Sunday 10 November 2024

 Hong Kong - Boarding the Holland American Noordam:  This hotel is just what we needed to recover from the trip here. The room is large, clean and comfortable.

The view from the picture window includes part of the airport and some of the other airport hotels, a large freight terminal of some kind, and a large body of water with small, rugged islands. A mist hangs over everything and it’s all surprisingly quiet. 
    Breakfast was delicious and leisurely. It is perhaps the largest buffet I’ve ever seen, with nearly anything I could imagine to eat and attentive staff everywhere. We took our time, enjoying samples of many types of food and a couple of cappuccinos each. Back in our room, we still had a couple of hours to organize our stuff and our thoughts before leaving for the port. 

    Fortunately, the concierge warned us that the Hong Kong taxis only take cash so Larry hit the nearby ATM before we left for the cruise port.  It was a rather amazing trip of about 40 minutes through very dense residential areas and between tall rises of rocks and trees. 

 All of it was on fast-moving highways with frequent spaghetti-like interchanges.  The driver has obviously done this many times and navigated smoothly.  The only glitch was that he dropped us at the wrong spot, [which wasn’t advised by Holland American in any case] and the staff had to direct us a little way along to our ship’s section of the terminal.  

    The boarding process had many steps, but was very smooth and efficient and we were in our staterooms before noon.  

The view from our balcony was amazing.  H.K. is a very busy place – many cargo ports and at least this one cruise port, as well as the local traffic on the bay.  We could see many tall buildings, backed by mountains.  It’s warm and humid and the air continuously hazy under grey, overcast sky.

    Our sail away party began at 4, around the pool, with music, line dancing and laughter – and drinks of course. A light rain sent us to our stateroom balcony to watch the changing scenery as we left the port and eventually came into open sea. We were still struggling with the 13-hour time change, so had a quick dinner and turned in early.

Photos of the Day