Steve and Cathy's Blog

One of the many, many aspects of this cruise that we like is how carefully the itinerary is laid out. The variety of locales that we have visited thus far is quite significant, which is one of the numerous advantages of being on a small ship (Insignia is 30,277 gross tons with a 684 passenger capacity; Oasis of the Seas is 225,282 gross tons with a 5,400 passenger capacity). Today we visit the island of Koh

While Cathy and Steve and approximately 190 others are taking the entire 180-day around-the-world cruise, the other 400 passengers are taking what Oceania refers to as segments.  There are eight segments: Miami to Barbados, Barbados to Cape Town, Cape Town to Singapore, Singapore to Beijing, Beijing to Sydney, Sydney to Papeete, Papeete to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to Miami. Also, Miami to Singapore was considered a “Grand Voyage.” So in Singapore, two-thirds of the passenger

We arrive in Singapore at the Singapore Cruise Center – one of two in the city – around 10:00am. But already we are dazzled by what we see. Singapore and Shanghai share the honors of being the two biggest container ports in the world. Singapore’s is essentially a transshipment terminal where containers are transferred off of one ship and on to another. There are containers, ships and gantry cranes everywhere. We can tell right then, way

We have been traveling south along the Myanmar and Malaysia coasts for the past two days. We were supposed to have stopped in Penang, Malaysia, but apparently the tides and currents in the river that we would have had to traverse weren’t favorable. But this morning we glide into this massive port. There are container gantries everywhere, so we are already getting a sense that the Malaysia economy is light years ahead of the one we

Today is a pretty quiet day, but it is also a day when Cathy must say goodbye to a couple of good friends that she has made at Coffee Chat and Needlepoint. Their names are Dorothy and Doreen, and they are from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. [I was so fortunate to meet these two ladies. They have been best friends and lived in Vancouver for many years. BUT they were both born in South Africa! And

Because we left Myanmar in the touching way that we did the previous afternoon, I have taken the literary license to end the post at that time. However, our evening held a special event for us: dinner with Conny Hammelmann, Executive Concierge of Insignia. This is a very important position on the ship, as Conny is responsible for so many of the clerical functions that make our journey possible. She is in overall charge of Reception,