Ah, another sea day. I have to admit, I was ready for it. Three port days in a row, when they are as hot and humid and busy as the last three days have been, are a little tiring. In fact, they had me checking the calendar for the rest of our cruising season to see if we would face the same thing again, and I happily noted we would not. Two port days followed by a sea day seem to be the most strenuous pace we’ll encounter, and that’s fine by me, especially as I learned today that Bangkok will be a 2.5 hour drive each way from the port. Yikes.
We had been up fairly late last night, and it was nice to sleep until nearly 8am this morning. We met up in the Horizon Court Buffet where my breakfast was simply a piece of stollen and several cups of decaf coffee with soy milk; I knew there would be no shortage of food nor access to bathrooms today, both welcome attributes of sea days. We shared a table with a couple from California who had moved from India in the early 80s, and I asked about the Hindu god Ganesh. They knew all about him, of course, and told me some of the same information that Denise had sent me, and that I’d learned through Google. In fact, they said that, when they pray (as Hindus), their first prayer was to Ganesh.
While we were talking, two waiters from Thailand stopped by to clear our plates and overheard our discussion. Though they are Buddhists, they are well familiar with Ganesh and also pray to him first when they pray. Learning about different belief systems is fascinating to me, and I am really enjoying the exposure we’ve had to Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy in Europe, Islam in Dubai and Southeast Asia, and Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asia.
So after my theocratical enlightenment, we took care of some shipboard responsibilities including checking our onboard account (to resolve any discrepancies before tomorrow morning, but there were none) and checking with Shore Excursions to see if they had the excursion descriptions for next cruise available yet (they did not). G decided to go to the backstage tour offered at 11:15am after the culinary demonstration, but I returned to the cabin to listen to the prerecorded disembarkation lecture by Customer Services Director Miguel on TV. Now, I usually blow these off, choosing instead to just read the disembarkation letter that is delivered to us the final evening of the cruise, but much has been made of how picky Singapore immigration is, so I thought it would be wise to be attentive
Our passports have been held by Princess since we boarded in Singapore and we will pick those up, as well as Singapore landing cards that have been completed for us by Princess, tomorrow morning from 8am to 11am. If we plan to go ashore, we must do so by 11am and we can’t reboard until after 11:30am. Our plan is to be off the ship as soon after 8am as we can.
We had lunch in the International Dining Room (my favorite lunch, broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus with tomato sauce and pine nuts) and G went to the final presentation by the Enrichment Lecturer (the airline pilot whose name eludes me right now). These lectures have been excellent, and I’ve enjoyed watching all of them on our cabin TV’s video on demand system.
I used the time he was at the lecture to investigate the internet situation on board. We had been unable to get online all morning, and checking with the internet manager revealed that the system would be down for an indeterminate amount of time. Even more discouraging, I was told our unused internet minutes would not carry over to our next cruise, as they have for years. So I had 150 minutes of internet time left (I’ve been very miserly using WiFi on board) and the internet was down. Ouch. It eventually came back up, and has been up and down all evening. WiFi certainly has been a challenge this cruise, but, thankfully, our T-Mobile related cellular internet has been fairly reliable. Still, I am woefully behind in not only responding to emails from readers, but in reading them. They simply won’t download in the ship. If you’re waiting for a response, please be patient. I will do my best tomorrow to get caught up.
After the final dinner of this cruise, we attended the early performance by vocalist Daniel Koek, an Australian who has performed in several West End shows and in West Side Story in the Sydney Opera House. He was wonderful. We’ve had some really good entertainment this cruise, with only one performer who really didn’t appeal to our tastes. The production shows, in particular, have been great.
After coffee and dessert in the Horizon Court Buffet (we had skipped it in the dining room to get to the 7pm show), we returned to the cabin to pack a day bag for tomorrow. We’re quite excited about doing some sightseeing in Singapore, and are currently watching the presentation by Destination Expert Debbie Shields on the island. All of her presentations have been spectacular. I especially like how she covers the history, the culture, and the key sights as well as how to get to them and any mobility access issues. She is leaving tomorrow and we are getting a new Destination Expert and it will be interesting to see how she compares.
Four weeks from tomorrow we will be flying to Hawaii. This season has seemed to move slowly, probably because we’ve had such a variety of experiences. When we used to spend months cruising the Caribbean, time flew by, but it feels like a lifetime ago that we left home. Frankly, I’m thrilled that we’ve made it this far; the season has felt rather unsettled for me, probably because we are so far out of our comfort zone. But we knew it would be challenging; if we wanted something familiar, we wouldn’t be half way around the world tackling a new country every day or two. I feel like I’m on a treadmill of sleep, eat, sightsee, take photos, upload photos, eat again, see a show, write about our day, repeat.
But won’t Hawaii seem a piece of cake after this?