Thursday, April 3, 2014

Day 80- Singaporean Cruises. Where White People Fear To Tread.

Having enjoyed our two-week transatlantic cruise immensely a couple of months prior, Colleen  was super-desperate to go on another cruise while in Southeast Asia.  During our hasty research the previous week, we had found a two-night cruise aboard one of Royal Caribbean's cruise ships that departed from Singapore, did a quick day trip to Melaka, Malaysia and then promptly returned to its beginning port a couple of days later.  The Chinese New Year was fast approaching (the biggest holiday of the year in this part of the world) and it was likely that a lot of local people would be on the cruise as a sort of "mini-vacation".

Pulling out of Singapore.  About to rain; as usual.

Speaking of the Chinese New Year, let me tell you if you ever intend to travel in parts of the world with a large Chinese population during this particular holiday that you should book your travel well in advance.  Since Colleen and I had been flying by the seat-of-our-pants so to speak, we were booking most of our flights, hotels, etc as we needed them.  Originally, we had planned to fly out of Singapore.  We couldn't find a reasonably priced flight so we had decided after our cruise that we would take a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then figure out what the hell we were doing from there.  Such is life. 

With our newly altered travel plans, the girlfriend and I headed down to the Singapore Cruise Terminal, with Colleen super stoked about her second ever cruise.  The first thing we noticed was the fact that the cruise passengers were 99.5% Indian and Chinese.  I guess this should not have been surprising, given the fact that these two ethnic groups made up the bulk of the population in Singapore, but it just seemed odd.  Usually when you think of cruises you think of old white people and families with fat middle-aged American parents toting their soon-to-be fat American kids from buffet table to buffet table.  Once we got the initial culture shock out of the way, we boarded the 20-year old ship and made our way to our room.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that we had been upgraded from an inside room (what we paid for) to a room with a balcony.  While the ship was certainly a couple of rungs down the ladder from the Celebrity Equinox we had been on previously, it was still a nice ship that had apparently just been in dry dock (see: not on the sea) for a month undergoing some renovations and upgrades. 

Who invited Derek Zoolander on the cruise. Blue Steel!

 

Once we got settled in, Colleen and I did what all good cruisers do: head straight to the lunch buffet!  We ordered a couple of adult drinks and settled in with our mountains of food.  Sadly, they forgot to put the most important ingredient in Colleen's drink...the alcohol.  We had been told that the ship had a ton of new staff right now, as is usually the case when a ship comes out of dry dock.  Being the non-confrontational experts that we are, we were too afraid to go complain, so we just relegated ourselves to the fact that it was a rookie error and moved on to go watch some Russian contortionist do things that I still can't figure out if they turn me on or repulse me.  This was quickly followed by a ten minute blackjack session in the casino where I lost $100 and proclaimed my disgust for all things gambling related (these feelings never last).

Freak between the sheets, no doubt!

During the reservation process for our cruise, we had requested for a table of two at dinner time, so we were a little surprised when we were seated at a ten-person table.  Initially this was ok, as for the first half-hour we were the only people there.  Eventually we were joined by two other couples and some random guy who was sitting by himself (can't say I've seen this on a cruise before).  It was a super awkward dinner, as one of the other men at our table kept constantly berating the wait staff and his wife/girlfriend was beyond embarrassed.  I shit you not, when I say he requested three different types of water, two appetizers, and then had to try three different main courses before he found one that was up to his ridiculous standards.   He also felt it necessary during his Hitleresque dinner to demand the dessert menu while he was still eating.  To say it was an uncomfortable dinner for all involved would be a major understatement.  To make matters worse, the wait staff were really slow and terrible (we shall assume they were some of the new recruits).  They spilt our bottle of wine on me (no apology), served us super warm water, never checked  on us once, and to top it off we had to go and procure our own bottle of wine that they had stashed away from the table as they were supposed to pour it for us.  If you aren't going to pour it, just leave the damn thing in front of me; it will disappear quick enough.  I guarantee it!  On top of this the food was super bland and when we wanted to pay for our wine and leave we couldn't find a staff member for the life of us.  By this point we were so pissed off and wanting to get out of there that we just decided to leave without paying for our wine and figured we had pulled a fast one.  Sadly, the inept wait staff still managed to track down our room number and charge the wine to our accounts, but at the time it felt like a minor victory. 

Doing our best to put our dinner experience behind us, we headed over to check out a Village People review that was actually pretty entertaining.  The cruise director was dressed up as the construction worker, while another portly (and exceptionally white) member of the staff was dressed up as the Native American.  His Sketcher shoes made the whole thing feel that much more authentic.  One thing I must say about the Chinese tourists is that they sure loved their YMCA.  They were singing and dancing along as if we were at a Bon Jovi concert for Christ's sake.  Once we had our fill of the cheesy shtick, Colleen and I headed up to the bar/nightclub for a couple of drinks.  Instead of a nightclub atmosphere, we were greeted by large packs of men standing around in groups, not drinking and just looking generally like perverts on the prowl.  Needless to say it was a sad state of affairs and after a couple of drinks and Colleen feeling like she had been eye-fucked enough for one night we made our way back to our room.

The shoes just authenticate the performance that much more.

Back in our room we searched high and low for our breakfast card to place on our door for room service the following morning, but I could not find it.  I had to ask at least four different people who were all quite rude about the situation if I could possibly have a new breakfast card.  It was literally as simple as handing me a piece of paper.  All of them insisted that it was in my room on the desk (it wasn't) and basically called me a liar.  Eventually, a gentleman brought one to our room for us, but in keeping with the ridiculously bad service decided not to knock on our door and just barged right in.  What if Colleen and I had been having a mud wrestling match or had our dominatrix gear setup?  That would have been doubly awkward.  To say I wasn't impressed with Royal Caribbean so far would be a fair assessment of the situation.  We did our best to drown our sorrows by ordering three plates of room service, which I quickly devoured before passing out in a gastro-induced coma.


Don't judge me.

~Brentski~

Note:  I realize this posting may make me sound like some kind of "service snob".  I am actually the furthest thing from it.  As someone who has worked in the industry for years, I actually despise said snobs.  The service was THAT BAD, made even worse by the fact that it was on a cruise where service is usually far superior to that which you receive elsewhere.

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