Andrea Zelinski
SHANGHAI — It was a sense of deja vu as I prepared for my first cruise in Asia, to see Viking's first China ocean cruise targeting Western travelers.
The cruise will be a 10-day voyage from Shanghai to Hong Kong aboard the Viking Yi Dun, a 930-passenger ship that debuted as the Viking Sun and was repurposed for the Chinese market in 2021. The refit follows Viking’s 2019 partnership with China Merchants Group to offer domestic cruises for Chinese travelers. Viking agreed to take on marketing and sales responsibilities, while China Merchants Group will manage the ship and crew operations.
The new venture began operating domestic cruises in China in 2021, but this year it will begin sailing along the Chinese coast from September to November, inviting Western travelers. (The ship will otherwise serve the domestic Chinese market and occasionally the Japanese market.)
China didn’t want tourism during the pandemic, and it took until early 2023 to reopen its borders. But the country is now welcoming Western visitors, and Viking is now offering its first marine product at the destination (Viking had been operating river cruises since 2004, up until the pandemic).
In other words, this cruise is a milestone for Viking and me. I have been on 21 cruises in 31 months, but this is my first time in Asia.
I’m not usually one to get motivated to check off destinations on my bucket list (though there’s nothing wrong with people who do), but visiting China is exciting for me. I’m curious to see how Viking will showcase the beauty and culture of this country.
Travel requirements, traveler anxiety
But back to déjà vu: I needed a visa to visit China, and it took a month to get one. The fast-approaching deadline and extensive application process brought back memories of navigating the labyrinthine requirements of the COVID era in early 2022, when I was on my first cruise to French Polynesia.
For that trip, I had to complete a long list of tasks that felt like a treasure hunt, but not as fun as I remember as a child. I had to register with the French Polynesian government in several places, prove my health, and take invasive nasal swab COVID tests multiple times before, during, and after arrival. Oh, and on top of all that, I had to renew my passport.
I was feeling a mixture of excitement and anxiety as I hastily crossed off items from my to-do list, worried that I would mess up something, miss something important, and be denied entry. Luckily, I completed my checklist and arrived without any problems, COVID-free, and was able to fully appreciate the beauty of another part of the world.
As I prepared for this trip, all that anxiety came back. I overnighted my passport to Viking’s preferred visa service, GenVisa, and along with a package of documents including information about my employment years and a list of all the countries I’d visited in the past year (which is a lot for a cruise editor at Travel Weekly), I worried that my visa wouldn’t arrive on time or that my passport would get lost in the mail. But my passport and Chinese visa arrived with two weeks to go, and like my first trip, my anxiety was gone.
I figured the time and energy spent double- and triple-checking everything would definitely be worth it. Sitting on the balcony of this dun, looking out over downtown Shanghai and watching the mesmerizing lights move across the skyline, I can say it was.
This process has made me feel grateful in many ways. First, we are no longer in the midst of a raging pandemic. Second, travel experts are here to advise their customers on what to do and how to do it, so that travelers can enjoy the moment from their balconies and feel that all the effort was worth it.
And Viking will be offering coastal China cruises to Western markets again next year, including a 15-day Beijing to Tokyo itinerary and a 20-day version of the cruise I’m about to embark on. You’ll be reading more about this itinerary and my writing about it in the coming days and weeks.
