And We're Off!!!

Just as I predicted, I’m starting this blog from somewhere over the Pacific, but I’ll finish it after we sail out of Singapore.

After all the anticipation and preparation, the day finally arrived! I actually managed to get just about everything on my To Do list done, so I feel super relaxed about leaving. Wil and Rebecca came and we had a great time. It’s always so nice to see them and Rebecca and I can sit and talk for hours—which we did.

I woke up Easter morning, the day of our departure, excited and ready to go. I grabbed my phone while still in bed to check for messages and notifications, and one of the first things I saw was the devastating news of the bombings in Sri Lanka. Over 300 dead and more than 500 injured in what appeared to be coordinated attacks against Christian churches and tourist hotels. My first thoughts and concern went out to the victims of the tragedy. Following that, I thought, “I’ll bet they cancel our Colombo, Sri Lanka port.” We’re scheduled to stop there 10 days from now, and Colombo was one of the cities hit hard. We won’t know until we get to the ship how our trip will be affected, but of course, compared to what happened, it will seem minor.

The good news is all of our flights were on time, and now we’re on the ultimate red-eye. We saw a beautiful sunset as we flew into San Francisco, but by the time we took off, it was dark and we are now chasing that sun around the world. We won’t see it again until it laps us from behind in the east just as we are getting into Singapore. That’s a 17 hour flight in complete darkness. Great for watching movies and getting a nap in. Terrible when the young woman on the aisle sleeps the ENTIRE trip and you have to go the bathroom. I did get a chance to finally watch the movie “Crazy Rich Asians” which was a lot of fun because it takes place in Singapore and showed off many of the places we will be going.

About halfway through the trip, Lynda got on wi-fi and checked her email. Through our Cruise Critic board, she learned that our ship didn’t arrive yesterday like it was supposed to! There was an option to spend an extra night aboard the ship, and a number of people arrived yesterday to do just that. They ended up having to get hotel rooms when the ship no-showed. We are arriving early in the morning and need to drop off our luggage before spending the day touring. We’ll work it out, but I sure hope it shows up today!!!

Day 1: Singapore

So we landed in Singapore to a warm, humid, and foggy morning, the sun just coming up behind us. We changed clothes at the airport since we weren’t sure if we would be able to check into the ship that early. We were prepared to check our bags and come back later if we needed to, but the warm clothes we wore on the plane would be WAY too hot for walking around in 90° weather with extreme humidity.

We took a cab to the Harbourfront Marina where our ship was docked. My first impressions of Singapore: Beautiful. It is green and lush with flowers everywhere. It looks clean and modern. I’m really impressed.

As it turns out, when we got to the ship we were able to check in no problem. We went directly to our room, and some of our luggage actually beat us there. The rest arrived within minutes. I like our room. It’s clean and roomy enough for the two of us. We decided to unpack later, do a quick tour of the ship, then head out and explore the city.

Ok, so remember all of that planning we did pre-trip? Months of figuring out our every move? Yeah, we completely ditched it all on the first day. Our initial plan was to go to the Gardens by the Bay, get a Singapore Sling at the hotel they were invented, see the iconic Singapore merlion stature, and do a Chinatown and tri-shaw tour that evening. We ended up not doing any of it.

So, here’s the thing when you travel. Things just don’t always go the way you think they will and sometimes you just have to roll with the punches. The only way to travel and have a really great time, is to learn to be flexible with your plans.

Here’s how the day actually went: Since checking in took a while, we decided to push the Gardens by the Bay to the next day so we’d have plenty of time for that. So after that loooooong plane ride, we agreed, we needed a drink. Let’s go get that Singapore Sling. The Raffles Hotel is where they originated and it’s a really classy, old colonial type hotel. So we took the train (subway) to Raffles Place. Oops, that was just a square with shops and tall buildings around it. So we took the train again up a couple of more stops, then walked quite a ways. We did finally find the Raffles Hotel, but it was closed for renovation!!! Ugh!

New plan: Let’s go get that Singapore Sling at the top of the architecturally amazing Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Instead of just finding the nearest train station, we started walking in the direction of the hotel and thought we’d just catch a cab. Storm clouds were closing in and the sky was going really dark. But we couldn’t get a cab. So we walked. And walked. We finally came upon the river next to the Sands Hotel and got some really great views of the area. We then walked into the mall attached to the hotel and after watching some kids play on a simulated koi pond projection, we came upon a tea restaurant.

By now it was pouring rain outside. We could see it coming down in buckets on the windows above our heads. It was a perfect opportunity to do something different. So afternoon tea it was.

We had a great waitress who helped us pick out some delicious teas. Lynda got a red tea, and I ordered a black tea with pomegranate and berry. We also got scones with jam and whipped cream.

Refreshed, we walked next door to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and up to the 57th floor. We finally got our Singapore Slings at C’est la Vie, and I must say, I’m a fan. We also had a couple of appetizers as we hadn’t had lunch (aside from a couple of scones), Crispy shrimp and avocado tacos. Even with the clouds, the views were amazing and we could even see across to the infinity pool that sits atop the hotel.

Because of the rain, we decided to reschedule our Chinatown tri-shaw tour for tomorrow. Of course, the minute we did, it stopped raining and 30 minutes after that the sun started peeking through the clouds.

After our drinks, we took a cab over to Clark’s Quay. It’s an old warehouse area on the Singapore River that has been turned into a popular restaurant/bar area. We just walked around and then headed over to Chinatown.

After all of that walking, we were hungry. Again. So we bought dinner from a street vendor, coupled with a cold Tiger beer. A perfect way to end our day.

The travel, the food, the beer, the walking. All of it added up to two extremely tired people. We took the train back to the ship, unpacked, and cracked open our complimentary bottle of wine. I fell asleep typing up my daily journal.

Day 2: Singapore

Breakfast was our first meal on board and I found myself scanning the crowd for anyone under the age of 70. There were a few, but it’s definitely an older crowd. We don’t mind.

On our way out for the day, we stopped to use the free port wi-fi, then started walking the first of our 19,850 steps for the day (7.8 miles).

We began by taking the train to Gardens by the Bay. It’s an absolutely beautiful place on the water that is a skyline identifier of Singapore. The first thing you notice at the gardens is the Supertree Grove, giant living plant structures shaped like trees. After that, you notice the two domed buildings that are the Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome.

As cool as the Supertree Grove and the Skywalk were, my favorite part of the gardens was actually the Cloud Forest. It has a giant waterfall, a skywalk of its own, and the most amazing orchids.

The second dome is the Flower Dome. It had collections of plants from different parts of the world. Along with a very extensive succulent and cactus garden, Mediterranean garden, and South Africa garden, there was also a large and beautiful tulip garden.

From the Gardens by the Bay we walked back to the train station and headed on up to Little India for a very late lunch. I wish we’d had more time there, but we still got a taste of the place: figuratively and literally. We had a delicious meal of ginger chicken and chicken masala curry and a couple of cold beers which tasted as good as anything in the heat and humidity.

For the evening, we had our rescheduled tour, but first Lynda’s phone battery was running low and she forgot to bring her battery charger, so we headed back to the boat for a quick stop. Since she uses her phone to take pictures and we had a 4 hour tour planned, she definitely was going to wanted that extra juice. As we were boarding the ship and going through security, we mentioned that we were heading back out, and one of the guys said, “Just be back by 9:30!”

“What? Why? We don’t leave until midnight.”

“No, no, we leave at 10:00 pm, you have to be back on board by 9:30. It’s posted right there,” he said pointing to a sign.

Noooo! Our tour is scheduled from 6-10, and this is the one with the night bumboat ride that we were so excited about.

We decided to go ahead and meet the group for the tour anyway, and then we could just quit at any time and grab the train back to the ship. Just as we were disembarking we heard some loud claps of thunder and the rain started coming down. Great. As we walked toward the hotel we were both thinking the same thing, “We’re just going to bail on this tour.” Luckily, in true tropics style, by the time we got to the hotel it was already letting up.

We boarded the bus and headed down to Chinatown. We joined the group for dinner, but decided to split off after that and go down to the river and just suck up paying for the boat ride again (already paid for in our tour package) at $25 Singapore ($18.50 U.S.). We weren’t that happy about paying the extra money, but seeing the lights at night from the water was one of the things we were really looking forward to. We took the train from Chinatown back down to Clark’s Quay and were able to get on a tour boat right away. The timing was perfect as we were even able to catch the laser light show at the Sands Hotel.

After the bumboat ride, we grabbed the train back to the harbor and boarded with a whole 15 minutes to spare. Plenty of time! (There were actually 5 more people still to board behind us, so we weren’t even the last ones.) We joined the rest of the ship for the sail-away celebration and raised our glasses of champagne in a toast to the start of our adventure.

We were scary close to missing our ship (thank goodness for weak phone batteries!) and our schedule got blown completely out of the water, but we loved Singapore and had a great time there. We’re absolutely exhausted now and are really looking forward to a day of relaxation tomorrow.