With border restrictions gradually easing in many places around the world – excepting and maybe even infuriatingly for many persons here, Japan which remains open to tourists in very limited circumstances – we gave serious thought to whether we could finally venture out of Singapore this June school holiday break. I was all for a 12 day visit to Sydney visit – my last visit was in 2000 – and I’d in fact even drawn up an itinerary for a June 2020 trip two years ago, before the pandemic hit the world. Our window of decision this year however was in late March, and at that point, the hassle of getting into Australia still proved a bit too much for the missus, so we shelved an overseas trip in favor of going on a cruise – a family first.
Unlike our previous trips where I’ve blogged every day during the trip itself, we’ve already returned home after this cruise this time. So everything in this series of posts is in retrospect. There will be at least eight posts in his series:
Part 1 – Decisions and Before Sailing
Part 7 – Reflections – Not So Great
There has only ever been a handful of cruise liners operating out of Singapore – the noteworthy ones being Royal Caribbean International and Genting Cruises. But the latter shuttered operations just before we booked in late-March, which left us only with Royal Caribbean International, which offered a range of 3 to 5 day cruises.
Like every other holiday we plan for, our basic approach remains the same: when planning to travel somewhere, we’d always go for the longest period we can afford and manage time-wise. The 5 day cruises at the point of booking were still to “nowhere” though, so there shouldn’t be possibly sudden changes to border restrictions and the like. However, the onboard activities would likewise have to deal with the pressures of engaging so many guests onboard at all times without the offshore excursions to offload that pressure. But more on that later.
The cruise that we booked was on the Spectrum of the Seas, a relatively new ship that was launched by RC about 3 years ago at the point of our sailing. A key decision one makes in cruises is the cabin you are going with, and some of the nicest staterooms can easily cost upwards of five digit figures for even a short cruise. Of this, the wife would had been happy if we’d just gone with a balcony-less stateroom on account that we’d be spending most of our time outside the room anywhere. I was less optimistic about that, since as exciting as the activities looked on the RC web site while we were deciding, I was aware of my inclination sometimes on holiday to just curl up somewhere in a quite corner and read. Nonetheless, we chose a balcony stateroom that was mid-ship, semi-higher level, opted for a five day cruise over the 16 to 20 June dates, and paid the deposit.
In the weeks following confirmation of reservation, RC was relentless in sending travel advisories, health clearances we’d need to do, onboard activity information on dining and activities.
One nifty thing RC has is a mobile app, which is an app we use to do just about every thing you’d want to before and during sailing. Before sailing, we used the app to provide guest details for our entire party, and health declarations. During the cruise itself, the app was our every day activity planner, location finder, digital key to the stateroom, and also for us to look-up what was on the restaurant menus each day. The app has both Android and iOS versions, though in the case of the latter, there’s no iPad optimised version. You can also load up the app in as many mobile devices you have, and sign into all of them using one account.
Do note though: the non-reservation activities that you add to your calendar in the RC app will not be synced across your devices, but the reserved activities should be.
Many guests sailing on RC cruises will also opt to pay the extra for onboard Internet packages. Sure, you could always leave your smartphone behind and be entirely disconnected from the online world. Actually, not having at least one smartphone would be a bad idea, since you still need the RC app when onboard. Onboard Internet access was always going to be expensive and also slow, though there is recent news that Royal Caribbean is looking into Elon Musk’s Starlink technology to provide better Internet access experiences for onboard guests.
There are basically two types of plans you’d consider: without video streaming, and with streaming. And also three more plan types that support up to a number of simultaneous logged on devices – 1, 2 or 4 simultaneous devices. I read earlier on that the plans without video streaming – in principle designed just for web browsing, messaging and emailing – can also be atrociously slow. I had no intentions of Netflixing while onboard – there’s no need to anyway since you can always download selections from Netflix for binging, all without consuming precious Internet data – but I do have a serious aversion to having for any length of time in-between clicks. So, I opted for the video streaming plan for two devices, and gritted my teeth to pay the SGD183.32 asking price for it. More comments on the actual Internet experience in my later posts too.
The check-in process at Marina Bay Cruise Centre was brisk. Guests were given specific times to board the ship. We’d already tagged our luggage, so luggage submission was super easy. As soon as we arrived at the cruise terminal, we left our tagged luggage at the entrance, and proceeded to departure immigration clearance and guest registration. The entire process took about 30 minutes from our arrival time at noon, and by 12:35PM, we were onboard the ship. Our stateroom was only going to be ready at 1:30PM though, so as soon as our safety briefing was done, we proceeded up to Windjammer Marketplace at deck 14 for lunch buffet.
The ‘marketplace’ name is quite apt: the place was crowded with guests that were just arriving, lunching, or had already lunched and were waiting for their rooms. It was noisy, but food queues moved quickly, and the entire floor is large enough to hold several hundred guests. The tables quite far into the floor were also further away from the buffet spreads but those were the only tables we could find for Day 1 lunch right after our boarding.
Check-out at our arrival back in Singapore was even quicker: guests were again given specific times to disembark – ours was 7:30AM – and our luggage was waiting for us as soon as we’d cleared arrival immigration – it took just 10 minutes for us after stepping off the ship to joining the taxi queue for a ride back home.
Pro Tip: the cruise will advise that any luggage you want the ship to take care for you needs to be ready before its stipulated time. In our case, the ship was arriving back in Singapore at 5:30AM, so we were advised that our luggage were to be tagged and placed outside our stateroom door by 11PM. They were not kidding about this time: our luggage were whisked away at 11:15PM.
Continued in the next post – the ship itself!