Captain Ravera was right in his assessment last evening that the Sapphire Princess might be late docking at the Port of Shanghai today. At 7:40am he announced that, though visibility remains poor due to fog, the port was re-opening and the Sapphire Princess, being a passenger vessel, would be the first to enter today around 11:30am. Shortly afterward, Guest Services made an announcement that all passengers with flights departing before 5:50pm would be unable to make them. Our flight to Beijing departs at 4:15pm.
Have I mentioned how happy I am to have Princess EZ Air, Princess Platinum Vacation Protection, a Princess transfer to the Shanghai airport AND a full China visa? No, I haven’t, so I’m mentioning it now. ;-)
Princess EZ Air is looking at the reservations of passengers who booked air through Princess. Passengers who booked onward travel independently have to change their own travel plans, but Help desks for air and hotels have been set up on Deck 6. Phone and internet are being provided free of charge. We are in our cabin at 9:30am, awaiting further information.
I’m not sure where we’ll be spending the night, but, as you’ve heard me say many times in the past, if I can’t remember something in ten years or if it will make a good story, it’s not worth stressing over today. The question is, will this episode be the former, or the latter?
2:30pm update: We received our new flights about noon. We are now leaving Shanghai tomorrow evening and arriving in Honolulu a day late. We were lucky; some people still don’t have new Princess EZ flights and others who do don’t leave for two days. However, there is much confusion about hotel arrangements and transfers. Our original disembarkation group has just disembarked and we have been told to stay in the Casino with others similarly affected.
5:45pm update: We are off the ship and on a bus. Never have I ever been so happy to go somewhere I don’t know where I’m going. Dark, cold, rainy night...this is like Nice all over again.
8:00pm update: We arrived at our hotel at 6:30pm, were in our room by 7:30pm and will asleep in minutes, I think. We were wiped out after that long day. To Princess’ credit, in the end, because of our EZ Air, they did the right thing, but (and I know I said this same thing after Nice), getting to that point was neither easy nor straightforward. As G jokingly said several times throughout the day, “We’ve been Shanghaied!”
When it came to flights, we were the lucky ones. We are now flying through Seoul tomorrow evening, without the long layover we would have had on Air China today. Some people were still waiting for flights until we were told we had to disembark the ship, and adamantly maintained they weren’t leaving without flights. I don’t know how that got worked out.
Our confusion (frustration, really) started after we were given our new flights. We were told we had to go to Guest Services to get information about hotels and transfers. I was at the desk being told we were on our own regarding an overnight hotel and transfers and at the same time I overheard the person next to me being told by someone else at Guest Services that they were being arranged for us. Meanwhile, we went to our assigned disembarkation lounge at our assigned time and were told there that if we didn’t get on the bus to the airport right then, we were forfeiting the $69 each we paid for Princess transfers.
That’s what we were dealing with.
People were sitting everywhere in the Casino, which was being used as a disembarkation lounge as well as housing the just over 100 passengers in the same boat, so to speak, as us (some of whom couldn’t fly out until two days later). While a microphone was being used to make disembarkation announcements, and despite the fact that several of us asked over and over to get updates regarding our situation, we were told they wouldn’t do that. So every 30 minutes or so, we had to go up and ask the Guest Services staff person about our status, and then walk around spreading the news (or lack of it) ourselves.
Twice we left, around 1pm and again at 5pm, to go to the buffet to eat something, not knowing what the rest of our day would bring, but even then, one of us would return to the Casino every 10 minutes to see if there was an update.
The lowest point came at 4:30pm, after there were no more regularly scheduled disembarkation groups filtering through the Casino and we were the only ones left. Then an announcement was made (yay) and we were told that the port agent was working on finding us rooms for the night, but because it was the weekend and because we needed 51 rooms, it was proving difficult. We were told we had to be off the ship at 5:30pm and continue waiting in the terminal, or we could make our own arrangements. I asked if there was an ATM or money changer in the port terminal and was eventually told there was. So we went to the buffet and grabbed that last meal and I found a Ramada near the Pudong International Airport with two rooms left and was one click away from reserving it when we checked in one last time in the Casino and-yay- we had rooms and a bus to get us there. Excursion stickers were slapped on our coats and we were on our way.
Of course, we still had to get through China immigration and customs, and the arrival and departure cards we had already filled out had to be re-done, because our departure date and flights had changed, and, at that point, we still had no idea where we were going, so we left the hotel name blank and hoped immigration wouldn’t notice. And then it got very bleak…once in the terminal there was no one to direct us where to go despite the fact we had been told a Princess rep would meet us. Our group grew as more of us got through immigration and had no idea what to do.
I was still glad, though, that we weren’t venturing out on our own. The line for the money changer was very long, but the line for a taxi stretched endlessly as people waited in the dark and drizzly evening. Finally, G, who has always been a take charge kind of guy (all those years in the military, I guess) went outside to see if he could find a bus waiting for us. He was gone a long time, but finally returned to get the rest of us. I have no idea how he found the bus, I really don’t, because of all the buses and people out there and it was pitch dark, but he said he kept pointing to that excursion sticker and finally found someone who pointed him in the right direction to a bus a fair distance from the terminal.
We loaded up the luggage (I think there were two or three buses for our group), and, as I got on the bus, I said exactly what I said in my earlier update, about never being so happy to go somewhere I didn’t even know where I was going and everyone laughed and totally agreed. We were so done.
Luckily, we had a guide on the bus who told us in English which hotel we were going to and how long the trip would be (about an hour). And then he wrote down our cabin numbers and which kind of room we wanted (king or two beds) and gave us cards to that effect. That was when the whole thing was rather reminiscent of Nice- the bus, the dark, the rain, the cold- and once we arrived at the hotel, G immediately went to get us checked in and I rounded up the luggage. We remembered in Nice that the difference between a short check in time and a long wait was dividing and conquering.
And, finally, about 7pm we were in our very nice room on the 31st floor in the extremely nice Longemont Shanghai. I went back to the lobby to see if the line to get information about tomorrow’s shuttles had gotten any shorter and on the way back, stopped at the pool and fitness center on the 26th floor to check it out. It was gorgeous, this long infinity pool with a large hot tub and a view of the lights of Shanghai. If I had any energy at all, I would have gone for a swim and soak. G swore he was going to…but we will both be asleep in about 10 minutes. I had slept only 3 hours the last night on the ship, watching the ship’s webcam to see if we were entering the port of Shanghai or still at anchor with all the freighters, and we had remained at anchor all night.
Regardless of what it took to get there, the day ended well, and G was already counting on squeezing in a visit to the top of the Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world, tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.
Life is certainly never dull. :-)