PACK YOUR BAGS with Chappo
WHILE it’s easy to simply catch a flight to Sydney or drive up to Brisbane to join a cruise ship the options of where you can sail to are limited.
The main offers see you cruise off to NZ, Tasmania, South Pacific destinations or even just float along the Aussie coastline.
All are good options, but if you’ve done it once you rarely book the same trip.
That means if cruising is your goal you need to start looking around for different adventures and these can be easily found leaving from ports such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
Keeping an eye out for a great deal we recently booked midway through last year a nine day January cruise taking in Thailand and Vietnam out of Singapore with Royal Caribbean aboard Spectrum of the Seas.
If you are travelling overseas it’s always a good idea to add in a land adventure before you step aboard.
To make the most of our trip we decided to add in four days in Kuala Lumpur which is just a short 70 min flight to Singapore.
Booking well in advance opens up excellent specials and like the Royal Caribbean offer we found a great deal to stay at the KL Pavillion Hotel.
Kuala Lumpur is one of my favourite destinations offering great food and shopping experiences and once again it didn’t let us down.
I have sailed with Royal Caribbean before and rate them as one of the better lines to go on.
This particular cruise was booked out and we joined around 4000 travellers representing 60 different countries.
Despite the numbers, queueing wasn’t a problem with plenty of crew on hand at every venue.
We booked anytime dining which meant you weren’t locked into a specific time with the same set of diners every night. Importantly it gave you the flexibility to take in the early show of the late one.
One negative here, we were left disappointed by the quality of the shows, so after going to the first few we gave them a wide berth.
The food was good without being outstanding in the main dining area and in the bistro there was a good choice, but it was a little too crowded.
Like all cruise ships there were speciality restaurants to choose from and Wonderland was a stand out.
It was brilliant and stands out as the best onboard restaurant I have ever tried.
Chops Grill was also first class.
All in all it was a three and a half star cruise on a quality ship with excellent staff.
Royal Caribbean still remains as one of my trusted cruise lines.
Contact your local travel agent to help plan your trip and advise of special offers.
Ratings
- Royal Caribbean cruise Vietnam/Thailand 7/10
- Food 7/10
- Service 8/10
- Value 8/10
- Entertainment 6/10
