Day 1 - Southeast Asian Cruise

It was uneventful today. We slept last night at 7 pm and woke up at 12:30 am to get ready to be picked up at 2 am for our flight to Singapore at 5:55 am. Singapore is our port of embarkation for our 7 night Southeast Asian cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas. We arrived at Changi airport around 9:35 am and immediately it brings back old memories the first time we were here. This was just after the execution of Flor Contemplacion, a domestic worker who was accused of murder. That was almost twenty-five years ago and her tragic fate reflects the plight of our overseas foreign workers and the modern day slavery that continues to this day. Singapore is a tiny island city-state off southern Malaysia. It is slightly bigger in size than Metro Manila. It is a global financial center with roughly 5.7 million multicultural population. It took us only about 40 minutes from the Changi airport to reach the pier. Unfortunately, I was not able to check in online as I forgot to do it within 3-90 days prior to sailing unlike on airlines where you can only do it within 24 hours of your scheduled flight. Nonetheless, checking in was a brisk. By noon time, we were already taking our sumptuous lunch. We had the usual safety drill mid-afternoon and early formal dinner at 5:30 pm. Unlike in the Caribbean and European cruises we took, there were not that many pinoy staff. Our servers were Ikadek from Indonesia and Fei from Mainland China. It was good to know however that the restaurant manager is pinoy. This will be a fun cruise as we saw many brothers and sisters in Couples for Christ. We capped the day watching Star Water show described as a visual spectacle that brings together the magic of the stars and the seas.