Southeast Asia Cruise - Singapore

Our fourth Saudi Christmas season was approaching and again we were debating on going home for the holidays or heading off on vacation.  We ultimately decided to go on vacation because it would be our last big trip and were scheduled to repatriate three months after Christmas.  So, no point making the long trip home when we had to turn around and go home for good shortly afterwards.  We planned to go to Thailand a few times since we've been in Saudi Arabia, but for one reason or another we just never made it there.  I thought this was our chance so I started planning out the different areas we would go to and what we would do.  In the middle of planning, Harry came up with the idea of going on a Southeast Asia cruise that went to two ports in Thailand and a few other places.  I wasn't a huge fan of the idea, but after a little convincing I gave in and changed gears.

On December 8, 2016 we started our Christmas holiday cruise to Southeast Asia and our first stop was Singapore!  It was really nice to have a flight that left at a decent time!  We are usually on our way to the airport at some ridiculous hour in the middle of the night.

Two other families that live on our compound decided to go on the same cruise!  We even flew together with our neighbors and close friends, the Doncels!

Fight 1 to Doha, Qatar!

A little desert sunset before takeoff.

Silly boy on flight 2 to Singapore!

We arrived in Singapore the next morning and made our way to the hotel.  Harry's mom and dad were already there and waiting on us.  After some food, a much needed nap, and a little freshening up we were ready for our Chinatown food tour.  We were happy to see all the Christmas decorations in our hotel since we had just left a very strict Muslim country that obviously doesn't celebrate the holiday.

It started pouring down before we left, but thankfully it stopped right before we met our guide at the first stop.  It was an Indian restaurant and I was pleasantly surprised by the food given that I don't typically care for Indian cuisine.

Our guide starting the tour off!

Connor didn't hang for long once he was sitting down.  They went straight to Mimi and Pop's room when we arrived and something tells me they didn't nap like Harry and I did!

Jameson managed to stay awake, but wasn't amused...as per usual.

I don't remember what this is or what was in it, but it was our first dish and it was VERY good!

The ever famous Milo drink. 

One more Indian dish before moving on...

It was cool to see the stark contrast of old and new all together as we walked.

This statue remembers the Samsui women who immigrated from China and contributed to the development of Singapore by doing hard labor and construction jobs.

Net up was our first hawker centre stop - Tian Tian in the Maxwell Food Centre.  The chicken rice dish here was made famous by Anthony Bourdain.  I have to be honest, it was good but I was expecting a lot more.

Delicious oyster cake!

Maxwell Food Centre with food stalls along each side.

Carrot cake!  Not the same as the carrot cake we know of...in fact it doesn't even have carrots in it, but oh my goodness...yummmm!

Public housing in Singapore is in these huge high rise buildings.

We visited the inside of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum, but weren't allowed to take pictures.

Next we made our way through the main part of Chinatown, walking past markets and trying various street food items.

I loved the vibe of this area :)

Our guide took us through back areas which were sometimes very interesting!

Merry Asian Christmas!

Our first taste of one of our favorites...pork buns!

We started the tour in in a newer part of town which is popular with tourists.  We slowly made our way to places that are less popular with tourists, but regularly frequented by locals.  The last hawker centre is in the heart of the community and was crazy busy, but we were the only white people in sight!

My little guy was super tired, but hung in there!

Chilli claypot frog...yeah, no thanks...not this girl.

Homemade dumplings!

Fresh sugarcane juice!  This guy pushed the sugarcane through the machine to get the juice, which was served over ice.  So good!

Connor approved :)

We had such a great introduction to Singapore!

We decided to explore the beautiful and unique Gardens by the Bay for what we thought would be our last day in Singapore.

Dragonfly Lake

The super cool Supertree Grove!

The "trees" are covered in over 163,000 plants and the canopies either harvest solar energy or serve as air exhaust receptacles.

Family supertree selfie :)

The boys had a great time being free to run around and play throughout the gardens.

The OCBC Skyway is a 420 foot walkway that connects two trees at 72 feet up in the air.  I don't know why I agreed to go up there, but it is a mistake for someone who is afraid of heights.  The walkway is more of a grating than a solid material so once you're up there you can see straight down.  I had a slight panic attack, squeezed Connor's hand, and resisted the urge to run across to the other side.  I basically walked as fast as I could and didn't really stop to take in any views. 

Our little navigators.

Jameson loved the Koi pond.

This kid is such a trip!

Lion roar!

Such beautiful flowers and neat structures everywhere!

Crocodile benches carved out of petrified wood!

There are play areas tucked away all over the place and the boys loved them!

Gardens by the Bay was such a nice way to spend the morning.

A necessary ice cream break before heading out.

The Merlion is an iconic symbol in Singapore which depicts the head of a lion and the body of a fish.  The lion head represents the meaning of Singapore, which is lion city, and the fish body represents it's origin as a fishing village.

We just had to...lol!

We went for an early dinner at a cool little spot that we knew the boys would love!

After dinner we started to make our way back to Gardens by the Bay for their nightly Christmas festivities.  On our way we stopped off at a local market to check out the sights.  This guy had a huge CD collection and was singing along to the tunes.  It's the first thing we saw when we walked off the metro.

Connor thought it was fun to watch and walked over to give him a tip.

The market had some interesting finds...lots of pajamas and underwear!

And "Luis" jeans!  Haha!

On our way out we spotted this guy who seemed to have set up a shoe repair shop right in the middle of everything.

Random naked baby boy mixed in with the Christmas decorations.

The Christmas festivities were really neat with lots of food and drink booths.  We couldn't pass up a little butterbeer!

We found a nice place to sit on the lawn and wait for the concert that was about to start.

As the sun set the lights came on and the supertrees got even cooler!  We really enjoyed listening to this Pentatonix"ish" group singing Christmas carols in the gazebo. 

All the lights were beautiful!

On our way back to the hotel for the night!

The next day we boarded the ship for our cruise!  Some friends of ours had arranged for our room to be decorated and it was an awesome surprise!

Bon voyage...or so we thought!

Checking in for the cruise was a disaster.  We got there 30 minutes before check-in even started and still waited in line for an hour and a half.  Once we were done, we realized that the line had gotten so long it was actually out of the terminal.  The ship seemed so empty for so long because it was taking forever for people to board. We did the muster drill and there was hardly anyone in our group - people were still checking in.  The captain said they were running into a lot of red tape issues and we would depart about an hour and a half late, but not to worry...it wouldn't interfere with our schedule.  We had been on board for several hours and were having a great time.  We went to dinner, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.  It seemed like everyone was on board and we were about to pull away when the lights flickered a little.  We didn't really think much about it.  The captain came on and said they were having a little technical issue but we would be on our way shortly.  Time continued to pass and we still hadn't left.  The captain came on every 30 minutes or so, but the story was the same every time...nothing new to report.  It started to get late so he said he wouldn't make anymore announcements, but as long as we were able to leave by 2 am we would still make it to our first stop on time.

I woke up around 2 am and looked out of the window to see that we were no longer docked and there were tug boats around us.  I was relieved, thinking that we had just made it and we were on our way to Thailand!  I went back to sleep and woke up several hours later to realize that the tugs were just bringing us a little offshore to anchor and that we were STILL IN SINGAPORE!  Ugh!  Apparently one of the two azipods was broken.  This is what operates the propeller.  We were fine to continue sailing with just one propeller, but a crew had to be flown in from various part of the world to certify that the ship was indeed safe to continue sailing.  So basically we were stuck in Singapore until those guys got there and because there were other ships docked in port that day we had to remain offshore until they were gone.

We spent the whole day doing typical cruise ship stuff...

Drinks at the pub,

kids club activities,

lots of eating,

and bingo!

This ship did eventually go back to the dock and we could have gotten off, but it was getting late and wasn't worth the trouble.  By this time we had received our revised itinerary and it was quite different than what we had planned for!  We were going to leave days later than planned and with only one functioning propeller, we were going to be moving much slower than normal.  We had to spend the next day docked in Singapore while the crew they were flying in did their inspection.  We were supposed to go to two ports in Thailand - Ko Samui and an overnight in Bangkok.  Both were taken off completely!  So our last chance to go to Thailand was gone.  Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam had also been scratched.  We were happy to see that Nha Trang, Vietnam was still on the schedule because we had an awesome country side tour in an open air ex US military jeep planned there.  Chan May, Vietnam had been added, Sanya, China remained on the itinerary, and we were still scheduled to disembark in Hong Kong on December 22.  We were very disappointed that we weren't going to Thailand, but we didn't let it put a damper on our spirits.  I was scrambling to cancel the tours we had booked in Ko Samui and Bangkok while also trying to find a guide in Chan May, but Norwegian announced that everyone would be receiving a full refund as well as 50% off of a future cruise so that lessened the blow and relieved some of the stress.

The kids were enjoying every second of kids club.  Jameson came back with this crazy hat that almost took up the whole stateroom!

When we picked him up that night he had turned into some crazy king/pirate looking character!

 

We definitely weren't going to sit on the ship the next day while docked so we got off and went to the famous Singapore Zoo!  I'm not a huge fan of zoos, but this was a wonderful day out!

Jameson was totally freaked out, but in awe of the dinosaur park.  He is obsessed with dinosaurs!

A few shots from around the zoo!

The polar bear was so cool!

The boys went up to feed the rhino, but chickened out and Harry ended up giving it the food.

The tortoise shells are marked on purpose to make them less desirable to poachers.

We ran into the Doncels while at the zoo and just by chance me and my Saudi sister were dressed exactly alike!

We had a great time and made our way back to the ship to finally set sail and say so long to Singapore!

We spent the next three days at sea, putt-putting to Vietnam!  We really enjoyed lots of fun in the sun and relaxation!

The kiddie pool area was ice cold so we didn't stay long.

Drinks with the girls as we cruise along!

Crazy Frank with his Tia!

More pool fun :)

These boys really enjoyed their time together!

Ice cream on a cruise is a mandatory!

The kids went down this slide over and over again!

Down time with Mimi...

and more ice cream!

The weather started to get bad on our second afternoon at sea and into the third day so we stayed in and pretty much ate, read, and slept the day away!  We were anxious to get off the ship the next day for our tour of Nha Trang!  The bad luck stopped being funny the next morning...