Saturday, February 16, 2019 Shanghai

Our Flight quickly became Saturday as we began adjusting to our new time zone 13 hours ahead of EST. We really appreciated the service from the Delta crew and the Premium Select Seats in the A350 were notably better than other flights. The plane is quieter and the addition of the food rest and additional recline made a huge difference. A perk is that the food is actually served on dishes rather than disposable containers.

Here is a picture of the first meal – It was from the chinese menu and included pork belly, brisket

Mid flight there was a small slice of pizza and a double chocolate ice cream bar. About an hour and a half before landing a final meal was offered with the choice of a more traditional american breakfast or a chinese breakfast. I chose the chinese breakfast:

The flight left on time and arrived about 45 minutes early. It took about a hour to taxi to terminal 1, go through immigration, pick up our bags and exit through Customs. We then walked to the Maglev terminal and purchased tickets for the ride to the city center and by showing our boarding passes the tickets were 40 Yuan each which is about 6.50 USD. We had to go through security screening and 10 minutes later we were on our way. Here is stock photo in daylight of the train

Our train reached a maximum speed of 301 KM/hour which is less than the train can go, but a great 185 MPH.

We then caught a cab for a 10 minute ride for 20 Yuan to our hotel – Doubletree Shanghai. Here we discovered that our Hilton Status awarded us a free upgrade to a suite. Since we’ll be here only slightly more than 12 hours there isn’t much advantage, but it is certainly nicer than the hotels we have stayed at previous cruise in Europe.

After quickly checking in, we headed to our room and crashed shortly after.

A few pictures of our suite at the Doubletree

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chinese dinner delta premium select

Friday, February 15, 2019 – We are on our way!

The day began with my usual wake up at 4:21 AM. I spent the morning finishing some items up. Janice got up and began cleaning the house and washing the sheets. We have a dog sitter staying with Branka and between the beast and the alarm system we have no fear of letting folks know that we are traveling. There is something wonderful about coming home to clean sheets!

I hit the gym early to get my 11K steps in. Since I be sitting for 15 hours I figured I needed to move or else I would be even more uncomfortable

We left our house for the hour drive about 11 AM. We left our car with at our parking service, Valet Connections and caught a shuttle to DTW. After getting our bags checked and our Chinese visa’s verified we had a very quick run through TSA with Pre-Check. (Though Janice discovered here number was random for a pat down search.)

Once through we relaxed in the Delta Sky Club while awaiting our boarding time. It is a definite perk of my credit card with quick space, comfortable chairs, fast internet and food and beverages. Boarding is to begin at 2:50 for our 3:45 departure and we are 1 gate away from our gate.

For our direct flight to Shanghai we will be flying on a newer Airbus A350

Thanks to a great travel agent, we scored a great price on Premium Select seats for this 14:45 hour flight to Shanghai. They are not comparable to business class, but should be much more comfortable. This will be the longest flight either of us

The flight will take the shortest route which is over the North Pole and not direct as a 2d map would indicate. When we land it will be Saturday evening in China

February 14, 2019 Packing our Bags

As we celebrate Valentine’s Day, we are finishing up the last things at work for both of us and packing for our first cruise in Asia. Janice had a particularly busy week so we ended up packing later in the evening but with our flight not until 3:45 we won’t be rushing in the morning.

We will board a Delta flight in Detroit direct to Shanghai on Friday afternoon. We arrive Saturday evening, spend the night in the Doubletree Shanghai and board on Sunday, February 17th.

Testing posting by email prior to our next Cruise

This is a test to confirm our ability to post to the blog via email

Tuesday, May 31st

Tuesday, May 31^st

We set our alarms for 6:00 AM so that we could get up and exercise in the fitness center prior to breakfast.  We were both surprised to see how busy it was and I would note there was at least double the participants as on most cruises.  Around 7:15 we made our way back to clean up and head to breakfast.  We had breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill, which is a perk we found we really enjoyed last year.  Same menu as the dining room but noticeably better service.  One sad change was that the manager didn’t look up our names.  Last year after the first day all of the staff in the Pinnacle knew our names and welcomed us using our names.  (more will be shared later.)  It is clear that the manager and culture that he or she creates impacts the total experience.  While we enjoyed breakfast the ship docked in Toulon, France and we were cleared to go ashore.

After breakfast we returned to our stateroom and then headed out to see the city.  Toulon is rather quaint and small and we loved it.  There is a walking tour of the city with metal arrows embedded in the walks and streets.  We took the “train” tour of the city, walked the beaches and then walked through town.  Toulon has a very large Navy base and security was tight.

We visited the outdoor market and as most port guides suggested, we had Toulon Cade which looks like a thick pita made out of chick pea flour.  The “Cade Man” had a wood fired oven on the back of his small truck and cooked and reheated the pieces in it.

We then made our way back to the ship for a bathroom break and lunch.  We had lunch in the dive-in hamburger joint in the Lido pool area.  We always try to have them one time each cruise.  We then returned to the city to see the Market quickly closing. We decided that each stop should include a local wine experience so we had some wine on a city square, outside and called it a wrap.  We headed back to rest.

It seemed somewhat unusual, but this was the first Gala night.  When we unpacked our clothes they not in any way presentable.  We knew we would have laundry, dry cleaning and pressing as part of our perks so on Monday evening we asked our cabin steward about getting them ready for Tuesday’s dinner.  Our clothes were dry cleaned and back to our cabin within 3 hours!  We don’t get that kind of service at home.

We had a 6 PM dining time and headed to the main dining room.  Vincent had made a reservation for us for a table for 2 and although the reservation was for the lower level, we were asked if is minded eating on the second level which is typically reserved for fixed seating.  Seeing the many waiting for tables who had not bothered with reservations, we quickly agreed.  One change that we noted from a year ago was the noticeably reduced dress of guests.  I saw no tuxes and was one of few men wearing a suit.  I appreciated that a guest without a dress shirt was turned away.  (They do have the option of eating in the Lido or ordering room service.)  We had Shrimp Cocktail, Janice had a carrot artichoke soup (I opted for a second appetizer instead) and then Janice had the sole and I had rack of lamb.  (really 2 lamb chops, but they were quite nice.)  We had a small dessert which we didn’t finish.

After dinner we stopped by to make reservations for later in the cruise and headed to a presentation by our Port Guide for Monaco.  The Monte Carlo Grand Prix was last weekend and we were warned that we would see lots of evidence we visited.  We stopped by the main stage to see the show which was not described in the daily program but discovered it was show tunes.  On Monday many of the “older” crowd left when they saw it was BB King which we loved.  Tonight we headed out while they smiled, tapped and sang along.  We made an early evening of it and took advantage of the new tvs and interactive movie options in our cabin.  It was a great first full day.

 

Monday, May 30th

Sorry for the delay in posting but the internet on the ship was not possible and we had great trouble with finding wifi in port that was accessible.

Monday, May 30^th.

We both slept in a bit at our Hotel before enjoying the buffet breakfast. While our room was quite small compared to US standards, about half the size of our stateroom aboard, the room was clean, the food plentiful and staff very helpful.  Around 10:15 we packed and made our way to the street where there were 4 taxis waiting at the intersection.  One thing about Barcelona is that “corners” of each block are cut off and this allows space for taxis and for truck deliveries with blocking lanes of traffic.  A 20 minute ride and we were at the port.  The driver didn’t speak any English and my Spanish or more specifically Catalanya is not great.  We were able to advise which terminal upon seeing our ship.  A porter met us at the cab and took our bags to check them in.  We had already placed our cruise luggage tags on each of the bags so that we were only carrying a small item each.

Check in went very quickly.  We went through security screening and no one commented on the two bottles of wine that we bought in Montserrat and were bringing aboard.  Holland allows 1 bottle per passenger to be enjoyed in one’s stateroom.  Normally you are directed to a table where they record this, but in this case no one even mentioned it.  We filled out our health forms and were given boarding group 7.  We made our way to the formal check in and began to enjoy the benefits of our upgraded cabin.  We landed in a Aft Wrap Netptune Suite on Deck 7.  This afforded us a “head of the line” check in and a private area to wait for embarkation.  At about 11:30 we were invited to board but advised that our staterooms were not ready and we could head to the Lido for lunch.  We had no plans to eat in the Lido!  We are way past the crush of passengers all trying to eat their fill.  At 11:55 we headed to the dining room for what used to be called the Mariners lunch and were seated with a couple from Canada at Noon.  We prefer the service and peace of the wait staff and find that we tend to eat better there than at the Lido.  While we enjoyed our salads, the cruise director announced that staterooms were ready.

After lunch we went to deposit items in our stateroom and within the next 30 minutes our luggage was delivered and Janice “nested” by unpacking.  Janice grabbed a book and I headed out to reacquaint myself with the MS Eurodam.  Our mandatory muster drill was at 3:15 and by 3:40 we were done and headed to the Crow’s Nest to meet others we had connected with online and would be touring with in 4 different ports.  There were about 20 of us.

We then headed to the Neptune Lounge to make dinner reservations and to discover that Vincent, who was our concierge on the last cruise, was again on this cruise and even though it had been a year he recognized us.  We got dressed for dinner in the Tamarind and then headed to a reception with the Captain and officers.  Another suite guest doesn’t quite get the dress code on the MS Eurodam and showed up for the reception in a bathing suit, t-shirt and flip flops.  After the reception we enjoyed the BB King opening show and headed to bed.  It was a great day and we are thankful to be on board.

Sunday, May 29th

We are beginning to feel like we are adjusting to the time change.  We slept in until nearly 7 AM and enjoyed breakfast at our hotel.  They do a great job catering to the US and European clientele.  Cappuccino and orange juice plus pastry as well as typical hot food.

Today we had a tour set up with Barcelona Day Tours.  Martha and Carlos, our guide and driver were awesome. We were the first of 13 to be pickup up outside our hotel.  We then made our way to Montserrat.

Being Sunday, it is a popular day for locals to make a pilgrimage to the monastery and we needed to arrive before sitting in traffic for hours.  It was an incredible place, well worth the hour drive each way.

 

We then headed to Park Guell.  This was a planned community that Gaudi designed that never “sold.”  He tested many of his design ideas that later became part of La Sagrada Familia.

 

Saturday, May 28th Barcelona, Spain

We arrived on time this morning in Barcelona and were bused to an immigration center and passport control.  There was 4 stations open and several thousand standing in line.  As we were about half way through the line an official invited us to step out of line an dwalk up to a window for EU citizens and we were suddenly at the front of the line. Things moved quickly and Janice got another stamp in her passport.

We had arranged a shuttle to our Hotel – Hotel Continental Palacete through a local shuttle provider.  We were with 6 others in a VW van and after about a half hour wait we were off to the city.

We were the first to be dropped off by the shuttle at our hotel, the Hotel Continental Palacete.  It is a very “pink” hotel but quite beautiful with great customer service.  Though we were quite early for check in, they took our bags and invited us to enjoy lunch at their buffet (included).  At about 1:30 our room was ready and our bags already delivered.

We changed clothes from traveling and set off to see La Sagrada Familia – a church that has been under construction since 1880 and slated for completion in 2026 at the centennial of the death of the mastermind, Antoni Gaudi. It was about a 1.5 mile walk from our hotel and the walk felt great after the flight.   Here a few pictures from my phone – more from the camera will have to follow later.

 

For dinner we stopped at street cafe and had croquettes and seafood paella

Sunday we have a tour booked that will take us around Barcelona and to Montserrat

 

Friday, May 27th – Heading Out

Today we will board American Airlines and fly from Detroit to Philadelphia.  In Philadelphia we will board a Transatlantic flight that will take us non-stop to Barcelona, Spain.  We leave Detroit at 4:15 and arrive in Spain the next morning at 8:55 AM.  Hopefully we will get some sleep so we are ready to explore Barcelona after checking in to our Hotel.  We left home a little bit early because of the concerns about TSA lines.  We both have Global Entry which includes trusted traveler status allow us to use the pre-check lines.  Took less than 5 minutes to go through security.   We grabbed lunch at Ruby Tuesday and are waiting for our inbound aircraft which is due in 15 minutes.  Our only observations is that airport is really quite warm.

We arrived in Philadelphia on time but as one of the locals said, “They don’t work much on a regular day, much less a holiday weekend.”  It took nearly 30 minutes from landing to get to the gate (no ramp workers present) and then to get our mandatory gate checked bag.  We took a shuttle bus across the terminals and around the planes to reach A terminal where they began boarding our flight as we walked up.

It was a full flight and they were offering 800 pp to take a later flight through Portugal that would get you in 4 hours later.  We kept our seats.

 

Looking Ahead

On Friday, May 27th we head out on another overseas adventure including a Mediterranean cruise on Holland American Line’s MS Eurodam.  The last week before a cruise is always a little bit of hurry up and wait.  We typically have so many things to do at work and home before begin gone for 2 weeks that we remain very busy and time flies.  At the same time the excitement of packing and thinking ahead makes time seem to creep.

On overview of our trip is as follows:

May 27 – Fly from Detroit to Philadelphia to Barcelona.

May 28 – Arrive in Barcelona where we are staying for 2 days at the Hotel Continental Palacete

On May 30th we will board the Eurodam and begin our cruise.