It sure would have been nice to see the sun today, but it was not to be. The weather remained much the same as yesterday with temps in the 50's, overcast skies, and occasional light showers. During his noon talk, Captain Frank said that conditions were better than expected. There were 8 to 10 foot swells with 25 mph winds. There was some rolling and light showers every so often. We noticed quite a large number of fishing vessels that appeared to be pulling nets. And the color of the water was more of a green shade instead of blue. We think that is due of the depth of the sea here which is considered shallow at 300 meters. We are currently sailing within the shipping channel and we were seeing many types of ships….mostly commercial.
The usual activities took place as they do on sea days. A new lecturer, Merge, has boarded the ship and gave a talk on Confucianism, Taoism and the Art of Living. Now that we are on the way to explore some of China, we will be educated somewhat. And the shore excursion group did a talk on what to see and do while in the ports of Shanghai, Dalian, and Beijing. Most guests who were interested in booking tours did so online before the trip began. So it was not usual to have the excursions sold out by the time we reach any given port. That refers even more so to the overland tours that were offered.
Going back months ago, well before this cruise commenced, there was some doubt as to whether or not we would be going to China. We heard all sorts of things like our 10 year visas would not be recognized or new visas would not be processed. This all got clarified when we were informed that the itinerary would change, and our first port of call in China would be Shanghai, and not Beijing. We never did get the reasoning behind that move, other than folks that intended to take tours with Holland America would not need to get 10 year visas. They would have a special short-term visa that would be provided by their tour operator. This applied to the folks who were doing independent tours as well. The final word was that those without any visa would not be allowed to leave the ship. On previous world cruises, if we did not have the proper visa for China, we would not have been allowed to board the ship in Ft. Lauderdale.
While waiting for an order of Dive-In Grill cuisine, Maja happened to stop there to order lunch for herself and some of her fellow officers. She said they had been working with the Chinese officials all night (since 2am) going through the passports of all aboard. At the end, they were off two from their manifest. Now they had to start over, and Maja was not happy about that. About an hour later, two room numbers were announced and the names of the folks with missing expired passports. Like us, their current Chinese visas were in those passports and they failed to turn them in yesterday.
Further info was given regarding tomorrow's mandatory face to passport immigration inspection tomorrow. We will all be receiving a paper copy of our passports along with an official stamp on it. We will need those to debark as well as getting some local money onshore. The ship does not sell Yuan, so if we need some, an ATM will work. Or a bank. This was all explained to us after Kimberly's port talk at 1pm. As always, we waited for the TV version, but it did not appear until after 4pm. In her hour-long talk, she pointed out the main attraction in and out of the city and the distance of these sites from the cruise terminal. We will be docked pretty far from the city at Wusingkou International Cruise Terminal. The good news is that a shuttle will be provided from the ship to a central point in town. In the past, we have docked closer to the Bund, but this ship is too big according to the Captain. It may take up to an hour to access the downtown area. At least we will have two days here to see a lot.
Another notice we got today involved the shutdown of the air conditioning in our section tomorrow. Ceiling panels had been pulled down all day for workers to install a new cable for something. It was a mess but it did get cleaned up by dinnertime. A second notice arrived with details on the upcoming satellite connectivity for the next week or so. Blaming this on governmental restrictions, we may have a reduction in deliverable satellite conductivity while in China. It may result in partial loss of the signal and temporary outages. We have been asked to reduce or use of bandwidth intense services such as video-streaming and large downloads. This same situation may occur in regions of the Indian Ocean and Eastern Africa. That is strange because we sailed in that area just last year, and do not recall internet problems at that time. And that was before the new system was installed. Oh well, it is what it is. Usually if there is a major interruption, a refund will occur.
Tonight was dubbed "Barn Dance", which was confusing. What was that and where would that happen? The fun was promised to begin at 8pm in all of the music clubs onboard with knee-slapping good ol' country music, line dancing, sing-a-longs, and boot scooting boogying the night away. Yee Haw! Except that is right in the middle of our dinner time, so we guess we'll miss it. We did enjoy the menu as it had some fun choices on it. It leaned towards a southern-type of cuisine like meatloaf, chicken-fried steak, and other themed appetizers. The head waiters were dressed with buffalo plaid shirts, jeans, boots and cowboy hats. Come to think of it, this is the dress for one night while on an Alaska cruise. The waiters wore red or black and white neck handkerchiefs. No hats for them. Desserts were a chocolate cake and some sorbet…mango possibly. We are not sure how many folks were going to the entertainment tonight. Performer Kenny Martyn was back on the stage with his multi-instrumental show. Tonight the Grand Voyage band joined him.
Looking forward to two days in Shanghai.
Bill & Mary Ann
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