Day 06 - 01/31/2019 - At Sea to Sri Lanka in the Andaman Sea

Before I start today's blog entry, I would like to respond to a rumor from yesterday that we went aground. I only first heard the rumor at the meet and greet today but never felt any contact during the docking procedure. Today, I personally spoke with the Captain at lunch, and here's the sequence of our docking maneuvers that he recapped and I personally observed. The ship approached the dock area and executed a 180° turn to back into its berth along a relatively narrow bouy marked channel. While backing there were strong currents and winds moving the ship towards the shore and there wasn't quite enough power to push against the wind and current. While the tugs were a bit behind schedule, they were fastened to the ship and used in a normal fashion to provide assistance in combating the wind and current. We then approached our berth normally and tied up.  

I should also update my report on our use of a travel router. This device allows my wife and I to share a single internet connection, and it's working well.  

Today was the first of a very welcome sea day. The seas continue to be very flat and there was virtually no wave action in the Lido Pool as we sail on at about 13.2 knots. After breakfast we attended a naturalist chat session in the Crow's Nest which was not well attended (maybe 30 people). We learned that we may have opportunity to see blue whales which are resident in Sri Lankan waters. It appears that KK and the staff are trying very hard to increase the number of ways in which guests can 'connect' with the EXC presenters other than in lecture settings. Afterwards I hosted a very successful and well attended Meet & Greet in the Crow's Nest. There were probably 75 in attendance out of 106 that signed up. It's always good to put faces to electrons we've seen on Cruise Critic.

Before lunch, Terry Greenberg gave an excellent presentation on a history of the spice trade and its enfluence on us to this day. I could listen to him for hours. Oh wait, I will be!

After a light lunch, we attended a Sommelier wine tasting. While these are interesting, we continue to like just one wine on the entire wine list: Moscato. Ashok Ferrey presented his first lecture on Sri Lanka. This presentation was an overview on politics, geography, history, economics, and the arts.  

Today was also a first for us in several years when while walking, we saw a couple of flying fish. Oh the little things that bring joy!

After a light dinner (I don't yet have much of an appetite with my cold, but the cold is getting better), Terry Greenberg presented a sobering Evening Insight on the Legacy of European Colonialism in Asia. The Wajang theater was packed. With the growth in China, he'll be presenting a talk on the enfluence of Asia on Western Countries.

The Jersey Tenors presented two concerts tonight and we enjoyed both. The solo of Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" was chillingly good and the group's final rendition of "One Day More" was excellent!

Tonight our clocks go back one hour. I think I'll remember it! Stay tuned to find out if I do.

Day 05 - 01/30/2019 - Phuket, Thailand

With my cold, last night I fell asleep on the couch and not even my wife could wake me up. Eventually at 2:30am I roused myself out of a sleep stupor and made arrangements for a proper sleep. Except for one thing: I didn't remember to set my clock back one hour, so when I woke up at 7am, it was really 6am. No wonder Angela didn't move!

I watched the ship backing in to the berth and soon the "Ship is cleared by the local authorities and you are free to go off the ship" message was given by our cruise director. Our little shore excursion group gathered later in the Ocean Bar and headed off the ship to meet our replacement Tours by Locals guide, Weera. It seems that our original guide couldn't suddenly fulfill his obligation and Weera stepped in to help. Our little group of 11 easily fit in the Toyota van and soon we were off on a 1/2 drive into the old city of Phuket. 

The streets here are narrow and follow the British design (drive on the left). There are hundreds of scooters that weave their way through the traffic, and at every light they inch their way to the front of the queue. When the light changes, they're off like being shot out of a cannon. In the downtown area we were dropped off to do a little walking tour of the old downtown area.

In this area, sidewalks are a mere suggestion as they are either 1. Nonexistent or 2. Occupied by something else like commercial goods for sale, restaurant seating, or even a judiciously parked scooter or car. So much of one's walking is in the street where one has to dodge moving traffic or double parked vehicles. All in all, it's a friendly dance and nobody seems to get hurt.

We saw lots goods for sale, food stalls, street art, jumbled wiring, a fresh market, a shrine and even a temple. And all of this was done in over 85°f temperatures. After our temple visit, we drove a few minutes to a cashew nut factory where we were all fascinated by how they hand split the shells to get the nut. Apparently it's done by hand as too many nuts get broken using automated machinery. We got to sample lots of nuts and in the end purchased a bag of them. It was then time to go to a nice restaurant on the bay, Parlai Seafood. We all thought it important to have Thai food in Thailand. My dish of Phad Sie Euw was pretty bland, but Angela's salad and soup were quite spicy.

After lunch we drove up to the big Buddha which was located on a peak of the Nakkerd Hills. It's probably the highest rated attraction in Puket. On the way up, we saw elephants which was pretty cool. The Buddha is some 150 feet tall, constructed of concrete and clad in ceramic tile.  

Our last stop of the day was a Karon Point where we could see three tourist beaches. This west side of the island is where the psunami hit, and it is literally teeming with western tourists.

Our Evening Insight presentation was on Zodiacs by Jason Kelly who has been driving them for many years. One thing that I learned was that they had to replace the Yamaha gasoline outboard motors with diesel motors. It seems that the storage of gasoline on the deck of a cruise ship was not an acceptable risk Holland America was willing to assume. I'm looking forward to my first ride in one in a few weeks.

That's about it from Thailand. We depart at 11pm tonight and finally we have three sea days ahead of us. Our Cruise Critic gathering is tomorrow morning.

Day 04 - 01/29/2019 - Georgetown, Malaysia

Overnight we sailed at 18 knots in order to make our next port of call, Georgetown or Penang. It was incredibly smooth sailing and after breakfast, I attended a presentation on EXC by KK. Based on this presentation which was not well attended, it seems that there's a return to the typical EXC format including story time. I also learned that shore excursions will likely return to that name from Explorations Central due to confusion about the name and EXC In Depth. I laud that decision.

We then attended a lecture by Kris on Phuket before adjourning to the Crow's Nest to watch the sail in. Our berth was occupied, so we had to wait for another ship to leave. It was interesting to see two tugs pull the small cruise ship away from the dock. Then our crew slowly guided our ship into its berth.

Carol assembled our group of twelve in the Ocean Bar and as soon as the ship was cleared we made our way off the ship and found our guide for the day, Lawrence. We boarded a small van across the street from the 60 foot leaning clock tower. We then headed over towards Chinatown where we boarded tri-shaw's like what we used yesterday except the design of these put us in front of the driver. And these tri-shaw's were not as elaborately decorated. We wound our way through Chinatown and little India before ending up at a large Chinese temple. After visiting the temple, we strolled through the city and spotted a number of pieces of street art including a famous bicycle painting.

Throughout the rest of the day we rode the funicular to the top of Penang Hill where we not only enjoyed scenic views, but also some unique monkeys and the world's largest squirrels with several foot long black tails. After descending the mountain, we re-ascended the mountain to a giant covered Buddha. Following that visit, we made our way to a Chinese stilted village which was really interesting with little shops and more street art before returning to the ship. 

This Tours By Locals tour was excellent and I appreciated Laurence's use of a portable PA system.

Back at the ship we skipped dinner and attended the 7:15pm Insights talk where Terry Greenberg presented on Thai History with an emphasis on the real story of Anna & the King of Siam and why it's banned in Thailand. We ended the evening watching a very funny British comedian, Paul Adams. I've had a sore throat all day which has impacted my enthusiasm, but I continue to soldier on. We'll see what I'm like when we visit Phuket tomorrow.  

 

Day 03 - 01/28/2019 - Malacca, Malaysia

This was our first tender port and we got up early as we didn't know what exactly to expect. Breakfast went quick and we were number 1 & 2 in the 4-5 Star tender line on deck 4 about 50 feet from our stateroom. By the time tendering started, there were very few people in line and I became the first passenger on one of the locally hired tenders.

Upon reaching the tender dock on the Malacca River, I noticed what looked like small crocodiles, but according to Melissa, our tour guide, they are related to monitor lizards. They were around 4-5 feet long and I would assume there would be no swimming in the area!

Melissa led us on a nice 4 hour walking tour of the historic sights of Malacca including the Riverwalk, Mile Zero, the Dutch Christian Church, St. Paul's Church which was abandoned and became a graveyard, Chinatown, a ride in the colorful pedal trishaws, a historical Chinese temple, and a private museum. All of this is a World Heritage site. Afterwards, 5 of us met for lunch at the Nonya Kitchen restaurant for some traditional Malaysian food which very inexpensive at about $20 US for two main courses, rice, two sodas and a Tiger beer.

After lunch we wandered back to the ship and let Carol and John go on ahead while we toured two maritime museums on the waterfront: a Naval Museum and a replica Portuguese galleon in which there's lots of historical information about the area. The cost was only around $2.50US each. Around 3:30pm we caught a nearly empty local tender back to the ship.

One of the shore excursions EXC guides and KK gave a long presentation on all the upcoming shore excursions. It wasn't that well attended as it was presented during the early dinner hour. 

After dinner with friends in the Lido (my laundry from yesterday had yet to be returned so I had no pressed long pants to attend the Gala Night), we attended the Captain's Toast and then we had a real treat: The Jersey Tenors ( a Frankie Valli tribute quartet) sang at 8 and 10pm. We attended both, and they were enthusiastically received and well attended. This same group (with different members) sang 4 shows on our inaugural EXC voyage. After enjoying some late tea (I have a gravelly throat) we came back to our stateroom and our laundry was finally there.

We don't arrive at our next port until 11am tomorrow, so we'll have a lecture in the morning. Stay tuned.

Day 02 01/27/2019 Departing Singapore

We were up at 7am to get some breakfast before heading out with our friends, Carol & John, to get a cab to Fort Canning Park to take a 9:45am tour of the Battlebox bunker which was the command and control facility for the British in WWII. We quickly cleared immigration and found a cab. The driver, however, didn't seem to know where it was located and dropped us on the wrong side of the park. We were early enough that we were able to walk through the Park and were at the Visitor Center where we waited until 9:30am when the Center opened. Promptly at 09:45 Chin Han assembled our group of 23 and we headed underground for an hour and a quarter tour which was well done. No photos could be taken underground on the tour.

At the conclusion of the tour, we headed down through the park to a main road where we hailed a cab and headed back to Vivo City Shopping Mall. At the mall, John wanted to purchase some soda, so we found the store which we used the previous day. Then it was back through immigration and back on the ship where we ate lunch with other friends, Jack and Ashley, who have been on the ship since it left Ft. Lauderdale in September with us.

We had our Passenger Emergency Muster Drill which went well especially since it was so warm out (low 80's f). We watched the sailaway from Deck 13 and departing Singapore is especially challenging due to the large number of ships which were anchored or underway. Up there we enjoyed great conversation with Juergen and Heidi from Germany.

After dinner there was a special 1/2 hour Showroom at Sea show on the 6 themes of EXC In Depth cruises. KK Robbins introduced the presenters and it appears that the lecture style we enjoyed on the inaugural cruise is continuing on. We did learn that all of the Zodiac shore excursions on this voyage except for the one that we are doing in the Maldives were cancelled by the Sri Lankan military after a year spent arranging for them and getting permission. Afterwards Terry Greenberg presented the first lecture on an introduction to SE Asia. He's a good lecturer we've heard before.

Today I also set up a travel router so that my wife and I can share our single internet connection. Essentially the small electronic device receives the ship's WiFi signal, and rebroadcasts it (with password protection) to multiple devices. For this cruise I purchased the ship's SURF package of 300 megabytes of data on a daily basis for $10 per day or $189.95 for 19 days. It was $199.95 for 20 days.

Tomorrow is our first port of call and it's a tender port. It will be interesting to see how tendering will work with a new set of guests. We are 5 star Mariners so we get get off at our leisure, but our plan is to be on the first tender.

       

Day 01 01/26/2019 Embarkation Day in Singapore

We enjoyed a leisurely morning at the IBIS and finally left the room close to 10am in order to get a light breakfast at a nearby Burger King. We then checked out of the hotel after 11am; and after waiting for about 15 minutes, we got a cab to the Harbourfront cruise terminal. Our driver was very talkative and quick to explain the nuances of living in Singapore. When we got within 200 yards of the terminal, traffic came to a complete halt. It would take 30-40 minutes to complete those last 200 yards. Our driver even turned off his meter.  

As we approached the luggage drop off point in our terminal, we were handed a letter indicating that the Maasdam arrived at 10am due to unfavorable weather and that check in would be delayed until 1pm. The terminal area was very crowded as passengers were still disembarking. So we walked a loop around the shopping mall and went up to the second floor check in area where we joined a long line of 4-5 star Mariners waiting to check in. We spotted our friends Carol & John who were being escorted on to the ship having checked in earlier. After a wait of 25 minutes we were quickly processed and passed through exit immigration. In Singapore one has to be rescreened going on and off to he ship every time.

On board the ship we left our backpacks in the large outside stateroom before going up to the Lido for lunch. After lunch, we headed back off the ship to purchase sodas at a store in the VivoCity mall. We found that cans are about 80 cents at the store compared to $1.80 on the ship after adding in a 15% surcharge and taking advantage of our 50% discount on mini bar purchases. Of course it was necessary to go through immigration two times during that excursion. We ate a quick dinner as we needed to meet in the Ocean Bar with our small group that was headed to the Zoo for its Night Safari. We quickly met our guide, Raymond, but the van driver was 30 minutes late with no explanation or apology. This frustrated our guide to almost no end,

The Night Safari was pretty cool. We rode a tram for about 40 minutes and observed a number of animals in dimly lit surroundings. Afterwards we did a walk on trails and got to see more animals. Given the darkness, it was tough to photograph them, but a got a few good photos. The drive back to the ship took us by Marina Bay with a chance to see quite pretty lights.

We went back through immigration and arrived in time for the 10:30pm feeding. After all of the walking and then eating, I fell asleep while trying to write my journal account. But sleep was more important especially since we needed to be up by 7am to go on another excursion. Stay tuned for what that excursion is all about.

Day -01 01/25/2019 Scavenger hunting in Singapore

These flat flowers look 3D!  This was one of the scavenger hunt items.

After a very refreshing full night's sleep, we slowly got started by visiting the nearby Chinese market and enjoying a brunch meal of laksa soup at a nearby hawker stall.

We then slowly walked over to an area called Little India where we planned to do a street art scavenger hunt. We downloaded an APP which gave us the coordinates for the street art as well as a picture of what we were looking for. There were 23 items and we found all but two of them. Several of the ones we did find didn't have the correct GPS coordinates which made for an interesting search. Our search took us on lots of back streets and alleys which gave a very different view than the regular tourist routes. Along the way we did lots of shopping and I found two pairs of nice walking shorts for the equivalent of $4US per pair.

The walk ended up being around 5.7 miles and the temperatures were in the mid 80's Fahrenheit. Back at the hotel we showered to cool off before heading back out to shop some more and get some dinner at a hawker stall. We found a 3 meat dish with bok choy and soup and rice for about $3.50US each.  

Tomorrow we'll use a taxi to get to the cruise terminal and then we'll check in for our cruise. We have planned for a night tour at the Singapore Zoo. Stay tuned.

Day -02 01/24/2019 Arrival in Singapore

At 8:23pm local time (4:30am the previous day in our home time zone) we touched down at Changi Airport in Singapore. We deplaned and made our way to immigration which went smoothly and quickly. Then we collected our luggage and made our way to the hotel shuttle transportation desk. For $9 Singapore each we had a ride to our Ibis Hotel on Bencoolen which we've stayed at previously and rather like it. Checkin went fast and soon we were in our room 537 and immediately preparing for needed sleep.

I'm sorta glad we took the daytime flight as staying mostly awake prepared us to be tired for sleep. It's hard to believe we started traveling on Tuesday and it's already Thursday evening.

That's all for today. We're both tired. We want to do some exploring tomorrow on our free day before boarding the ship. There's an art walk we may take, but stay tuned. Hawker stalls for local food are high on our agenda.

Day -03 01/23/2019 Finally In Flight to Singapore

After months of waiting and planning, it was finally time to start our 2019 adventures. This first adventure would involve flying from Seattle to San Francisco and catching a direct flight to Singapore. We'd have a couple days in Singapore before leaving on a cruise on Holland America's Maasdam to Sri Lanka via Thailand, Maldives, and Malaysia before returning to Singapore. We spent 48 days on the Maasdam last fall as well as 56 days on it a few years ago, so we're familiar with the ship.

Yesterday afternoon after breezing through TSA security (despite the partial government shutdown), we left Seattle for San Francisco on a short Alaska Airlines flight. After collecting our luggage in SFO in terminal 3, we took the Sky Train over to Terminal G (International Terminal) where we quickly checked in, dropped off our luggage and breezed thorough SFO's TSA checkpoint to begin our 5 hour layover for a projected 10:45pm departure that would put us in Singapore 2 days later (Thursday) at 8:15am.

During our wait we enjoyed some very good Vietnamese Pho soup. Since we were there so early, very few people were in the waiting area for our United Airlines flight #1 at gate 97. Gradually more and more passengers arrived. Since we fly standby, I continued to monitor the available number of seats on United's excellent APP and there were plenty. As the time to board approached and the boarding process began, they still didn't call for any standby passengers. Finally after boarding most all the passengers, they called for the first person on the standby list to board. About 20 minutes later they boarded two more ladies, and kept interacting with another couple about being ready to board. But finally they announced that the flight was weight restricted, and no further standby passengers would be allowed to board. That meant 18 out of 21 standbys wouldn't be flying to Singapore this night.

It was now time to consider options many of which I had been mulling over as we waited. I knew there was a flight twelve hours later on Wednesday morning and it had some 80 open seats, and it would put us into Singapore on Thursday evening which was the same day as the previous flight would have. However, would they authorize enough seats to take standbys? There was also another evening flight but it was nearly full. Now I needed to find some over night lodging. So I used my Hotel Tonight APP and found a nearby hotel in San Bruno at the Gateway Inn & Suites for $125 which included a free shuttle both directions. I didn't expect much for that price but we just needed a clean and comfortable room. After retrieving our luggage, I contacted the hotel (it took two tries) and arranged for the shuttle. It picked us up and took us the few miles to the hotel where we checked in and were assigned room 311. They also required a $100 deposit which was charged to our credit card. We also made a reservation for the 8:10am shuttle back to the airport.

The room was very clean and neat and very much like an Ibis IKEA style hotel like we'll be staying in in Singapore. The room was pretty chilly but the heater worked to remove that. And we settled in while watching the Late Show with Steven Colbert. I wrote an email message to our Singapore Ibis hotel advising we would be there 12 hours later than I originally indicated. Then I began exploring our options in case we couldn't get on the morning flight. My final conclusion was that our best option was to attempt to fly out on UAL #29 on Wednesday morning, and if that wouldn't work, I would purchase tickets for the Thursday morning flight for $500 each less $100 each discount vouchers we received as compensation from our last UAL flight from Papeete when the entertainment system failed mid flight. If we took this option, we would forfeit one night's lodging as we would now arrive on Friday night instead of Thursday night.

With that completed, I plugged in and donned the mask on my new small and very portable Z-1 CPAP machine and immediately noticed the pillow was extremely hard and I also couldn't get a good fit with the covers. It was going to potentially be a long night. I comment later on this new very small travel CPAP machine.

Awaking in the morning at my 7am alarm, I felt that my overnight sleep had not been restful, but when I read the data on my CPAP APP, it showed I did have a decent night's sleep with low apneas. We showered, dressed, packed, checked out, and waited for our shuttle. It was timely and very full.

Arriving at the airport, we discovered that there was another standby couple on the shuttle with us from last night's attempt to fly. We quickly checked in (UAL's electronic check in is terrific) and headed for the gate. At the TSA checkpoint we discovered we didn't have TSA PreCheck on our boarding passes and there was a huge line in the regular TSA line, so we went back to the electronic check in area where a helpful agent assisted us in getting our TSA PreCheck numbers put on our boarding passes. Armed with our new passes we went back to the TSA checkpoint and quickly cleared it. TSA PreCheck is so worth it!

We made it to our departure gate #100 and found the other couple we rode in on the shuttle with. They were from Madison, Wisconsin and were heading for Phuket, Thailand for a 10 day vacation. The husband is a retired flight attendant and they were number one and two on the standby list. We chatted a whole bunch about travel and traveling standby as there were few other travelers around us as we were so early. Before the boarding process began, they were called up, and they were assigned the two remaining Polaris Class seats (fully reclining flat beds!). They indicated that we likely would make the flight even though we were 20 and 21 on the standby list. The flight was authorized to carry a full load of passengers and there were still some 80 open seats on our 787-9 Dreamliner (my favorite long distance airliner).

As I continued to monitor the standby list, I could see that seats were being assigned. Boarding commenced and the standby list continued to shrink until finally we were called up and given the choice of a full row back in Economy class or an aisle and a center seat in Economy Plus. We took the latter for the increased legroom and other benefits. Virtually all the standby passengers were assigned into Economy Plus.

Parenthetically, our flight benefits come as being parents of an Alaska Airlines employee. We've learned that many parents don't use the standby benefit as they can't deal with the uncertainty of not making a flight. Fortunately we are easy travelers and don't mind long flights plus I'm pretty skilled in searching out alternatives. One has to really think outside the box and be flexible when traveling this way.

We boarded in Group 3 and settled into our seats for the 17 hour plus flight direct to Singapore. Shortly after takeoff we were served a nice chicken and rice lunch and we were scheduled to have two more meals. I watched Diehard which has been on my watch list for some time and tried watching The King (about Elvis) but fell asleep during much of it. Later I composed this blog entry and watched a number of documentaries on the excellent inflight entertainment system. I tried to not sleep much so that I would be tired when we arrive in the evening in Singapore.

Stay tuned for the next part of our adventure as we arrive in Singapore and make our way to our hotel.

Day -4 22 Jan 2019 Seattle to San Francisco

Our first adventure of 2019 is about to begin.  We're flying to San Francisco to catch our 17 hour connecting flight to Singapore.