With the last bit of jet lag out of the system and well and truly settled back in at work, the time had come to do some planning for the next trip.
We did book a cruise while we were on Explorer of the Seas. This is a repositioning cruise from Singapore to Dubai on the Mariner of the Seas in April. This is one of the two legs we are still missing in our quest to circumnavigate the world in a cruise ship. The ports are pretty interesting, too. The cruise visits Phuket in Thailand, Cochin and Goa in India, Muscat in Oman and Dubai. I love Muscat and Dubai and the other ports sound good to me, too. Unfortunately there is a distinct question mark over this trip. When I got back, I found out that I would have to leave on this trip before my boss gets back from his trip. So unless we will have more staff by then, this is going to be a “no”. This is one of the drawbacks of working for a small company. Still the positives by far outweigh the negatives. I did say to my boss that if I cannot go on this cruise, then I want to do the equivalent cruise on the Pulse of the Seas in 2019. Pulse of the Seas will be a sister ship to Ovation of the Seas that we sailed on last year and like Ovation, she will share her time between Asia and Australia. Actually, if I am quite honest, I would prefer doing this trip on Pulse. We will see how this will work out.
So that brings me to this year. As soon as I realised that I would be able to take another trip this year, we were batting ideas around. A New England cruise, a Southern Caribbean cruise and a transatlantic cruise on the Queen Mary II were all possibilities that were discussed. However, neither of them really captured our imagination.
While we were on Explorer of the Seas, we suddenly realised what we wanted to do. This involves a six night cruise on the Quantum of the Seas out of Shanghai to three Japanese ports (Nagasaki, Kochi and Fukuoka). This will be a special cruise as it will be our 20th cruise. I am very happy that this will happen on Quantum of the Seas as this is the sister ship to Ovation of the Seas, which is my favourite ship so far. There are some differences in that Quantum does not have the escape room and that they charge for North Star and iFly. I think we will give both of them a miss. However, most of my favourite features from Ovation are present and accounted for like the Two70 lounge, the Solarium, the Bionic Bar, the bumper cars and the DreamWorks Experience. Puss in Boots, I am coming to join you.
If you have followed my pre-trip reports before, then you will know that hardly ever do we end up with plan A. Without fail some thing goes wrong or something better comes up. This is no different. When I first looked into this and indeed until about a week before I planned to book this, there was a really cheap suite guarantee rate. There were two reasons why we were interested in this beyond the plain “Because we can” and the feeling that this would be a nice treat for our 20th cruise. If you sail in a Junior Suite or higher, you get double Crown and Anchor Society points. We are now only 20 points short of reaching our Diamond status, which comes with some nice perks. If we end up doing the cruise next year and working on the premises that we wouldn't get a Junior Suite, we would still be one cruise point short of reaching our diamond status. So the double points are nice. The more important perk though is Coastal Kitchen. Coastal Kitchen is the suite restaurant. Junior Suites only have access to this for dinner, but we would enjoy his as it has a calmer atmosphere. We decided that if we can’t get either, we would just book an interior cabin. All interior cabins on Quantum have virtual balconies and I was actually really excited about getting to stay in one. Then along came pay day and the day I had always planned to book this. I did a quote for a customer for the same sailing and while doing so, I spotted that the suite guarantee rate was back. I placed a courtesy hold on this as I wanted to make sure that Graham managed to book the flights. I have decided, I am not going to tell him until we get to the port. I will pay for the cruise so he does not need to know until then. Of course, I may just burst with excitement in the meantime.
Of course, we were are not going all the way to China for just a 6 night cruise. We were planning to spent a few days in Shanghai and also add a stopover in Hong Kong giving me the chance to visit Shanghai
Disneyland and Disneyland Hong Kong. I was pretty happy with this plan. Last week Monday, my boss signed off my leave and I emailed Graham with the dates. He responded with the following: Beijing - Tokyo - Shanghai. I did warn you that we hardly ever settle for Plan A. So Hong Kong was dropped and instead we are heading to Beijing and Tokyo. This still will give me the chance to visit two Disney resorts that I have not seen before and actually I am more excited about visiting Tokyo Disney Resort then I was about visiting Hong Kong Disneyland.
So here is the rough plan:
30th November
Head to the airport after work and fly from Manchester to Beijing with Emirates on an A380 for both flights
1st December
Arrive in Beijing in the evening and check into Ibis Sanyuan Beijing (our home for three nights)
2nd and 3rd December
Two full days in Beijing. We will do a tour to the Great Wall of China (Mutianyu section) on one day and visit Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven and Forbidden City on the other. For this we have yet to decide if we will do a tour or just take to the subway and do our own tour.
4th December
Leave Beijing in the morning and fly to Tokyo Haneda with ANA. This will be my first flight on a Dreamliner. Arrive in Tokyo at lunchtime. Check into Hotel Sunroute Shinagawa Seaside (our home for three nights). Possibly do evening sightseeing tour of Tokyo.
5th and 6th December
I will spend one day each at Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. Graham will do a Mount Fuji tour on one day and will doubtlessly find something to amuse himself with on the other day.
7th December
Leave Tokyo in the morning and fly to Shanghai with ANA via Osaka. Arrive in Shanghai late morning. Check into Novotel Shanghai Clover (our home for two nights). Visit to the Temple of the Jade Buddha in the afternoon and walk along the riverside in the evening.
8th December
I will visit Shanghai Disneyland for the day and Graham will find something to amuse himself with.
9th December
Transfer to Baoshan Cruise Port and embark on Quantum of the Seas
9th to 15th December
Cruise on Quantum of the Seas visiting Nagasaki, Kochi and Fukuoka
15th December
Disembark ship and hopefully do a tour that picks up at the port and drops off at the airport and takes in People’s Square, Yuyuan Gardens, French Concession, Bund and Shanghai Old Street. Leave Shanghai late evening and fly to Manchester with Emirates on an A380 for both flights. Arrive in Manchester at lunchtime on the 16th.
I was a little worried that this may be a lot to fit in, but Graham rightly pointed out that this is no different from what we do on cruises. We just do kind of a highlights reel for each place.
Actually it looks like you are going to see far more than us!
