Singapore

We left for Singapore on March 12 a few hours earlier in the day then we had originally planned which got us to the airport at about 2pm. We didn’t have much time in Singapore to begin with so it ended up being a good choice. The flight was only a couple of hours and the cab ride was fairly short and cheap. Unfortunately our cab driver took us to the wrong hotel. I guess he didn’t hear us when we said the Claremont and instead took us to the Fairmont. He only charged us though for the first ride to the wrong hotel so it was ok. When we finally did get to our hotel we quickly wished we had stayed at the hotel he took us to first. The AC in the rooms took hours to cool the room down and they just weren’t very nice looking. Thankfully we weren’t there very long and would just make do. After getting settled in it was time to grab dinner. Instead of trying something exotic we went with the old and trusted McDonalds. After that we continued our walk to Orchard Street which was probably about 20 minutes from the hotel. This was the main shopping street in Singapore. We checked out a few stores but didn’t end up purchasing anything. There was nothing that caught our eyes and the prices in Singapore our comparable to that in Canada if not a bit pricier. We walked back to our hotel and stopped for a few supplies but that was it for our fun that day.

We had initially thought we might go to the Jurong Bird Park early the next morning but decided we just wanted to get to our ship as soon as possible. After a lacklustre breakfast we grabbed a cab and were on our way. Thankfully the lines were small and it didn’t take very long to check in. From our initial sample of fellow passengers it was quite apparent we were going to be among the youngest. After checking in we had to take a 45 minute shuttle to where the cruise ship actually was. It gave us a bit more of a chance to see Singapore and overall it seemed like a nice place. In fact if you did not know you were in Singapore you probably wouldn’t be able to tell you weren’t in a coastal city or town in North America. We finally got on the ship and after dropping off a few things in our room quickly made our way to the buffet for lunch. After eating more then we should have we went back to our room to settle in. We unpacked and mostly vegged until it was time for dinner. After getting to see more of our fellow cruisers our initial assumptions were correct. Except for the odd child aboard we were the 2 youngest on the cruise.

Singapore has one of the biggest ports in the world