Live from Silver Shadow: Voyage #3904; Hong Kong to Singapore, Feb 8 - 22, 2019

[jpalbny]

44 minutes ago, RachelG said:

one of the reasons we prefer Regent over Silversea is that Regent does actually allow the chef to bring on local food and drink and change up the menu depending on location in the world.  I talked to a Silversea chef about this once.  He said they all have to follow the same menu no matter on what ship and no matter where.  They have a little leeway, but not a lot. 

 

A shame that SS can't do that more often. But the only time I've really seen that is on our Culinary trip aboard Silver Explorer, with Chef David and Chef Rudy on board. Those two were always bringing local stuff on board to add to the meals. It made a special trip even better.

 

Stumblefoot - how are you guys doing with the jetlag?

Edited February 4, 2019 by jpalbny

[Stumblefoot]

18 hours ago, rpfarris said:

Stumblefoot: Don't forget Moon Cakes; only available during major holidays in China.  They come in both savory and dessert versions.  Stands that sell them sell boxes of 4 savory and 4 sweet - I recommend it.  🙂

 

Sounds like fun!  We’ll definitely add them to our list of goodies to try.

 

3 hours ago, Silver Spectre said:

Stumblefoot, we are having a final cocktail in the 30th floor lounge of the Grand Hyatt before heading off to the airport, and woe, the top of the ICC has disappeared into the low clouds. Sincerely hope you get to see the fireworks tonight.

 

Thx Mr. Silver.  As our Airport Express train was leaving the airport and heading to Kowloon I thought of you as a massive A380 was climbing after take-off.  Hope you had a great ride home. Ours coming over hardly had a bumps.

 

1 hour ago, RachelG said:

Stumblefoot,  breaking a wheel on a suitcase would definitely put George in the doghouse for quite a while.  From the picture, it looks like you are at least partially out.

 

have a great trip.  I will check in between South America adventures.  I very much like the idea of overnights in your ports.

Well, the doghouse it is for me as my duct tape job didn’t even make it to HKG baggage claim.  The least I can do is push / carry her bag since I was the cause. 

[Stumblefoot]

1 hour ago, jpalbny said:

Stumblefoot - how are you guys doing with the jetlag?

Shockingly, i’m really struggling tonight at 10:15p local time.  I usually am able to sleep on planes, but I only got a couple of hours this time.  Considering that I got up around 2:00 Sunday morning and it’s 18-hours later, I guess its understandable.  It’s super foggy tonight, so i’m ready for bed.

[jawz33]

Stumblefoot, 

We are currently on voyage #3903.  My husband and I had a wonderful week of being pampered and indulging a bit.  Sadly it ends tomorrow;  wish we had another week of cruising.  I know we will savor our last night in Hong Kong before AA 126 takes us towards home.

I hope you and Mrs Stumbles have a fantastic time!

[Stumblefoot]

22 hours ago, jawz33 said:

Stumblefoot, 

We are currently on voyage #3903.  My husband and I had a wonderful week of being pampered and indulging a bit.  Sadly it ends tomorrow;  wish we had another week of cruising.  I know we will savor our last night in Hong Kong before AA 126 takes us towards home.

I hope you and Mrs Stumbles have a fantastic time!

Thank you very much for sharing the good news.  Really looking forward to spending a couple of weeks on the Shadow.

Seeing that you're on AA126 heading back to DFW, avoid seat 9D if you're in Biz Class as I had it on flight #125 over from the States and it didn't recline automatically.  So, every time you wanted to adjust your seat, you had to climb out of it, press the various buttons to try and get it where you think it should go, then pull or push on the seat by hand.  As you can imagine, if I wasn't flying on miles, I would have been more perturbed than I already was.

 

Enjoy your last night in Hong Kong.  We've been here for 4-nights ourselves and we're not quite ready to depart yet.  So, will probably spend most of the night off the ship as we don't sail until 10:00p tonight.

 

Have a safe trip home.

[les37b]

Just seen you've departed HK. Hope you enjoyed your stay there.

 

Looking forward to your reporting. Hope the WiFi isnt too slow and you managed to upload a few photos.

 

Enjoy.....

 

PS Who is the CD? Kirk?

[Stumblefoot]

9 hours ago, les37b said:

Looking forward to your reporting. Hope the WiFi isnt too slow and you managed to upload a few photos.

 

PS Who is the CD? Kirk?

WiFi is atrocious and I refuse to pay $29/day for a non-guaranteed higher speed.  Unable to even send pics via email.  So, reports may be few and far between.

 

Moss, who we have enjoyed immensely in the past, is the Cruise Director.

 

Heading to tea now.  If there is one thing we miss on the new ships, it has to be  a proper afternoon tea.

[rosepark]

Is afternoon tea not available on the Arts Cafe? I am fairly sure we had it on the Spirit last year. It might be worth investigating. 

Rp

 

 

[Silver Spectre]

10 minutes ago, rosepark said:

Is afternoon tea not available on the Arts Cafe? I am fairly sure we had it on the Spirit last year. It might be worth investigating. 

Rp

 

 

It is on the Muse, however there is no Arts Cafe on the smaller ships.

[Silver Spectre]

3 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

WiFi is atrocious and I refuse to pay $29/day for a non-guaranteed higher speed.  Unable to even send pics via email.  So, reports may be few and far between.

 

Moss, who we have enjoyed immensely in the past, is the Cruise Director.

 

Heading to tea now.  If there is one thing we miss on the new ships, it has to be  a proper afternoon tea.

Sorry to hear that, hope the ship and cruise make up for it.

[WesW]

Enjoying your posts here and on FB Brian & Amy, hope you have a wonderful voyage.

[rosepark]

Sorry. If I had a brain I’d be dangerous. 

Of course Stumblefoot is on the Shadow where there IS afternoon tea. 

Rp

 

[Stumblefoot]

We have arrived this morning to a dreary Ha Long Bay, but I have found a ray of sunshine.  We’ll be off the ship in a 1/2-hour for our overnight trip to Hanoi where I hope to be able to provide a more substantial update on the beginning of our voyage once we check-in to the hotel tonight.

[Silver Spectre]

13 minutes ago, Stumblefoot said:

We have arrived this morning to a dreary Ha Long Bay, but I have found a ray of sunshine.  We’ll be off the ship in a 1/2-hour for our overnight trip to Hanoi where I hope to be able to provide a more substantial update on the beginning of our voyage once we check-in to the hotel tonight.

I trust you are staying somewhere more salubrious than the ‘Hilton’

[Stumblefoot]

8 hours ago, Silver Spectre said:

I trust you are staying somewhere more salubrious than the ‘Hilton’

Ha!  We are.  The Intercontinental is the SS hotel of preference at the moment.  

 

What a wild place this Hanoi is on the last day of Tet!  DW did find a nice new pair of shoes.

[Stumblefoot]

We got to our hotel in Hanoi at 9:30p and we’re up at 5:30a for breakfast at 6:00a before returning to Ha Long Bay, so not much time for posting once again.  We’ve just spent 1-day on the ship so far, but the start has been good.  For those who like to know who is on board, below is a list of key folks.

1. Captain, Michele Palmieri

2. Staff Captain, Giacomo Castiglione 

3. Hotel Director, Ken Fella

4. Cruise Director, Moss Hills

 

Below are a few pics of our suite on the Shadow so folks can see the big difference in decor compared to Dr. Ron and RojAnn’s on the Muse.

[jpalbny]

16 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

What a wild place this Hanoi is on the last day of Tet!  DW did find a nice new pair of shoes.

 

Nice picture, but those shoes will take up yet another suitcase! They sure won't fit in my carry-on...

[Stumblefoot]

On 2/3/2019 at 8:59 PM, Emtbsam said:

Please say hello to Charles & Elaine from Bob and Victoria.

We passed along your greetings Emtbsam and we thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Charles & Elaine during our sea day.  They have so much cruising experience and it was fun hearing their stories.  Such a lovely couple.

[Stumblefoot]

I was really lucky that DW left me some room for my shoes. 😄

[mysty]

Have a wonderful sail Stumble and Mrs. Stumble!

[Stumblefoot]

The highlight of our overnight trip to Hanoi was spending time on a private junk in Ha Long Bay. Here is a picture of our SS group of 12.

[les37b]

Glad you got to sail Halong. It really is such an awesome place to visit...  Enjoy your sailout. It was quite misty when I did it.   And I really need to play catch-up and post the results of that from my gopros. (Makes mental note!...)

 

Did you get to the cave? 

 

Next stop Chan May which I'll be interested to hear if your views of the port are the same as mine.

[Stumblefoot]

4 hours ago, les37b said:

 

Did you get to the cave? 

 

Next stop Chan May which I'll be interested to hear if your views of the port are the same as mine.

No, with the sail away @ 1:00p we didn’t have time for the cave.

 

Look forward to viewing your GoPro video!

[les37b]

Will do my best to get it edited and uploaded. I’ve one (bow and stern) of our arrival from the south and also the junk sailing to the cave and back. I’ll see if I can find the cave 360s too. It was pretty spectacular so real shame time didn’t permit.

 

i assume your shipmates were your Hanoi party?  Did you board direct from the Shadow?

 

 

[Unibok]

23 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

The highlight of our overnight trip to Hanoi was spending time on a private junk in Ha Long Bay. Here is a picture of our SS group of 12.

 

 

 

Hi Stumbles, glad to hear things are going well! When you have time, here's another question about Halong Bay: do you know if the included "Halong Bay in a Junk" excursion from the ship was similar to what you experienced? I would LOVE to be with such a small group, but I'm prepared for something much larger.

 

Also, for Les, the description of our excursion says that junks pick us up from the ship, not from land -- which thrills me. I'm on the next sailing, #3905, Singapore to Hong Kong. But that is still 10 days away, so back to 3904!