20250917 Wednesday, September 17, 2025 Departing Qingdao

20250917 Wednesday, September 17, 2025 Departing Qingdao

There was an incredible squall that hit the port last night.  It caused the ship to rock like it as at sea, despite being tied up to the pier.  Lightning was flashing overhead and the winds were gusting to 40mph, blowing things down and around the pier.  

This morning, things looked a bit calmer, but the weather had clearly changed.  There was dense cloud cover with a forecast of rain.  The temperature outside had dropped below 70º F for the first time this whole trip.

We had another round of Mamsen’s Norwegian waffles for a quick breakfast this morning and discovered our waitress up there calls Qingdao home.  She was able to visit her family yesterday and was quite happy to have been able to overnight in her home town.  She shared a postcard poem with us in the local Qingdao dialect.  

This northern dialect is distinct from Mandarin.  While in Mandarin the phrase “drink beer” sounds like “Huh pee-jyoe” in Qingdao-ese it sounds more like “Ha-pee-joe”.  She was excited to see her grand parents and play with their new puppy.  We have not seen a lot of dogs during this trip.  There are no stray dogs on the streets, and the few pets we have seen have been on leash with very attendant owners caring for them.

Cruise Terminal from the Explorer’s Lounge

Our waitress from Qingdao did a May Wind Sculpture for my cappuccino!

The ship did run a complementary shuttle back into old town this morning so we went back into town together.  The sun came out while we walked through the old town and visited the Liyuan Museum.  We walked through several courtyards and alleyways full of history and charm.  Most of the shops and restaurants were just opening, and all of the food carts were boarded up along the streets.  

In the old town square, preparations were being made for an upcoming festival and a couple of stages were being assembled in some larger open areas.  Turnstiles were also being positioned to control access for the future event.  

We caught the next shuttle back to the ship and were back on board by 11am.  All aboard was at 12:30pm.  

We enjoyed lunch at the pool grill. During most of this cruise, it has been much too hot and humid to spend any time on the pool deck with the roof open, but today, it was very pleasant. The temperature had dropped into the mid 70’s after last night’s storm, and the humidity had dropped to below 80%.

The ship began sailing away from Qingdao as we ate lunch.  As we sailed around Qingdao, we got a seaside view of most of the landmarks we had seen during our tours.  We even finally got a look at the May 4 Square May Wind Sculpture.

Hulian Pavilion

May Wind Sculpture

We spent much of the afternoon repacking our suitcases, which will have to go out tomorrow night, but we wanted to make sure everything was distributed to keep the weights within airline limits.

We watched some lectures on the TV and tried to see the Dalian Port talk on our room TV, but the audio wasn’t loud enough.  The TV’s in the rooms have the volume limited to 37, which might have been OK if the audio of the talk had been recorded at the correct levels, but it was too low.

There was spiny lobster tails in The Restaurant, so we ordered those with a Viking steak to share between us for Surf and Turf.  They had a fancy dessert that was sweet, tart and creamy.

The on board entertainers put on a farewell reception with the vocalists joining the instrumentalists in a medley of Eastern and Western music.  We could easily recognize We Will Rock You, You’re too Good to be True, and the theme songs from Game of Thrones and Pirates of the Caribbean mixed in.  We had missed the only other “production” show with live music, singing and dancing because we were on an overland excursion, so we can’t definitively rate the onboard entertainment staff, but the entertainers we had on the Vancouver to Tokyo cruise were better.  

The East/West mix did make it more interesting though, and it was entertaining.  They also did a version of the cup song with a video of the crew in the background doing hand motions and choreography around the ship, which was novel and fun.  

We found evaluation forms on our beds along with a cute panda pin when we got back to our room in the evening. 

Tomorrow we arrive in Dalian, our last port of call.  This port was colonized at one point or another by Russians, British and the Japanese, so the saga of China’s past of foreign occupations related to the Opium wars continues. It is the southernmost port of Liaoning Province, which is the same province Shenyang is located in.  So in a sense, we have come full circle with our China cruise.