mahdnc

A few views around the Grand Foyer: The gingerbread houses that are usually occupying the back stairway in the Grand Foyer are not there this year. Instead the stairway has been kept open and the gingerbread houses are displayed in other locations around the Grand Foyer.

The above instructions were in our stateroom after we boarded. The funny thing is that by the time you read it, you will have already surrendered your passport to Celebrity. Here is some very important Immigration + General Information that we received in our stateroom. Some notes of interest: 1. If you did not have a Vietnam visa when you boarded. Celebrity will apply for one on your behalf but it cost $25. There is no guarantee that it will be approved and if approved, there is no guarantee that it will be done in time for you to get off at the first Vietnamese port. The only thing guaranteed is that you will pay $25 win, lose, or draw. 2. Guests who have independent plans to stay ashore overnight in Bangkok or Ha Long Bay need to bring a copy of their passport with them. You do not need it if you are doing the overnight through Celebrity although this is not what this other document pictured at the top of this post says. Requests for copies of your passport have to be made to Guest Relations no later than 9 pm the night before the ship arrives at port. For us, we plan on staying in Bangkok on our own, but we ended up booking the overnight Ha Long Bay cruise through Celebrity. 3. During our second sea day--the one that directly precedes the 4 Vietnamese ports, we will receive a Vietnamese Landing Card (delivered to our stateroom). The landing card is to be in our possession when we get off the ship in each Vietnamese port. It will be stamped by immigration at the first port and inspected by a Vietnamese officer at every port thereafter. 4. When we arrive at our first port in Vietnam (Phu My), immigration officers will board Solstice and review the passports and visas of all the passengers. It is possible that they will find errors. Affected passengers will be notified in advance, but it is possible we will find out on the gangway when we try to get off the ship. 5. Passports are returned to us on Sea Day #3, the day before the cruise ends. We will be receiving instructions later on exactly what time and where to retrieve them. 6. There are additional instructions for passengers who plan on doing overland tours that require exiting Vietnam or Thailand (e.g. Angkor Wat) as well as passengers who plan on getting off the ship before Solstice arrives at Hong Kong. All of the above explains why Guest Relations has been so crowded and busy...

Here is: Celebrity Today for Day 1 Celebrity Today for Day 2 (today) Celebrity Today folder

Here is the ship's itinerary that was published in yesterday's Celebrity Today (embarkation day). Normally for this 12 night itinerary, the three Evening Chic nights would fall on Sea Day #1, Sea Day #2, and the second Ha Long Bay day. However the Christmas and New Years holiday has re-scheduled the EC nights to be on Christmas Eve, Sea Day 2, and New Year's Eve. Singapore and Hong Kong are in the same time zone whereas the ports in Thailand and Vietnam are one hour behind. So predictably the ship set our clocks back an hour last night after we left Singapore and we will lose an hour on the night that we leave Ha Long Bay. We have two tender ports--one tomorrow at the island of Ko Samui and the other at Nha Trang. Although our speedboat shorex was cancelled at Ko Samui for tomorrow because of expected high winds, there is no indication yet that the entire port (tender) will be skipped. The Shore Excursion agent that I talked to said that Ko Samui was missed 2 sailings ago because of high winds.

Well, I think Orchid Lady would be sufficiently impressed with the exhibit. It may inspire her to have you build more shelves and perhaps a cool greenhouse to house them all.

The ship rocked and rolled quite a bit last night. I felt like I was back on Xpedition. It woke my wife up. It didn't bother me at all although my dad accidentally called me at 1:30 am from the USA so that woke me up. The seas were still moving us around a lot this morning. Blu view: Balcony view: No view:

Wow. That’ll be a nice trip. You are correct about the convenience of getting from one ship to the other at the Singapore cruise pier. No transport needed. I don’t know the answer about how early you can drop off your bags, but the next time I talk to Guest Relations I will ask the question. They may be aware of a special arrangement for lucky passengers like you. Can you give me the exact date that this is happening? However strictly judging from what I saw yesterday when we arrived at 11 am (which was the earliest check-in time slot available) and looking at the number of passengers already in front of us, I’d say you could have dropped off your bags at least as early as 10:30 am. For what it is worth, here is a view of the main cruise terminal floor as seen from the mezzanine. First photo is looking left, second photo is looking straight ahead, and third photo is looking right. The back of the terminal in the second photo is the main front entrance. In this photo, the unmanned check in stations I believe would be used for the other cruise ship: In this photo, you can see the personnel and baggage scanners: In this photo, the check in stations at the bottom of the white wall on the right half of the photo was for Solstice. This is where our Vietnam visas were checked:

Yes, that appeared to be the case.

By my count, half of the people on our roll call made he sailaway gathering (Oceanview Bar, Deck 1414 aft) which was pretty good. Although I did not get a chance to talk to her much, it was good to see @educated palate again (we met her during our Constellation TA in Oct 2022). I also got to meet @Miaminice and his wife, Birgit for the first time. We were scheduled to leave Singapore at 6pm but we actually left around 6:30pm. When we left, we did so under partly sunny skies.. After looking at Marina Bay Sands from one direction (from our hotel), it was interesting to see the other side of MBS from the pier. Although Solstice was alone at the pier when she arrived at 6am this morning, Genting's Dream was parked next to her by the time we sailed away.

Sailawsy went well although we left a half hour late. I will post photos later tonight. We received a message from the shore excursion department that our shorex at Ko Samui (photo) has been cancelled by the outfitter due to high waves.

Yes, it resembled a movie about escaping an East Bloc country during the Cold War. Papers and multiple checkpoints.

Well embarkation was quite the production today. Here were the basic sequence of events and their time stamp: 1. Our taxi van picks us up at the JW Marriott Hotel (10:32 am). The ride is uneventful. 2. We arrive at the pier at 10:48 am. There are passengers getting off Solstice who are looking for taxis. Some of them are eyeing our taxi. Light traffic, everything is pretty organized. 3. Baggage drop off (10:55 am). There is a person that checks your bags that you are going to drop off to make sure they are on the approved list. We have a soft bag (like a tote bag) with dirty clothes in it that we were told we have to take with us as our carryon luggage. I have a picture of the sign that says which bags are good and which aren't which I will post later. Again this is for bags that you are dropping off to have brought onto the ship. It does not affect bags that you carry with you. 4. Security screening (metal detectors, etc). You and your carryon bags go through the scanners. We sail through with no problems. I noticed that someone's extension cord/power strip was being confiscated. 5. There are numerous passport checks during the whole process (5 or 6). One of them is to understand your citizenship to determine which line you should go in. I believe this had to do with determining if you require a Vietnam visa. If you needed one then you were directed to #6. 6. There is a quick check performed by the waiting-line supervisor to see if you have your Vietnam visa when you get in line. 7. We then go to a desk where our Vietnam paper visa and US Passport are carefully inspected and processed (11:10am). The desk agent retains the Vietnam paper visa. We are given our passport back--for now. 8. Boarding check in (11:20 am). Our Xpress Pass is scanned. 9. Then we waited in a large hall along with a lot of other passengers (11:24 am). We had the first time slot to arrive at the pier (11am - 11:30 am). I don't know if boarding was delayed or if this is normal. 10. At 12:04 pm we are allowed to leave the waiting area to begin boarding the ship. This was done in a very orderly manner. People that entered the waiting hall first, were the first to leave to board the ship. 11. At 12:06 pm we go through the exiting process with the Singaporean authorities. It is very similar to the process that we went through at the airport. You scan your passport to get a gate to open. Then you have the camera scan your face (no glasses). If that passes, the computer instructs you to have your right thumb print read. If you passed that, the second and final gate opens which allows you to proceed. My wife ran into a problem with either the facial rec or the thumb scan. Part of the problem was when she removed her glasses to have her face scanned, she couldn't read the computerized instructions on what to do next. This forced her to go to a line where she went through the process manually with an Singaporean officer--even that took several attempts with two different officers. There were several people who were directed to the same line according to my wife. She thinks they were all wearing glasses. Although I am extremely nearsighted, I had the benefit of wearing contact lenses. 12. After that we went up a long zig-zagging gangway. Halfway up the gangway, you surrender your passport. I told my wife that the bright side of things is that they will stop asking to see it.l 13. At 12:20 pm we step onto the ship where we have to have our Xpress Pass scanned by the ship's security team to allow us on the ship. It's a shame that Celebrity did away with the Welcome Aboard champagne, because even though I am not a drinker, I might have taken one today if it were offered. 14. At 12:26 pm we are in our Aqua Class cabin. Time to drop off our stuff and head to the Oceanview Cafe for our lunch! We did our Muster Station check in after lunch--to beat the OVC crowd.

Solstice is finally boarding passengers now (11:57 am).

Here is today’s measurement of there WiFi speed here At the JW Marriott:

Here is the welcome letter from the JW Marriott: link Here is the letter to Platinum Elite members from the JW Marriott: link It’s hard to tell from my iPhone if I have the access rights to the documents set up correctly. If you (or anyone else for that matter) are not able to view the documents, let me know and I will correct it.

See you onboard. My wife and I look forward to meeting you.

Here is our current view of Solstice: The photo below is supplied by @Content@Sea who is living it up at the Marina Bay Sands hotel. Her room has a balcony and so I presume this is where the photo was taken. She will be on this sailing as well. She pointed out that we are boarding Solstice one day after the winter solstice.....

Some ground transportation notes from yesterday: Our MRT subway ride to the Botanical Gardens cost only $1.98 SGD from our hotel. It involved one subway change. On the way back--mainly because we could not find the MRT subway station due to our own incompetence and partly because we were exhausted and partly because it was raining hard--we ended up taking a Grab ride back to the hotel which cost $11.50 SGD. So apparently when you use Apple Pay (or tapping with your credit card), your entire ride tab for the day is charged to your credit card on the following morning.

I am watching Solstice docking at the pier......

We just completed the health questionnaire on the Celebrity app so we are now ready to get on board tomorrow. I had to reload the app to get it to recognize our sailing. But everything is good now and we now have our Xpress Passes loaded in our Apple Wallet. Solstice is scheduled to be at the pier at 7 am. Because of the amount of luggage that we have, I have reserved a larger taxi to pick us up at the JW Marriott at 10:30 am to take us to the pier. Our check in time is 11 am -11:30 am. We are ready.

This our last night in Singapore. I will miss the evening view that we have from our hotel room. Not the jet lag, just the view. Here are some photos of the current view: The cruise ship in the next photo is Mein Schiff 5. She just left the pier a few minutes ago.

The JW Marriott has a nice infinity pool on the 18th floor with a impressive views of the city. It is open from 6:30 am to 9:00 pm. Towels are supplied at the pool.

We went to see the orchids which cost extra but was worth it. The admission is $15 per adult but it is reduced to $3 for seniors over 60, $3 for students, and free for kids up to 12 years old. Many of the orchids were growing indoors inside a large "Cool House". Cool House is a highly engineered building that is very energy efficient in keeping the interior nice and cool. It was the highlight of the tour.

There is a nice outdoor amphitheater with a lily pond (with critters).