Thursday March 10th, 2016 Hong Kong, China

Checking out of the Langham was always a very cordial and pleasant experience - not so today for our departure from the Cordis. Unfortunately the one good duty manager that we experienced on this trip was on the receiving end of our forcefully delivered feedback regarding the abysmal club level. The young guy did his best to run through all of his hotel-university-taught techniques to parry our attack, pretty soon he was broken out in a sweat and starting to repeat himself. He held his ground, I’m sure his teachers would have been proud of him. After much haggling the manager offered to pay for our limo to the cruise terminal; Sandra said this was an insult and promptly left. Actually, acceptance of this pittance would have impacted any future negotiation regarding monetary compensation – this was the real reason we did not accept it.

Embarkation at Hong Kong was very strange. Following a short ride down from Mong Kok to the Ocean Cruise Terminal our car joined a line of vehicles snaking its way into the port. After about 45 minutes of slow progress the car turned on to the dock and we found ourselves driving right along by the side of the ship – a first for us. Eventually the driver decided “this was the spot” and along with crates of food, pallets of luggage and other supplies on the dockside our bags were unloaded from the car – I began to think we might never see them again. The whole scene was like something out of Indiana Jones – well maybe if you squinted really hard.

Mass confusion followed; go this way, no wait – go this way, go up one level, no wait – go back down. We found ourselves inside a large shopping mall – I’m not kidding. In fact as we progressed in what we hoped was the right direction we took the opportunity to stop and buy 3 pairs of shoes – I’m really not kidding! Yes, in a nod to the uber shopping experience that is Hong Kong, the gangway from the ship leads right into the biggest mall in town. 

We finally passed through security and into the familiar surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth. I’ve described the ship in previous blogs so I’m not going to repeat my observations here, though she has been in for a refit since our last visit – so we’ll watch out for any significant changes. Stateroom 7128 is on the port (left) side towards the aft (rear) of the ship and is nicely appointed with a balcony; in fact we’ve stayed in this exact cabin on a previous sailing. One immediately obvious upgrade is the wall mounted flat screen TV that has the added benefit of creating a bit more counter space – always a premium in a ships cabin.

In the late afternoon we made our way to the upper decks and captured some great pictures of the Hong Kong skyline, despite the overcast skies. I had been looking forward to sailing out of Hong Kong, but since coming on board we have found out that the ship will not leave until after 11:30PM by which time I’m sure I’ll have conked out.