My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
June 16-19, 2023
Day 1
My first day in Singapore, I wanted to hang out with my friends until they had to go back to the ship. I asked Erwin, one of the production cast singers, what he was planning on doing. He and his husband, Luke, were going to go shopping for a suitcase in the morning, then they were going to eat really good food, and then go to Raffles for the overpriced Singapore Sling where it was invented (those last two things were on my list of things to do in Singapore, and both of them seemed like they would be way more fun with friends than doing it alone). Amy and Raf, my cruise staff friends, were off and they wanted to have an adventure too. Erwin got off the ship early and went straight to Chinatown. I waited in my designated disembarkation lounge (the Bayou Cafe, where I did Pop Choir and Arts & Crafts) with all of my luggage while Amy, Raf and Luke helped with immigration for the guests. Once the guests had disembarked, they were going to wait for me at the terminal, until it appeared that that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Luke went to meet Erwin and Amy and Raf went to explore the gardens at Marina Bay Sands, which was right outside the terminal, in the mean time. I continued to wait, and got pictures from them in the garden. Finally, the embarking crew members came on and I quickly hugged and caught up with the ones that I knew, commiserating that we wouldn’t get to work together, and then it was our turn! I dragged my bags off the ship and to the immigration line where we stood there for another ridiculously long time. Raf warned me that it was hot! I had already sweat through my clothes just pulling my bags from the ship to the terminal. It turned out that the crew office had forgotten to give us a letter for immigration saying that we were disembarking that day. Finally the line started to move. Raf asked if I was going to meet them in the garden. I don’t think he realized how many bags I had. We decided to meet at the Food Market that Erwin had recommended for lunch.
Finally I made it outside and into a taxi. I quickly checked into my hotel, mopped my sweat with a cold towel and then raced off to meet my friends. I found Amy and she had already looked at everything and decided what she wanted to eat. As we walked through, I wanted everything that I saw. How to decide?! When she showed me what she was going to get, that looked really good, so I got the same thing. We pointed through the glass barriers and the guys piled up the plates. This big plate was only 5 Singapore dollars (which were very similar to Australian)!
It was delicious. There were big fans in the covered market, so the temperature was tolerable. As we sat there, Raf found us and then Luke and Erwin rolled up with a new shiny red suitcase. Luke got us a round of giant glasses of Tiger, the local beer, and then Raf got a round of Japanese Ice Cream.
I’d been told a few things about Singapore – both that it was so clean that you could eat food off of the floor, but also that you couldn’t eat or drink on the subway (or chew gum in public). When I checked into my hotel, they told me that in order to discourage the use of single use disposable plastic bottles, I would find a carafe in my room and a water dispensary in the hallway. I thought this was great! Also, if I wanted my room to be cleaned, I would need to request the cleaning service. I also thought this was great – I often think someone coming into clean every day is a waste of resources.
Back at the food market, there were no napkins to be found anywhere. The creamy soft serve ice cream was unlike any other ice cream I had tasted before, but it was so hot and humid that the ice cream was melting faster than we could lick it. Poor Amy’s plopped onto the table, and her face looked exactly like a kid who drops their ice cream on the floor. She was able to salvage most of it, but we couldn’t figure out how to clean up the mess! Luke went in search of napkins and finally returned with some toilet paper. I’m still baffled as to who is keeping this city so clean!
We decided to head to our next stop. Erwin said it was just a quick 15-20 minute walk to get to Raffles. We wove around the streets, Amy and Raf and I gawking at our surroundings. Luke and Erwin weren’t as phased – they’d been here many times during a dry dock. It was so hot and humid. We soon realized that Erwin and Luke meant a quick walk not because it was close, but because they walked FAST! We struggled to keep up even though they were escorting their new suitcase! But then we rounded the corner, and there it was! The big famous hotel!
We had to stop and take a picture!
I should have waited for the pro – Erwin had stopped in the shade for the perfect picture spot!
While I have everyone pictured here together, let me tell you about my favorite people from this contract.
I first met Erwin and Luke at the end of my first contract on the Coral in November. Erwin is one of the singers in the Production Cast and Luke is the Cast Manager. I briefly met them over meals in the Officer’s Mess during their first and my last cruise on the Coral. When I returned to the Coral, I was very happy to get to know them better.
Erwin is originally from Hawaii, and is just naturally engaging – probably because he has such a positive outlook. He was one of my favorite people to chat with in the crew bar. He is also an incredible performer. I not only enjoyed his presence in the Production shows, but also really enjoyed both of the shows he put together to add to Entertainment repertoire, especially Divos.
Not only is Luke (from England) fun and great to hang out with personally, but professionally, he is a dream. He is kind, organized and efficient, and he does a great job balancing the actions of going above and beyond to help out with a project and drawing the line to protect his team. I would love to see him in higher management because he’s one of the best I’ve worked with and I want him to spread that benefit to more people. I was always delighted when my job involved interacting with him. Everything is always better when he’s at the table, whether it’s in the office or in crew areas.
In the sunglasses is Amy, from Newcastle, England. Amy joined the Coral just a couple of days before I did. She had previously worked for Princess as the Fitness Instructor in the gym, and because she also served as Assistant Spa Manager, she was brought directly onto the team as an Assistant Cruise Director. Most of us had to put in our time as a Junior Assistant Cruise Director to learn the ropes before being promoted, so she encountered quite a bit of resentment from those who thought she should have to put in her time too. I could understand both sides – I too had to put in my time, but it wasn’t Amy’s fault that she had been hired as an ACD. She took the challenge in stride and gave everything she could to learning the job. She spent most of her free time working on her Zumba routine and putting together soooo many trivias. I could draw from my repertoire of things I’d accumulated over the last five years, while she was putting things together from scratch, all without complaint. She has a great positive attitude which makes her a joy to be around. When someone is trying to decide whether or not to do something, she asks, but would you regret NOT doing it more than doing it? She became the person I most wanted to hang out with when I had a few minutes of free time and she is a big part of the reason I decided to stay for an extra 12 days.
Raf I only knew for the 12 days between Sydney and Singapore, but he fit right in. He also has a great positive attitude and I know that if I had stayed for the whole world cruise, Amy, Raf and I would have been inseparable.
Finally we arrived at our destination.
I was so tickled that we were going to Raffles with Raf!
As we wove around to the back, those who weren’t aware commented on how bougie this hotel was.
For such a bougie place, I found it so ironic that it was also a place where people dropped their peanut shells on the floor – I thought that was only done in cowboy dive bars!
Time was running out before everyone (but me!) had to return to the ship, but we got our Singapore Slings from the place where it was born!
I had intended to walk my friends back to the ship, but my hotel was a much closer walk and it was super hot. We hugged goodbye and went our separate ways.
I was free! For the first time in months I didn’t have to get ready for evening activities! I could sleep until I woke up without setting an alarm!
I went back to my hotel to cool off before setting out to find some dinner. Ever since my trip to Prague, I’ve set myself the challenge of using my credit card instead of getting local currency. That way I don’t have to figure out how much cash I need and waste whatever money I have left over at the end of the trip. I wandered around Chinatown, which was right by my hotel, and found a great food market, but they only took cash. Well, wandering didn’t work, so I searched Tripadvisor for a well-reviewed Indian restaurant, which was in the next neighborhood over. I followed the directions on google, and when I reached the destination, the restaurant didn’t exist. I found another Indian restaurant, and couldn’t understand the menu (when I’ve gone out for Indian before, I’d always been with friends who knew which dishes were good) so I ordered the vegetarian appetizer which turned out to be plenty of delicious snacks – even if I didn’t know what they were. So everything worked out, even if it took a few extra turns to get there.
Day 2
Luke had said that there was a restaurant on top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, and it cost about $30 to go up there, but then that cover charge went toward food and drinks. So that’s what I decided to do the next morning. I did as much research as I could to figure out what I needed to know to get there, and couldn’t find very much information online. I decided to just go and figure it out. I took the subway to the hotel, and checked out my surroundings.
There was a mall attached to the hotel that had gondola rides.
This was clearly a bougie mall. I didn’t bother going into any of the shops, but I certainly enjoyed the air conditioning. I found the entrance to go up to the top, paid my $30 (Singapore currency). On the elevator up to the top, I rode with one other couple. The husband mentioned that the last time he had been up this high was when he went to the top of the Twin Towers – the old ones – he said. I recognized their accent, so I asked where they were from. They were from Sacramento!
We had just walked along that promenade across the water yesterday!
Well, I couldn’t get to the restaurant. I asked someone, and there was another way up to get there, and the $30 I’d already spent wouldn’t go toward the cover charge. She suggested I come back for Happy Hour, but I already had a ticket to go to the Night Safari that night. I was just a little frustrated. Was this becoming a pattern? I was still having a good time, but it seemed like everything I tried to do, whether I went wandering or researched something on the internet first, it seemed like everything I tried to do didn’t work. Oh well. I went back down and tried to wander toward the River Walk, which I’d heard had great food. There wasn’t really a direct way to get there, so I ended up at a brewery behind the tree where we had taken our group picture the day before. It wasn’t peak eating time, so I was seated at a great spot looking out over the water at the hotel. The local beer was good and diverse, the food was fine, and then came the dessert menu.
How to choose? The Oatmeal Stout Beeramisu combined so many things that I love, but the Winter Melon Sonata sounded so weird, I thought I just might have to try it. Amy’s advice came to mind and I decided I would regret NOT getting the Winter Melon Sonata more than getting it if it turned out not to be wonderful – after all, one of my favorite things about traveling is trying the local food. So I got it. The ice cream was really good and the rest of it was weird but not in a bad way. I have to say that tasting the adventure was definitely worth it, but now I want that Beeramisu!
That night I went on the Night Safari, which has so many pictures that I will tell you about it in a separate (future) post.
Day 3
The next day, I walked through the botanical gardens, where I also took so many pictures that I am going to share that with you in a future post, but here is one for now:
It was still hot and sticky so after wandering around the gardens I set out looking for some air conditioning and some lunch. After surveying my choices at a mall which had a wide range of restaurants from different countries and a variety of price ranges, I settled on one of my favorites, which was neither a new or different choice. I justified it because I was trying to find something with lots of vegetables.
This vegetarian pizza was delicious and absolutely hit the spot. Plus they gave me a coupon for half off a bottle of wine from their wine store!
That evening I went back to Marina Bay Sands. Every evening they had a light and water show. I got there early so I could get a good spot and discretely sipped on the wine I had gotten earlier from a water bottle. The light show reminded me of the light and fountain shows at the Disney parks. I enjoyed every minute of it and didn’t capture any of it on my camera (although everyone around me was filming the whole thing). Since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d check out the gardens at night, but by the time I got to the entrance I was so hot and tired that I couldn’t fathom walking any further, so I decided I could live without seeing the gardens lit up and night and turned around and went home.
Day 4
On my final day, I packed up my suitcases, checked them in to the front desk and checked out of my hotel. I took the subway to the River walk. The place was lined with restaurants all packed together – Chinese food, Greek, Mexican, Indian, Italian, there was even a British pub! Most of them hadn’t opened yet. It was so hot and humid, and I couldn’t figure out what I wanted. I also needed a break from the heat. I ended up going to a Thai restaurant in a nearby mall that was air conditioned. It was delicious.
This was a Monday, so finding a boat tour took a couple of stops before I found an open ticket booth.
This little boat ride seemed like the perfect way to end my trip. The audio guide pointed out the things of importance on the shore.
There was a cool breeze as we floated by the places I’d walked over the previous days.
I returned to my hotel to collect my bags and headed to the Singapore Airport, which I’d heard was an incredible experience. I found a lot of amenities that would have been fun to use if I’d been there for more than a couple of hours – there was a tour of Singapore, a movie theater and day rooms to take a nap. I walked into the butterfly pavilion, and it was pouring down rain.
That’s a strange feature, I thought. I ducked out before my neck pillow got soaking wet. Then I looked out the window. It wasn’t just pouring in the pavilion, it was pouring everywhere outside. I hadn’t noticed because I’d been in the airport! I’m sure that experience is better when the weather is nicer.
On the 15 hour flight home I watched Crazy Rich Asians and had a great time seeing so many things, where now I could say, ‘I’ve been there!’