Southeast Asia Cruise Part Three - Day at Sea and Singapore Airport

For our last day of the cruise, Vivian was up and running again.  She went back to the kids club, while Elena hung out with me and Jeff.  I told Elena that there would be a chance to see the lion (from Madagascar), so she drew a picture of the lion in anticipation.

We were pretty impressed that she drew him with paws up, his signature pose.  She brought the picture with her, and she was really excited when she spotted him from a distance.  The closer we got though, the more nervous she got.  By the time it was our turn, and she saw how big he was, she started crying, so only Vivi got her picture taken with the lion.

We took it easy most of the day and enjoyed our drink package.  We had dinner reservations at the Italian restaurant that night, and Vivian was able to join us.  We had another great seat for sunset on our last night of the cruise.

The next morning, I got up pretty early and enjoyed one last breakfast on the balcony as we sailed into Singapore.

Then I went inside and got the rest of the family going.  We got off the ship early and pretty smoothly.  Then we got a taxi to the airport.  We were in a different terminal than we've been before.  The girls were happy to discover a new play area.

We also found the bookstore, and I took Vivian on an Archie run.  She finished one of the books before we even got home, sigh.  Elena admired the decorations in the airport, and insisted we take a picture, even though she didn't look at me when I was taking it.

I got them both to look for a picture wishing a happy year of the rooster.

We got on the plane smoothly.  Vivian read her book, and Elena fell asleep.  Vacation complete.

Southeast Asia Cruise Part Two - Langkawi and Phuket

The undisputed highlight of the whole cruise was Langkawi.  A couple of my friends have been there and raved about it, so the fact that it was on the itinerary was a major reason I picked the cruise in the first place.  I knew I had done the right thing when I looked out from our balcony in the morning as we sailed into port.

We stayed on our balcony to eat room service breakfast.  Vivian spotted a pod of dolphins heading out to sea.  We couldn't catch a photograph, but it was wonderful to see.  We took it easy.  We let the first wave of passengers get off the ship and watched the sun rise.

From our balcony, we could see several taxis and vans parked right at the pier.  I went to guest services to see if those were pre-booked or for hire.  They told me they were for hire, but the ship staff did not help with that.  We were on our own.  Again, I was thankful we lived in Asia, because Royal Caribbean was useless in this.  The top things my friends recommended we do on Langkawi were the cable cars and sky bridge, but there was no shore excursion that included that, so I knew we would have to figure it out on our own.

When the crowds had cleared and there were still taxi vans left on the pier, we got off the boat.  It was beautiful.

There was an area where the taxis were parked, and then a long road that led to a mystery destination.  I took this picture of the pier later in the day, before we left.  In the morning, the parking spots were full of vans and taxis.

When we got to the first of the vans, the driver had a brochure for a full day excursion, including more shopping.  When I told him we just wanted to go to the cable cars and back, he said no.  So did the next one.  Finally, a driver who had been towards the back came up, and said, "You only want cable car and back?"  He had a smaller van, but still big enough to fit the six of us.  He said he had been waiting at the dock since 6:00am (it was ten at that point), and he was hot, so he would take us.  Sold!

As we drove from the pier side of the island to the cable car side, it got more and more beautiful.  We even spotted monkeys along the road as we got close to the cable cars.  There was a little "village" area around the cable car base, similar to what we had seen at the top of the Hong Kong cable cars.

They had the same kind of 4D movie and other "adventures".  There was also a nice pond and restaurants.

We figured we could eat on the ship for "free" and none of the other attractions really appealed to us, so we just got the cable car ticket.  We did splurge though on a glass bottom.  Vivian appreciated it.

Even Elena loves cable cars at this point, and she was super excited to get on.

It was quite a ways to the top, and there was a viewing station stop along the way.

We just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

The view from the first station was already pretty cool.

They claim it's the steepest cable car route in the world, and you can see there's quite a drop.  The second part was lusher and more level.

The view was incredible.

We even found a locks of love bridge up there.

There were several viewing platforms, and there was also a really cool bridge.

We couldn't figure out how to get to the bridge.  We finally realized you had to pay extra and stand in another line to take a funicular down to it.  We figured we had already gotten great 360 degree views from higher up, so we didn't need to spend more money and stand in more lines.  Instead, we made our way back down in another glass bottomed cable car.  The ride down, especially the steep part, was definitely a little scary, but still fun.  We found our van and went back to the ship.

We had the ship almost to ourselves, and enjoyed a laid back lunch buffet with a great view.  After lunch, Jeff took the girls to the pool.  Then Elena and I chilled in the room for "quiet time" while Jeff took Vivi back to the kids club.

That afternoon they had a Dreamworks "dance party" up on the pool deck.  We watched from the bar area above and Elena wiggled along.

It was kind of a meh show, but Elena enjoyed it, so that's all that matters.  We finished the day off with dinner in the main dining room, which was quite a place.

The food was pretty good.

The service though, was only so so.  They were friendly, and they tried, but they brought the wrong wines and forgot parts of our order.  We got it sorted out, but when a person came by offering a special promotion to eat at Chops Grille the next night, we told him to book us a table.

In the middle of the night, Vivian woke up and said she didn't feel so good.  She proceeded to not feel so good out of both ends for the remainder of the night.  In the morning, I called the medical services, and Jeff took her down to get some hydrating drinks and medicine.  They also told her that she had to be quarantined in the room for 24 hours.  This was the day we were tendered at Phuket.  It wasn't the end of the world though, since we hadn't planned on getting off the ship.  Something was wrong with Elena too.  She never threw up or had diarrhea, but she had a fever and she slept most of the day. 

 Even Jeff was not 100% and fell asleep.  I left the sickies inside and had a mocha and croissants on the balcony.

I also got a lot of schoolwork done, so that was good.  Jeff felt better in the afternoon, and walked around the deck to get some pictures of Phuket.

Jeff was convinced that it was the pool that got them all sick, because while he was walking around, he saw that they had drained one of the pools and were cleaning it, which is very unusual during a cruise.

Elena eventually woke up and perked up too.  Even Vivian was feeling better by the afternoon, but she still didn't really want to eat anything and she had to stay in the room.  Since we were technically in Thailand, both my phone and Jeff's worked, so we left her with my phone and took Elena to dinner.

We texted with Vivian throughout dinner, which was actually kind of fun.  The food was good again, and we watched the sun set on a not so great day.

Southeast Asia Cruise Part One - Sailing and Penang

Disney is obviously our favorite cruise line, but they don't cruise in Asia.  In talking to friends, it sounded like Royal Caribbean was the best family friendly option in the area.  Jeff's parents wanted to explore a little bit of Southeast Asia, but they also wanted to spend as much time with the girls as possible, so I thought a cruise would be a perfect solution.  I found one that started in Singapore and stopped in Penang, Langkawi (both in Malaysia), and Phuket.

We got up early in Bangkok, flew to Singapore, taxied to the pier, and by afternoon we were on a cruise ship.

We had debated spending some extra time in Singapore on one side of the cruise or the other, but really couldn't justify the expense, since we had just been there, so we waved goodbye to one of our favorite cities in the world as we set sail.

One of the first things on our cruise agenda was signing the girls up for the kids club.  There was a sign on the door to the club saying it wasn't opening until 8:00pm that night.  This was very different from what we were used to with Disney cruises where the kids get signed up right away.  We decided to go to guest services and see if we could fill out paperwork there, but when we got to the main street area in the ship we found everything set up for a parade and had to join the crowds on the sides of the "street."

It was hard to get pictures, because it was crowded and the parade people were all moving.  It was basically a Dreamworks parade with other random themes thrown in.  Elena was super impressed, and every time we went by the street for the rest of the cruise she said that was where the parade was.

When the parade was done, we didn't have enough time left before dinner to go to guest services, so we decided to wait until after dinner.  We started our cruise off right with dinner at Royal Caribbean's specialty steak restaurant, Chops Grille.  It cost a little extra, but it was worth it.  The steak was yummy.  Vivian inhaled hers, while Elena was happy with chicken and french fries. They were both very well behaved.

After dinner, we went to sign the girls up for the kids club.  I was a little worried, because the rooms were pretty empty.  There were hardly any special kids decorations or games.  They also told us that they were strict about separating age groups, so the girls couldn't be together.

The next morning, we got breakfast delivered by room service.  I took part of it out on to the balcaony to enjoy.

We were sailing most of the day, so we explored the ship a little.  Happy Chinese New Year!

After exploring, we took the girls to the kids clubs.  Vivian jumped right into hers, but Elena did NOT want to stay in the one for the 3-5 year olds.  I can't say I blamed her.  There were almost no toys to be seen, and only two adults there, one of whom was signing kids in.  There was a Singaporean family in line with us who also had a three year old girl.  Their daughter rejected the kids club too.  They told us about a room with toys in it that little kids could play in supervised by parents.  We went to check it out.  It was a padded foam mat with some plastic toys on it in what looked like the unused teens club area.  It was pretty sad, but the worst part was that they had toys like a toddler music table that SHOULD have lit up and made sounds, but none of them worked.  Elena played for a little while with the other girl, but she was not impressed.  The lack of a good kids club for her was a major disappointment.  

We went to pick Viv up for lunch, because she really wanted to try the Johnny Rockets restaurant on the ship.  She was very satisfied with her burger and strawberry milkshake.

Since the kids club was a success for Viv, we signed her up for the dinner program, since we were doing a Taste of Penang tour that evening.  Unfortunately though, the only dinner foods they were offering were pizza and french fries, so we fed Vivian from the main buffet before dropping her off for "dinner."

The main problem was with Elena.  Since she refused to stay in the kids club, we figured the best solution was to take her with us.  She was really good, but I had to carry her, which was not as much fun for me.  We were also very disappointed in the tour.  The name and the description made us think it would be a food tour, but it was really a tourist trap shopping tour.  We started with chocolate and coffee shops that we were shepparded through and then presented with buying options.  I did buy Elena some coconut flavored chocolate, because she was a bit overwhelmed, and the chocolate made her happy.  Then they told us they were going to take us to a "local products" store, and, oh, by the way, there's a hawker center next door where you can eat when you're done shopping.  We bypassed the shopping and went right for dinner.  We got some good pinapple fried rice for me and Elena, and Jeff got a beer big enough for four people.

Luckily, we already knew how hawker centers worked, because our "guide" provided us with zero instruction.  At that point it was about 8:30 at night, and Elena had fallen asleep on me.  The rest of the "tour" consisted of going to the mall and then hitting another hawker center.  We opted for a taxi back to the ship.  The good news was that the ship was easy to find.

We picked Viv up from a great evening at the kids club and called it a day.

Super Awesome 3rd Birthday

Elena's birthday fell on a Sunday this year, which was great because everyone was home.  It was also super special because Grandpa and Grandma Goerss were visiting, so she got extra love and attention for her birthday.  The grandparents started the celebration off right, with a huge birthday box.

Elena was excited to rip into it, and she was thrilled to find a new bathingsuit and sundress.

She insisted on trying on the dress.  She still needs to grow into it a bit, but she enjoyed wearing it around the house.

The morning fun continued with one of her favorite activities, playing at the pool.

When she got tired, she sat in the shade and snacked on cheerios.

After lunch and a rest, we headed over to Fun Planet at the mall.  We had invited some of her buddies to join us there for playing and cupcakes.  At first it was just Elena and Vivi.

But then the rest of her buddies showed up, and the party really got started.  Brave Jeff stayed in with them, while I sat outside with the grandparents and other moms.

The birthday girl was having so much fun she even went in the sand box.

A balloon had gotten in there, and she and her buddy kept trying to cover it in sand.

After all that running around, they were hungry, so we took a break for cupcakes.  Everyone sang her happy birthday, and she loved it.

She also loved her cupcake.  I'm really glad I didn't frost them, because just the cupcake was mess enough.

I had asked for no presents, since we're trying to get rid of stuff ahead of our move, but some of her friends still wanted to do something special, so they made her cute birthday pictures.  She particularly liked this one.

She knows most of her letters and numbers, but her favorite thing to do is find the letter E on anything written.  If there's a letter E, she decides that whatever it's written on is for Elena.

After the sugar hit, the kids went back in to play some more.  They started off calmly drawing.

But it wasn't long before the crazy took hold.

Vivian took a well deserved break from the little kids for a cooking class.

Eventually, we called it a day and headed home for dinner.  The birthday girl requested pizza, so pizza it was.

She slept well that night.  I think it was a pretty awesome birthday for a three year old.