anandaindonesia

This is the Daily Planner

And Day 2 - Port Klang

It works! Now Day 1 activities.

I try to attach the Daily Planner here.

... ... ... please send me all the Cruise Compass documents for Mariner of the Seas 5 nights in Asia... ... ...

I have sent to your email address. If you can't find in your inbox, please try your spam folder. Yahoo thinks the attachments are spam. [emoji14]

Yes- I would like a scanned copy of the cruise compass. Please email me ... ...

Sent to your email. Please check your inbox or your spam folder (Yahoo thinks I attach spam files) [emoji14] .

I have scanned the daily activities page of the Cruise Compass. If you'd like to see it, I'll email to you. Just let me know your e-address.

Thank you for reading my review (and thank you for your patience). Sorry for the delays. And sorry for the mistakes. This is my first attempt at lengthy writing, and English is not my language.

Now I am looking forward for my next cruise, which will be of a different kind : a river cruise! (But it's gonna be a long, long wait!).

Bye for now. Any questions?

Day 6 - DISEMBARKATION

I miss Norwegian! NCL is so kind they provide room service even on disembarkation morning.

Not RCI, though. So I go back and forth to the Windjammer to bring breakfast for the children. That's why I choose cabins near the aft elevator!

After that, I need some me-time for myself and do something I haven't done this cruise : sit down breakfast in the MDR. Yes I just have breakfast here yesterday but it was the crowded Character Breakfast. This morning is so different. Everybody is so quiet here.

My table consist of 3 Japanese couples, 1 Caucasian couple, and myself. After a smile and good mornings, everybody is down to their own business. Good morning indeed! I enjoy my cheese croissant, and have a second. And my last cup of Earl Grey on this cruise.

One last look at the balcony, then down we go. Immigration is prompt. One baggage is missing but that is because it lost its tag so we can find it easily in the lost tag section. Our rental van is waiting and this cruise comes to an end.

Very short cruise!

I cannot find time to enjoy what I used to enjoy on my previous cruises. Perhaps it is because we are having little kids with us this cruise. But I must say that even the CD has difficulties jamming programmes into this port intensive cruise.

One sea day is just not enough. After my TransAtlantic I think I start to love sea days as much as I love visiting new ports.

This cruise is fine as intro to new cruisers. I am happy everybody in my big family enjoy it. Traversing the Malacca Strait is smooth. We only feel some motion the nights when going in and out to/from Phuket. Two of our grandchildren start feeling uneasy. We promptly put sea-bands on them. They are well the next morning.

Passengers are internationally mixed. We found no problem with food, I think MDR serves the same RCI fleet-wide menu. Windjammer does have some Asian offerings.

If you want to enjoy your cruise, you will. If you don't want, you won't.

Day 5 - SEA DAY

We lost 60 minutes today as the clock is set forward one hour.

Still, we can't let the children sleep in for too long. We are booked for our Character Breakfast this morning (only one time in this cruise). By the time we arrive, the MDR is almost full and we are seated quite a distance from the stage.

The kids try to go near Shrek to get some photos. The staff tell them to wait as Shrek will come to each and every table. Not true. Shrek left without visiting our table. Lucky my son-in-law manages to stop Shrek from leaving so the kids can get their photo anyway.

There are so many crowds so the staff seem overwhelmed. Not good. Especially as now we adults have to pay $10pp, including my 6yo grand-son. In Allure they handle this event better, and it was free.

After breakfast the kids go to Adventure Ocean. I try to spend my OBC but the logo shop on this ship is so small. Very few items on sale, abd unattractive. I end up drawing back cash from my unused OBC.

Today they sell Walk-a-Wish T-shirts and have some officers signing it, but they don't do the actual walk. Too bad. I don't know why they don't. It is a good activity for a sea day.

We are assigned the ice show today. Guess we are lucky. Others get their ice show on Day 3, which is Langkawi. I don't know if you can change your assigned time if you don't like. The show is prima!

After the ice show we want to try Johnny Rockets. What a disappointment! To start, the staff seems not very happy to see us coming. Maybe they are tired after many guests having lunch there? Service is sloooow. We wait half an hour before they can serve the fries. Order get mixed up. We ask for two ramen, they bring four ramen. My order of Veggie burger is nice, though. Also the famous milk shake (Gold status - buy one get one). No dancing waiters. I go to JR to see their dances, so I am not very happy. We don't care for dessert. We have been sitting for too long!

Some nap time and some pool time. Then time for the last dinner. We bade farewel to our friendly staff. They get extra tip for extraordinary good job. Then comes the waiters parade, the waiving of napkins, and the song (yes, Chinese song).

As usual baggage must be out tonight, so no chance to enjoy the farewell show for us. We need to pack. Charlie first give us tag number 20. Perhaps he thinks we want to stay longer on the ship. We ask him to get us earlier departure, we want to be out by 9am. Charlie manages to get us tags number 4 (for guests with excursion ending at airport). I don't know how he got it, but it's very good for us. Of course Charlie also gets his special enveloppe of extra tip.

Tomorrow : Day 6 - Disembarkation (and my comments about this cruise)

Did they throw a welcome back party for Crown and Anchor members on this cruise?

Unfortunately not. At least we are not aware of, if any. Maybe because it was a very short cruise and port intensive.

Will they be able to accomodate vegetarians? We enjoyed our vegetarian version of set menu on 150 Central Park on Allure OTS.

... ... We are deciding between Phuket and Langkawi on Marina OTS, and would like to seek your opinion on which is the better destination?

Only you can decide for yourself.

See phuket dot com for Phuket.

And langkawi-info dot com for Langkawi.

Enjoy your cruise!

I have never heard of the MDR changing to 'open seating' -- was a reason given? If anyone has done this cruise before, was this done in the past?

Good question.

Without me asking, Rogelio explains the reasons. They realised that being Phuket (last tender 7pm), many passengers eat seafood as early dinner on shore. By making the MDR "open seating", they only have to open part by part of the MDR as necessary. That way they expect to save on the resources : food, manpower etc.

Day 4 - PHUKET

There are a few changes today.

1. The ship time is put back one hour to adjust to the Thailand local time. We let the children sleep in one hour longer. They are on vacation, too.

2. The night before, Rogelio informed us that today the MDR will be open seating. Meaning the children may not get the service of their "uncle" Rogelio. Therefore we decided to have diner on Windjammer instead. It's also good to have variety.

3. Last but not least, the change today is that we cannot just step out of the gangway to the land. We need to take a boat to transfer between the ship and the land.

Allowing for the tender process, I have arranged our shore excursion to start late. There is some delays in the tender during morning. The queue is long, and by 9am they only reach tender ticket number 6. However, after that things run more smoothly, and by 9.30am they announce that it is now open tender.

I also learned from the slow room service, and today ask for earlier delivery 6.30 - 7am. Not much, just hot milk for the children. We later have breakfast in the Windjammer. Not so busy, many have gone ashore.

By 10am we take our tender. My travel agent cannot find the ship in Patong beach so I check with the guest services. They inform that Mariner is using the pier at Kalim beach. It is next to Patong. The pier is very basic.

First we go to JunkCeylon shopping centre for some shopping and lunch. Then off to do Elephant rides. All the children like it, except one girl who is afraid and doesn't want to ride.

Last we go up mountain to pray at the Big Buddha. It is still under construction. The view from the top is impressive.

We don't want to miss the ship, so by sunset we already taking the tender back to the ship.

As MDR ton8ght is open seating, we go to Windjammer for diner. Nice change. More relaxed. One thing I must note and be grateful. In the Mariner, they have vegetarian broth to make the noodle soup. This is great! Thank you, Mariner! In all our previous cruise, we can't have hot noodle soup as they are using chicken broth or beef broth. We can only get stir-fry vegetarian noodle.

Tonight production show is Gallery of Dreams. We don't see it. Too tired after the excursion, and besides, one more change is happening tonight :

The clock goes forward one hour.

Lucky tomorrow Day 5 is a sea day!

... ... Can you tell me what the smoking situation is like? Are they smoking inside the ship, apart from the Casino?... ...

Luckily, no smoking inside the ship. There are some areas on deck 11 and 12 (on starboard side) that allow smoking.

The casino smells of cigarettes every time I need to pass by, so I walk quickly.

My review

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2170165

my kids would be 8, 10,11 so would they 'qualify"?

The Adventure Ocean is divided per age group. In your case : Explorers (6-8yo) and Voyagers (9-11yo).

On Allure (April 2014) and Mariner OTS (February 2015) we can get towel from the towel station near the pool without the need to swipe our card.

Enjoy your cruise!

Sorry for the delay. (Blame it on the slowwwww room service!)

Setting foot on the Langkawi island, the first thing I do is to exchange some dollars into Malaysian ringgit. There is a mobile money changer waiting at the pier.

The sun is scorching hot when we walk to the parking lot. The van is waiting there. Meeting the driver, I ask him to take us all first to the Langkawi Wildlife Park. This is an attraction not covered by the ship's excursion, and it is ranked number 33 (out of 98) on TripAdvisor. No wonder it is very quiet when we reach there. The name has apparently changed to Langkawi Bird Paradise. Entrace fee is RM36 (adult) and RM20 (3-12yo) each.

What a paradise indeed!

Birds sound welcome us even before entering the gate. Plenty of photo opportunity, and you can buy some food to feed the birds. The children have a very happy time, interacting with the birds (and some other animals). It is heaven to see their face when they hand feed the flamingoes! Ducks, fishes, peacocks, the whole array are there. Very happy, very happy, indeed. If you are in Langkawi with children (or with those young at heart), a visit to this park is a must. I heartily recommend this unique Bird Paradise.

The children refuse to stop playing with the rabbit. We can only persuade them to leave when we remind them that there are monkeys waiting near the out gate.

Out of the park, we feel hungry. Our driver suggest to eat at the fish farm at nearby Tanjuung Rhu. As Tanjung Rhu is a beautiful beach, we agree. It turns out that we need to take a boat ride to go to the fish farm, and we are too hungry to do another sailing. So we just settle down at a "kampong" restaurant and order some "nasi goreng". The fried rice is surprisingly very tasty, and the price is unbelievably cheap, commensurate with the hut on the beach style.

It is very hot but the children still want to play some time in the beautiful sandy beach. After that we return the comfor of our AC van, and all children asleep during the long drive to Underwater World.

Only 4 of us go to see the Underwater World (2 adults, 1 kid and 1 baby). This park is okay but we have seen better marine life aquarium in other places. The Underwater World is very quite, in contrast to the Bird Paradise. Obviously as the fish cannot sing like the birds do! On the way out of the park is the usual tourist trap selling souvenirs and other bric-a-brac which we can do without.

We head back to the ship, in time for our afternoon snack at Cafe Promenade. We take sitting in front of the Wig & Gracel pub, reserving the best location for the Dreamworks parade. Sure enough, they start to prepare the Royal Promenade for the parade, and we got good sitting to watch it.

Oh la la ... the children is very, very happy to see the parade.

I am thankful that Royal arrange this parade in the afternoon so the children can enjoy it.

Dinner as usual in the MDR. Rogelio is so good he already has the fruit cups waiting for the children! By now he also knows their favorite food : chicken fingers (they call it chicken nuggets) with rice.

After dinner, still full of energy from the birds and the parade, we head of to the Savoy Theatre. The headliner tonight is singer-entertainer Tamara Guo. She is very good and multi talented. Her show can be enjoyed by all, but will be enjoyed most by those who speaks multiple languages (English, Mandarin, Cantonese and what not).

Unfortunately we have to leave during the curtain call, so we can't say whether she did sing an Indian song as she promises during the early part of her show.

Tomorrow the ship will tender at Phuket. Let's see how they handle the tender process.

Next : Day 4 - PHUKET

Day 3 - LANGKAWI

We want to do our own excursion in Langkawi, so I hanged our order of some room service the night before. I put the delivery time as 7-7.30am. Usually it also acts as a kind of morning call, as they ring to inform that they are coming.

Strange. This morning the phone is not ringing.

I was up since 6.30 anyway, so while waitibg for room service, let me review about the cabin.

Room 6348. As you enter, the closet is on your left, followed by the narrow dressing table. Here you got one 220V outlet with 2 round pin. If you want to use this, you have to share it with the kettle, i.e. when boiling water, you cannot charge your gadget. And while charging your gadget, you can't use the kettle to boil water, obviously.

On the other side of the dressing table, there are two US style 110V outlets (two flat pins). Hope you remember to bring your universal adapter.

Above the dressing table, a big mirror help to make the cabin looked bigger. Flanked by two mirrored-door cabinet. When opened, you'll find some shelves to store your things. It is not very big but very useful.

Next come the flat screen TV, which can be adjusted to view from different angles. Above this is a safe deposit box. You can set your own digital code. The safe is big enough to store my 10inch Samsung tablet (it's mine but no, I don't use it. The grandchildren are using it for games!)

Then comes the connecting door, and the long narrow passage between the foot of the bed (on your right) and the wall (on your left), leading you to the balcony. There you'll find two old fashioned plastic chairs and one tiny table, and the vast, vast water and whatever panoromic vista that you love so much.

Hey... but is now 7.10 and still no room service? Perhaps they forgot? I check the phone and it is working. So I called room service. The operator says that our order is being delivered, please wait.

Ok... so let us review the cabin again. This time entering the room and checking the right side. First the bathroom. Not fancy but you get everything you need. The toilet, hand held shower in a cucible with plastic door, and a short hanging rope to dry your unmentionables.

The wash basin with mirror. On one side again there is another mirrored-door cabinet with shelves. Two glass holders. Below the sink is the waste bin.

Now 7.25am and still no room service. Then it occurs to me. Perhaps my old memory bank has made an error? What if last night I wrote 6438 instead of 6348?

Oh no! How could I made such a mix-up? I imagine passengers in 6438 getting angry to have their phone ringing before 7am. Then the room service staff puzzled where to deliver the huge order ( I order huge for the whole bunch of my extended family).

So I call room service again, explaining my worries. His answer is reassuring, saying they have got my order alright (from room 6348), and it will be delivered any minute soon.

Ok, so no mistake in my order, just need some more waiting time.

Let's continue with the cabin. After the bathroom, on your right is the sitting area with a small table and a long sofa. In the evening, Charlie converts this sofa into a full size bed. What he does with the table I don't know but it disappeared in the night and it appears again during the day. Yes, Charlie keeps rearranging the sofa (and the bed) on daily basis. I realise it is much work and ask him not to bother with the sofa for our port days. We will be out anyway so he can just keep the bed as is. But he insists, saying the children will need some space to play.

Oh, I digress, again!

After the sofa, there is a drape about 1 meter wide, to divide the sitting area and the bed area. Then you have the bed with two tiny night tables. The phone is on top of this night table.

And the phone is ringing now!

I pick up the phone, and a lady voice sweetly apologies, saying sorry to be so late but they are really very busy. Now she will come to deliver our order. But there are two problem. I have wrote "cheese omelette", they cannot do it, it will just be the standard "scramble egg". Then I also asked for "peanut butter". They don't have it on stock.

Okay... okay. I was just asking (in the past cruises we have got it). Now let just be hurry and bring the breakfast. The children are up and asking their milk!

At 7.40am the order comes, the children got their milks and cereals, I got my scramble egg, and the lady from room service gets her tip. So everybody is happy but we are late for our excursion.

No problem. We are on holiday. Little bit late is no problem. Just a short phone call to our driver who has come to wait for us at the pier. He'll wait.

I think we also have to wait for the Langkawi excursion part. This post is getting too long. Let us divide day 3 into two parts, so next is :

Day 3 a - LANGKAWI part two

The MDR was open for lunch on embarkation day :confused: This is a first, have never had this option on the many cruises we've done with RCI...great news :)

I am also taken by a pleasant surprise.

They don't announce it on the Boarding Day Cruise Compass, nor on Cruise Compass Day 1. We are told by one if the staff when we enter the ship.

Guess it is not for everyone, just for a few selects [emoji6] .

They select us seeing our tow of children, perhaps.

It is not a sit down lunch. Just a self-serve buffet like the Windjammer, only on a different venue and with limited number of passengers. It is a nice gesture of Royal, and we are happy to having an alternative to the Windjammer on boarding day.

... ...

The irony is that after all my cruises, I have not sailed out of Singapore on this itinerary. LoL!

I will not do this itinerary myself. I'm doing it just for the kids.

Cruising out of Singapore is nice in that we don't have to do a long flight before and after. However, not very interesting in term of itineraries and ports of call, been there done that too often.

Day 2 - PORT KLANG

Bright, sunny (and hot!), and beautiful morning as we are approaching Port Klang. I sit on the balcony, sipping my green tea (yes, there is kettle in each cabin), watching the ship docks gracefully.

We let the crowds disperse, and let the kids sleep in. My grandson (6yo) said he likes the bed  . We have been to KualaLumpur a number of times and decide to stay on board, so no hurry.

Breakfast in Windjammer. Nice varieties, including rice, corn flakes, waffles, cold cuts etc. So something for everybody. We find the congee is too watery, though. The Indian breakfast is not to my liking, neither. Perhaps it's my fault to expect dosai and other southern delicacies?

After breakfast we register the children to the Adventure Ocean. One of our grandaughter is a month short of 6 years old. Upon our request, they let her join the Explorers (ages 6-8), so they are flexible about it. Our two other granddaughters are happy in the Aquanauts (ages 3-5). Our grandsons, one (6yo) in Explorers, and one (20 months toddler) is having quality time playing with his parents in the Open Play area of Rotal Tots and Nursery. We don't use the baby sitting service, there are enough grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, auntie and uncle for that.

We pick up the little ones (Aquanauts) to have lunch with us (again at the Windjammer) and then to have their siesta. But we let the older ones (Explorers) to have lunch with their peers and continue with the Kids Club activities until about 4pm. They have a blast, including a visit to meet the Captain at the bridge, and their first ice cream at the Arctic Zone.

Everybody has been waiting to jump to the pool so it is wet, wet, wet time for the afternoon.

Dinner is a formal attire tonight. So everybody tries to look their best. Especially the little princesses. The others, well, they just 'try'  .

Production show tonight is 'Center Stage'. It is very good and enjoyable, except when half way the little princesses turn into little gremlins and demand to sleep without further ado.

After putting them in bed, some of the adults sneak back for pizzas at the Cafe.

Tonight we got our first towel animals. Three different kinds of animal, same towel. The children are very happy. They play with it, and in less than five minutes the beautiful animals return to their beautiful, albeit flat, towel forms.

Tomorrow Day 3 - LANGKAWI.

Cool. What was the itinerary of your cruise?

Singapore - PortKlang - Langkawi - Phuket - Sea Day - Singapore.

Wish I can make photo like you do. I always enjoy following your reviews.

What time did you actually board the ship ?

I don't exactly loiking at my watch. Too happy to board the ship!

I think it is around 11.45 or so. Definitely before noon.