When this cruise was launched in November, I SWORE we wouldn’t do it. Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas and Genting’s Dream cruise are currently the only active cruises in the world. After all the cruise horror shows of last spring, who in their right mind would do this, I thought… And sure enough, in December, one of the cruises has to turn around (if you Google the cruise, this is basically all that will come up) as they had a suspected covid case. But what the news didn’t report was the case was a false alarm and Royal Caribbean boldly sent out the very next cruise, confident their safeguards had worked. Since then roughly 82,000 people have safely cruised. We now know many people who have gone, some multiple times. The resounding response was, in covid times, not being able to leave Singapore, this cruise is the best thing we have. So we “panic bought” ourselves a cruise 2 weeks ago, and on the 25th of March, away we went for our own 4 night cruise.

What’s the Nutmeggers review? We all agreed, this was a great covid vacation. Better for us as a family than a “staycation”. We enjoyed being away from Singapore, all the entertainment and the food. That being said, we are not cruisers. Ryan and I had previously been on one other cruise (celebrity cruise in Alaska). I think we both still feel the same. It’s a fun vacation, but not an all the time option for us. We don’t need or even really like being “entertained” all the time. Now in our 40’s, I think we can see the value in a cruise as a multigenerational vacation. As parents mobility declines and grandkids get older and more independent, a cruise would be an excellent way to get everyone together with the least resistance. It is also a good way to see remote areas (like Alaska). There is also the uncomfortable issue of cruises environmental impact. Being on this moving city (quantum if the seas is the 15th largest cruise ship in the world) really strikes home how catastrophic these beasts are for the environment. As the kids climbed on the rock wall and were blasted by smoke exhaust, it was hard not to consider this. So while I never say never to anything, I think if we did cruise again, it would be on something smaller.

A small review on the particulars of the cruise in case anyone in Singapore is reading this. For our family, have 2 connecting balcony rooms was perfect. The rooms and the balcony’s connected. With the connecting balcony’s, if your rooms don’t actually connect, that would be ok too. For our kids, eating in the main dining room was perfect and we didn’t feel we really needed any food “upgrades”. If we had eaten in a specialty restaurant, I would have probably picked Chops, the steakhouse. But our kids are still so inconsistent with their eating, that it probably would have been a waste. Here’s my quick review on the drinks package (we only bought the soda for Ryan and the kids and a coffee card for me). Ryan and I ended up saving $13 USD overall on drinks (and some friends bought us a drink one night). So if I could go back, I would have bought the two of us the package when we booked the cruise (it was significantly cheaper then). I would not buy the kids the soda package again as we lost money on that for sure. There are plenty of other drinks (juice, etc) and it’s so hot that they mostly drank water. I would pay out of pocket for those. 4 night vs 3 night? The timing of the 4 night was better for Ryan with work (he only had to take 1 day off). Our family would have been happy with the 3 night. We had seen and done everything in the 2 full days. It was nice to rest on the 3rd day, but not necessary.

Onto the pictures! I’ll try to review each aspect of the trip with the pictures. Enjoy the beautiful blue of the South China Sea!

That’s it! It’s fun to write a blog, a travel blog as I intended this to be. Hopefully a sign of things to come…💕