Cruise Port Transfer Beijing -XINGANG

[verga]

Hi:

My family of 4 is taking the Nov 11/06 Bangkok to Beijing Sapphire Princess Cruise. We have 2 elderly parents with us, one is 86 years old using a wheelchair.

We are in the process of arranging for a private mini-van to pick us up from the Xingang pier and take us to our Beijing hotel. However, the driver cannot go inside the gate and will have to wait for us outside the gate. How far is the cruise dock to the gate?

Thanks in advance.

[shoshona2]

Hi,

We went through this in March when we took the Oceania's Nautica from Beijing to Hong Kong. We spent so much time on this and no one had any answers. The cruiseline said, "Just take some transport to the ship. No problem". But we were told that they would drop us off at the gate and we would have to drag our bags to the ship. Sooooooooooooo, we made sure that the transport company which took us to the ship had made arrangements to have a "permit" to take us right up to the dock. It was walking distance from the gate to the dock, but with all our luggage it would have been a struggle. We felt the "permit" payment was just put in someone's pocket at the entrance to the dock area. It was about $10 U.S. if I remember correctly, but caused a lot of confusion for the people who arranged their own transport to the ship.

Sheila

[cruisecruzer]

[quote name='shoshona2']Hi,

We went through this in March when we took the Oceania's Nautica from Beijing to Hong Kong. We spent so much time on this and no one had any answers. The cruiseline said, "Just take some transport to the ship. No problem". But we were told that they would drop us off at the gate and we would have to drag our bags to the ship. Sooooooooooooo, we made sure that the transport company which took us to the ship had made arrangements to have a "permit" to take us right up to the dock. It was walking distance from the gate to the dock, but with all our luggage it would have been a struggle. We felt the "permit" payment was just put in someone's pocket at the entrance to the dock area. It was about $10 U.S. if I remember correctly, but caused a lot of confusion for the people who arranged their own transport to the ship.

Sheila[/QUOTE]
Hi,
I just got off the 10-14 cruise from Osaka to Beijing. If you already arranged your own transportation then the driver will be on the dock waiting for you when you disembark the ship with a sign (there will be many many of these signs) with your name on it. He will then lead you to the vehicle through the gates to the parking lot. The only vehicles that are allowed outside the dock are the princess' buses taking passengers to hotels, excursions or to the airpot. I would estimate the distance from the ship to the parking lot would be about 500 feet or so. But you have to also get your luggage on the dock outside of the ship before you proceed to your vehicle.

And the traffic into Beijing was horrible...we got off ship at 10:00am and didn't arrive at hotel until 1:30. Some of the people were supposed to go on an excursion at 1:00 and was late and didn't even have time to eat lunch.

Annie

[verga]

Thank you Shoshona2 and cruisecruzer for your reply.

[justcruisingalong]

We are on the ship "Funchal" (Classic Cruise Lines) which overnights Xingang 16th to 17th Feb 2007. We have booked a private tour Xingang to Beijing on 16/17 February 2007. If there are enough people interested to make it up to 6+ (ie 4 more) the cost drops substantially. Even at the two level with accomodation overnight in Beijing it is 30% less than the ships tour (we miss out on the Peking Duck Dinner). With 6+ people we save another 20% ie its about half ships tour price per couple.

[cruisinlivin]

Oops, cruise has passed.

[mubble]

Is there any recent information regarding private transfers from Beijing into pier at Tianjin? :cool:

 

I am also intaerested in thisoption , if you have any info pleasee-mail me at molly123@shaw.ca thanks

[kaisatsu]

We ended up hiring a taxi to take us to Tianjin. We used the same driver we hired regularly to drive us to the Great Wall. However, even though Tianjin is relatively close to Beijing, he knew nothing about the roads in Tianjin, so we had to try to direct him using just the map in our China guidebook. We managed to get to our hotel in Tianjin and then hired a local taxi to take us to Teda (quite a ways away) for our cruise check-in the next day.

 

Based on our experience, make sure that if you're hiring a private transfer that they know their way around both cities. I'm sure most professional drivers will be able to look it up and find out. Our driver was on leave until a few days before we left, so we called him up very last minute.

 

Also, and this is extremely important, give yourself plenty of time to make the trip. It takes a few hours to drive between the cities, but the highway is very prone to foggy conditions. We drove down a day early to see Tianjin (not much to see there), so we weren't panicking, but when we first reached the highway out of Beijing, it was completely closed due to fog. The cars were all just parked, and the drivers were standing around smoking. It was about 30 minutes before the authorities decided it was safe enough to open the road again, but even then, there were a few places where the fog was still dangerously thick. A few weeks later, there was a big story in the news when nearly 50 cars ended up in a huge pileup in the fog!

[beijing2008]

It takes 2.5hours from Tianjin Port to Beijing city.There is high way,if you want to save money,you can do this:Drive from Tianjin prot to the Great Wall directly,for the high way connected with 6th ring road.Next day,to visit the Beijing city sightseeing.