Month: March 2008

People love cruise tour for many reasons, but one thing I like very very much is … you can have a view of a familar city / port from totally new angles.

Is cruise tour really for retired couples ? Or for someone …

• who loves great meals, wine and spirits 24 hours a day; or
• who treasures the excursions in each port the cruise visits; or
• who enjoys all the activities on board like rock climbing, karaoke, gymnastic, card game, mahjong, spa, art auction, nightly shows, bingo, casino, cooking and dancing class etc.; or
• who likes to make good friends in the tour; or
• who just wants to spend some quiet and private times in the library, champange bar and lounge ?

Or in fact, all of the above ?

Life is full of surprises, I was told. But one really would not expect this from a cruise tour … imagine you had 2,000 passengers for a cruise, and there was no departure hall. Yes, even though I have online checked in, I still needed to queue up with all the passengers in a shopping mall for 3 hours just to get the boarding pass. No wonder we need a new cruise pier in our city, badly.

The second surprise was even more unexpected, the ship traveled over 700 nautical miles in 36 hours to the first port of call – Naha of Okinawa, Japan. And then found that the port was closed because of bad weather … then the captain decided to cancel the visit to that beautiful city, and an U-turn to go straight to the next port – Keelung, Taiwan. What a shame ?!

So, what’s the one right ? At least, I took one photo of Naha – i.e. just the sea. Bad weather ? You must be kidding …