Moving Day

Hong Kong from M/S Nautica

Moving Day

Goodbye Four Seasons - Hello M/S Nautica

They kicked us out of the Four Seasons yesterday. They didn’t like us wearing cowboy boots and hats in the lobby and telling them that their pancakes sucked so they loaded us into a Mercedes and told the driver to get rid of us. Fortunately, we had a cabin booked in a cruise ship across the harbour.

On the level, we were sad to leave the hotel yesterday morning. It was a beautiful place and we realized we were definitely downsizing to the ship even though we have one of the bigger rooms on board. The transition was flawless though and we arrived by hotel car at the appointed time with no incidents to report.

As I may have mentioned our ship is docked at Ocean Terminal in Kowloon and one of the things that we were missing staying in Central district in Hong Kong was the spectacular view of Hong Kong from the Kowloon side where the ship is parked. We were able to see it last night after dinner and the picture at the top is a shot the wife took which turned out pretty good.  We knew that at 8 o’clock every night there was a light show with all of the buildings on both sides of the harbor displaying neon, strobe lights and lasers. But the best view is of the Hong Kong skyline not the Kowloon skyline, which we saw from the ship after dinner and that is what is shown in the photo. Our Oceania literature indicates that Hong Kong has the world’s biggest skyline with a total of 7,681 skyscrapers, placing it ahead of anywhere else in the world despite the fact that New York is larger in area. Sadly the picture that is shown on the cover shows such a small part of the vast vista that we saw last night and that we will see again tonight as we leave Hong Kong and start our cruise.

Our onboard cabin is a tight space but it is one of the bigger ones on the Nautica. Mirrors are used everywhere to make spaces appear bigger and we have 5 large mirrors in our space. We have a gentleman from Bali whose name is Andy that has been charged with looking after us on this cruise. He is a classically trained butler and he wears a coat and tails. I am not really comfortable with this yet. I have grown to prefer red wine over beer but I am still a Bud sponsored cowboy at heart.

We signed up for a number of side trips this morning. Coming right up are our first stops in Viet Nam and then we loop around southeast Asia with stops in Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar. We have arranged special tours in all these stops and I will give you the blow-by-blow descriptions of these adventures as we experience them.

The wife and I are experiencing a little bit of déjà vu on the M/S Nautica. We spent a week and a half on her sister ship a few years ago and the set-up is identical. Our kids had a most memorable trip at that time except for the day after New Year's when they were recovering from emptying the bar fridge in their room the night before. Looking back I would have altered the sleeping arrangements somewhat. But I’m rambling again, we are pleased with the new accommodations and the bed is very comfortable, perhaps an improvement from the ones they had been using on our last cruise. 

I must relate to you a funny thing that I just realized. Linda did a beautiful job of packing our luggage in Calgary and unpacking it here onboard the ship yesterday. She is truly an invaluable traveling partner in this respect and I wanted you all to know that I do appreciate her for this wonderful organizational attribute that she has always shown me. Sadly though, when I look at most of the clothes that we have lugged halfway around the world the tags on them say “Made in China”. We have in essence returned all these clothes to the place where they were made. Funny?

Cheers!