June 4, 2024
Time to roll the dice!
Our ship embarking date and sail has again shifted out, due to the DNV inspections. Late yesterday, we were informed they have to make one additional retrofit on the Ship propellers in dry dock and this work will take 10 days; therefore, our new boarding and departure date is June 15th out of Belfast. This propellor change had been previously grandfathered by DNV with prior ship owners. It was due to be done at our next maintenance stop and thankfully the parts had already been on order. Villa Vie filed a grievance with DNV regarding this, but bottom line is, we have to do now. Villa Vie ownership has been fantastic in communicating all this to us. Their staff has scrambled today to come up with a contingency plan to give us all an alternate to camping out in Belfast. There are roughly 300 passengers waiting to embark, most are in Belfast now and others like me are scattered around.
My choices at this point are:
1) Keep the rental car I have from Belfast and continue to stay in Cork at Edel's or visit more of Ireland. Edel'scommitments in Cork start again on 6/8. But I could stay here until 6/15.2) Return to Belfast, swap out some of my luggage, turn in rental car and go on trip to Canary Islands with fellowpassengers in waiting, Villa Vie is working out all-inclusive details now.3) Return rental car in Belfast or Dublin and get a flight to Hamburg Germany and go visit my friend Tom who was supposed to join me on cruise on 6//16 in Hamburg. Villa Vie has yet to announce where we will be sailing on the new embarking date of 6/15, so not sure if my planned catch up with Tom will be impacted.Right now, I am leaning to option #2. The Canary Islands will be more beach like weather / locale, and it will be good to start connecting with the other passengers. Also, I don't expect any real beach spots in the planned itinerary much before late September and everyone knows I am a beach lover at heart. They have signed me up for all-inclusive now, for planning purposes, but I am still reserving option 3 if it looks like Hamburg, Germany is being removed from itinerary.Suppose to have more details later tonight or tomorrow.So for now, stay tuned!
R
Guilin is such a pretty little town; tons of tourist seem to know it too! I really enjoyed walking around it at night! I went for a stroll, along the river, to just soak it all in. I grabbed some street food, kung pow chicken and rice for dinner, that I had back in the quiet of my hotel room and had an early night.
The Guilin area of southern China is known to have some of the most stunning karst rock formations. We took a bamboo cruise boat with a tiny electric motor, from the villages of Yangdi to Xingping this morning. The rafts are limited to 4 guest each - so I road with a Chinese family, there on vacation from the Beijing area, who was very sweet. Mom and Dad spoke no english, but their son, who is in his final year of college study environmental science, was able to converse and intrepret what the driver said to me the whole ride, about one hour.
Guilin, China is just a 3 hour,18 minute high speed train ride from Hong Kong . It is a charming city known for its dramatic landscape of limestone karst hills. In the center of town are 2 lakes, Shanhu ( cedar) and Ronghu ( banyan) that remain from a medieval era moat, that once surrounded the city. The twin pagodas, the Sun and the Moon , sit on the the shore of the Shanhu and light up the sky at night.