Living the Cruise Life

8/4/15 

Dry Cleaning

Being sick has certainly made the tables turn: I’m the one early to bed and early to rise (I know, unheard of!) while Nick is the one who’s asleep well past sunrise and napping in the middle of the day. Go figure. Maybe it’s the hard Chinese beds, which I LOVE. Perhaps that’s why I can sleep well through the night here. Speaking of amenities, this is the first cruise I’ve ever been on, so I guess by default it must be the largest ship I’ve sailed on as well. The cabin is nice, the bathroom is expectedly tiny (not sure how Nick will fit in the shower) and we have our own little balcony, which is nice…except when we dock right next to another boat for shore excursions (and I mean RIGHT next to it – I could reach out & high five a complete stranger in their own room). Which is interesting, as I wasn’t expecting to “hop scotch” through several different boats in order to get to shore, but that’s what you do here. You exit your boat, only to step onto another boat, walk thru that hallway, then pass through another boat and so on until you reach the actual dock.  So it’s also very important that we keep our designated boat’s lanyard and ID card around our neck whenever we leave the ship so that we can be directed back to the proper ship amidst the continuous stream of bodies moving between ships.

Watermarker in meters

Cruising down the Yangtze

Riverside Casino

Our first day on the boat was going to be a full one, so I’m glad I felt somewhat better in the morning. I was able to stomach a little bit of breakfast which was a sight to see in and of itself! I can now see what our guide meant by “high season for Chinese tourists.” It’s nice that they let us white people get to the meals early (more on that later) because the scene around the buffet table once they opened the doors to their normal guests was unreal. Like a swarm of bees they descended on the food – nothing like waiting in line exists here – chatting away in Chinese. It was a mass of people (I think I heard someone say there’s about 200 tourists on the boat) and a din of incomprehensible chatter; it was something else. 

Small Village

Relocated Town

Scenic Clouds

So in addition to letting our tour group into meals 15 minutes early, our package deal enables us to have some pretty decent perks on this ship: we have access to a VIP lounge and private deck access at the bow of the boat, special tea (and cookie) time in said lounge, a special culinary dish made just for us and it’s different at each meal! But I have to say, I don’t think the cruising life is for me. The PA system comes on at random times throughout the day (and night) to announce an upcoming activity or meal time, or to just play random elevator music. (NN: Yeah the elevator music is super annoying. Also they make each announcement three times in both Chinese and English so they take forever.)