Shanghai Cruise Terminal 24th August 2018

What  pandemonium. It was 12.15pm by the time we arrived at the terminal, only to find chaos. The ship arrived 2 hours later into Shanghai than expected, due to rough weather, there, apparently according to reports, as the ship is now sailing to Australia, the Chinese crew disembarked and a new crew unfamiliar to the ship had embarked. So I can surmise there were 3,500 passengers and 700 new crew arriving to board and the same number leaving the ship in less than 7 hours.

Buses, taxis and private cars were pulling up any where they could to off load passengers and luggage, queues snaked their way around buildings and joined other queues, elderly pasengers where collapsing in the sun and heat of the day while they were waiting to access the area to drop off luggage. we waited an hour before we moved into a building to drop off our luggage, then walked about 500 metres under a covered way to go through to reception area before customs and immigration and security. Poor DH was exhusted before we even cleared the customs!. Fortunately we managed to stop a crew member taking a wheelchair to the still arriving passengers, for DH to use it to finish our boarding. Thank you to our timely crew member, who, with all the rush, forgot to get his name.

As you can guess most passengers who boarded would give the Majestic Princess a thumbs down for their first day board. AND it doesn't really improve for a least another 48 hours!. The crew worked extremely hard to rectify the situation but it would be hard to localise new working conditions, appease disgrunted passengers and keep everthing running. There where names missing from cabin doors, queues formed everywhere on the ship. Passenger Services (both Elite and other), tour desk, coffee cafes, restuarants, of course the usual theatre miss out. (need to be there at least 30 mins before a show to get a seat), even tough there are 3 each night!......I have never known a Princess ship to have so many long lines of passengers waiting.

It wasn't too long to hear the jokes and laughter in the lifts typical of the Australian and New Zealander passengers which showed we were all getting on with our holiday and over some people's first impression of this newest of the Princess fleet.

Some things have changed since sailing on the Majestic 14 months ago. Of the 4 Karoke Studios, two have remained but the other two have been converted to internel cafes, comprising of 4 computers in each.  A welcome change. The table tennis tables have been removed from the Hollywood Conservatory and some of the gaming/card tables from the Vista Lounge have replaced them.  The Vista Lounge has new coffee tables and chairs which gives patrons more seating space.

So our cruise has begun and we look forward to our ports of call and sea days.