While the teenager was a huge pail of cold water, the aunties self hyped. There is this Royal app. I am not sure if this is new due to covid-19 or we old school and relied on the good old paper program the last round. On top of the app, there is another cruise account allowing us to purchase paid services before the cruise. I bought the daily drink package as well as wifi to stay connected.
The Royal Caribbean cruise also did their part to hype; every other day, I am receiving some email to remind me of the upcoming cruise. Woohoo! We started counting down and got all the more excited when the swab test come out negative about 12 hours after the swab. Hohoho.
Then we found out how informative the Royal app is. By selecting a cruise that is currently sailing, we were able to see the itinerary that is an exact replicate of our cruise. With that, we were able to plan in advance though we know that something will definitely throw the plan off. Hoho. At certain point, it did feel a little information overload - which app? Which email? Which PDF? Just whack only.
Thinking that there wasn't much to do onboard during the day, we opted for arrival at 3.30pm. By the time we realised that the boogie boarding and rock climbing start as early as 3pm, there were no other earlier slots for arrival. Auntie S' colleague who just took the cruise shared that the reservations (for shows and bumper cars) can be made the moment we board, which also means that the slots could be fully taken up by people who boarded early. Gan cheong. Luckily no reservation is not needed for boogie boarding, rock climbing and other activities.
I had to run some errands at JP and dragged the kids along also to feed them. We ended up with 2 humongous drinks. Why so big? My teh was tiny in comparison.
Then the boy kept rushing me as he was so worried that we would be late. He was apparently much more excited that I was.
We met up at 3pm and though 30 mins earlier than stipulated arrival time, we were allowed to begin the checkin process. There was the drop off luggage, wellness screening, more checking and screening. While the process was efficient, it was not something that we are used to and my hands were so full from the passports, the papers, the phone (for scan entry). 救命啊.
Finally! The familiar gangway.
Strangely, there is no need to "hand-in" the passports this time.
The cabins were ready when we arrived though the luggage will take some time. The 1st thing that was required was to go to the muster point and upon confirmation that we had watched the safety videos, we were given this green sticker on the seapass cards, which also act as the room key. "Have you all watched the safety videos?" - YES, secretly hoping that the crew would not test me bcos....
Right next, we found a corner was to station ourselves and book the shows and bumper cars. The kids were told beforehand how important this step was but it didn't stop somebody from coming to ask about this and that. Vomit blood. In the end, we managed to book all the shows but only 2 bumper car sessions on Day 1. There were many, many sessions of bumper car throughout the 3 days but we only snagged 2. Zzzzz.
We planned to either boogie board or rock climb after we come onboard but the plan was immediately disrupted by hungry tummies. We went for a bite at 4ish. Though it was neither lunch nor dinner, we still eat. Hoho. Our 1st meal on the Royal was the buffet at the Windjmmer Marketplace.
We visited our cabin to "deposit" Popo before the next outdoor activity. We managed to pay an extra S$100 to an upgraded balcony cabin. Hohoho.
The cabin comes with a double bed and the sofa folded out to form another double bed.
It was a very sunny and hot day even though it was approaching 5pm. The 1st activity was rock climbing.
We didn't have time to try out the boogie board.
Then it was time for bumper car.
It was so fun trying to bump people. Hoho. While queueing, I tried helping the teenager take IG worthy pictures. Duno will pass or not.
Then we had food again bcos it was dinner time. I remembered that on the last cruise, dinner took forever bcos of the crowd. It was much faster this time but still took over an hour. We had a juggling show at 8pm and were not in time. Thinking that there are other time slots over the next 2 days, we canceled the reservation to rebook. Wrong choice. The other slots were ALL fully booked and we had to miss the show. Sob.
In the end, we went for a silly game before another prebooked show at 10pm. The show was some singing performance themed "Sequins and Feathers". It wasn't fantastic but one of the 3 featured performances.
We were all beat by the end of it. It was time to call it a day. Good night to our 1st holiday in a long while.
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