Planning Vietnam and Shanghai

I have been busy planning a 3-day 2-night tour in Vietnam. We are planning on leaving the ship when it docks in Ho Chi Minh City. We will tour Ho Chi Minh City then take a flight to Hanoi. Then next morning tour Hanoi. In the evening we will take a flight to Danang. The next day we will tour Danang and Hoian. After touring, we will be taken back to the ship. We are doing this to avoid a sea day on the ship.

I am finding it difficult to find a tour company that I feel comfortable with using. I thought I found one but they want us to use Western Union to send money with seems odd to me. So I am still looking for one. There are not many reviews on tripadvisor.com. I have received a recommendation for Smile Tours. A person who I met on CruiseCritic has used them before and is using them again on this trip. So I am working with Smile Tours now to possible make reservations with them. Hopefully this will be taken care of soon.

I have all of our hotels booked expect Shanghai. I know which hotel I want to use there but I am hoping that the price will go down. I think it is just wishful thinking. The location of the hotel is great! However the price is a little high for China. It is nearby The Bund, Peoples Square, and the Shanghai Museum. The Oriental Pearl Tower is only 2 km away with great views of it.

Even though this trip is mostly a cruise, we are opting to stay off the ship some which means we are staying at several hotels. Before the start of the cruise, we will be in Beijing spending two days there. Then flying to Singapore. We will be there two days before the start of our cruise. While on the cruise, we are opting to spend the night in Bangkok since the port is so far away from downtown. We are planning on staying over in Vietnam for 2 nights. After our cruise, we will be spending the night in Shanghai so we can tour the city.

I should be getting our Vietnam visa in the mail this week. Hopefully that goes smoothly. For some reason, getting the China and Vietnam visa has been stressing me out. We have never had to mail our passports before to get a visa. For Australia, we were able to fill out a form online. For all of our travels in Europe, we did not need any visas.

Last night we went to the store and purchased my travel binder. My travel binder is how I stay organized for trips. I get a new binder for each trip. I have tabs for each city. Then I place all my information about each city with all of our reservation confirmations in it. I really love my travel binder. This trip the binder is PURPLE! Yea!