Day 1 of Quantum of the Seas (Royal Carribean) Cruise to nowhere

The day started well as I was quite sleepy and tired, thus I slept in instead of doing my morning workouts. I finished packing well ahead of time and after P came home, we had a quick lunch (of maggie mee) and headed to marina bay cruise centre. It's the first time we arrived there, although we saw the huge cruise ships when we stayed garden view in MBS before. There were not many cars on the road heading to the cruise centre and when we arrived and unloaded our sole luggage, we saw a few other families arriving with us. I think overall just three or four groups of people and there were a lot of staff standing around. 

Purple for Star Class (like the royalty)

Once we identified ourselves as Star Class passengers, there was a staff holding a purple placard ushering us to all the different counters. It felt like VIP treatment immediately, but things could not sped up much as there's the mandatory ART that we have to take before boarding and the results took at least 30min. The uncomfortable part about taking the test was not the test itself but waiting in the makeshift area out of a carpark and the weather was rather hot and stuffy this afternoon. Even for Star Class passengers, there wasn't a more comfortable area but just cordoned off and nearest to the boarding area for priority boarding so we can board anytime as soon as we received the SMS. Well, I cant complain much as the staff serving us and waiting around are stuck there the whole day, it kind of reminded me of the election duty I had performed many years ago. As for the test, it's quite similar to the swab test but less invasive as the swab stick only went to the lower part of the nose for swabbing.

Other two groups of Star Class passengers waiting for us

The rest of the passengers grouped according to their check-in time

Of course, one of the perks of being Star Class passengers is that we can check in anytime, even if we did not managed to get the earliest time slot of 2pm. I've been looking out for the booking of time slots since months ago but we only managed to choup the 3pm timeslot. Nevertheless, we arrived at about 1.30pm to take the ART since we can board at anytime. We were not the first few to board as our results only came in slightly later at 2++, the staff kept checking on us to see if we had received the SMS as we were the only ones left at the Star Class area. I peeked at the list of Star Class passengers on the staff's hand and I think there are about 9-10 groups. While waiting for ART, we saw a family of six and it was a couple with 4 young gals (1-10 years old). Yeah, there was quite a few families with children so I guess we cant enjoy a holiday totally without the kids but when we spoke to the staff, the capacity for the cruise is about 500+ compared to the full capacity of 5000. Even though they are allowed to operate at 25%, I think many people decided not to go ahead with their trips. 

Complimentary Moet champagne sent to the room

Generous fruits and canapes were ready

Refillable minibar

Lots of Evian bottled water for us

Our room dining area

Masks, tracelets, Hand Sanitizers and lots of menus

Very comfy living room area 

Stairs leading to our loft bedroom

Very comfy bed but pillows too soft

After clearing the immigrations and showing many staff our passports many times, we were finally on board at 2.40pm and we met our Royal Genie once we got onboard. There were many crew and staff members lining up to welcome the guests at the entrance but we were already well taken care of by our Royal Genie Peng Yu dressed in her purple work suit. It was hard to tell the difference of being on board and on land as the cruise just looked like a big shopping mall. Being virgin cruisers, we were overloaded with information and excited to get to our suite so Peng Yu brought us up immediately. The deck we arrived on was on level 5 and there were two lobby areas with rows of elevators to get us to other parts of the ship. 

Our room was on deck 10 and Peng Yu briefed us the necessities after we finally got there, it was a long walk as our room is right at the aft at all the loft suites area. After she gave us lots of information, she left us to settle down in the room. We excitedly explored around and took pictures, it felt bigger than our home so there was still plenty of space to look at. After reading milelion blog, I thought it would be better for us to handle the luggage on our own, but they assured us that the luggage would be brought to our room almost immediately. It was a good idea as we had to go around to take the ART and wait for the results so being luggage free was really better. 

More gratitude and blessings from me and for me, we are going for the star!

So I was on my way to my parents place yesterday, checked my email and saw an email from Royal Carribean sales team, they are offering us an upgrade to the Grand Loft suite, we'll just need to top up $400 ($200 per pax/ $50 per pax per night). Although there's only one bedroom, it's a loft and it's Star Class with royal genie! I wouldnt say it's a no brainer upgrade as it's already a lot of money spent on this holiday, it's still reasonable compared to what we would spend if we were going to Japan but still, there's the restrictions on food and no dining out so we cant take full advantage of the unlimited food and beverage privilege. However, I got tempted after I did a quick check and saw how grand and luxury the room looked. We will also get complimentary iFLY and VOOM so the actual cost to top up from our original balcony stateroom to this Grand Loft is still few hundreds per pax. 

The previous upgrade we managed to secure to the Grand Suite was already a huge huge room, so I checked with P and see if he is keen. He is in a really good mood lately as he finally managed to get an offer at his 'dream job' so he even offered to pay for the upgrade. We decided to go for it as this is really once a lifetime experience, never in our dreams I had imagined we'll get to be on Star Class on our very first cruise experience. 

I was negative! 

After P got home from work, we went to Swissotel Stamford hotel (where we got married!) to get our swab tests done. I've heard lots of horror stories about how bad it is and people left with teary eyes after getting poked etc. To my relief, I only felt that it was ticklish, like someone used a cotton bud to dig my nose so it was pretty alright, and my virgin swab test went really well. I did not feel the long swab sticks getting too far back into my nose at all, thankfully the lady was really skilful. The whole place where we took the swab test was really quiet, there were many staff standing around and it seemed that we were the only passengers they were serving so the whole process was really quick. In fact, we walked through Raffles City to take the train home and the whole mall was just scattered with some people here and there. About seven hours later, we got the notifications on the app that the test results came back negative and we were all cleared to go. 

My regular manicurist did this nice design for me

 

 

Expressing gratitude, lots of blessings in my life

We booked the Royal Carribean cruise months ago in late February, we chose balcony stateroom at a price of $750 per pax and days after that, I kind of regretted not going to suites as there'll be access to lounges and certain privileges on board and so on. I waited till early May, which was a month before we set sail and placed my bid to get our room bumped up. Weeks after I placed the bid, Phase 2 (HA) happened in mid may and most people started canceling their cruise trip, so I figured out it'll be much easier to get bumped up in this case. Of course, I also pondered if its worth topping up or even if we should go ahead with the cruise as many people were canceling their trips since it's not worth the price without all the restaurant experiences. RC also canceled off trips of those in big groups as they have to operate at a 25% capacity during Phase 2 HA as opposed to 50% capacity when they took in the bookings.

Anyway, as mentioned in my previous post, we decided to go ahead as we like good food but food experiences is not everything to us. I also adjusted my bid in the RoyalUp accordingly, as I would not want to top up that much anymore since we cant be sipping wine in the lounge whole day long during our trip. Maybe the lounge is also non existent now. In fact, I'm also not sure if Suite dining is any difference from other staterooms, we'll only find out next week.  

We got bumped up! 

As mentioned earlier, there is a higher chance of getting bumped up as families originally occupying the suite will not be going for the trip anymore (not more than 2 pax rule). I was still pleasantly surprised and excited to receive the SMS that my card was already charged for the bid I've placed and after checking my email, I realised we got bumped up to the Sky level kind of Grand Suite and there'll even be 2 bedrooms for us. We are paying extra $500 per pax for the extra space for the 4 nights and I felt it's still quite worth it as there'll be free wifi package for us in this case, and of course I guess this is the one and only time we'll be able to book such a big room on cruise. The room is more than twice the size of our original stateroom and I guess we'll appreciate the extra space since we'll be spending a lot of time in the room nuahing.

Complimentary fruits and food

Super big and spacious bedroom with city view

It's so big with sparse furnishing that the sofa looked lonely

View from the room

The living room area for us

Garden view from the living room area

Even the complimentary bottled water was branded

Spacious toilet with bathtub 

Speaking of suites, we actually stayed in MBS Orchid Suite during our staycation in March and April. and it was also another very blessed experience for us. P had been getting those MBS free stays and so far we had been getting 2 nights stay per month since August 2020. They even gave us 6 free nights stay this month and we happily utilised all of it. The only time we paid for MBS staycation was in September 2020 when we did not get the offer and we had no idea the following months we'll have lots of it, so we bought over one night stay from P's friend. With P's connection, we were upgrade to Orchid Suite for 4 nights this year. It was a nice surprise as March was my birthday month and there were even staff waiting for us and we were brought right up the room once we arrived.

Living room and bedroom together

Spacious bathroom again

Only city view

We preferred this layout as everything was together

We tried two different room configuration of Orchid Suite for the two months and I guess we were very lucky as we did not pay a single cent for that. I've stopped trying out different restaurants for our MBS staycations after January as we also found our favourite steak restaurant somewhere in Robertson Quay. P first brought me to the restaurant on my birthday and the steak was really good and juicy although it was not wagyu grade. The price is also reasonable so we've been back almost monthly.

Menu outside the restaurant

The road to happiness, I was right all along!

"Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory."

-- Daniel Gilbert

What I'm up to these days

Last night, I was watching a video of my first and only ultra marathon at Hakusan Shirakawa-go, cant believe that was already five years ago! It's already the second consecutive year that we're stuck here in SG and we cant travel during the holidays. As I watched the video and read the blogs of my traveling, I kept feeling the pangs of wanderlust. Sigh. Usually I have no problems falling asleep, but I could not sleep until 6am in the morning, therefore I did the previous post and update.

Well, other than looking forward to the cruise trip, I'm trying to get back to a healthier routine, making good use of these six weeks to get myself into better shape. Other than going to school last Thursday and Friday, I didnt step out of the house for a solid four days until last night when I took a walk with P to St Andrew's village. 

Clear sky with bright moon

Somehow, I've lost the motivation to jog or run for now, but I've been doing Chloe Ting's workout again and I've only skipped one day out of the past five days. P and I started taking these walks for awhile but we havent been going to St Andrew's for a few weeks already. Last night happened to be this super flower blood moon lunar eclipse night and we spotted the big and bright moon when we took our walk at 9pm+. We ended our walk at almost 11.20pm and there were still many runners, cyclists and people taking strolls at such wee hours. I've enjoyed the walk as it cleared my mind and there was also a warm breeze. Surprisingly, I didnt sleep well last night despite the walk so I did not go to school as planned. I woke up at 9.30am, did some urgent work and started my home workout routine so at least I feel better after that. 

Back to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert)

Something happened the past two weeks and our term was cut short abruptly. Community cases in SG went up from 0 to 30+ last week. It started around two weeks ago, when many primary school kids became Covid positive after a tuition centre cluster infection broke out. It was already announced that we are going into a heightened alert Phase 2 period whereby only groups of 2 are allowed outside and there is also no more dining in. A few days later, due to the Covid cases in schools, we went into FHBL once again in the middle of Term 2 Week 8 and finished off the remaining few days with HBL. 

Well, it's not supposed to be good news but in a way, holidays had started earlier for us and the kids as we are all just staying at home and completing our work from home, thus it is less hectic than normal school days. This turn of events caught me off guard to be honest as I was just expecting the rest of the world to deal with Covid, while we wait out in the safety of the country. For the coming holidays, the mood is certainly not as festive as last year December as movement is very much restricted these few weeks and kids are not out and about. (Silent hurray for us though) 

P and I had decided to go ahead with our staycation last week and we'll also head out for our first cruise trip next week. Even though dining is affected, we are not so much of a foodie and we figured out the whole place will be much quieter without the kids and families. Plus, we are really dying to get out for a trip, to international waters, even though we're just heading to nowhere. 

Hope and optimism

 I'll dedicate this day to explore my second strongest character strength. Hope. This is important especially in times of this never ending pandemic that has been affecting the whole world for over a year. I'm glad that I have this strength in me, as it contributes a lot to my general well-being. 

My two strongest strengths, hope and gratitude, are particularly connected with high levels of happiness. I'm sleepy right now, so I'll just make a note below and post whatever interesting stuff I've found out about HOPE and I'll on it another brand new day soon.  

Here are some tips from the science of positive psychology to help you start flexing your hope muscle!

1. Visualize your best possible self one year from now. This might be your best self in a relationship, at work, in your community or just everyday life. Consider how to use your highest character strengths to reach your best possible self.
    
2. Set a goal you would like to accomplish. Boost your hopeful thinking by writing down at least three ways to reach your goal, as well as the many reasons why you can reach it.
    
3. Journal about one good event and one bad event in your life each week. Consider why the good events will last and how they relate to the actions you take. Then consider why the bad events will pass, why they are limited in their effect and why you aren’t completely to blame.

The course to happiness

I'm taking this free course from Yale, it's about building happiness and being happy in life. It's a very interesting and insightful course. I was doing a survey about personality and strengths and GRATITUDE is my strongest strength, it is also an important element to bring about happiness. 

I'm glad that I'm alive and living comfortably everyday, life is not perfect but it is definitely wonderful. For this reason, I think I'm already happier than most people. 

Our great little helper Buffy

Love this!

During the 12/12 sales, I finally got down to getting this Xiaomi robot vacuum and mop. I had really wanted to get one during CB when I'm was stuck at home and had to mop the house few times a day, but I procrastinated. Now that it's here, my life at home had just gotten so much easier as the house is clean while I'm doing other stuff and its cleaner than what we had done as I really dont have the patience with chores. 

P named it Buffy as it has a girl's voice and now our diffuser is named Duffy. 

FIRST post of 2021

Looking at the first post I posted in 2020, it would be an understatement to say that the year did not go as awesome as I had hoped for. 2020 is really an unforgettable year for many reasons and there were many firsts for us. Anyway, I have no clue when this will be over, I can only hope that the coming year we're going to survive and have a better time. 

People lined up across the street waiting for fireworks

We were blessed with the VIP view for another round of the community fireworks to welcome 2021. The initial plan was only to have a friend over and we will have some simple dinner to celebrate the new year. However, some of P's friends invited themselves over quite last minute to enjoy the fireworks. Once again, I'm super glad and happy that my biggest purchase in life turned out to be such a good investment. Honestly, we did have some fun and a better atmosphere doing the countdown together. 

Earlier that day on 31st Dec, I woke up super early at 7am to go to Mt E with mum for our scope medical appointment. That took longer than expected as we spent more than 2 hours waiting for the doctor, consultation, doing our pre-admission admin stuff and then a blood test. I rushed off for my manicure appointment after that and my tummy was a warzone again. After that, I rushed home to use the toilet, rested for a short while and went out again to meet my friends for coffee. 

I hope my ordeal will end soon with the colonoscopy and gastroscopy scheduled next week. Out of four days of having meetings in school last week and this week, I was suffering from the wind and bloating for three days. I guess I cant sit down for too long as my tummy will create a storm out of nowhere so walking around and going to classes is actually much more comfortable for me now. Hopefully the scope procedure will prove to be worthwhile and I can get rid of the nagging pain soon.