Wednesday January 29th, 2020
Dubai
I woke up at 5:30 AM Los Angeles time, 5:30 PM Dubai time. We were 12,500 meters above Baghdad, going at a speed of Mach 0.83, with an outside temperature of – 60 degrees Celsius. There were certainly no ghostly visitors last night, or if there had been, I had clearly slept through it.
I had had a really great sleep, and felt ready to face the day, especially as a mimosa suddenly presented itself to me.
Soon we landed in Dubai. Going through immigration and customs was easy, as was picking up a few bottles of Veuve Clicquot at the Duty Free shop. My driver was waiting for me, and managed to cope with all of my luggage. Things were going well I thought.
Then I turned on my phone, and having not had any internet connection for 16 and a half hours there was a multitude of texts and emails, however I was immediately drawn the email entitled “URGENT – changes to QM2 Itinerary HONG KONG and BITUNG”
This was not entirely unexpected. So now we are not going to Hong Kong, but passengers will embark and disembark during a second stop in Singapore. Bitung has been replaced with Bali.
Time to change Brian and Ruth’s flights. Brian’s was easy – we had booked using frequent flyer miles, and luckily there were still flights available to Singapore. I needed to call Cunard for Ruth’s flight as she was using Cunard Air. After a very long time on hold, I was told that we would need to make the change once we were on board QM2.
For us the change really isn’t a problem, but I do feel sorry for passengers who were hoping to see Hong Kong. Now I have to plan what to do with my 4 days in Singapore! And get some sleep in a real bed…………………….
Glad it’s not too problematic for you to change itinerary. It is too bad for those who haven’t been to Hong Kong, but I don’t think I’d want to be in China right now.. We had 4 days in Singapore before our second segment on the QE in 2018 – nice to have more than a port stop despite the heat.