Monday, March 18th
It is now 9:00am and will be writing/adding to today's blog throughout the day as time permits. Another smooth night of sailing in dense fog. The sun is just now starting to burn off some of the fog and the forecast high temperature will be in mid 60's. We will be docking in Shanghai at noon. When we were here in 2010 on our world cruise, we froze our tails off. Glad it will be warmed this time.
Last night's show
Well, Captain just made announcement that they are having propulsion problems. Seems they can only enter Shanghai harbor during high tide and will miss that window of time so now we will be arriving in Shanghai at 7:30 this evening (next high tide). Will stay there until 1:00am on Wednesday. As a result they will bypass our next port at Xiamen, China. A revised daily schedule is being sent out. So guess we will not be doing our Maglev Train (very high speed train) excursion. No big deal for us.
The ship had propulsion issues (lost one of it's four engines) in January and had to miss some ports. I certainly hope they can get this problem fixed while in Shanghai. Going to be some unhappy passengers if they don't.
Now 4:00pm and just back from a show in the theatre. John Paul Almon is here from Las Vegas where he has been in Phantom of the Opera for past 4 years. We are entering Yangtze River that leads up to Shanghai. We should be docking there in 3 more hours. I am hoping it will be dark then as the lights of Shanghai are incredible.
Shanghai is known as "Paris of the East" and "Queen of the Orient". The name, Shang hai, means up the river from the sea. With over 23 million inhabitants, it is the largest city, population wise, in China. For the past 20 years it has been one of the fastest developing cities in the world and today is the commercial and financial center of mainland China. It is the world's busiest ship container port. Besides shipping Shanghai is home to many heavy industries, such as, China's largest steelmaker, ship building, 3 of China's largest car manufacturers. As we sail up the river delta, the shore is lined for miles with manufacturing and we are meeting many ships heading out of the port area. Shanghai has the best education systems in China and was the first to implement 9-year mandatory education. There are also over 30 colleges and universities here. Well, after all, there are a lot of people living here!
We were here 3 years ago so will be interesting to see if there are any differences today. Tomorrow we are going on a tour to the "Water Town of Zhujiajiao". We did this same tour 3 years ago and loved it. We have some definite shopping ideas for our visit there. Tour leaves at 8:00am so have to be up early.
I called my son in California this morning (evening time there) but he was not home from work yet so talked with Tae-young, our daughter-in-law. We get 36 hours of free phone time on this cruise which is more than we can ever use. This is because we are "platinum" members now with Regent. We also get free laundry, which I take advantage of daily. 5:00pm here which means it is 4:00am in Dallas.
Last night I sent a request to the chef that he prepare some fried soft shell crabs for our dinner tonight. Unlike the larger cruise ships, Regent will honor special requests and I rarely here the word "no" or "cannot not do".
Our friends from Galveston, Joe & Allison
It is now 9:00am and will be writing/adding to today's blog throughout the day as time permits. Another smooth night of sailing in dense fog. The sun is just now starting to burn off some of the fog and the forecast high temperature will be in mid 60's. We will be docking in Shanghai at noon. When we were here in 2010 on our world cruise, we froze our tails off. Glad it will be warmed this time.
The ship had propulsion issues (lost one of it's four engines) in January and had to miss some ports. I certainly hope they can get this problem fixed while in Shanghai. Going to be some unhappy passengers if they don't.
Now 4:00pm and just back from a show in the theatre. John Paul Almon is here from Las Vegas where he has been in Phantom of the Opera for past 4 years. We are entering Yangtze River that leads up to Shanghai. We should be docking there in 3 more hours. I am hoping it will be dark then as the lights of Shanghai are incredible.
Shanghai is known as "Paris of the East" and "Queen of the Orient". The name, Shang hai, means up the river from the sea. With over 23 million inhabitants, it is the largest city, population wise, in China. For the past 20 years it has been one of the fastest developing cities in the world and today is the commercial and financial center of mainland China. It is the world's busiest ship container port. Besides shipping Shanghai is home to many heavy industries, such as, China's largest steelmaker, ship building, 3 of China's largest car manufacturers. As we sail up the river delta, the shore is lined for miles with manufacturing and we are meeting many ships heading out of the port area. Shanghai has the best education systems in China and was the first to implement 9-year mandatory education. There are also over 30 colleges and universities here. Well, after all, there are a lot of people living here!
We were here 3 years ago so will be interesting to see if there are any differences today. Tomorrow we are going on a tour to the "Water Town of Zhujiajiao". We did this same tour 3 years ago and loved it. We have some definite shopping ideas for our visit there. Tour leaves at 8:00am so have to be up early.
I called my son in California this morning (evening time there) but he was not home from work yet so talked with Tae-young, our daughter-in-law. We get 36 hours of free phone time on this cruise which is more than we can ever use. This is because we are "platinum" members now with Regent. We also get free laundry, which I take advantage of daily. 5:00pm here which means it is 4:00am in Dallas.
Last night I sent a request to the chef that he prepare some fried soft shell crabs for our dinner tonight. Unlike the larger cruise ships, Regent will honor special requests and I rarely here the word "no" or "cannot not do".
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