I can't believe that the trip is coming to a close. We have had so much fun and I am sure that things happened that I forgot to blog about but if I remember I will simply just add it as time goes on. It was a busy week with very limited access to the internet so here goes what I can remember.
Monday was a sea day, it was glorious outside with the exception of the humidity. It was very difficult to sit anywhere except somewhere with air conditioning because it was 33 degrees with 100% humidity. We had a quiet day reading and doing sudokos. In the evening we went to the casino and to our surprise there were people playing craps.....this was the first time this cruise that anyone was at the table so we thought we would check it out. It was formal nite so everyone was dressed in their Sunday best filtering through the casino to get to the theatre to watch the nitely performance. The craps table was buzzing with activity when suddenly an announcement was made over the loud speaker for some staff to go to a gally in one of the restaurants. The table quickly filled with more chips, dice were being thrown and all was going very well......then all hell broke loose. None of the passengers knew what the 2nd announcement meant, but suddenly the pit bosses were grabbing the plastic cages to cover the chips and all the chips we had on the table were thrown back to us and the casino staff disappeared. All the slots were shut down and some staff from other parts of the ship began putting on their life jackets and preparing the casino for a muster station in the event of an evacuation. The captain came onto the speaker to announce that there was a fire in one of the gally's and that they had to send in people with "oxygen masks" into the affected area. A few minutes later he confirmed that there was a fire and they were attempting to contain it. Then a few minutes after that he announced all was well, people could continue on eating their dinner and sorry for the interruption. It was a blast. Many of the crew, who have been on ships for over 10 years, have never had this happen before. The funniest part was the captain saying at the end "sorry for the inconvenience but when something like this happens we "hit it hard and fast" For the record, it was a dishwasher that caught fire which was the 2nd time such an incident occurred, however this one was much more severe. By the way, did I mention that the ship was in the middle of nowhere when this happened:) Kevin and I are still not convinced that we got all our chips back when the alarm was rung.
Tuesday was a quiet sea day, hotter and muggier than Monday and again we stayed inside the ship for the better part of the day to beat the heat. We also had to do the terrible task of packing......not fun. An early dinner and early to bed as Wednesday was disembarkation day and we had to be up early.
When we got off the ship we were nestled right in the middle of the most massive shipping yard I have ever seen. We had to board a shuttle to the cruise ship centre where our luggage was and it took us over 20 minutes to get there. I would suspect that this port is one of the biggest ones in the world. We got our luggage and found a cab to take us to our hotel.....what a fraudster that dude was. He charged us 40 bucks and our friends only paid 10. Guess they saw us coming. However, he was a nice young man who basically gave us a city tour while taking us to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel at 11:00 am and were delighted to find out our room was ready. We were able to offload the luggage and then head out on our trek of Singapore. We walked for hours and saw many sites. The worlds most expensive (cost of building) hotel is located in Singapore. It is absolutely massive. There are 3 towers and on the top of the span of the towers is a ship. You can go to the top of the tower and sit in the gardens and enjoy the roof top pool, but only if you are a guest of the hotel. The architect who created the building based it on what you see after a Tsunami....boats on top of buildings. There is a huge mall and casino attached to the hotel. The mall has every store you can think of as well as a skating rink.
It poured outside and we did not have an umbrella so we looked like drown rats. Some of the other people on the ship were meeting at Raffles for a Singapore Sling so we headed over there to meet them. We were both very thirsty so opted for a Tiger beer first as we waited for our friends. When they arrived, we asked for the bill for the 2 beers - $44.00.....yes, $44.00 for 2 Tiger beers......that is the most expensive beer that I have ever had and the crazy thing is that we bought the same beers in Vietnam for $1.00!!!! The Singapore Slings are $31.00 for the cheapest ones and go up to $40.00 depending on what kind of booze you want in it.......not a chance. The worst part is that because they serve so many in a day, the mixture they use is now just a powder and the booze is pre-mixed. None of our friends thought that it tasted too good.
We walked down the street to another pub and there you can get 5 Tiger beers for $45.00, what a deal!!!!!
Kevin and I decided that if we ever want to return to Singapore again that we will need to win the lottery first. We had dinner at the hotel as we had to be up at 6 am the next morning to prepare for our 18 hour flight home and opted for the buffet......get a load of this..............$65.00 per person. Thankfully it was 2 for 1. Unbelievable.
You cannot chew gum in Singapore, you cannot buy gum in Singapore. If you have gum you must have got it from Malaysia. You will be fined 300.00 if you are caught chewing gum. If you throw your cigarette butt on the ground and get caught it is a 500.00 fine and there are all sorts of cops watching, if you carry a weapon you get charged 300.00 and if you traffic drugs you get executed. No messing around in this country.
However, Singapore is a very beautiful town and the people are delightful.
I think you have read enough for one day so I will blog again tommorow with the escapades of a 18.5 hour journey to San Francisco.
Off to watch the Cardinals win the World Series.
Until next time.
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