February 12th - At Anchor in the Malacca Strait

About 3AM this morning we left our berth in Port Kelang and proceeded down river to the Malacca Strait where we sat at anchor waiting for the fuel boat to meet us. 

The boat was coming from Singapore and arrived sometime between 10-11 AM this morning.  The fueling process will take all day and hopefully we’ll be on our way towards Fremantle later this evening.  Several of the ship’s staff said that this is the first time they’ve ever seen a cruise ship being fueled while at sea.  This was the view outside of the deck 2 game room this afternoon.  You can see the guys sitting there monitoring the delivery.  Fred and I played a game of scrabble as we watched the ship. (I won)

It’s hot and humid as we stand still here in the strait.  Around us are dozens of other ships at anchor.  The Captain told us some were waiting on berths while others were waiting on orders from their owners.  The owners will direct them to the port willing to pay the best price for whatever they have on board.  That was interesting, I didn’t know ships did that.

On my way to get pictures of the fueling ship, I stopped and got a photo of our hallway on deck 5 of the QMII.  That’s our room to the right…and we’re in the middle of the ship so that gives you an idea of the length of this particular liner.  Although the QM2 is bigger in tonnage and length then a lot of other ships, it doesn’t hold as many people.  It was purpose built to cross the Atlantic and is in fact the only ship that can be called an ‘ocean liner’ currently in use.  It does a great job in rough seas as we saw during the transatlantic crossing when we were in the middle of that blizzard.  Boy does that seem like a long time ago!

Well hopefully our next few days at sea will be uneventful for a change.  We are scheduled to be in Fremantle Australia on the 18^th and will stay there overnight.  We’re looking forward to being off the ship!  We plan to take the train into Perth the first day and have a look around, it’ll be good to be on solid ground again.

February 11th - Port Kelang, Malaysia

We arrived this morning to bring on fuel and supplies but no one will be allowed on and the only people allowed off are those who chose to disembark…meaning they can’t get back on.  I saw about 3 dozen people lined up to go off but that might not be everyone as groups were leaving at different times.  We’ll have to see if we can figure out how many actually left in the next couple of days.

We’ve been to this port before and one notable attribute is the very long walk to the cruise terminal.  There’s actually quite a walk to even get to the terminal’s walkway.  As I recall they had nice shops in the building and good facilities.  The Seaborn Ovation was in port with us, their passengers got off for tours.  We don’t know what their story is, perhaps they’ve already been to affected countries so one more stop didn’t matter.  Who knows?

For us, not stopping here in Malaysia or any of the other Asian ports gets us into Australia, I guess.  We got the revised itinerary from the ship today, we’ll be in:

Fremantle – February 18-19 (two days)

Darwin – February 24-25 (two days)

Yorkey’s Knob – February 29

Arlie Beach – March 1^st and this is the day we were supposed to be there so the rest of the schedule remains the same.  In subsequent days we will visit, Brisbane, Sidney (overnight), Melbourne, Adelaide, Bussleton and back to Fremantle.  I’ll repost the cruise map.

Yorkey’s Knob is right above Arlie Beach and both offer access to the Great Barrier Reef, most ships only stop at one location.  The tours to the reef are very expensive and really if you don’t dive then it’s not worth it.  Fred and I didn’t even bring our swimsuits.

No one we’ve talked to on the ship disagrees with the cruise line’s decision to skip the Asian ports, people are disappointed of course, as are we, but we all understand it. 

Fred and I thought there was a little too much Australia on the itinerary already and now we’re spending more time there.  We like Australia and have been there before and I know, it’s not exactly a hardship but that’s a lot of Australia!  The cities along the coast that we’ll be visiting don’t have a lot of variety.  It would be great to do an overland trip to the interior of the country but that would take some planning and doing it on short notice is almost impossible.

I know these are definitely first world problems~👀

After Australia we carry onto Mauritius and Reunion, two beautiful islands off the coast of Africa and then onto South Africa where we have an overland safari tour planned, Namibia and then we start to head back to England stopping in the Canary Islands and Madeira. Be prepared to hear a lot about Australia in the next few weeks!

February 9th - The Other Shoe Drops

It was announced this morning that we will not be going to any of the other ports in Asia.  That eliminates, Singapore, Vietnam and Bali Indonesia.  We will put into Port Kelang (the actual port name for Kuala Lumpur) for fuel and supplies sometime in the next couple of days.  No one will be allowed on but people can get off it they want.  Our next port of call will now be Fremantle Australia on the 18th.

Singapore was supposed to be a turn around port.  That means people were scheduled to get on and off the ship.  Without that stop the folks who were going to get off in Singapore, either on the 12^th, or for our second visit on the 18^th now have to stay on the ship.  Cunard is letting them stay on for no additional charge of course.

Folks will have the option to get off in Port Kelang and make connections through the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.  Cunard will arrange for transportation to there.  The Captain told people that if they take medication and it will not last through to the 18^th, they should get off in Port Kelang (I mean he put it very nicely but he wanted people to think about their situation).

Fremantle is in the south western part of Australia and was supposed to be our LAST stop in that country, it will now be our first.  They are trying to salvage as much of the original itinerary as possible but we haven’t seen the revised schedule yet. 

To give you an idea, take a look at the map above.  Our first port of call in Australia was supposed to be in Darwin (far northern central part of Australia) and that was going to be on February 26^th.  After that we were supposed to head east to Brisbane, Sydney, and then around to Melbourne, Adelaide and eventually Fremantle.  There were a couple of smaller ports in between.  Now we will be in Fremantle on the 18^th of February. 

Why Fremantle?  We don’t have that answer but we’re guessing its as simple as they had room for us on that date.  These Australian ports are very popular and berths can be hard to come by.  Of course, we don’t know for sure.

Now the big question becomes where are we going after Fremantle.  Will we head out to sea and go to Darwin and then go around Australia as originally planned?  Or will we do something else?  Sydney is another big turn around port and it’s very hard to get a berth there so I’m sure that will be in their thinking. 

For Fred and I this is not the end of the world (although that’s going to be an awful lot of sea days!). We can stay on the ship until New York as we originally planned.  For others this is a nightmare.  If Cunard booked your air transportation then they will take care of moving your flights around and there won’t be any penalties.  If you had your travel agent do the planning for you then you can get in touch with them and they can do the leg work for you.  You will be responsible for the change penalties but if you have travel insurance (we always do) then you can get reimbursed.

If, however you made your own arrangements, as many people do nowadays, then you’re on your own.  Cunard will let you have free internet time to rebook but the rest is up to you.  We were in the internet/computer area of the ship a week ago and overheard a lady trying to make changes to her flight from Hong Kong, when that change was first announced.  She needed to change them to Singapore (and now she’ll have to change those).  We felt so bad for her.  One of the staff was trying to help her but it was a struggle and very emotional for her.  Those are the people really suffering through this.

I think everyone on the ship expected something like this was going to happen and many I’m sure are relieved to be leaving Asia in light of the virus hysteria.  Still it’s a shame to be missing these ports, Singapore and Vietnam are always highlights of a world cruise.  I’ll post again when we have more information on the new schedule.

February 8th - Itinerary Change

Our ship was supposed to call at Phuket, Thailand tomorrow, Penang, Malaysia on Monday and then Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.  All those ports are cancelled now because of the coronavirus. We will be sailing directly to Singapore and be there on the 12^th and 13^th as previously scheduled. Our guess is that Singapore, being as strict as they are, probably didn’t want us to dock there if we were coming from Thailand and Malaysia.  That’s just a guess but probably a good one.  The nav channel shows the hard right we took.

We noticed this afternoon that our speed had been reduced and wondered why.  We’ve been doing 14-15 knots and then went down to 9 knots.  It’s amazing how you can feel the difference in speed after you’ve been on the ship for a while.  We didn’t think for a minute that all three ports would be cancelled.  What a shame.  Now we have to tread water for three days before getting to Singapore.

Although I had no great feeling about tomorrow’s port of Phuket, it would get us into Thailand…another new country for our list.  We’ve had a series of lectures about Penang and they’ve really piqued my interest in that stop so I’m sorry to see that one go.  The final stop of Kuala Lumpur we’ve been to before but we were going to visit some temples built into caves that looked really interesting.  We’re sorry to be missing that one too.

So now we have three MORE sea days to look forward to…some of you might know that I’m not that crazy about sea days. 

After spending those two days in Singapore on the 12^th and 13^th, we are scheduled to visit two ports in Vietnam, or will we?  That will be the question because we are scheduled to return to Singapore on the 18^th and 19^th (as you may remember this was replacing our two days in Hong Kong).  The Captain said we should keep in mind there may be further changes so we’ll see.  We’ve been to the two ports in Vietnam before but were looking forward to seeing different things this time…also there’s the shopping to be had in Vietnam.  Very good prices using US dollars so very convenient. 

I said in yesterday’s entry that only one cruise ship was being held in quarantine and I believe that is technically true but more ships are being affected in various ways.  We hear there is a Holland America ship looking to dock somewhere in Asia and no one is letting them.  I think we’ll all be happy when our time in Asian waters is over.  It’s too bad because we’ve always enjoyed the Asian ports we’ve visited. 

So, stay tuned for further developments!

February 7th - At Sea

We are still at sea on our way to Phuket, Thailand.  The weather is getting hotter and more humid and it will stay like this through the end of the month at least.  We’ll be visiting Asian countries through the 23^rd of February and then on the 26^th we’ll be in Darwin, Australia…where it will still be hot and humid!

Of course, we’re all still watching the coronavirus news.  There are dozens and dozens of cruise ships around the world right now and only one is currently under quarantine and that’s in Japan and they’re a little germophobic.  Our big challenge will be getting through Singapore twice in the next two weeks.  They are very strict about everything there!  There is a huge fine for throwing gum on the ground!  It’s a very safe and clean city but incredibly strict. 

We will all be screened before being allowed off on the 12^th.  After a week we’ll be back again on the 18^th, (replacing Hong Kong) to pick up passengers and stay for another two days.  I’m sure we’ll be screened again at that time.  The good news for us is that all the passengers getting on our ship will be checked as well.  That should help keep the virus off the ship.  This virus is getting a lot of press because it spreads so fast but it’s not as lethal as the common flu.

Meanwhile, Fred and I both have colds but we’re getting lots of rest and hopefully the symptoms will decrease as time goes on. We have a shore excursion in Thailand the day after tomorrow.  We just read that the leader of Thailand is unhappy that foreigners coming into the country aren’t wearing face masks as they walk around.  Well we don’t have any and although they can help the wearer (because you can’t touch your nose or mouth) they really don’t protect people around you, unless you get true surgical masks.

Today I thought I would post some of the stuff we commonly get in our room each day.  This is the daily program (or programme in the UK).  It tells you what’s going on each day.  It’s delivered to your room the night before so you can plan your day.  The first page gives you all the highlights, especially all the talks going on throughout the day.  It also tells you the dress code for tomorrow’s dinner and who the featured entertainer is.

The 2^nd and 3^rd pages contain a list of all the activities.  It looks like a lot doesn’t it?  Truth be told, you’re lucky if 10% interests you unless you’re really into trivia, bridge or the like.

Last page is a list of opening times for the restaurants and other information of general interest.

We also frequently get little bulletins about an upcoming port.  The one below is about Phuket but pretty much the same verbiage was used for Israel and Sri Lanka, they just change the embassy information.  There can be trouble in any country, including our own but you can’t worry about it.  We always feel these bulletins are of the CYA variety.

Tomorrow is our last sea day and then we have 5 days in a row in various ports!  We’re looking forward to it.

February 5th - Columbo, Sri Lanka

The weather has certainly changed in the last few days.  We had bright dry weather in the low 70’s in both Dubai and Muscat but today we are in Sri Lanka.  The high is projected to be in the low 90’s and it is very humid.

Sri Lanka has been called the tear drop of India.  We are directly under India and to the east.  Sri Lanka has been an independent country for many decades and Columbo is its capital.  The country had a very serious civil war in the past 20 years and just last year there were terrorist attacks on Catholic targets around the city.  We did see military and police presence everywhere, some of them with serious weaponry.  All was calm for our visit today; in fact, we just missed their Independence Day celebration yesterday.

We have been to Columbo before and at that time we took a city tour that looked at both the new and old sections of the city.  Truth be told there are not a lot of ‘must see’ sites in Columbo.  It’s an interesting city and there is a lot of development going on, especially in the port area.  The Chinese are investing lots of money into the cargo port and it’s slated to grow quite a bit in the next few years.  This is something you see all over Asia, as the U.S. reduces its foreign aid, the Chinese move in. 

Since we’ve been here before we didn’t go on an organized tour, we instead took the Cunard provided shuttle to the Laksala Handicraft Shop. This shop is sponsored by the government and gives the locals a chance to sell their wares in a nice environment.

The shuttle took about 30 minutes to get to the shop.  The bus would also drop you off at the port gate if you wanted to take a cab (tuk tuk) or arrange your own tour.  As you can see from this picture the QM2 was in the middle of nowhere.

We took the shuttle about 10AM and it was pretty packed, a number of people did get off at the gate and they were greeted by a phalanx of tuk tuk drivers waiting to take them anywhere in the city they wanted to go.  The picture below is of the tuk tuks waiting outside the handicraft shop but you get the idea.  Lots of cabs waiting for limited customers.  Other, more traditional taxis are allowed to wait near the ship.  We assume they pay for the privilege.

The shop was very nice.  The prices were good and the exchange rate right on the money (no pun intended).  It was funny to see everyone (including me) carrying around their phone with the calculator app open.  You could divide the Sri Lankan Rupee price by 180 and find out what it was in US dollars.  We bought a nice pewter bowl for our living room and I got a small handbag for use on the ship.  I also bought an Elephant Dung notebook.  Yes, they make paper out of elephant dung.  I’ve heard of it, but never saw it until today.  Of course, I had to buy it.

The shop itself was in a gated area and when we arrived there was a lot of tuk tuk drivers at the entrance, but they were not allowed in.  By the time we left, the police had organized them into two lines so that the tourists weren’t surrounded by guys wanting their business.  We haven’t talked to anyone today who took one but the last time we were here we knew several people who used the service and enjoyed themselves.  The price is good and as long as you occasionally close your eyes when they are going in and out of traffic…you’re okay.

Columbo is a lot like any other city, we went through some nice areas and some not so nice.  We were stuck in traffic for a while as parents lined the street in their cars waiting to pick up their kids from school…just like we’ve seen many times in the U.S.  Along the coast there is an esplanade along the beach.  It looked like a nice place to spend some time. 

Although the area immediately around the craft shop looked nice with some nearby parks, Fred and I decided to head back to the ship instead of walking around.  First, we had our purchases with us and we really didn’t want to lug them around as we walked and second the heat and humidity was really starting to get bad and we’re just not used to it.  That and Fred feels a cold coming on got us back to the ship in time for a late lunch.

At the ship, the usual makeshift shops had opened up and we took a look through them.  They had some fun stuff and people were buying but the quality of these items couldn’t compare with what we saw at the handicraft shop in town.  We looked but didn’t buy.

We now have three days at see before our next port in Thailand.  I’m sure it will continue to be hot and humid, but we should be used to it by then (I say hopefully).  We are aware of the two cruise ships in quarantine because of the Coronavirus.  It is worrisome especially as we’ve learned that Singapore has instituted a strict health screening before entry.  We’re not sure what that entails.  A few years ago, as we entered Japan we were checked for high temperature.  It was done as you passed through an area, invisible to all of us.  I’m not sure if that would be some sort of infrared device or not.  Again, we don’t know what Singapore has planned for us, hopefully we’ll get a heads up from the ship before arrival next Wednesday. In between then and now we have the stop in Thailand and then two in Malaysia.

February 3rd - Super Bowl

The ship did broadcast the super bowl!  I think I wrote earlier that we thought it would be on at 11:30 AM our time…nope.  We are constantly moving the clock forward as we move eastward, losing an hour or so every couple of days, it gets confusing.  The super bowl actually began at 4:30 AM our time on Monday.  Unfortunately for us it was also a night we were moving the clock forward so it really felt like 3:30 AM to us.

Fred set his alarm and we did get up and watch the game.  I watched the first two series and then took a shower but otherwise we saw the whole game.  We saw the Fox broadcast and the half time show but didn’t get to see all the great commercials.  We were watching a feed from ESPN and they showed the same promos over and over again, mostly about upcoming cricket matches.

We ordered breakfast in so that was nice.  We were able to sit and watch while eating.  We thought the game was just so-so, really not much better than a regular season game.  We really don’t root for either team but we were hoping to see the 49’rs win this one because their quarterback used to be with our team.  Fred took a nap right after the game and I took one a little later on.  We really needed them.

We have one more day at sea and then we’re in Columbo, Sri Lanka.  Since we’ve been there before we’re just going to take the shuttle into town and see what’s around.  Tonight, we have to turn the clocks ahead one-half hour…really.  I remember this from when we were here before but I don’t remember why Sri Lanka is in their own little time zone bubble.