Royal Caribbean Cruise - First Day (Depart from Singapore, Ice Odyssey, The Australian Beatles Show)

#rcruiseshiptravelog

Actually, prior to purchasing the cruise ship tickets, I did some research first and I kind of knew what to expect. I initially almost selected the Genting Dream Cruise, since it's cheaper. However, some travellers said that the quality is not that good, kind of rob of (where you need to pay for almost anything), and good for those who love gambling. For those travelling with family, Royal Caribbean is much better. And they offer great food with many free activities. Well, then I chose the Royal Caribbean one.

Since I had done quite a research, so I knew that we should deliberately choose the free activities if we wanted to have full experience (eg. kind of exploiting) our cruise journey.

So that night, at 17:30, we opt to enjoy the "Ice Odyssey" Ice Spectacular. The review said we should come very early, since the space was limited. And it's on first come first serve basis. Following the guide, we were one of the first to arrive. #ambi. And that's right, not long after, the venue became packed within short time.

Oh yes, the cruise ship had an ice-rink on it, where at night there were shows and at noon, we could reserve to enjoy ice skating session on the venue. Apparently, it's the first cruise ship (or I guess any sea transportation by any means) ever with an ice-rink on it.

The performance was very entertaining! Well, there were some mishaps where the skaters fell. But overall it's pretty good, with acrobatic and breathtaking moves. Actually, the ice rink was not that large, so perhaps it's not that easy for the skaters to move easily. They ought to control their moves very carefully as not to touch the rink side or other skaters.

The skaters asked the spectators if anyone wanted to volunteer as a cameo on the show. So there's a woman from Japan who acted brilliantly the made the show even more entertaining.

We were not allowed to take video, but photo is fine as long as without flash

22:00. After dinner, there's a show that I attended to: The Australian Beatles. The event was held in an auditorium named La Scala. We'll talk about the venue later. Actually I was a bit sleepy, but didn't wanna miss a chance to see the show. Since hey it's free (ga mau rugi sih aka oportunis. lol). Unlike the Ice Odyssey, show ini diadakan di venue yang cukup besar jadi masuknya ga perlu rebutan.

I loved the performance! So, basically they were The Beatles' impersonators. Their costumes, look, and everything were prepared rigorously. From the mop top hair, instruments, and the songs (of course, lol).

And they sounded amazing! Perhaps the only thing that was less fun was the unenthusiastic audience. It was like they didn't even clap. I urged myself so hard to not cheer the band up.

I don't know whether it's in my mind only, or I really did that: started to turn my cell's flash light on in Hey Jude song, then the band caught my hint then asked the audiences to turn the flashlight too.

23:19. Let's call it a day! Foto-foto bagian-bagian kapalnya kita lanjutkan besok lagi. Walau karena sudah malam, sebenernya menarik sih untuk eksplor bagian-bagian kapal lainnya, soalnya sudah sepi, hehe. Tapi masih ada 2 malam lagi, so that's fine.

Third Day

05:27. The perks of waking up early was you could enjoy the cruise ship like it's your own. lol. Hampir ga ada orang lain!.

Amazingly, si cafe promenade ini buka 24 jam jadi tetep bisa ngemil. Walau menunya relatif terbatas sih, tapi lumayan lah soalnya kan gratis, hehe.

So why did we wake up early? Kalau lagi liburan kan enakan bangun siang. Yak, itu betul. Tapi selain subuhan, jacuzzi ini sungguh sayang jika dilewatkan, wkwk. Kalau siangan dikit pasti rame.

6:39. Just like the day before, rain decorated the morning with cloud as company. Oh well. But the sun seemed ready to greet. There's still hope!

07:13. We decided to have the breakfast at Main Dining Room. The day before, our breakfast was at the Windjammer.

Hmm, I didn't really like the breakfast ambience here. Since the windows were covered by some kind of shield, that I guess aiming to protect us from direct sunlight. But what I felt was it made the room gloom and dim.

Plus, the food selection was some kind of regular breakfast that I also could get at Windjammer. Well, ada beberapa variasi menu unik dan sehat, tapi buat saya kurang menarik, hehe.

8:03 After a cloudy dawn, alhamdulillah a rainbow appear. It seemed the day was going to be bright and good!

Salah satu bagian kapal yang sempat dieksplor adalah, umm, kokpit. Wait, kokpit itu kan di pesawat. Kalo di kapal, tulisannya sih namanya the bridge. Tapi aneh kan kalo bilangnya jembatan. Setelah cek di internet, namanya ternyata ... anjungan kapal! haha. Baru tau!

Jadi, anjungan kapal adalah ruang komando kapal di mana ditempatkan roda kemudi kapal, peralatan navigasi untuk menentukan posisi kapal berada.

Actually, saya baru baca keterangan tentang the bridge ini saat mau nulis caption, dan banyak hal yang menurut saya menarik.

Few fun facts:
1. Multiple positioning systems. Nah, biasanya kan kita familiarnya dengan GPS. Ternyata GPS ini standar positioning system-nya US menggunakan 30 satelit. Si cruise ship ini selain menggunakan GPS, juga menggunakan GLONASS, positioning system punyanya Rusia yg menggunakan 24 satelit. Dengan mengkombinasikan dua data ini, hasilnya pun bisa lebih akurat dan real time, karena jadi pakai 54 satelit kan yang posisinya tersebar di langit sana. Terus waktu eksplor lebih jauh lagi, Eropa, China, dan Jepang punya positioning system yang berbeda. Menarik!

2. Armrest. Di armrest kiri ada trackball untuk mengontrol display di depan mereka. Di armrest kanan ada joystick untuk mengendalikan kapal. Jadi ga usah repot2 pake setir super besar untuk mengendalikan kapal.

3. Dynamic Positioning System. Dengan sistem ini, kapal bisa berada di suatu titik dan menghadap ke arah yang sama selama berjam-jam tanpa harus mengaitkan jangkar.

4. Voyage Management System: ini semacam auto-pilot kalau di pesawat. Jadi most of the time, sistem ini yang bekerja, dan petugas bisa memonitor.

5. Automatic Radar Plotting Aid: covering 133 km area, track up to 40 different targets a time.

Flowrider. One of many interesting free attractions on board. Although there were quite lengthy queue (for sure), and unexpected d d d drama!

Jadi kan itu emang ngantri banget (swipe right). Terus kayak ada yang nitip antrian gitu. Nah, kan jadi ga maju2 antriannya. Terus ada yang protes. Sampe si officernya juga ikut kesel sama yang nitip antrian dan si flowrider ini sempet dihalt beberapa saat.

This is how the bridge looks like from the front. Somehow it reminds me of Ohm - from Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind by Studio Ghibli. I don't know, perhaps because of the round windows, or the shape. Anyway, I love it!

Wall climbing. Dimensi foto di instagram kurang sesuai jadinya terpotong :/

A successful jump, but the expression, umm, not so much.

Lalu mencoba juga ambil pose di ujung depan cruise macam2 Titanic. Tapi kok angle-nya kurang pas ya? Harus ada yang ambil gambar dari luar kapal. #repot

Golfing above the sea.

There's a casino located right below the promenade.

And there were few interesting instagrammable spots. Well, basically many things are instagrammable for first timers.

I dont know why I post this, lebih karena dibuang sayang I guess. Ok next.

Swimming pools. Actually I don't know how many swimming pool that this ship has. Actually on the other side of the ship, there's another one. If I'm not mistaken, pre-covid they installed a new waterslide which makes it even more exciting.

16:04.Mendapatkan tempat yang tenang untuk membaca buku, atau untuk meditasi bagi yg mau, ternyata bukanlah hal yang mustahil di kapal pesiar ini. Di bagian belakang kapal ini hanya ada segelintir orang! Eh, tempat lain seperti perpus juga sepi sih. Tapi kalo di bagian sini, suasana di atas lautnya lebih kuat.

18:30. Hollywood musical night at La Scala. Live performance with live music of some most famous tunes from hollywood movies. Although I didn't recognize around 60% of the tunes though.

The singers really do have great pipes! I also love the stage, simple but the background was wonderful. I should say that it's an impressive show. Well, maybe because I set my expectation quite low (since this is basically a free show?). But those performers were reeeally good.

La Scala, a venue in the cruise ship that named after Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The theatre (the one in Milan, not in cruise ship) is regarded as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres in the world.

However, I should say that this theatre is a decent one. Better than the one in Balai Kartini or Istora Senayan. I knoww, Balai Kartini atau Istora kan memang peruntukannya bukan untuk art performance. Tapi kenyataannya, pertunjukkan seni acapkali diadakan di tempat tersebut kan?

Main Dining Room. One of our fave dining rooms, because of its elegant interior with its big chandelier, all you can eat 3*-course-meal set (* = easily multiplied anytime we want), and its excellent service.

We thought that we ought to dress up to eat in main dining room, but seeing other guests seemed quite casual, so we took the hint and applied for ourselves. lol.

At the final night, the waiters danced on the stairs, that night with latin energetic song as the background. So fun!

21:05. So, at the final night, there was a watching party on the pool area. The movie being played that night was Captain Marvel, which is relatively new that time, but I had watched it. The challenge was to get a comfortable spot to watch the movie, which was not that easy.

21:58. There had been a loud sound coming from the Promenade Area. It's basically a party to celebrate the cruise journey as the ultimate

Well, it's full of dance and upbeat music. At first I just wanted to see from afar, but in the end I got closer and allowed myself to join the train formation with the others, lol.

But it seemed they knew that for some people, the night was still young. So they had this after party at one of the cafes, where there were live band and people could continue dancing. I enjoyed the music by sitting on the side, before getting back to my room not long after.

So nice! (bukan sosis). Begitu masuk kamar setelah beraktivitas di luar, di tempat tidur ada handuk berbentuk gajah.

At another time, we found a monkey! I should say that the hospitality was superb!

Tipping is encouraged and very common. But they also really took care of the services and wanted to know our feedback.

Ok, in the next slide, there's our bathroom. Really small, but cukup lah yah. Yang penting bersih.

Memandangi laut yang seakan tak bertepi, dari jendela bundar yang ada di kamar.

Let's put fillers here and there karena target weekend ini sudah selesai urusan perkapalan.

Chasing sunset, or sunrise?

05:45. To get a good spot, we came very early to have our breakfast.

That's a tug boat! No worries, our ship wasn't stuck (like the one in Suez). But it's there to push (or pull?) our ship to be able to dock at the harbor nicely. So how does it compare with the Ever Given?

Voyager of the Seas was the largest cruise ship in the world, although she was overtaken the following year by her sister ship Explorer of the Seas.

She is 311 m long overall, has a waterline beam of 36.8 m and a height of 63 m. It can hold 3,602 passengers at double occupancy, and 4000 passengers maximum.

Voyager of the Seas included the first rock climbing wall (mounted on the funnel) and the first ice-skating rink at sea.

So, how does it measure compared to the famous Titanic? Titanic has 269 m long, 53.3 m height, and 28.2 m beam. Smaller but not so much smaller.

How if we compare to "that ship"? That ship clogging the Suez Canal. The Ever Given ship is 400 m long, which is 89 m longer than Voyager of the Seas. Nevertheless, those ships are huge!

Singapore welcomed us with beautiful warm golden sunrise. Ending a vacation is never an easy thing. But this like the way of nature saying that I should welcome a new day with a grateful feeling. It greeted me "have a nice day 😊".

Nope I'm not in Singapore, this comes from 2019 album.

Arriving to the little red dot.

The passengers' luggages were sorted based on each passenger's deck. There's no conveyor belt like in the airport. But we had no difficulty in finding ours since they arranged it very neatly.

Then we had brunch with mba @esti_pratiwi1505 and family at West Coast Plaza. The food was super super delicious! Alhamdulillah.

Masjid Sultan adalah masjid pertama di Singapura, pertama dibangun di tahun 1824 tapi kemudian direbuilt tahun 1924 karena yang sebelumnya itu kekecilan (kalo ga salah ngerti ya).

Haji Lane and its surrounding is famous for its mural. Perhaps like in Georgetown's Albanian Street. Kalau di Indonesia, kira-kira yang terkenal dengan muralnya ada ngga ya?

This photo marks the end of #rcruiseshiptravelog. Finally! The next travelog will be in one of the oldest cities (or even the oldest!) in Indonesia. Guess what!

Singapore Day 1

11:21. Arriving at Terminal 1, I headed to the Jewel part of the airport to find my family who had arrived earlier from Jakarta.

I know that I just praised Kualanamu, but this was on another different league. Perhaps any airport in this earth would look pale compared to this one.

It was my first time seeing the famous Rain Vortex, and I was in awe, really. Keren banget! I visited this in June 2019, and it was first opened in April 2019.

Btw, I thought the name of the waterfall was jewel, but apparently not. Jewel Changi Airport (also known as Jewel or Jewel Changi) is a nature-themed entertainment and retail complex on the inside of Changi Airport. Its centrepiece is the Rain Vortex, which is surrounded by a terraced forest setting (which is very cool also)

Rain Vortex is the world's largest and tallest indoor waterfall, standing at 40 metres high. Recirculating rain water is pumped to the roof to free fall through a round hole at up to 37,850 liters per minute to a basement-level pool. It received many awards and accolades for its outstanding design. I think everyone would admit that Singapore is very serious in spending their money to create design marvels.

From the airport, we went to Marina. Nope, not Marina Bay Sands, but the Marina Bay Cruise Center. Since as the hashtag has been hinting in the past few weeks, we were gonna take cruise ship!

I don't know, but I thought taking a cruise ship was like once in a lifetime experience, and actually, it wasn't as expensive as going to Europe, Australia, or even Raja Ampat. and it's less mainstream. And I just want to treat my fam. Alhamdulillah ada rezeki.

So, few weeks before the departure, we already had purchase the tickets. Similar with booking regular hotel rooms. However, booking a room in a cruise, we can, and have to choose, the exact room that we want to stay in.

So they will provide you with the layout of the ship (floor map), so we can choose in which floor that we want to stay in, bagian depan atau belakang, kanan atau kiri, intinya which exact room, and so on. Why? because different floor and location have a different price. I of course searched for the economical one. lol.

so, since we already chose which deck that we would stay in (there are 10 decks in total). Hmm, why it reminds me of PPT deck. lol. Back to the topic, our check-in time was determined by which deck that we chose. Staying in deck 7, our check-in time was on 1:30 pm.

So our Grab Car was nearing in to the cruise center. And I was so ecstatic just by looking at the giant ship.

The Marina Bay Cruise Center was a building specifically built as port for cruise ships, and it's moved there from previous location. The new location at Marina South has deep waters, a large turning basin, and no height restrictions, which enables it to accommodate the largest cruise ships being built now. From inside, the building's design was quite similar from cruise ship's design.

We then dropped our luggage and checked-in. We had to give our passport and they'd keep it during our trip. As the exchange, each of us was given an access card that we should keep during the trip. Since it'd be used as our main card when we want to enter/leave the ship, as well as to enter our room.

After checking in, we were guided to enter the ship. Exciting!

Apakah bahasa Inggrisnya garbarata? Kata wiki jet bridge (also termed jetway, jetwalk, airgate, gangway, aerobridge/airbridge, skybridge, airtube, or its official industry name passenger boarding bridge (PBB)).

I asked since to enter the ship, we used jetbridge-like thingy, kinda. I'm not sure. But it's a nice one for sure.

Prior to entering the ship, we were asked to strike a pose in front of a banner, where the photographer was ready to take a pic. I knew that they would offer the photos later with a price.

13:32. The ship was huge with luxurious hotel-like interior. We went directly to the restaurant since, well, since it's not 24/7 open, and we're running out of time. Well, thanks to someone who posted it in her blog about the tips, so we didn't miss our lunch. I know the photo is kinda blurry, since I snap it from a video. lol.

Lunch! The restaurant was pretty packed with guests. It seemed we were a tad late. Actually, there was still enough, even so many, food. Perhaps since we still brought our bag with us, so it wasn't too convenient.

Oh ya, there were few restaurants that we could choose, and that afternoon we picked this one, a buffet one, where there were loads of varieties of food being served. Will write about it in another post.

So, when we finished our lunch, we then went to our room, a small room. Our luggage would be delivered directly to our room, we just needed to wait.

Then later, apparently one of our luggage got suspended by the ship's authority, since there's unallowed item(s) inside the bag. We're wondering what it was. Apparently, it's a clothes iron that my mom brought with her.

Yes, other than knives, gun, and so on, in a cruise trip, you're not allowed to bring items that were "electrically risky" such as clothes iron, even cable extension. Perhaps to avoid fire. We're also not allowed to bring alcoholic beverages, well, since we supposed to purchase it on board. Not that it's my concern, since we're teetotaler anyway..

16:00. Mandatory Muster Assembly Drill. For you who are working in an office building, this is similar to a fire drill. So, there's a sound of general emergency alarm, and the captain explained what the passengers should do, then the guests should be moving to a specified spot in the ship, determined by which room the guest was staying. For us, our meeting point was in a restaurant on the 5th floor, which our table was also had been specified. The crews were standing by in the alleys and every corner to guide us where we needed to head to.

A muster drill prepares passengers for a safe evacuation, in the event of an emergency on board the ship, and familiarizes the crew and the passengers with escape routes. In a muster drill, the use of life vests and the escape routes from the ship are explained to the passengers.

Apparently the cruise had started moving. The island of Singapore was getting further, the skyscrapers seemed to get smaller and smaller. See you Singapore!

Well, I thought it'd be like in cartoon where people on the shore would be waving to the ship's passengers. Yeah, not like that apparently. Not dramatic at all.