Today was our last day in Hong Kong. I think all three of us were finally acclimatized to the time change and we slept through the night.
After breakfast and final packing, we took a little walk east toward the Grand Waterfront shopping Mall which was about a 16 minute walk away. Most of the mall was closed as we were there before 10am, but we enjoyed shopping in a few of the open stores. We then walked down to the Ma Kau Tuk public pier where we could see the Volendam berthed at the Kai Tak cruise terminal waiting for us. Behind it the Aidabella was berthed. We strolled along the waterfront until we reached the Hoi Sham Park with its unique Fishtail Rock. There were lots of people doing traditional Chinese group excercises. Back at the apartment, we picked up our backpacks and suitcases and made our way up to Chatham Road where we hailed a cab for a ride to the cruise terminal.
It was an easy 20 minute ride to the terminal which is built on the remains of the Kai Tak airport. The terminal is huge and can service 3,000 passengers per hour. They are also still engaged in major construction where the former runway was located. The check in process was fast and efficient; and after some significant walking and long escalators, we boarded the ship and our key cards were scanned for the first time. For us it was like 'old home week' as we spent 4 months on HAL ships last year. The Volendam has a similar feel to them.
We found our stateroom #1817 and left our luggage there so we could get something to eat in the Lido. My pre-ordered distilled water was waiting for me along with our beverage card. After a nice lunch in the Lido we were armed with nutrition and we gave Anastasia an overview tour of the ship before returning to the cabin to unpack. We also took a tour of the spa area as well as Club Hal. Anastasia was really thrilled with Club Hal, and I don't think we'll see much of her on sea days.
We had originally planned to visit the area outside the port, but the port is so large, we decided instead to visit the port's rooftop garden which was lovely and afforded some great views of HK and the ships. The shopping infrastructure isn't really in place but there is the Old Hanger Cafe and a bunch of large group dining facilities and some vending machines. One could certainly pick out the former runway and terminal area. In order to leave the terminal area, one would have to take a cab or other shuttle
We ate an early steak dinner in the Lido as we had a 7:15pm mandatory muster drill. They scanned our room cards into the system to establish our attendance and this was the second time we've experienced this with the previous time being on the Koningsdam. It sure beats the Communicator yelling out stateroom numbers and names. We also had to surrender our passports to immigration, but that went smoothly. The evening movie was about a King fu soccer team with English subtitles. It was pretty corny, and we left it early to attend the introductory stage performance (Listen to the Music) by the entertainment staff and hosted by the cruise director, Bruce. He was our cruise director on the Zaandam a year ago in South America. And that cruise was one of the best we've been on. It turned out that the Adagio duo as well as the band director, James, and Keyboardist and piano bar player had also performed on prior sailings we had been on. I guess we're becoming veteran cruisers.
We then enjoyed some sail away munchies in the Crow's Nest before adjourning to the Lido for some tea where I updated my blog. The ship departed a bit late just after 11pm due to about 20 passengers not showing up for the immigration process despite repeated calls over the PA system.
Angela headed back to the stateroom so we took the opportunity to test the messaging app (Ship Text on iPhone) which uses the IP addresses from the Ship's WIFI system. It works well!
Now it's time to settle into the rhythms of sea days as we have two ahead of us before reaching Shanghai.
No comments:
Post a Comment