Iluvcruising2

Along Orchard Road, outside Wisma Atria, this ice-cream man does a roaring trade from tourists.

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Having some pancakes from a hawker center store.

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At Suntec City Mall, this is something of a tourist attraction, called the water touch fountain! Free of charge to enter, however note the times.

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There's a FairPrice supermarket just across the street in the Scotts Square Building. To give you a point of comparison on prices, it has some Robert Mondavi Woodbridge whites priced at SGD28 per bottle.

Yeah, the Fairprice would be a logical place to get your couple of bottles. Wine in Singapore is expensive.

We stayed there and liked the Hotel very much, also the surrounding area is filled with inexpensive restaurants.

 

On our trips to East Asia, we have found that wine is not a popular East Asian beverage. It is usually too expensive and the local wines are awful. We usually switch to beer and tea on our Asian trips.

That's right, plenty of inexpensive eats around. Definitely no need to eat in the hotel itself if you didn't care for it.

These videos should be useful for you.

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Also check out Far East Plaza, which is right opposite your hotel.

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Realised that I have yet to publish these videos.

Sunset, as we sailed back towards Copenhagen. This was the evening before disembarkation and the weather was beautiful.

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And then, we sailed right under the Oresund bridge! Very cool.

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During Chinese New Year, there are plenty of pineapple tarts. For instance, this is a store baking fresh tarts and selling them.

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We tried our own hand at baking some tarts. We did the pineapple paste, while the in-laws made the tarts.

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This was the result of our homemade goodness. Delicious! All eaten up by now, of course.

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It has been many months since I last posted here. Today is the 3rd day of the Chinese New Year. This year is the Year of the Rooster! (According to the Chinese Zodiac). Ok, we're not superstitious and we believe in Christ as the one true saviour. But still, all the Chinese traditions are fun.

A very famous Chinese New Year song, called Gong Xi Gong Xi, written in a minor key because it was written to mark the end of World War 2.

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With the Rooster year, here is the English animated version.

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Of course, these Rooster videos can get very hiliarious, including this Oh McDonalds Had a Farm mish-mash.

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The most touching Chinese New Year video for 2017 had nothing to do with Roosters, but rather to do with multi-cultural and racial harmony. Not by Singapore, but by Malaysian Airlines. Amazing stuff - non Chinese speaking in near perfect mandarin and various Chinese dialects. Salute!

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The Langkawi Skycab Cable car is worth visiting. It could get very crowded, and if so, best to pay more so that you can get the VIP queue. It is supposed to be the steepest cable car climb in the world.

Some videos.

Part 1

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Part 2

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In Singapore - Can anyone recommend a good place to purchase a couple bottles of wine? We need a couple of bottles for our cabin.

Wine in Singapore is generally expensive.

I assume you are flying into Singapore. One place to get is duty free wine at Singapore Changi Airport, after immigration but before baggage claim. Available at all terminals - you need to show your passport and boarding passes. Duty-Free allowance is 2 bottles of wine and 3 cans of beer. (you can mix and match, see the video)

DFS at Changi Terminal 3 looks like this.

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Alternatively, if you are near a Cold Storage or an NTUC or a local supermart, they have some wine. Are you staying in Singapore pre-cruise? If you let me know your hotel, I can direct you to the nearest supermart.

Hi,

 

I also really love the videos. I have a question. We are going on the Serenade in June to Norwegian Fjords leaving out of Copenhagen. I have been on the Radiance going on an Alaska cruise as well as others cruise lines and itineraries. The most recent were Caribbean and 3 were Jazz themed cruises so music was mostly what we did. Very little other entertainment.

 

So my question is, I'm wondering what type of activities/entertainment they have on the Serenade. I'm thinking I will avoid the pool if outside because I'm always cold. Is it pretty much bingo, pool or casino? Just wanting to figure out how to fill the sea days.

 

Thanks so much.

Hello, sorry for the late reply, I haven't been on these boards much.

I don't recall having any problem filling up my sea days and I don't even go for the entertainment and stuff. Maybe it is just my style - cruising is for me to chill.

How many sea days does your sailing have?

Depending on the weather, it can get warm in June. I recall sailing to the Norweigian fjords in June on the Adventure of the Seas and many people were outdoors, enjoying the pool and stuff.

In this video, the Adventure of the Seas was sailing away from Olden.

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I LOVE this trip report! Your videos are so fun and informative! Thank you!!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

Thanks for watching and leaving a nice comment!

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I saw the Silver Shadow sailing out of Singapore last night, caught it on video, and didn't know where to put it and I didn't want to create a new thread just for this one video, so I found this thread and decided to post here.

I've not sailed on this cruise line before. Still, it was very fun to watch the ship sail out. Happy Cruising!

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Moving outside the Yacht Club, I made some videos of the buffet spread, for my own records.

Here you see the buffet spread for breakfast.

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This was the spread for lunch.

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And this one for dinner.

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The above are buffet areas which are open to all passengers. Yacht Club passengers can eat the buffet if they wished, but most times we dined at the YC restaurant.

Somebody mentioned the Top Sail Lounge. Oh yes, it was awesome! Many drinks are included if you sail in the Yacht Club. Here are some examples.

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They also do the drinks at the One Pool area, which is reserved for Yacht Club guests.

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More videos of flights on Singapore Airlines Business. Ok, I'm Singaporean. I don't work for Singapore Airlines but I'm immensely proud of them. So, just doing my small part to spread their name.

This time round, I fly from Singapore to Wellington (New Zealand) on the Capital Express route that commenced in Sep 2016. This route connects Singapore to Canberra and onward to Wellington.

Before the flight, chilling out at the SilverKris Lounge at Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 3.

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Singapore to Canberra, the first leg, part 1.

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Singapore to Canberra, Part 2.

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Canberra to Wellington, New Zealand.

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Stay tuned for the return leg!

Hi,

Fantastic review. {as always!}

Have read some of your others in the past and got some advice/photos from you when we sailed last November on the Legend O.T.S. from Singapore.

 

We have just booked a Y.C. suite for December 2017 on the Fantasia to try something different so your review covers lots of the questions we had!

 

Many thanks for the time and detail you put into these reviews.

 

Cheers!

 

David

Thank you for your kinds words. Have a great 2017 ahead.

Hello

 

I've never cruised on MSC before but recently found an itinerary that may work for summer travel plans. How does MSC compare to NCL or CC? Those are the other 2 cruises lines I've cruised on but have never heard of MSC.

 

TIA

We've only sailed once with MSC, in the Yacht Club on board MSC Preziosa. Here is the review on cruise critic - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2288693

We loved it.

Some videos. The experience started with embarkation.

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We stayed in Cabin 16008.

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An example of the meals in the YC restaurant.

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Enjoy!

Yes, "food court" is probably the best comparison. Typically affordable (though not always "cheap" or fast:D) Open on the sides, lots of tables. Very casual and a great way for us to try lots of different things. We LOVE street food!

 

Singaporeans are opinionated about the "best" food stalls, so we just tried what was nearby - to us, they're all pretty good:D Though I did searches to find what stalls within certain hawker centers were the better reviewed and to see what types of food could be found in each....

Yes, we are very opinionated. However, the BBC has opined that the Hainanese Chicken Rice is a dish worth flying 15 hours for - http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20151105-the-singapore-dish-worth-a-15-hour-flight

It is widely available at Hawker Centres or Food Courts, but some are better than others. I'm not a fussy eater so I'm happy with most. Some of the better and cheaper chicken rice stores are away from tourist areas, understandably. Like this one. All that foor for $4 Singapore.

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What is a hawker center? Is that a shopping mall?

Here are some video examples of hawker centers that we often eat at. Think of it as street food stores put into a clean and well maintained complex, without air conditioning.

Ghim Moh

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Ghim Moh again

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Our hawker centers attract the attention of foreign dignitaries too. In this case, it was Ms Aung San Suu Kyi.

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We are booked at the Hotel Panorama by Rhombus in Kowloon for the 3 nights before our March cruise from Hong Kong. The price seemed good, the reviews were all very positive. I guess we will find out more in 8 weeks and leave some word here.

We stayed at Hotel Panorama by Rhombus a few years ago (not on a cruise, just a holiday) and found the location to be very central, and easy to get to everywhere thanks to the underground walkways and the MTR.

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Yes, the area immediately outside the hotel can get a bit messy and chaotic, but hey, that's more like Hong Kong! In this video, we went to a nearby Macs to get some fast food for the kids.

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For this cruise, we did shore excursions on our own. The ship's shore excursions were an interesting read, and I decided to make a video of the shore excursion brochure to give you a sense of what excursions were offered as well as the price. Enjoy!

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They did that when we were on Visions. It was awesome! Thanks!

Thanks for watching!

More videos, this time of food.

This was Day 7, Sea day, lunch in the MDR. They had this awesome live spaghetti station. Delicious.

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Amd a massive apple strudel in the Windjammer, where we headed to for desserts after the lunch in the MDR. A lot of fun!

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Norwegian Fjords and New Zealand Sounds.

We did a 14N out of Sydney to New Zealand on the Voyager of the Seas back in 2012. Here is the cruise critic review. Breathtaking beauty.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1754553&highlight=voyager+food+fantastic

We sailed on the Adventure of the Seas to Iceland and Norway in May 2014. Again, breathtaking. Here is the review on cruise critic.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2058253

To whet your appetite, here was the view from our aft balcony on the Adventure of the Seas as we sailed through the fjords.

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Similar views, this time from the New Zealand sounds.

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In NZ, another cruise ship passing by in the opposite direction.

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We brought our kids to Chops, they were charged $10 each and they could order off the normal menu. They had a 3 course meal, just like the rest of us. I wasn't even aware that there was a different kids' menu.

This sailing was on the Serenade of the Seas in June 2016.

Does the price differ from ship to ship?

On the Serenade in June 2016, we bought the $100 package for 5 dinners and we could eat at Chops for each of the 5 nights, if we wanted. We ended up having 2 dinners at Chops and they were very good.