Travel to Shanghai

Today we leave Beijing and travel to the port city of Shanghai where we will board the Viking Yi Dun cruise ship.

We set alarms for 5:45 AM on our phones last night before we went to bed.  We actually set one phone alarm to be five minutes later than the other, just for a back-up, we did not want to be late and miss our bus to the airport.

I was up just a few minutes before the alarms so I disabled them and made a cup of coffee.  I showered and then woke Stephanie up so she could get ready so we could go to the breakfast buffet when it opened at 6:30 AM.

We did not have much to pack, we only had the carry-on and the clothes we had worn last night to bed to pack, the other bags had been collected after we left them out last night.

Breakfast was the usual fare in the buffet, I wish we had extra time to get some eggs cooked to order, the fried eggs in the pile under the heater were all overcooked for my taste, but exactly how Stephanie likes them.  The biggest issue was that they are never warm, even under the heat lamp.  It might be due to them being in a pile about 6 or 7 deep.  Of course, I had them anyway, there was no other choice.

After breakfast, we headed back to the room to gather everything up and to make sure we had everything.  We almost forgot to look in the safe last night because we did not need to get our passports out, they had already been collected by Michael at the end of the tour yesterday.

We got everything packed in the carry-on suitcase plus my camera backpack and were ready to head downstairs to check-out.  We had looked at our hotel charges on the Marriott App, and had seen a room rate listed for the three nights we have been here as part of the Viking tour.  What we were not sure about was the bill total for the first three days that we paid on our own.  On the transition day, we never officially checked out of this room and re-checked back in, so we never got any type of bill.  We had calculated what we thought the charges should be for the first three days of the room charges from our reservation email, plus the additional costs for the two meals and bar tab. 

We had used our Costco Visa for the room charges when we checked in, and so we looked at our Costco Visa account online and saw that there was a charge that was very close to the amount we had calculated.  What we did not know was if there was going to be anything charged because we were in a better room classification than the normal Viking Room.  Itzisa, our new friend from Madrid who worked at the front desk had let us stay in the same room, so we did not think there would be anything extra to pay.  The charges per night we saw on the Marriot App had said “Viking Room Rate”, so we thought everything was good. 

When we checked out this morning, there were no charges for us to pay, so we were set, everything had worked out with us staying in that same room at no additional cost. 

Itzisa had come in early today just to see us to tell us goodbye.  She had said she would try to come in early the other day when she told us she was off for two days and would not be back until today.  We chatted with her for a bit while we were waiting for Michael to take us out to our bus for the ride to the airport.

At 7:45 AM, our Viking group headed out to the bus.  Everyone who had a carry-on suitcase gave it to the driver and he loaded them under the bus.  Once everyone was on board, the bus left.  Michale said it was about an hour’s drive to the airport, and on the way, he explained what we would do at the airport when we arrived.  He had gotten a call that all of our luggage was already checked in, so we did not need to do anything with the luggage at the airport.  We would just need to get our carry-on luggage once we arrived and head into the airport as a group.  

Once inside the airport, we waited off to the side for Michael to get all of the boarding passes, and he handed them to us with our passports.  Stephanie and I were seated in the same row, but not in adjacent seats, we had seats E and K.  Everyone seemed to have the same E and K seats, and each couple was in the same rows like us, but in those specific seats.  We did not have a seating chart, so we could not tell where these seats were, but we assumed they might be aisle seats across from one another, but that proved to be untrue later on when we boarded.

From there, we had to go through airport security.  We walked that way, and it was amazing to see the inside of the PEK Airport.  It was really big inside and decorated with some amazing things.

We arrived at security and after checking our passports and boarding passes, we headed through the baggage scanning and metal detector scanning.  Michael had told us to remove any batteries from our carry-on items and place them in a separate bin.  I pulled out my two small pouches that held most of the batteries for the camera gear.  We also had to put any laptops and tablets in a bin as well as our cell phones.  We did not have to take off our belts, watches or shoes.

We went through the metal detectors, and afterward, they did a thorough scan of us with a handheld metal detector while we stood on some small elevated platforms.  From there, we had to retrieve our scanned items from the x-ray belt, and of course, they wanted to look inside my small pouches at all of the batteries, but that only took a couple of minutes.  Everything passed inspection and I put it all back into the camera backpack.  

I had not taken the battery out of my camera and that had not seemed to matter.  Also, Stephanie did not take out the GoPro gimble from her carry-on, it is rechargeable, but they did into look at that either, I guess it was too small of a battery.

We were waiting with some other couples, and one person in our group, another Michael, had to remove almost everything from his carry-on suitcase and separate carry-on soft bag.  He had not removed any batteries from them as our guide Michael had told us to do, and he had paid the price.  They basically made him dump out everything, and then he had to repack it all from bins after he passed through the security station again.  We waited for him to get it all packed, and it was sort of funny to the rest of us watching him try to repack everything because now he was under pressure, we were all watching and things were not fitting back into his bag.  He was not laughing about it, at least not yet.

We walked out to the gate, it was Gate 1, but it was at the end of the terminal we were in.  The numbers were backward from our normal gate numbering, we thought we were just going s short distance since it was a low-numbered gate, but it was quite a ways out.  The gates areas were really large. We started at Gate 7 and after about 15 minutes of walking, we finally arrived at Gate 1 on the end of this terminal.

We had about an hour to wait until we boarded, so our small group sat together and chatted.  We were able to determine that we were on a large airplane, a Boeing 777.  We still did not understand the seating lettering to tell us if we were sitting together or separately.

They called for boarding to start, and as is typical for airports overseas, there was no Zone boarding, everyone just got in a long line.  We got into the line right when everyone started to move, so we were not that far back.  They do allow first class and business class to board through a separate area, but it is all done at the same time, and seems to flow really well.  It also helped that there were two jetways being used, one for first/business class, and a separate one for economy.  We knew something was up with our seats when the lady told Stephanie to go down a different aisle than me, she took an immediate right, and I followed, but the flight attendant told me to go to the other side and go down the aisle over there.

We were in Row 52, well to the back of the plane.  As it ended up, I was in the middle seat on the three seats on the side, and Stephanie was in the middle seat in the set of three seats in the middle, it was on the same row, but the rows in the middle were staggered slightly back from the side seats, so she was slightly behind me.  No one was really happy with the seat assignments, but I guess that was all that was left to choose from when the boarding passes were issued.  The flight was full, so there was no changing seats.

We left on time for the hour and fifty-minute flight to Shanghai.  During the flight, I watched a movie, and I assumed Stephanie did the same.  She handed me a set of leftover earphones from the Delta Flight we took to Korea, and I plugged them in to listen to sound on the display screen on the seatbacks.  After about 40 minutes, the flight attendants served us a meal.  It was really good, it was beef with rice, a dessert, and a cinnamon roll.  There was some type of packet that apparently was something to put on the plain rice, I saw one of my seatmates do it to her meal, but I did not use it, I could not tell what it was, it looked a little like an orange marmalade.  There was also a cup of something that sort of looked like yogurt but was really thin in consistency.  There was a short straw with a pointed tip, which was probably for that, to pierce the foil lid and sip in it, but I opened it and used my “spork”, a plastic spoon/fork combination, to eat it.

After dinner, I just continued my movie.  They made an announcement that we were about 40 minutes from landing and they were going to lock the bathrooms in 10 minutes, so I headed to the back of the plane to use one before they were shut and locked.

The flight landed on time, but it was a weird landing, it was smooth, but the pilot veered to the left when we touched down, and then overcorrected to the right, and then went straight.  A lot of people grabbed the seatbacks to keep from being slung side to side.

We taxied to the gate and got off the plane.  This time, there was only one jetway, so it took a while for us to get off since we were so far back.  Michael had told us to individually head to baggage claim when we got off, so we did,  We went down an escalator and found the carousel number on an overhead screen for our flight.  Of course, it was at the far end, and it took a while to get there.  The worst part was that once we arrived there was no restroom at this end of the building, so Stephanie had to walk all the way back to the other end to use the restroom we had passed earlier.

It took a bit, but our two suitcases finally came out onto the belt and we collected them up.  Ours were almost the last bags to come out for our group.

From here, we headed out of the baggage claim area and then to the outside of the airport terminal to walk to our bus.  Of course, we had walked back to the middle of the large baggage claim area to get to the outside of the terminal and then walked back in that same direction we had just come from, but went even farther to get to our bus for the ride to the port. Even though the port was not that far away, it still took over an hour to get there because of all of the traffic.  Shanghai is even larger than Beijing, but the traffic did not seem to be quite as bad.  

We saw a lot of beautiful buildings on the way to the port, and Michael gave us some of the history of Shanghai and of the various areas that were originally occupied by the French, British, and Americans in the late 1800’s.  It was interesting to hear about the different treaties that each country made with the Chinese, and they were not in the best interest of the Chinese.  We also learned about all of the issues with opium in the early days of Shanghai when the British were here and opium was legal and used a lot in Great Britain.

We finally arrived at the port and once the luggage was unloaded from the bus, we got off the bus and were asked by Michael to make sure our bags were all there, which of course they were, we had seen them get loaded onto the bus at the airport after we gave them to the porters there.

We headed onto the ship and had to scan our carry-on luggage in security.  From there, we went to the theater for a life jacket demonstration.  We enjoyed the champagne they gave us when we boarded as we watched the demonstration.  Once that was over, we headed to our cabin.  We had thought that we might get some type of upgrade when we checked in, but there was none.  We knew the ship was only about 40% full, and thought there might be a reassignment to an upgraded room when we arrived.   It was not the case.   We later learned why that was not happening, and will add the details of that later, but in short, there were a lot of Chinese people on board, and we later learned they were here overnight to shoot some type of commercial for some beauty products.  We believe these people, and there were a LOT of them, were staying overnight in some of the better open and unsold cabins for that single night while we were docked, and that was why no one was getting upgrades even though a lot of the better cabins were not booked, it was just a guess.

We unloaded our carry-on bag and were putting those clothes away when our larger suitcases arrived, so we just unpacked everything and settled in.  The area around the port is really nice, there are parks and walkways nearby, and then across the river is the beautiful highrise area of Shanghai.  We could see the Shanghai Tower, which is the third tallest building in the world, and the Pearl Tower, which is a really tall and unique TV/communications tower.

Unfortunately, the way the ship was docked, we were on the side facing the pier, and not the beautiful buildings across the river.  We are near an area called the Bund, and it is just a short walk away.

After getting everything unloaded and put away, we took some laundry to the laundromat, we desperately needed to get some clothes washed.  It was nice that we were able to get two washing machines right away, so Stephanie loaded everything, set a timer on her watch, and we went exploring while the wash was in the machines.  We went to a couple of bars to see if they had any Seagram’s VO or Canadian Club onboard and were disappointed to find out they had neither.  There were a couple of other options, but not our favorites.  We decided to go ahead and get the Silver Spirits drink package anyway, we knew we would still enjoy some of the better wines onboard.  We got a glass of Pinot Grigio, which was a different brand than the one usually served on Ocean ships we had been on before, but this one was not bad.

We headed outside to take some photos of the city across the river.  There is a constant stream of barges going by, as well as some large sightseeing boats.  It was sort of mesmerizing to see all of the activity on the river.

Next, we went to the reservation area for the specialty restaurants to see if we could modify our current 8:00 PM reservation for two different dinners, and move them to an earlier time, which we were able to do,  Then we also added a couple of nights for the Chef’s Table, once we saw the menu options, which change every three days.  All of the three different menus were Asian foods.  We were only able to reserve two of the three different menu selections today, mainly because of our schedule, not their availability.

Afterward, we went to the Library bar and had a glass of wine to relax.  We planned on walking outside on the pier in a bit as it was getting darker.  We wanted to see all of the lighted buildings.  A little while later, we headed outside to walk along the waterfront.  We walked far enough to get past our ship and then another smaller ship parked in front of us.  It was not a cruise ship, it looked like some type of research ship.  We were able to find an area where we could get an unobstructed view of the river and buildings across the way.  Many of the buildings on our side of the river were also lit up, but they were not as tall as the buildings across the river.  It was pretty spectacular to see them all lit up, and the lights were dynamic, they moved and changed colors.

We headed back to the ship and dropped off the camera gear before heading up to the buffet for dinner.  It was pretty crowded, most people obviously wanting a simpler dining experience tonight.  It was a little strange because there were still people arriving throughout the afternoon and evening, many people were just getting on the ship for the first time when we had gone out for our walk earlier, I guess they were arriving at the airport from different international flights.

After dinner, we got another glass of wine and went to the top decks to watch the light show across the river.  At one point, all of the buildings were flashing their lights at the same time and doing some coordinated light show.  That started at 7:30 PM and lasted about 5 minutes, and then everything went back to normal, each building independently running its own decorative lighting.

We headed to the Explorer’s Bar to get one last glass of wine to take to the room and then headed there for the night.  It had been a long travel day and we were tired.  We have a tour tomorrow in Shanghai, we are here overnight tonight and the ship does not leave until 11:00 PM tomorrow night.  We spent some time out on our balcony.  There were a lot of people on the pier unloading equipment.  It looked like most of it was some type of show production equipment, there were a lot of black cases, and then some wooden structures.  Most of the items were just sitting on the pier and people were sitting outside beside it.  Then all of a sudden, everyone got up and started to bring all of the gear onboard our ship.  We found out the next day that this was the gear for some type of commercial that was being shot onboard the ship for a brand of body and face lotions and creams. We had two sample packs on the desk in our room when we first arrived at our cabin.

We headed to bed at about 10:30 PM.