Steve and Cathy's Blog

Since the posts of our journey are running a week behind, I am going to skip ahead to the time period that is the title of this particular post. A great deal has happened since we left Hong Kong, all due to weather.

There were two scheduled Sea Days for March 29^th and March 30^th. At this point, who knows what we did, but we do recall that the weather began to deteriorate in that visibility steadily declined. By 3pm on March 30^th, we were in pea soup fog, and the captain announced that the ship had been ordered to throw the anchor and stop its progress to the pilot station near Shanghai.

At this point in time, the itinerary was still intact. We would arrive in Shanghai at 8:00am on March 31^st. Cathy and I had booked the Best of Shanghai 8-hour excursion to begin at 9:15am, and also the 3-hour Shanghai By Night excursion for that evening. The following morning at 6:00am, we were to depart Insignia for a 2-night, 3-day special trip to Xian, China, beginning with a flight from Shanghai to Xian. We would spend a night in a hotel, and the next morning would visit three sites, the highlight of which was a 2 1/2-hour visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit. Then we would spend the second night in Xian and fly back to Beijing the next day.

When we hit the sack, no additional news was forthcoming. The next morning, March 31^st, we all sense that something is amiss, as we are definitely still at sea, not heading up the river to dock in Shanghai. At 8:00am, the captain comes on the ship-wide public address system.

It turns out that during the previous evening, the fog got so dense that harbor authorities closed the Port of Shanghai. Not only did that mean we would be late, but also that everything was then up in the air as to when we would be allowed to dock. The weather forecast was not encouraging.

So … the captain, in consultation with Oceania headquarters in Miami, has made the decision that we must cancel our call in Shanghai completely and head straight for Tianjin, the port closest to Beijing. The fog is still so dense we can’t see a thing, and Oceania is concerned that, if we tried to wait out the weather, it might jeopardize our arrival there.

What the captain does not say, but we begin to get, is that in Tianjin, 400 passengers are to going to leave the ship, and another 400 are going to get on the ship. To be late for that swap would be a catastrophe all around for those 800 people with travel arrangements.

Now the entire staff begins to scramble.   This is a big mess through no fault of Oceania. But their staff will bear the brunt of the work to be done to rearrange everything. A new daily activity schedule is produced for today and tomorrow, and Destination Services goes into overdrive to see what rescheduling of tours (especially ours, which is trashed) is possible on such short notice.

The following morning, April 1^st, the line at Destination Services forms early. Extra-strength Prozac is issued to all staff members, and one by one we approach the desk. Earlier that morning, we have received an updated itinerary to our Xian/Terra Cotta Warriors trip. We will leave Tianjin on Monday, April 2^nd at 12:30pm. We will fly from Tianjin to Xian, spend the night at the hotel. The next morning, we will tour the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit for 1-½ hours, go to Xian airport and fly back to Beijing. At that point, we will be back on schedule and back on our original itinerary.

We will then join all the Around The World guests for the previously scheduled special event at the Great Wall, spend that night, April 3^rd, at the Westin Somethingorother Hotel in Beijing, tour the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and return to the ship.

We are not sending out this post to tell you of our travails. Stuff happens, and Oceania has done their best to roll with the punches. But we will be off the grid from Noon today, April 2^nd, until Thursday, April 4^th.

It is now 11:15am on the 2^nd. We have already gone through Chinese Immigration once again; another weird, unpleasant experience for Steve. Just as in Sanya, China, Steve’s passport was scrutinized over and over. Eventually, he was told (by hand gestures only – nothing verbal) to wait for who-knows-what. After ten minutes of standing, Cathy requests some assistance from a Chinese Immigration official, a woman who speaks English and is pleasant and helpful (for which she no doubt will be chastised by her superiors). She goes back to the inspection person who questioned Steve’s passport and he is released without further questioning.

I cannot imagine what the problem is, but, just in case the long arm of the Chinese Government is at work reading this post to see of we are a danger to Chinese society, let us just say this:

We think that visiting China and going through the efficient and cordial Chinese Immigration system is the most fun a human being could possibly have. Catherine and Stephen Knight of Wallingford, Connecticut USA could not be happier to be anyplace else on this planet than here. That is all.