Lights on the Hong Kong Harbor

Sunday, November 27^th

There was always a plan to do a cruise during our trip to Hong Kong.  When we learned there was a light show on the Victoria Harbor, our decision was a no brainer.  Cruise during a light show.  And Aqualuna was our choice.

The original plan was to cruise on Saturday night.  The tickets were purchased before we ever left the US and we were ready to go.  Unfortunately, the weather put a bit of a damper on our plan.  It began raining on Saturday morning and just didn’t let up.  It was raining so much that our AirBNB host e-mailed me and said, “I'm so sorry for the weather!!  Hong Kong isn’t supposed to be like this!!”  After a late lunch on Saturday, we realized the rain wasn’t going to let up.  Adele called Aqualuna and asked if we could move our cruise to Sunday.  No problem.  We were set.

As we were trying to leave Macau on Sunday, we realized we might not make it in time for our 745p departure.  The plan was to leave from Tsim Sha Tsui on Hong Kong Island.  But when we jumped on the hydrofoil to Kowloon instead of heading back to the island, we knew we could still get on the cruise.  We'd just be boarding on the opposite side of the harbor.

We totally missed the cruise we were supposed to hop on.  I'm gonna say this was 90% my fault.  We were running late, but when looking for Pier 9, I thought we were going in the correct direction.  But watching the Pier number decrease from Pier 3 to Pier 1…we were not.  We reached the correct pier just as our cruise was leaving.  That being said, had we gone the right way, I still don’t think we would have made that cruise.

Instead, we jumped on a cruise that started boarding at 9p.  The timing worked as we were able to see a Christmas show projected on the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.  It was pretty cute.  There was something about an elf and singing for Santa.  Kat and I sat and watched.  Adele yelled at us when it was time to board the cruise.  We never did see if that dumb elf won the contest and sang for the big guy.  I sure hope he did.

Boarding the boat was super awkward as there was a large step that no human can make.  Especially ones who are not entirely in shape and had been walking in Macau all day.  Two workers were there to help lift us on the boat, which felt slightly shameful in some way.  We were able to cozy up in some large couch-like chairs after we boarded the boat.  The waitress came by with glasses of wine and we were on our way. 

The boat was a pretty smooth ride.  Our first stop was at the Tsim Sha Tsui harbor.  We picked up a handful of additional voyagers, and sailed up and down the harbor.

Quite honestly, I didn’t realize until I was researching the tour for this post that we completely missed the harbor light show.  Whoops.  We saw the lights though.  Just not the show portion.

The cruise lasted about an hour or so.  The first stop was back in Kowloon, where we originally boarded the boat.  But we asked if we could disembark on Hong Kong Island instead.  They normally don’t let you do this, but we also paid extra for a cruise that saw the lights.  Not one that didn’t (totally our fault, not Aqualuna's).  The Aqualuna staff were super cool and let us stay on the boat for a few minutes longer.

But soon enough, our time in the water was over.  Sure, we disembarked the boat at the same time as a giant concert was ending.  But whatever.  We had a lovely time on the harbor and it was a nice end to one crazy day.