nail. Royal always has a "shopping" excursion. Why didn't those "ladies"(and i use that term loosely) book that kind of tour

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...