April 29, 2024

Goodbye Bangkok and hello Singapore.  We have two days at sea before finally docking at our final destination, Singapore.  We will have one day to explore and finish packing before we have an o’dark thirty trip to the airport. 

If you’ve never flown from Asia to the USA, it’s always funny that we arrive in Seattle before we take off in Singapore.  What? Really? How can that be?  Well, we leave Singapore at 9:00 AM on Thursday and arrive in Seattle at 8:00 AM on Thursday.  We fly for 15 hours straight.  WOW.

Last night we had our farewell World Cruisers Gala and dinner.  The dinner was cooked by the officers of the ship, not the Chefs.  Best meal we’ve had all trip.  An incredible event.  We started with 87 World Cruisers and ended with 84.  All of the ones that left walked off under their own power.  Pretty good for a group that I originally labeled “canes, walkers, wheelchairs and grey hair”; don’t you think?  

On sea days, we have team trivia.  Well, I’m proud to tell you that our team won the series, and we all got some nice Seabourn gifts.  We have met a wonderful couple that lives just north of Seattle, and they will come to our house to join us for Brewery trivia soon. 

Two days in Bangkok allowed us to get a hull inspection and cleaning. 

Here’s another street food delicacy, fried Tarantula anyone? 

Even though we are coming to the end of sailwest.net (part 1), tease me please.  I’m happy to inform you that there will be a part 2 and even a part 3.  So, bookmark sailwest.net for future tales from the sea.  And to my dear friends that let me vote on restricting future trips to less than 60 days, I’m glad I was there because there was nothing discussed about making the rule retroactive.  We booked these trips back in January, sorry.

It has been hot for days now, temps in the high 90’s and lots of humidity.  So, pool time was limited, but it still doesn’t stop people from talking and you know what happens when they open their mouths.  Yes, it’s time for another edition of pool chronicles, you can’t make this shit up. 

The people behind me were eating lunch today at the pool, one guy quickly establishes himself as a weatherman.  We are certified weather watchers, so I’m going to listen closely to him.  He correctly identifies the clouds we are seeing.  The other guy asks if it’s going to rain soon.  Well, that’s when his expertise started to crumble.  He said from deck 8, we could see the horizon approximately 7 miles out, correct!  Well, now look up from the horizon and notice signs of rain, correct.  If it’s raining just 7 miles away, you can assume it will rain here soon, wrong.  If you focus on where the sea meets the sky, it’s a logical assumption that it’s 7 miles away from our vantage point.  But, once your eyes travel up to the clouds, they may be, and likely are several more miles away.  Nice story guy, but fatally flawed.

We were going to dinner one night in the dining room, which happens to be on the same deck as the gangway, when a lady walks past a large sign and asks us where she can find the gangway.  I pointed to the sign she just walked past and said the sign says that it’s this way. 

Seabourn uses a service called Luggage Forward, you may remember when they took our luggage from our house back in December.   Well, I can tell you that this service is not cheap, but Seabourn is paying for it for the World Cruise passengers.  They sent a representative to the ship to help and answer questions and make sure all the bags get off the dock and onto a truck.  When he volunteered to answer questions, he realized that was a real mistake with this group.  He explained that DHL would handle the bags in Singapore and then either Federal Express or UPS. 

Here come the questions:

Why can’t we lock our bags? (Because they might be inspected by both governments.)

Last time I used your service, someone broke into my bags and stole a bunch of stuff, can I expect that will happen again?  (answer not needed).

I live in an apartment in Florida, there is nowhere to leave the bags, can you call me when they are going to be delivered? (You will be given a tracking number that you can track your bags with and we will send you emails.)

When we shipped our bags to LA, they ended up in a warehouse for a few days, if that happens will it be a climate-controlled space?  I so wanted to say my bags were afraid of the dark, can they leave the lights on too?

I live a long way from the airport, will they still deliver them to me? (Lady, does FedEx or USP make deliveries to you?)

Seasoned travelers?

And now I must end with a small tribute to our friend Jim.  With 80 years under his belt, he had a great life.  He was a great husband, great Father, great friend, and all-around great guy.  Sheila, as long as we are alive, you will never be alone.  I’m sure there are several people in your inner circle that are telling you the same thing.  Love you always.