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Day 1 of Spice of South East Asia Cruise

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Cruising Tips from a First Time Cruiser - Mariner of the Seas Royal Caribbean

If you’ve arrived at this page, it’s likely that you’ve reached here because you’re researching for an up and coming trip and also because it’s your first time Cruising and you need some tips. Because that’s exactly what I did after we booked our trip, I had so many questions but didn’t really find the information I was looking for. So I hope that this Blog entry can help you in some way in planning your vacation J

Aside from the clothes you wear, don’t forget to pack a formal wear for the formal night. There are a lot of people that didn’t dress up, so if you really are against getting all dressy then by all means wear whatever is comfortable, but you might feel a bit weird being the only few who are casual on the formal night. The formal night only happens one night on the cruise ship and it’s a night to welcome the captain. It’s a pretty special occasion where you get to drink free bubbly J and see the Captain introduce himself and the important people on the cruise.
There is no need to bring your own towels, as it’s provided for in the room and at the swimming pool. But please do bring your own toiletries and toothbrush. Apart from a bar soap and shampoo (really bad one) from a dispenser, there is nothing else provided in the bathroom.
And don’t forget your sunscreen! There are no amenities shop as such on board, there is a mini gift shop that has a very small shelf of things that you might’ve forgotten to bring, but of course be prepared to pay a premium.
Bring a Lanyard or an ID Holder! You'll be needing your Sea Pass card for everything as it is a cashless system onboard. And you need your Sea Pass Card for some show seatings, activities, picking your kids up from the kids club, getting on and off the ship etc. So it can get annoying just taking your Sea Pass Card in and out all the time from your wallet, bag, or pocket. This is one tip I wish someone would've told us!
Board the Ship earlier. For our particular cruise, the ship departed at 5pm. But you can start boarding at 11.30 eventhough on the email you receive for the pre-departure info it will tell you the time you should board for your deck. For example, our Deck is 2, so the letter stated to board the ship at 3pm. Well we arrived at 11.30am at the cruise terminal without any problem and managed to get on board by about 12.30 – 1pm. So you can get on board earlier to explore, have the buffet lunch and even swim if you want. If you want to swim, make sure you carry on your bathing suits in a hand carry as your luggage may not arrive in your room until late afternoon or early evening.
5.30pm or 8pm Dining Time. We were assigned the 8pm time because apparently the 5.30pm was full. I was fine with that because 5.30 is too early for us. But keep in mind this timing is just for the Main Dining Room where you get served a 3 course meal fine dining style. The Buffet at the other restaurant is open from 6.30pm and you're free to come and go there anytime within the opening hours. I personally don't have dinner early, so 8pm timing is fine for me. The only problem with this timing is when there's a show in the theater at 9.30pm, sometimes your dinner needs to be rushed.
Regarding Shore Excursions. Shore excursions are not compulsory, you can choose to stay onboard if you wish. Or you can choose to get off the ship and just go around on your own. There are pros and cons to each. Going on your own or organising your own tour is cheaper. However if you go with a tour organised by the cruise you have the safety of getting back on the cruise on time or if that tour is late the cruise will wait for you. Supposedly the cruise will not wait for you if you come back late. (But I have my own theories on this). And also remember that even if you decide to, say take a taxi into town when you're in one of the ports such as Langkawi or Port Klang, there might actually not be any taxis available for you to take for a very long time thus wasting precious exploring time.
Bring a drink bottle that you can fill up with water on board. There are no free water in the room, but you're free to fill up your own drink bottles from the many water dispensers scattered around the ship. Just remember to use a cup to fill up the bottle and not fill it directly under the dispenser.
There are drink packages that you can buy, ranging from USD$8 to $60+ per day. It will entitle you to have unlimited sodas, or cocktails or whatever depending on the package. But if you don't sign up, never fear, there is plenty of iced or warm water for free as well as tea (not sure about coffee as I'm not a coffee drinker), and in the buffet restaurant there is free lemonade, ice tea and strawberry and kiwi juice during the meal times.

So these are my main tips for cruising for the first timer. If you have any questions, leave me a question below and I'll try to answer them. Or go to my Facebook Page and drop me a message which renders a faster response. And stay tuned to this Blog for my write up on our Cruise Vacation!

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Friday, December 25, 2015

Day 2 - Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas - Port Klang, Malaysia

Today is Christmas Day and this morning the ship was due to dock at Port Klang, Malaysia by 8am and Immigration is due to clear by 8.30am, so passengers can go down anytime after that. We opted not to sign up for any onshore excursions because a lot of the excursions seems to have an hour journey on the bus towards Kuala Lumpur. We've been to KL before so we didn't think it was necessary to go down and explore. Plus Caelyn really wanted to go to the Kids Adventure Ocean club.

We, actually Caelyn, was most excited about the "Children's Holiday Gift Giving with Santa" activity. So before breakfast we quickly went down to Studio B, the ice skating rink, and lined up to get a present from Santa. The queue was alright and we didn't have to wait very long, I guess because a lot of people would've been at breakfast or getting ready to go down for their shore excursions

The present was a pair of pink sunglasses with Royal Caribbean emblazoned on the side. Pretty cool present and it was really great that they separated the presents for girls and boys and also sorted according to age. So this is just one of the perks of cruising during Christmas.

So after that we went to breakfast at Windjammer and stuffed ourselves as usual. Just check out the food we had, no wonder I gained like 3kgs!

Top: Breakfast. Below: the Dock at Port Klang

From the restaurant window we had a clear view of the Dock that we were at. It was nice that there was a direct bridge linking us to the shore. However, as you can see, there's really nothing around the the Dock. We had hoped there would be some shops at least. But just one big white building.

After breakfast we went for a swim. This was our first dip in the pool and we were taken by surprise at how cold the water was..hehe. Not only that, it was salty as sea water!! Well later on we found out that it's so salty because it's water that's pumped in from the sea!! Only the jacuzzis were chlorinated fresh water.

After our swim we dropped Caelyn off at the kids club, the hubby and I went down to check out what's inside the terminal. FYI, the name of the terminal is Boustead Cruise Terminal, Pulau Indah, Port Klang Cruise Centre.

If you wanted to go on a shore excursion, make sure you book early, surprisingly they do get filled up very fast. My own personal opinion is that the shore excursions are pretty expensive. Dont forget that all pricing is also in US$. And in case you're wondering, below are some of the shore excursions you can find book (and prices at time of of our cruise):

1. Aeon Mall Transfer: Adults $15.75, Child $12.75
2. Kuala Lumpur Shopping: A $59.75, C $39.75
3. Makan-Makan and Shopping: A $39.75, C $29.75
4. A Day at Mid Valley Megamall: A $39.75, C $29.75
5. Kuala Lumpur on Your Own: A $39.75, C $29.75
6. Kuala Lumpur Light and Easy: A $59.75, C $39.75

Getting off the ship on your own is pretty simple. For Port Klang you can disembark from Deck4 and follow the foot bridge to the cruise terminal. The terminal is called and all you need to go down on and off the ship is your Sea Pass, so make sure you have this with you at all times.

If you are desperate for some free wifi connection then you definitely want to go down. There is one big empty hall for passengers to sit and connect to the free wifi. Good for loading up your photos onto your Social Media! Aside from free wifi you might want to go down to buy drinks and snacks from the little minimart.

If you decide not to go down there's also plenty of things to do onboard. You can play games at the arcade, go swimming, watch 2D, 3D movies or watch a movie on the big screen by the pool, and participate in some of the organised activities.

Ice Under the Big Top

Not long later we came back and just hung around the ship and picked Caelyn up for dinner. There's a show on that night that can't be missed, called Ice Under the Big Top. It's an awesome Ice Skating show, and we managed to sit in the front row. To us, it was probably the best performance show on the whole cruise.

That evening was also the formal dinner at the Dining Room because there was a Captain's Welcome Aboard Reception on the Promenade where we got to drink some free Bubbly and hear from the Captain himself and toast to him and the journey.

Captain giving his speech

Delicious Christmas Day Dinner at the Main Dining Room. Steak and Lobster...mmm....

Christmas Dinner Menu

Next Day we are due to stop over at Langkawi, so excited!

Cruising Tips
Day 1 Leaving Singapore
Day 3 Cruise - Langkawi

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Thursday, December 24, 2015

Day 1 - Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas - 5 Night Spice of South East Asia Cruise

It has literally taken me forever to finish writing up this Blog, between packing to move houses and editing videos for our Vlogs on YouTube, and doing other household chores, I really have very little free time left. But Blogging does give me great joy, so no matter how long it takes, I know I'll complete my entries...eventually. So thanks in advance for reading, hope you enjoyed it!

Day 1 on Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas

We took this cruise on 24th December 2015 to 29th December 2015. It's only our second cruise ever and first time on a Royal Caribbean cruise, previously we'd been on Superstar Virgo. Our cruise is the Spice of South East Asia cruise, where we'll be making stops at Port Klang, Langkawi (both in Malaysia) and Phuket (Thailand).

On the day of our departure, we were so excited. Since we had never been on a Royal Caribbean cruise before we really didn't know what to expect. I did research a fair bit before our departure day and found that people said even though our departure info that was emailed to us stated that for our Stateroom we should be checking in at 3pm, we can actually check in earlier and go on the ship early and enjoy lunch and the other facilities. So we decided to arrive at the Cruise Centre at around 12noon. Our cruise was due to depart around 5pm and all passengers are required to be onboard by 4pm.

We weren't sure where the cruise centre was, and our family dropped us off at the wrong end so we had to walk quite a distance.

Walking to the Marina Bay Cruise Centre

Luggage

Upon arrival at the Cruise Centre, we made our way to the luggage check in area. A week or so before departure, they would've emailed you some info about checking in online and also attached luggage tags for you to print out. Save yourself some time and print them at home and attach them to your luggages. Once you've done that, all you have to do is drop off the luggage with the staff and that's it, your luggage will be delivered straight to your rooms.

Check In

After the luggage drop off, we went to the check in counter. I had read previous blogs saying how horrendous the lines are there for checking in and that it would take a few hours. Well actually for us, the lines were relatively short and the check in was a breeze! We managed to clear the customs and go on board by about 1.30pm.

On the Ship

Once on the ship, the kids are required to get this plastic wrist band that contained important information to help identify them in case of emergency. After that we went straight to our room to check things out. We had booked a Stateroom with Window so we were excited to see what the room looked like. When we opened our door though, we were shocked to find that they had given us 2 single beds instead of one king size bed as we requested. There's 3 of us, how are we supposed to sleep? After some time, we managed to call Housekeeping and explained to them the situation hoping that something could be done. Even with this mishap we were in awe of the room. The window was really big and the room in general was so spacious! It was nothing like the Superstar Virgo! There was even a seating area, a writing table and of our favourite features was the curtains that separated the living/sitting room with the sleeping area. It felt so cozy. Little did we also know that there was a 3rd bunk bed that they could open up and lower down from the ceiling! I really wasn't expecting that. Caelyn just loved sleeping on the bunk bed...or is it called Loft Bed? With her sleeping on the top, we had the whole king size bed to ourselves and it was so roomy.

For lunch on boarding day, the only restaurant that is open is the Windjammer. This is the buffet restaurant and I think almost every passenger that gets on board will head here. There was a long line and be prepared to share tables with other people.

Yummy Bread

There is also another place you can eat and that's the Promenade Cafe, but choices are limited. But if you get hungry anytime of the day, head over to this cafe, it has free water and food, all included in your cruise price! And the dessert served here is pretty good.

After lunch we just explored the ship a bit more and played a round of miniature gold on the top floor of the ship.

Then it was time for the mandatory safety drill. We were told that our luggage would arrive in our rooms at the latest by 9pm, but our luggage had arrived in our room before dinner.

There is also something called Cruise Compass that we get every day. It's basically a booklet that lists every activity and when it's on. We referred to it almost every hour and it was crucial in planning our day's activities.

There is so much to do on board, so much so till you run out of down time where you can just rest and relax as you're always chasing the next activity.

One thing that you simply can't miss is the Dreamworks Move It! Move It! Parade. It really is amazing that you can have a parade onboard a cruiseship. This is one show the kids will really really enjoy.

There is so much to see and do that would make this blog post too lengthy, so come and check out my video of our first day here to experience it through our eyes.

Stay tuned for Day 2 of our Cruise Diary when the ship docks at Port Klang!

Cruising Tips
Day 2 - Port Klang
Day 3 Cruise - Langkawi

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