Steve and Cathy's Blog

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,

Today we have another early start, 7:45am, in order to take the Experience Local Life in Thanlyin excursion. This is a small village (small is a relative term in Southeast Asia in terms of population. It’s a bustling place full of people) about one half hour from where our ship is docked. First of all, we are grateful not to have to slog through ninety minutes of commuter traffic. It’s near the ship and it’s Saturday.

This is going to be a busy day. Our excursion, Golden Glory of Yangon, begins at 8:15 and will last all day. We board our bus around 8:30 and begin the slow trek during the rush hour into the city. We learn that one of the reasons that the traffic is so bad is that the railroad that parallels the road is in terrible shape. We will be talking about the condition of the country’s infrastructure

This is a semi-Sea Day, because we are scheduled to arrive at 5:00pm. We attend a really interesting Peter Croyle lecture entitled Buddhism and Rice Cultivation that is a great introduction to both subjects. Later in the day, we attend Afternoon Tea in Horizons. This good idea is Cathy’s and we go because we are due to leave the ship at 6:15 on our evening excursion, so we stoke up on little sandwiches, desserts and tea

Another quiet day, although that is our choice.  There is plenty to do on this cruise ship every day, and many people take advantage of the activities available.  Except for Cathy’s Coffee Chat and Needlepoint activity, we don’t really.  I’m not at all certain why that is, but we still fill the days happily. The one event for this day that stands out is an anniversary party that we attend tonight in Horizons.  Mike and J

We have left Cochin, India, and so I chose a photo of an Indian family on one of the house boats we saw on the canals near Alleppey.  The Indian people are so friendly and so polite that I thought it represented what we experienced there. We have since rounded the southern tip of the country and have headed up through the strait the separates Sri Lanka from India.  From there we will cross the Bay