Orient Royal Cruise is one of the oldest running Yangtze River Cruise companies, having started in 1994 with two ships the East King and East Queen.
Peak season for cruising the Yangtze is Spring and Autumn with 90% of passengers being westerners during this period.
There are two itineraries – downstream from Chongqing to Yichang which takes four days and three nights or Upstream from Yichang to Chongqing which takes five days and four nights. Both itineraries allow for sleeping on the ship the first night before departing port early the next morning and arriving into the final port the night before disembarkation the following morning. There are no winter sailings.
The cruise passes through the three majestic gorges of the Yangtze – Xiling, the longest (site of the Three Gorges Dam Project); Wu Gorge, with its 12 towering peaks and Qutang Gorge. The itineraries include great on shore excursions.
The East Queen will be going to the shipyard mid November for a total revamp. It will be gutted to the hull and rebuilt to become the Yangtze Explorer to be launched in April 2008. The new look ship will be the most luxurious on the Yangtze with an enclosed Observation Lounge, cabins one and a half times larger than the current cabins, a lift and a Day Spa.
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Last night we were entertained by the Crew Show, with the help of a couple of daring individuals from our group. We watched a variety of traditional dances, a fashion parade of staff uniforms and were serenaded by a number of talented crew members. The ‘piece de resistance’ was Paul and Sandra competing against the locals in a ‘clothing line’, which resulted in an ‘almost’ naked Paul. Say no more, what goes on in China stays in China!!!
After mooring over night in Badong we took a diversion along Shennong Stream, transferring to a ferry for the first portion and then onto a sampan or pea-pod boat - we were the ‘orange’ peas. The sampan boats took us into the upper reaches of the Shennong stream where it was only 1 metre deep and then finally the highlight was the Tunjai tribe men towing us up the final stretch in their underwear, a sight to behold. Years ago it was their tradition to be naked; luckily we only received the modern version.
We returned to find the ship had been hi-jacked by pirates, the theme for our lunch. All of the staff had donned the pirate uniform - luckily they hadn’t stolen our lunch!
In the afternoon we saw an impressive display of the Chinese embroidery, the embroiderer from Shenzu explained how they divide the threads, as we know it, up to 128 times to produce the exquisitely fine work.
Later, once again Paul was the star of the show, assisting the chef in making boiled Jiaozi (dumplings). We learnt how to roll out the dough, stuff them with a variety of mixtures and then after cooking we were able to sample them.
Diary entry contributions from the Selective Tours group.