Xingang Port tour pickup

[janina]

I will be getting off the Diamond Princess on November 6,2009, and have set up a private tour operator for the Port pickup to take us to Beijing. Does anyone know with customs about what time you'll be able to get off, and how to set up a pickup with the tour guide? He asked if we had a chinese cellphone, which we won't have a phone. Any ideals?

[greatam]

I will be getting off the Diamond Princess on November 6,2009, and have set up a private tour operator for the Port pickup to take us to Beijing. Does anyone know with customs about what time you'll be able to get off, and how to set up a pickup with the tour guide? He asked if we had a chinese cellphone, which we won't have a phone. Any ideals?

 

No earlier than 10:00AM to be safe.

 

If you need an international cell phone (I don't travel without one), you can get a phone here that you can use almost anyplace in the world (doesn't work in Japan). http://www.mobal.com/

 

You don't pay a monthly charge, only a per minute charge for what you use. Just throw it in your suitcase when you are finished traveling and just before you get ready to go on your next trip, charge it up. When you land almost anyplace in the world, you have instant access to a phone. The handy dandy adapter plug set is one of the better plug sets I have seen and it is included in the price of your phone.

[j2ink]

It's not only customs that takes time when entering China, it's also the health screening process. We ended our Costa cruse at Xingang Harbor in Tianjin at the beginning of July, and we didn't get off the ship until about 1:00 pm. And then it took us another 20-30 minutes to get through customs in the passenger terminal.

 

I read on another post that passengers on a different ship were not allowed to debark until about 11:00 am, but I believe that may have been before the health screening intensified. Unless something has changed, i wouldn't count on getting off the ship any earlier than noon.

 

I believe the Chinese customs officials came on board (on a pilot boat) at about 5 or 6:00 am, when we were still outside of the harbor, and apparently they began looking at passports, visas, etc. Then, we needed to collect our passports and stand in long lines to go through the health screening process. It was not until then that the ship was allowed to proceeded into the harbor and to the passenger terminal.

 

After we arrived at the terminal, we thought we would be off the ship by 11:00 or 11:30, but for some reason, we were told that it would still be quite some time before we could go, and we were not given clearance to debark until about 1:00.

 

Then, in the terminal, there were long lines for customs officials to look at our heath cards, passports, and visas before we finally were free to go. I believe it was about 1:30 by the time we finally got into a taxi.

 

You probably know that a van ride into Beijing will require 2 1/2 to 3 hours, so you may not have time to do much in the city after you finally arrive at your hotel. We took a walk around part of the Forbidden City after dark, and the illuminated buildings are worth seeing. Good luck.

[Denverite]

Interesting....We were on the Diamond Princess and disembarked Tianjin May 1, 2009. We had no problems getting off at 8:30am. We did fill out the card and said we had private arrangements. We could probably have gotten off earlier. When we got off there were absolutely no lines. We walked through the terminal, got our luggage that was outside the terminal and met our guide. She was waiting, with all the other guides, right outside the terminal. We didn't have to call. If your guide has internet access, you could probably fill out your disembarkation card with the time you want to get off and then e-mail your guide the day before you reach Tianjin of the approximate time. I think we filled out a time of 8:00 and actually our color was called at 8:30, or something like that. I would fill out the card for about 1/2 hour before you actually want to get off. I don't think anyone had the option to get off at 1:00 or 2:00 as there were new people coming on board at that time and everyone who was disembarking needed to get off first. Our ride into Beijing did take about 3 hrs (it was a holiday) but the traffic, for the most part, moved along nicely. We had time for lunch and a hutong tour that afternoon and did the night market that night before we started touring the next day.

 

Perhaps with the flu in full force now, there are additional screening procedures that we didn't have.