19 Yangtze Gold 6

Deciding how I am going to write about the river cruise, I think I will just cover the ship first then concentrate on the ports of call...

On boarding the ship we were ushered into the theatre.  There  we were given the run down for the cruise and the plan for the next day... What I had come to realise, is that dining and shore excursions are kept within the group that you are travelling with... So as far as we were concerned our SNA group always dined and toured together ... There were other SNA groups on board and they stayed with in their groups, and I guess the Chinese guests stayed within their groups.
 

 Our rooms were very nice.... We had a balcony room,  well a room with french doors, which to me didn't really matter as we hardly spent any time in our room. On exiting our room we over looked the centre atrium area...  Beds were hard ..... I believe that most rooms have 2 large singles which suited us, but when I repeat this trip with Garry I will request a queen room, I have that that may mean a paid upgrade.

Centre Atrium

Having been spoilt by Princess in the past, servicing of the rooms was a bit hit and miss, as I remember,  one night we had to go chasing at the front desk to have our rooms serviced for the day, even if it was just to get fresh towels.... After the third time I called, we had a cast of thousands storm our room and had looking spic and span in no time at all..

We did have a welcome letter in our room that gave us the run down for the entire cruise and each day there was an update .  I love the translations "Please take of your kids and keep them in your eyes"

Just like cruise ships there were drinks packages, Spa offers, coffee packages and acupuncture on offer.
Click here for the cruise info sheet!
Click here for the daily sheets!

As we did every tour that was available there was not much time left to explore the ship.  There was a coffee shop, and a few stores that ran along the atrium selling a small range of clothes, jewellery, art and food stuff.

They also had demonstrations, lectures and mahjong lessons during the short periods sailing between one destination to another.

Baking Display

Calligraphy anyone!

There are always shops!

I can't believe I have no photo's from the dining room.  We had the VIP upgrade as did most Westerners.  Basically it meant we had a separate dining room higher up on the ship.  There were no queues to enter and our tables were always allocated for our group.  Food was buffet style, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  All mainly Asian flavours and not as spicy as that we had had in Chengdu, but there were always jars of chilli condiments available if you wanted to make it Hot Hot Hot.   Would I pay for it next time?  Hell yes!!

Lounge, Bar and Show Room