Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Shorter cruises for luxury lines show off ships around the world

Cruise lines from mass-market to luxury increasingly are designing shorter voyages, both to introduce their ships to vacationers who have not been to sea and to provide getaways for busy world travelers who may have only a few leisure days to spare.

 

Tea time in Palm Court on Crystal Serenity (Picture from Crystal Cruises)

This year, in addition to traditional cruises of two-to-five nights out of Florida and the U.S. East, West and Gulf coasts -- including Norwegian Cruise Line trips to nowhere of one and two nights out of New York -- you’ll find well-known brands with short cruises from ports around the world.

Ships are sailing with short itineraries from Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and Durban, Barcelona, Lisbon, Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, Rome, Hamburg, and Monte Carlo.

Extremes in Beijing at China's luxurious Opposite House

With a name like Opposite House, you wouldn't expect the ordinary.

The 98-room hotel, which opened in Beijing last year in the Sanlitun neighborhood, fits the image of a hip urban inn fancied by young adults and by monied travelers who are looking for contemporary design and style.  Service is casual, yet quick and thorough.

From the outdoors to your room, The Opposite House challenges expectation.

Scrunching toward Beijing's Forbidden City

A year after the summer Olympic Games, folks living in Beijing still seem to be on their best behavior.

"We are better because of the Olympics," said an employee at Opposite House, a new hotel in the sprawling city. "We are cleaner, more sophisticated," she said.

I didn't see any spitting on the sidewalks, a habit that was called to the attention of the Chinese and diminished significantly while the world watched the Olympic Games in the summer of 2008. 

A cheeseburger in China, shopping for cloisonne

If you must eat a cheeseburger in the country of Mao Zedong, I highly recommend a sandwich at the School House, near the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, north of Beijing.

The restaurant, which serves western-style food on a sunny patio, makes a burger that is big and juicy, accompanied not only by French fries, but also a great view of the Great Wall. It's a fine place to unwind after a wall walk. My lunch was about $12.

Then, for a detour from modern munchies to the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644), make a short stop at the cloisonne factory nearby. It is on the road back to Beijing from Mutianyu.

China's Great Wall fits the bucket list

Gleeful Morgan Freeman and sidekick Jack Nicholson zipping along the Great Wall of China on a motorcycle: The image was playing, rewinding, and playing again in my mind as a tour guide and I headed by car northeast through the suburbs of Beijing toward the mountains and world's largest cemetery.

Like Freeman and Nicholson in the movie, "The Bucket List," I planned to check off the Great Wall from my long itinerary of the world's special places.

No motorcycle for me. I would walk the wall as far as I could go. 

Seeking dental floss in Shanghai

On a Sunday afternoon in Shanghai, I began a search for dental floss.

 

It turns out that my roll of floss ran out in a country that doesn’t seem to use it.    

 

My exploration reached a climax at Shanghai's largest pharmacy, or so the sign reported in front of a building of several stories on famed Nanjing Danglu, a shopping street of renoun that leads to the Bund, the city's commercial and financial center.

 

You can buy and replace almost anything you want on Nanjing Danglu, but not a roll of dental floss.