Saturday, December 7, 2019; Singapore Round One
The ship was coasting into its berth in Singapore as we peaked through the curtains. The cruise ship terminal appears modern and purpose built for handling large cruise ships. Ben went to the deck above the bridge to get a better idea of the lay of the land and was pleasantly surprised to see the Marina Bay Hotel’s unique profile nearby. It is a curved structure with 3 towers topped with what looks like a slightly curved ship sitting atop and astride the 3 towers. It is instantly recognizable and unique. Spread out before it is a forest of towers forming a man made canopy. These are covered with vines and flowering plants, and at night time, they look like a scene out of the movie Avatar.
The Sapphire Princess was in the process of disgorging the vast majority of her passengers and preparing for all the new incoming passengers. The buffet was packed with passengers dragging their carry-on luggage and awaiting their disembarkation marching orders. Passengers disembarking have to clear their staterooms by 8am. We had breakfast in the sit down dining room, which was largely empty, aside from the few other carrying over passengers like us who are classified as “in Transit”.
After breakfast, we picked up our passports and then headed off the ship. The terminal is well equipped and actually had usable free Wifi, so we got out our iPhones and iPads to upload photos and any necessary software updates. The terminal was comfortably air conditioned and had every modern convenience. It was able to process passengers quite efficiently so there were no long waits or crowds as we went through immigrations. There is an information center in the lobby by the taxi stands that was very helpful with maps and live information. We were advised it would probably take between 45 minutes and an hour to walk to the Marina Bay Gardens from the cruise terminal, and that it was a safe walk.
We exited the terminal and ran into two of the Cruise directors’ staff who had done a lot of trivia with us- Kaitlyn and Jamie. Both had some down time and were headed off to catch a cab and see Singapore. This was their first time in Singapore. We bade them farewell and hit the sidewalk.
There is actually a covered walkway that runs about a half mile to a subway station. We passed incoming passengers wheeling suitcases behind them along this walkway. They must have been staying in hotels in Singapore without Princess transfers. Beyond the subway station, the covered walkway extended to another smaller pier called the South Marina Pier, which was about a quarter mile from the subway station. Beyond that, there was both a pedestrian walking path and bicycle path that ran along the waterfront all the way to the Marina Bay Gardens. It started to rain on us about 2 miles into our journey, but it was just a bit more than a sprinkle. It did manage to get Janet pretty wet because she just wore her hat, while Ben did tote an umbrella. We reached the Marina Bay Gardens at about 2-1/2 miles or 5 km from the ship, and it had stopped raining. Bus loads of tourists were pouring out of the buses and into the park.
The central portion of the gardens is fenced off with admission gates for their winter wonderland festival, where one of the gardens is all strung up with Christmas lights and Christmas market like stalls are set up. During the day, the gates are unmanned, and you can stroll through freely. There is paid admission required to enter two large glass pavilions that house butterfly’s and some of the exotic plants. The free gardens are well maintained and organized by environments, very reminiscent of the San Diego Zoo, but without animals.
The landmark feature of the Gardens is the artificial forests created with steel towers that are shaped like giant trees. There are all manner of vines and flowering plants planted within these structures, although at this time of year, the canopy is pretty much wide open. The most unusual plants we saw were Cannon Ball trees, which we had seen before in the Botanical Gardens in St. Vincent in the Caribbean. The trees there had the characteristic flowers that look like fancy eyeballs with fake lashes and mascara, but these trees were laden with the Cannon Ball fruit, which give the tree its name. The ones we saw in St. Vincent did not have any Cannon Balls hanging from them.
The weather was overcast after the rain had stopped, but the temperature was in the mid 80’s and the humidity was about 70% so we were able to work up a pretty good sweat. Fortunately, there was a significant cooling breeze. Had it been a fully sunny day, it would not have been too comfortable to be wander about.
After touring the Gardens, we walked across a sky bridge that connect the Gardens with the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, which looms in the sky over the Gardens like a giant space ship that has landed on the planet Pandora from Avatar.
The hotel is beautiful, modern, and nicely air conditioned, so we were able to cool off a bit. We then went up to the Skypark, which is an observation deck at the bow end of the ship like structure that sits atop the triple towers. The views from the Skypark were sweeping, to be sure. The clouds and haze did limit distant visibility, but it was impressive how many freighters and other merchant ships were at anchor all around Singapore’s Marina Bay. The wind was quite strong, so you really had to hang on tight to your cell phone or camera as you took pictures. It was not too crowded when we were up there- lots of tourists to be sure, but it was easy to get up to the railing anywhere to get whatever pictures you wanted.
There were quite a few ship’s passengers at the Marina Bay hotel that we recognized. One gal we talked to was going to stay a week or so, and then sail out of Singapore on the Sun Princess, which would take her all the way back home to Western Australia where she lives. She and her husband have been on cruise ships since last January. When they arrive back home, they will have circled the earth without needing an airplane in 11 months.
We then hightailed it back to the ship. Fortunately, we had no more rain and got back to the ship about 20 minutes before the All Aboard time. That is probably the closest we have ever cut it getting back to the ship on our own. We usually book ship tours that guaranty that they will hold the ship for us, and there have been many times when the tour buses have arrived late. By walking and touring the Marina Bay Gardens and Marina Bay Sands Hotel Skypark ourselves, we saved over $120 each over the ship’s excursion price, but we also ended covering about 8 miles over the course of the day and burned over 1000 calories. We could eat our dinners without guilt.
Again, it sure feels good to get back on the ship and into it’s air conditioned pampering environment after a day of exploring in tropical conditions.
We were able to enjoy a little bit of free Wifi from the terminal since the ship docked with our starboard side alongside the terminal building. We watched the ship sail away from Singapore, which was quite scenic.
We showered up, napped briefly and then had dinner in the Savoy dining room which is our favorite. The lady we had been trying to avoid the last few days had disembarked in Singapore so it was safe to return.
The Princess Theater featured a new comedian, Richie Minervini, who did a pretty good stand up comedy routine that played pretty well with the audience which was now mostly American, Australian, Canadian and to a much smaller extent Chinese. As on the prior cruises, about 15 minutes into his act, many of the Chinese start leaving the Theater. I suppose if it were a Mandarin speaking comedian on the stage, we wouldn’t choose to go to the show, rather than stake out prime seats and then leave after 15 minutes.
The respiratory virus that had spread from the Chinese to the Australians and then to Ben on the Rome to Singapore cruise was manageable with medications to limit Ben to occasionally clearing his throat and rarely coughing, but is starting to tickle Janet’s throat. We hope it doesn’t make another round on the ship, but so many people seem to have had no education or awareness of public health and hygiene issues. It’s not rare to see someone cough into their hand in the buffet and then grab a serving spoon without a second thought. So it’s just as important to wash your hands after you come out of the buffet as before you go in.
We finished the night with a welcome trivia game. It was mostly silly jokey questions like where do the crew sleep- on shore commuting by high speed boats, on shore commuting by helicopter, or on board. There were really only a handful of questions that required any knowledge. But we did manage to win our first trivia for this cruise segment, and now have two bottles of champagne to give to our room steward at the end of our cruise.
We did get another 250 minutes of internet each, and our mini bar was refilled. We still have quite a few coffee card punches left over from the Dubai to Singapore segment, so we may actually keep the mini bar set up for this last segment, and enjoy some sodas, beers and cocktails. And it has really been nice to be a able to send out our laundry on a regular basis. We have never had such clean and neatly pressed clothes on a cruise.
Tomorrow, we are back in Port Kelang, Malaysia, the gateway to Kuala Lumpur. We did get all the excursions we wanted, so we will visit the Batu Caves tomorrow instead of returning to Kuala Lumpur.
