Today was a welcome sea day where we could do exactly as we pleased. Jessica, J and I all played a game of trivia. Together we scored a respectable 15 (but the leader was being generous in allowing 4 points for one question!) After that, the bridge players met with their fourth in the library for a few hands of bridge for two hours.
I tried to walk the deck – but deck 6 was closed due to high winds and deck 12 had portions closed off. For safety the staff didn’t put out deck chairs on the upper level. Instead, people just laid on towels directly on deck 12. You can see from the picture below, deck 11 is much more sheltered, so there were chairs being used all around the pool.
I went to talk to Guest Services to advise them that we would be staying in a hotel on the night we were in port near Ho Chi Min. That is our plan for tomorrow as it is an overnight port. More on that later.
Lunch in the dining room pleased Jessica especially, because she was able to have a GF cheeseburger!
After lunch the bridge players had another game and I went back to the room and fell asleep watching tennis! It is surprising that I fell asleep, and equally surprising that we get coverage of the Australian Open! Sport 24 is offered as one of the satellite channels on the ship so a person can watch games quite clearly. (Most of the five TV channels get poor reception).
I then sorted out clothes to go to the laundry to get me through till the end of the trip. I also packed a carryon bag to overnight in the city of Ho Chi Min and to go on a cycle tour the next morning. We plan to meet J and Jessica’s niece in Ho Chi Min for dinner and stay at a hotel with a rooftop pool! The following morning we have a cycle tour booked to see the city, then return back to the ship by the all aboard call.
The four of us ate dinner at Cagney’s, the Specialty steak house on the ship. It was delicious. I chose the small filet mignon, while the others all had the prime rib. My meal was delicious – the best I have had on the ship. And Cagney’s steak house was the busiest specialty dining room we have seen on the ship.
The Captain came on for an announcement during supper – which is highly unusual. I knew to listen carefully. And the Captain delivered what we considered to be disappointing news. The Norwegian Sun will not be docking in Phu My port (near Ho Chi Min) tomorrow as planned. They couldn’t secure a berth to dock the ship due to all the shipping traffic. So our two day plans for Ho Chi Min just evaporated. We will instead be going to the port of Cam Ranh, Vietnam.
I logged into my ship’s wifi to try to see where Cam Ranh was located and what a visitor could do there. It appears to be about a five hour drive northeast of Ho Chi Min. It is supposed to offer 5 km of beaches.
The General Manager said he would be in the Atrium to answer questions so Jessica and I went to the Atrium on deck 5 with our questions. I didn’t expect Norwegian to cover the cost of our hotel and bike trip we had booked – as they were independent of the ship (and the GM confirmed they won’t cover that). I did hope they would offer more minutes of wifi because Jessica had to reach out to the hotel (difficult when you cannot phone), our niece and the bike tour company to cancel everything we had booked in Ho Chi Min. We expect we will lose about $660 for the two hotel rooms and $270 for the bike tour which have all been paid by Jessica. Maybe somebody from those companies will acknowledge that the cancellation was beyond our control and reimburse us, but I won’t hold my breath. That is one of the risks when you book excursions outside of the cruise line.
Jessica asked the GM how far the port was from the city – and he said he didn’t know – they have never docked there. She also asked if the excursion desk is going to offer excursions – and he said nothing has been arranged yet because it is now evening hours and none of the companies are open.
So kudos to the officers for making themselves available to answer questions, but I feel even less satisfied with the answers than I did after my google search about Cam Ranh, Vietnam.
We then all went to Jessica and Lynn’s room to investigate our options and cancel everything. We came up with the decision that we will see what the ship offers for excursions when they open tomorrow (Cam Ranh will be a single day stop the following day). If nothing appeals to us, we will get off the ship and hire a taxi to take us to the local sites.
Tomorrow will now be a Day at Sea, rather than Day 1 of 2 in Ho Chi Min. We are even more disappointed that we didn’t choose to go ashore when we were here on our last cruise (Day 9 Phu My, Vietnam of my blog) – because that visit was only one day – and we had planned to visit it for two days on this cruise. Sigh. We are still on vacation where somebody else cooks our wonderful meals and cleans our rooms, so there is much for which we can be thankful, but we may not get to see Ho Chi Min in our lifetime.
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