Monday March 6th

 I am going to try to fill you in on what happened yesterday. Yesterday was Sunday and it was the day that the ship was docked in Singapore.  We are docked at the beautiful new cruise center. This is a very busy port. Ken counted 48 ships at anchor .

It was a strange day weather wise. It was foggy sometimes, sunny sometimes and pouring rain sometimes.

Ken and I had an excursion booked for this city. We were to go to the orchid gardens, to visit Chinatown and have a driving tour all around the island. The ticket said we were to meet in the Princess theatre at 9:30 . So we had an early breakfast and gathered things we thought we might need like sunglasses and umbrellas etc. We were told we had to bring our passports and the other special landing document they had us fill in. We did not have any Singapore currencies because they had none at the desk. We were told that there would be a currency exchange at the terminal and we could avail ourselves of their services there. 

So we arrived at deck 7 at approx 9:15 only to discover that the line to get into the theatre extended all of the way to above the Atrium. It took us over 15 minutes to make our way to the entrance of the theatre. At this point we were told that the theatre was full and we should wait in the Wheelhouse Bar. With our excursion sticker proudly displayed( orange 11) we found comfortable seats and began our wait. To try to shorten the story we continued our wait until after 12 noon.We could look through the window and see the line was almost not moving. Every now and then we would see a torrential rain fall and we were happy to be in a dry air conditioned space. It was hot out there.

 The poor harassed shore excursion person came in every 15 minutes to update us on the situation. Apparently the main problem was the immigration officials. They were taking minutes to examine every passport and every arrival document instead of the seconds it should have taken. The problem was further complicated by the fact that another ship was docked. The ship was called " The Genting Dream", it sails out of Hong Kong and was much bigger that the Island. So the Immigration staff was divided , they got 4 agents and we got 3 agents. I imagine that Sunday was partly why there were only 7 people working. The situation was further complicated by the fact that every member of the crew was also required to go through this procedure.

Finally about 12:30 our number was called. We proceeded to the gangway, showed our medallion and began the trek off of the ship and toward immigration. The line was painfully slow with scooters and canes and staff and others on the same line. Soon the lines were divided so there were three lines, one for each agent. After almost an hour of this we decided that if we had not made it to the door within a half hour we would give up and go back to the ship. We were falsely believing that this was the goal. WRONG!!! When we got through the door we discovered this large area with snake like lines going round and round and finally leading to these 3 agents. We stayed for about 15 minutes and we determined that it was going to take at the very least an hour to get to one of those agents. So it would be almost 2 o'clock before we would get out of that line and connect with our 4 hour tour if the tour bus could be found.....

We gave up and turned around and went back to the ship. The even sadder part was the fact that many of the staff had a few hours of free time and it was wasted standing in lines. 

As I said we had an early breakfast and I was concerned that I may be in trouble if I went much longer without food. A low sugar is not a pretty thing. That happened to someone on Komodo Island and they needed a stretcher. By now Ken's hip was giving him a problem as well.

We went up to Horizon Court and we could not believe that it was almost empty. That was something we had never seen.

After lunch we decided to go to the hot tub and relax. Somehow it seemed right to have a Singapore Sling, after we were in Singapore even if it was just the harbour. So I went to the bar and ordered us each a drink, a sling for me and a mai tai for Ken.

We made new friends and visited until almost time to dress for dinner. Many people were sharing the same horror story that we had experienced but some were not, some had a great day.

We would find out today that a big percentage of the problem was caused by the about 600 passengers who did not have excursions but lined up before the ship docked and they were allowed ashore right away. Those people took up the space in the lines and the 3 officers processed them first. Because the process was so slow those of us with tickets could not get into line to meet our tours. Those guests were not supposed to be allowed to disembark until all of those of us with tour times were disembarked. Someone made a big mistake which snowballed. It will be interesting to see if anything was learned.

We had dinner but skipped dessert because we wanted to go to the Folkloric Show. They showed Chinese,Indian and Malaysian dances. The costumes were beautiful. The music was very lively and believe it or not I was so tired that I actually nodded off a couple of times. I do not know if it was because I missed my nap or because the sling had taken its toll. 

There was to be a laser light show later but since we were not on the correct side of the ship we would have to go topside to enjoy it.

I went to bed instead!! Tomorrow would be a sea day.

I borrowed a few pictures.