MizReeney: Day 3 - Royal Mariner of the Seas

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Day 3 - Royal Mariner of the Seas - Langkawi, Malaysia.

The ship docked at 8am and as we woke up, the scenery outside our window of the mountains and islands was really beautiful. I was super excited because we had never been to Langkawi before. We originally wanted to sign up for the Mangrove Trip by Kayak tour (Price: $109.75 per adult, $89.75 per child), but unfortunately we took too long to decide and by the time we made up our mind it was too late and the tour had been fully booked! The tour would've taken us on a kayak to visit the bat cave, local fish farm and lunch at a floating restaurant, plus eagle feeding session (note, lunch is at your own expense).

The mountains are simply breathtaking!

So today we decided to try breakfast at the Main Dining Room. I think the food is pretty much more or less the same as the Windjammer Cafe buffet, because it also had a small buffet section. But in the main dining room we had servers that would take our orders and pour us coffee and tea. could order a set plate consisting of something like Eggs Benedict on english muffins, etc.

The terminal we are docked at is the Star Cruise Terminal. If anyone is interested, the address is: Langkawi Cruise Centre Sdn. Bhd, Awana Porto Malai, 07000. It's a pretty nice terminal, we went down from the ship via deck 2. The buses will pick up the tour groups right in front of the ship. However if you were like us, and wanted to take a taxi, we had to walk out pretty far.

See the bridge you have to walk across to get to the minivans outside? The Minivans will tout their tours.

Although there are taxis out near the entrance of the terminal, those minibuses and taxis will only take passengers if they are willing to join their private tour of the island. We ended up walking really really far and when we got to the entrance of the carpark where there was a guard house, there were other people there also waiting for a taxi and they told us it would be a 45 minute wait for a taxi. We were pretty annoyed. So we decided to just walk around and just discover on our own on foot what was nearby.

The ship looks very majestic

It turns out that nearby the terminal was where all the tour boats were at for Island Hopping! We managed to get a boat to ourselves plus another couple from the cruise, all for only RM250. So for the 3 of us, we only paid RM150 for a three hour island hopping tour! Waaaay cheaper than joining the cruise ship one. And omg, it was soooo fun!!! One of the best memories and funnest things we did on this holiday. The boat traveled so fast that we were bouncing up and down. Ok, so at first I was so afraid that we'd capsize (and yes we had life jackets on), but after I relaxed I began to really enjoy it.

First stop was Pulau Dayang Bunting, aka the Pregnant Maiden Island. After a super fast boat ride, we arrived at an island that was quite crowded with lots of tourists. You can read more about this beautiful place here: http://www.langkawi-insight.com/langkawi_000047.htm. To get into the park, we have to pay a small entry fee. After that you're on your own to explore the park. We really didn't know what to expect. There was a path and we just followed it. Was quite a hike. Be careful, there are monkeys around. And these monkeys can get a little hostile when they want to grab drinks or food out of your hand or plastic bags.

At the end of the path you are greeted with an amazing view of the freshwater lake! I had no idea that this is what we'd find. There were people swimming, canoeing and pedal boating - which is what we also opted to do.

After visiting the island, we went back on the boat to see the Eagles feeding. This one wasn't that exciting. We only saw the eagles from a distance, we could hardly make out that it was even an eagle. The most fascinating thing was seeing other tours, but not on a boat, but on a jet ski!!

The next stop was Beras Basah Island (or translated to Wet Rice Island). There's nothing much on this island, but the water is gorgeous! It was beautiful. Soft powdery sand, crystal clear turquoise water, just beautiful. We were completely not prepared for any swimming, such a shame.

look how beautiful the water is at Beras Basah Island

you can also go banana boating!

So after that we headed back to shore and we made our long walk back to Mariner of the Seas, our hair was windswept and our face was covered with sprayings of salty sea water and we were left with really gorgeous memories. We didn't regret going on this tour one bit.

By 4.30pm all passengers are required to come back on the ship. And thus we ended our day with the headliner comedy show starring Jeremy Ansley, he was hilarious :)