Last evening we stopped by to talk with our Travel Specialist, Lynn, and her husband, Alan, in the Main Dining Room to give them our best wishes as they were disembarking the ship this today. It was wonderful sailing with them and we had two memorable dinners with them during the course of the cruise. We hope that we have the opportunity to sail with them again. Thank you so very much for the beautiful flowers.
This morning ends the fifth segment of the World Cruise. We sailed from Hong Kong, China to Singapore and sailed a total distance of 2,685 Nautical Miles or the equivalent of 3,087 Land Mile. We thoroughly enjoyed the itinerary sailed which included Chan May/Da Nang, Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam; Bangkok, Thailand, Ko Samui, Thailand; and Singapore.
With the end of this segment many passengers will be disembarking the ship this morning. There are many early and late flights out of Singapore. Many guests left the ship as early as 3:30 AM this morning. With so many early flights, the Lido Café was opened up extra early at 3:00 AM and Continental Breakfast was served. At 6:00 AM a Breakfast Buffet was served and at 7:00 AM breakfast was served in the Main Dining Room.
Today also marks the start of the sixth segment of the World Cruise. During this segment we will sail from Singapore to Mumbai, India. This segment will include stops in Kuala Lumpui/Port Kelang, Malaysia; Phuket, Thailand; Yangon, Myanmar, Cochin, India and Mumbai, India. Those passengers who are beginning their cruise in Singapore began boarding the ship at 12:00 Noon.
This segment also includes six sea days, two overnights in Myanmar for a total of fourteen days.
There will be three formal evenings, eight casual evenings and three informal (semi-formal evenings). In the main dining room at night there will be two formal Captain’s Gala Dinners, a French Dinner, a Neptune Dinner, a Chef’s Dinner and a Royal Thai Dinner in addition to other regular dinners. In addition to the Main Dining Room, and the two specialty restaurants, during eight of the fourteen evenings, guests can also eat at a venue known as Tastes which offers casual dining near the Neptune Pool. Many guests enjoy this venue as they can dine in casual attire and no reservations are required.
We awoke early this morning as we always do. Keith was the first passenger to the Fitness Center and enjoyed a wonderful workout on the Elliptical Machine. Anne Marie did our wash and Keith helped her after his workout. We find that this is a great hour of the day to get our wash done.
We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in our room.
Rather than taking the complimentary shuttle into town, we decided to take the MRT, which is the subway system in Singapore. There was a nearby subway station right adjacent to the Cruise Ship Terminal. After purchasing our fare card we only waited a couple of minutes and within ten minutes we were in downtown Singapore. The subway system was very efficient and as one would imagine very clean. Another example of the logical approach that we have seen in Singapore is the actual fare cards. Rather than using cards that you have to discard, the card is plastic and after you use the card for either a one way to two way trip you return the card and get 1 Singapore Dollar back. This way the cards are reused which makes perfect sense to us. On our return trip, we only had to wait a couple of minutes and then we were back where we started within ten minutes. The subway system has three major lines and stops in lots of places that one would want to visit such as Chinatown and Little India.
After taking the subway downtown we walked to a variety of places. We visited the St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the City Hall, the Supreme Court, the Parliament House, the Singapore Cricket Club, the National Museum of Singapore, the War Memorial Park, the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Center and the Singapore Art Museum. We also stopped by the Riz Carlton and the Raffles Hotel. The Raffles Hotel was originally built in 1887 and is one of the World’s last great 19th century hotels. We also walked along several different streets in the city. This city is so very easy to tour on your own since everything is in English and the transportation system is wonderful. This is a city in which one could spend several days as there is so much to see and it is a very safe environment. The people are very polite and friendly.
We returned back to the ship in the afternoon and we enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the Main Dining Room. Several executives from the Crystal Los Angeles office are boarding the ship in Singapore.
We had a wonderful time in Singapore and look forward to returning sometime in the future.
This evening we ate in the Main Dining Room and enjoyed a nice dinner.
Keith & Anne Marie
