Andrea Zelinski
SHANGHAI -- I had a sense of deja vu as I prepared for my first cruise in Asia to see Viking's first oceangoing China cruise for Western travelers.
The cruise is a 10-day voyage from Shanghai to Hong Kong on the Viking Yi Dun, a 930-passenger ship that debuted as the Viking Sun and was repurposed in 2021 to serve the China market. That repositioning came as a result of Viking teaming up with China Merchants Group in 2019 to offer domestic cruises for Chinese travelers: Viking agreed to own the marketing and sales responsibilities, while China Merchants Group maintains management of the ship and crew operations.
The new venture began sailing domestic China cruises in 2021 but this year began inviting Western travelers to sail the coast of China from September to November. (The ship will otherwise continue to serve the domestic Chinese market and, at times, 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 Westerners to visit, and Viking is now offering its first ocean product in the destination (Viking sailed river cruises from 2004 until the pandemic).
In other words, this cruise represents a milestone for Viking -- and also for me. I have sailed on 21 cruises in 31 months, but this is my first in Asia.
I'm not normally one who is motivated to tick destinations off a bucket list (although there's nothing wrong with those who do), but visiting China is exciting for me. I'm curious how Viking will showcase the beauty and culture of this country.
Travel requirements, traveler anxiety
But back to the deja vu: To visit China, I needed a visa, and I had a month to acquire one. The fast-approaching deadline and extensive application process gave me flashbacks to navigating a maze of Covid-era requirements in early 2022 to sail on my first-ever cruise, one to French Polynesia.
For that trip, I had to complete a long list of tasks in what felt like a scavenger hunt, although not as fun as the ones I remember as a kid: I had to register with the French Polynesia government in several places, attest to my health and subject myself to several invasive Covid nasal swabs before, during and after my arrival. Oh, and I had to renew my passport on top of all that.
As I hurriedly crossed items off my to-do list, I felt a mix of excitement and nervousness that I would do something wrong, miss a critical item and be denied entry. Fortunately, I completed my checklist and made it there with no problems and no Covid, and I was able to take in all of the beauty of a different part of the world.
All of that anxiety returned as I prepared for this trip. As I overnighted my passport to GenVisa, Viking's preferred visa service, with a packet of documents that included info on years of employment and a list of all the countries I'd been to in the last year (which tends to be a lot when you're Travel Weekly's cruise editor), I was anxious that the visa wouldn't arrive in time or that my passport would get lost in the mail. But my passport and Chinese visa arrived with two weeks to spare and, just like with the first trip, that anxiety lifted.
The time and energy I spent double- and triple-checking everything will surely be worth it, I thought to myself. As I sat on my balcony on the Yi Dun gazing at downtown Shanghai with mesmerizing lights animating this skyline, I can say that it was.
The process also made me grateful for several things: one, that we no longer live in a raging pandemic, and two, that there are travel professionals who advise their clients on what to do and how to do it so that those travelers can have that moment on their balcony thinking all the trouble was worth it.
And it turns out Viking will be offering coastal China cruises to the Western market again next year, including a 15-day itinerary from Beijing to Tokyo and a 20-day version of the cruise I'm about to sail on. You'll read much more from me about this itinerary and this product in the coming days and weeks.