Chongqing Pandas and the Yangtze River
Friday August 21 Chongqing
We met in the hotel lobby at 5:15 a.m., picked up our boxed breakfasts and headed to the airport for our 7:56 flight to Chongqing. After our hurried packing the night before, I was glad to see our bags there. They were checked in for us, and no one mentioned the 44-pound weight limit we had worried about.
Have you heard of Chongqing? I thought I had not, even though it is one of the largest cities in the world. Then someone mentioned the older spelling, Chungking, and then I knew the name. This was the next stop on our Beyond trip, and the city where we would board our Yangtze River cruise.
At the airport, we were directed to buses and taken to the Niccolo Hotel for lunch. Local officials and quite a few members of the press were there to greet us. The welcome was quick, and then we had an excellent lunch.
After lunch, we got back on the buses for the excursion Alyx and I had chosen - pandas! The description had left us a little unsure of what to expect. Was this a special experience, or were we simply going to the zoo? On the way, our guides told us we had special VIP access to see the pandas indoors, since the heat would probably keep them from coming outside.
When we arrived, the buses used a special entrance and dropped us off right near the panda enclosures. It was overcast, and there was a breeze. After the heat in Beijing, that was a true blessing. It was also good news for the pandas - they were outside!
Our guide said there were 23 pandas in several enclosures. We walked around and counted eight that we could see. We even had some free time to visit the gift shop for panda gifts.
Back on the bus, our guide explained that they had not needed to take us inside after all. Instead, more of the outdoor enclosures had been opened than usual. He had overheard another visitor remark on how many pandas were out that day. Just for us VIPs! :-)
From there, the buses took us to our river cruise ship, the Century Voyage. The ship can hold 650 guests and has a crew of 150. Our Ensemble group of staff, agency owners, travel advisors and suppliers numbered about 150, and Ensemble had chartered the ship for us.
We were assigned cabin 640, a French balcony stateroom. Our bags were already outside the door. Inside were more gifts for each of us: a mahjong set and a clay tea set with little plastic jars of tea, and every jar had the same tea in it.
For dinner, we were invited to a fixed-menu meal with Silversea in one of the dining rooms. We learned during dinner that the twelve people invited were all Ensemble Rising Stars. We also learned that the river was changing our plans.
Because of low water levels, the Century Voyage would stay in Chongqing overnight and leave around 5 a.m. We had originally expected to sail out that night, see the city lights from the ship and have the option of visiting Fengdu the following morning. Since we are sailing in the morning, the Fengdu excursion was canceled. To give us a chance to see the lights, the team arranged a one-hour cruise on a smaller boat after the Captain's Welcome Reception.
We went up to the top deck for the reception. There was music, food and drinks, with spotlights shining behind the musicians. The itinerary had mentioned a light show, and we had thought that meant the drone show we had heard about. It turned out the drone show was only on Saturday nights. The spotlights were the show.
I was tired, and it was still very hot, but I had seen pictures of Chongqing at night and wanted to see it for myself. We left the ship around 9:40 p.m. and walked to the other boat (which was farther away than we expected). Finally onboard, we eventually got cold water and beer. Once the boat finally started moving, we had a little breeze, too.
We sailed to the point where the two rivers meet and then along the smaller river to see the lights. We learned afterward that our cruise ship would not have gone down that stretch even if it had sailed as originally planned, so this boat ride did show us something we otherwise wouldn't have seen.
Still, the lights were not what I had seen online. I now suspect some of those images may have been AI-generated. The real view was cool, but for me it was not worth the heat and the long evening.
There was karaoke back on the ship, but Alyx and I went to bed. We heard later that karaoke was epic. We would have to take everyone's word for it!
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