Our 2008 honeymoon had included three days in and around the Chinese capital of Beijing and at the conclusion of our visit to see the excellent Temple of Heaven we had a last meal on Chinese soil in a restaurant (the one with the sea lion swimming around and in which we had Peking Duck) and a quick excursion to the Yuan Long silk factory before we boarded the bus on which our luggage was already stored in order to head towards the port city of Tianjin.
Bus rides, and especially those on which no photos or videos were taken, are generally not that interesting, but there are two points to remark upon on this one.
The road that we were originally following was a wide, multi-laned affair through the Chinese landscape southwest of Beijing. Driving distance to the port is around one hundred and seventy kilometres so we were expected to be on the bus for a little over two hours but within half an hour it became clear that there was a problem as the very little traffic that we’d seen on the road was clearly coming to a halt for reasons unknown. We initially thought that there must have been an accident ahead but another bus travelling in the opposite direction was being driven by someone who knew our driver and so stopped alongside to let him know what was happening. Immediately afterwards, while the other cars were still waiting in line, our bus did a U-turn across the opposite lanes and headed back the way we’d come, then turned off to find a new route. With Beijing relying heavily on good transport links to the port this was luckily fairly easy to do. We soon learnt from our representative on board that some Communist party leaders were apparently on their way somewhere and as was apparently the way things were done back then this meant they got the road all to themselves until they’d passed by.
The second incident I’m mentioning with no respect as to whether you’re eating right now or not was when we took a brief stop to use the rest rooms. This was something that looked like a truckers’ stop in the middle of nowhere because that’s mostly what it was. Normally, I can suppress the need to use the loo on a journey as short (despite the diversion) as this was supposed to be but it turned out that the Peking Duck I’d eaten had different thoughts on the matter. We all got off the bus, some just to stretch legs, and those who didn’t need to visit the toilets almost instantly got back on because the change in the weather from earlier in the day was extreme; it was certainly not t-shirt weather at the exposed rest stop; the wind pickup and the temperature drop was brutal. Off I walked briskly to the toilets.
Ah, toilets when you’re abroad. They can be terrifying things. This was and still remains the worst example of one in all my years of travelling. Picture a large room with cubicles numbering perhaps two dozen lining three walls. The cubicles had doors so that was good, but that was the only good thing. A hole was set in the floor of each cubicle, but not a deep one, and from it a gully ran into a communal trough set into the floor that ran outside and along the front of all the doors. And that was it. A man stationed in the large room had a bucket and mop which meant his job was to enter cubicles after they’d been used in order to throw water into the pit so it would run into the gully and into the communal trough. Water slowly took all that waste around the room and down drains but it made the act of using the toilet one of blocking your nose, stepping over the trough of shit, entering the cubicle, closing the door, squatting and hoping to hell you managed to avoid anything you were wearing, then leaving over the trough once more so the cleaner could come in and manually flush it all away.
Oh, and there was no toilet roll. Cue me turning around, heading straight back to the bus, grabbing all the packs of tissues we’d luckily still got, and rushing back. A wholly unpleasant experience. Stupid, greasy, fatty, tasty duck.
I’m going to freely admit that people who’ve stumbled upon this The First Day Aboard Diamond Princess post probably didn’t come here looking for toilet-squatting terrors in Asia so you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve finished with that now.
Xingang was the name listed on all our documentation but that was just the shortened form of Tianjin Xingang meaning “New Port of Tianjin“, and that was where we finally got to step aboard a cruise ship for the very first time.
I must confess that I don’t have any real memories of this boarding experience. From later cruise-boarding I know that we must have had our suitcases taken away by porters and we must have queued up to have our documentation checked and cruise cards issued but this whole area just isn’t surfacing. Perhaps it was the strangeness of it all, and possibly not helped by the sun having set already at this time of the year. A commercial port in a strange land in the twilight hours likely won’t have too much exciting detail to recall. Most likely, though, is that we’d both had a lot of trouble getting over the jet lag from the flight out to China in the first place – I had found myself awake at four most mornings and crashing early in the evening every day – so we were just tired when we boarded.
We would have eaten, we would have had a drink or two if I know us, we would have unpacked our bags when they arrived, but we very likely went to bed early. We must have explored a little bit too because I have a single photo as evidence. The following picture doesn’t look like much but here it is in all its glory, the very first photo I took aboard a cruise ship and the only photo snapped on that first evening, Club Fusion on Diamond Princess in 2008:
Diamond Princess should have left Tianjin that first evening but our log of the cruise indicates that there were clearance issues with the local authorities leading to a later embarkation process and resulting in the ship staying alongside overnight to ensure all passengers were boarded. By the time we emerged from our cabin, though, the sun was up and the ship was at sea.
If I could list all the things we did and ate and drank on this first day on Princess Cruises‘ Diamond Princess then I wouldn’t hesitate to bore you senseless with the details. As you can tell, no minor bit of useless information is too small for me to overlook most of the time. However, this was 2008 which was a time before cameras on phones was a thing, and with this being our first cruise we hadn’t yet picked up the habit of keeping hold of all the documentation we could. That’s right: no Princess Patters! Shocking. If you’re thinking about cruising for the first time then let me give you some advice, and that’s to keep all those pamphlets that end up in your room every day; they’re fabulous reminders of what will be a fantastic experience.
We did pick up some quiz sheets and sat in the piazza – the central space on this class of vessel often called an atrium on other ships and usually if there are more windows present – and, in a rare moment you’ll want to treasure, the closest thing you’ll find of us to a selfie was taken.
We naturally explored outside on the cruise ship since that’s its unique selling point. You might want to visit a hotel somewhere because it has some facilities or it’s near somewhere handy but when you’re on a cruise ship then every inch of it inside and out is all part of the holiday experience too.
Something you might take for granted these days if you’re possibly thinking of taking cruise for the first time is to have a search on the internet in order to see what the ship and rooms and facilities are like from a non-corporate, genuine perspective. Yes, the site existed, but it had only been up and running for a couple of years before we booked our cruise so the vast amount of research material present today simply wasn’t there. We had a few descriptions of how good it was from some relatives and one formal photo of my in-laws to go on. Everything was new to us.
The sea!
There’s a clock there!
Look, lifeboats along here!
A hot tub!
The carpet is a different colour in this corridor!
A first day on a cruise ship is a great chance to be five years old again.
Our levels of unpreparedness were exposed in much the same way as we ourselves were when we ventured out onto the open, top decks of Diamond Princess. This was a cruise to Asia taking in places such as Vietnam and Thailand which for some reason meant we’d completely overlooked the fact that the temperature at points might actually be cold. In fact, while it would reach close to thirty three degrees Celsius at sea later in the cruise, for this first day in the Yellow Sea off China it only just crept into double figures and there was a strong wind accentuated by the natural progression of the ship. One of the other things we did early on this first cruise day, therefore, was hit the shops on board in order to buy some Princess-branded hoodies. Suitably protected from the surprising-to-us weather we then took a look around.
My very first example of taking a photo of a bird during travels abroad and not having a clue what it was (or still is) but knowing that it was just different enough from what we’d be able to see at home to know I wanted to capture that moment.
I think it’s some kind of tit. It probably thought the same about me.
Not too many photos inside Diamond Princess on this first day but I do know that we took part in the trivia games that occurred every few hours. We ended up getting approached by two other couples who had also flown into China early to enjoy the three days pre-cruise tours arranged by Princess Cruises. We’d not talked to them at the time but over the couple of weeks aboard ship we would all be regular quizzing buddies. Sandra and Ian were from somewhere up the north of England, while Ken and Lowell were from Alabama. In case you’re wondering how people become quizzing buddies on a cruise ship then it works a little bit like this approach to us from Lowell:
You were in Beijing, right, before this cruise?
Yes.
Are you here for the trivia?
Yes.
Good, we’ll join you because you look smart.
Flattery has the power to penetrate our Shield of Introversion. Plus, she wasn’t wrong; we ended up winning the trivia many times.
In addition to trivia we would also have checked out the buffet for lunch and taken a look at whatever other entertainment was going on around the ship such as drinks demonstrations. Over the course of this cruise our daytime activities on Diamond Princess would see us also attend lectures on topics such as the history of magic and the life of Houdini, see comedian Kelly Monteith deliver a set (a room of tired, older people was not the best of audiences), and get roped into a demonstration of close-up magic in the piazza in front of everyone (to our horror because of the situation, and to our amazement because of what we saw).
We very much enjoyed heading out onto the Promenade Deck during our cruise, especially since we’d booked an inside cabin and wanted to enjoy the outside views as much as possible. The Promenade Deck on Diamond Princess is a full wraparound deck which means you can walk a complete circuit, although if you have any walking difficulties then you should be aware that there is a section that requires you to climb some steps. This first day of cruising included at least two complete circuits for me and my wife as I took photos on one of them and also recorded the eight-minute-long stroll on another. That video is not included below for reasons. There’s a reason I mostly take pictures and not video.
The last photos taken on this first day aboard the cruise ship were of our cabin, something we did instinctively because it felt like the sort of thing that was required of travellers, and an instinct that has been borne out over the following years as it turns out that literally everyone who writes about their trips includes photos of the room. Basically, if you don’t fell compelled to take a shot of your room then you’ve probably not got the travel blogger gene in you.
Our cabin was C116, a deck and position – forward – that would become our favourite over the years on these Grand-class vessels, but we’d booked an Inside Cabin following advice from my in-laws. It was cheaper, they said, and you would be able to get sea views from the Promenade Deck or on top of the ship. That was certainly true, but it was the only time we booked a room without its own view because for us the sea is an important aspect of cruising and we’ve come to love having our own balcony on which to read and stare out to sea with a drink, and without people around us. They also convinced us to take off the daily gratuities that would be paid to save money too which we did at the reception desk because we were virgin cruisers. Again, the only time we’ve done that because we now understand how the wages work on an American-run ship and how the tips are pooled; anyone who stops the automatic payment of tips to staff is doing so because they’re short of money, they’re tight with money, or they think it will make them appear more special when they personally hand out cash to individuals (who won’t be allowed to keep it) and so boost their ego. Don’t do that. Budget for that when you’re booking your holiday. There’s a good you.
Inside cabins on a cruise ship have lots of mirrors to make the room feel larger. Great if you’re vain, but problematic if you don’t like having yourself in any photos. Hence the dreadful angles. Two beds pushed together as a double with small tables either side. A long desk with some storage. Plenty of space for cases and hanging clothes. A TV. A bathroom with shower. It’s a room on a ship. There’s only so much you can say about them.
After this full day at sea – the first of many sea days we would grow to adore over the following years – we would be returning to China with a stop at the port of the staggeringly large city of Shanghai where we had pre-booked an excursion to visit the ancient water town of Zhuijiajiao.