~~GO~~ Highlights: Part 1

1 year ago.

2 people.

10 months.

19 USA states.

20 countries.

Presenting, the highlights of our Year of Adventure:



(credit to Dan for doing the video!)

On Board the Carnival Victory: The Search for Cheap Internet Access

Before we embarked on the cruise, we went around putting notices on Facebook and Twitter that we will be incognito for 8 days, because we had heard that internet on the cruise is pretty expensive.

A few days later, one of my primary school friends remarked that we can't seem to stay offline, and that if SHE were traveling, she would have really been quite unreachable.

Ah well, she didn't have an email interview with the Straits Times to look forward to. We did!

But honestly speaking, we really did have a hard time staying offline, so every port of call we made, we made it with our laptops in our backpacks.

Here are some details that may be useful to others who may eventually take the same cruise as we did!

In Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas
Our quest for internet connection in the ports of call instead of on board the ship started really well. Once we disembarked, we went through the shophouses that encircle the dock and went to the main road. Right across the main road was a standalone building called The Fiesta.

Searching for signal...

The Fiesta does most of its business as a place for Filipinos to buy phone cards and call home. It's secondary business is that of a cafe. For those who bring in their own laptops, you can get unlimited WiFi at USD 2 each. Just bring your laptop to the shop owner to key in the password, and you're set!


In Roseau, Dominica
Like St Thomas, Dominica seems to have sprung a small town to support the appetites of cruise tourists. Just stroll into Roseau, along the waterfront, and you have a few choices of internet cafes.

We had first gone into the coffee chain Rituals Coffee, because the waitress said that there was free internet as long as you buy some food or a drink. Though we were already stuffed from the buffets on the ship, we did need a drink, so we accepted the offer. Unfortunately, it was only after we had paid for the drink that the waitress said that they had run out of passwords for their internet. A guy comes to their shop every day with new randomly generated passwords, but he was sick today, she said. Ah well.

You can surf on their icky computer and play pool on their aged tables, but we didn't

We went on to a cafe next door and got our WiFi for at USD 4 for the price of one password, half day use.


In Bridgetown, Barbados
The dock at Bridgetown is pretty far removed from the town. You could either use an internet station at the dock for USD 5 per half hour, but we decided to head into town. A taxi ride to town costs USD 2 per person, per way.

But what we found when we reached town was pretty horrible. There were shops selling gold, clothes, toys (those masak-masak kind) but not a single shop that offered internet services! Shocking. We walked along 2 or 3 streets, going into some of their malls (which was really a building with a long narrow corridor and shops on both sides, mostly closed) but to no avail.

We were just about to give up when we saw this innocous sign at a traffic junction, saying 'Internet Access'. We went right to the sign, and looked up and down, left and right and all around, but did not see any internet cafes or anything. Strange.

Ah well, I whipped out my iPod to see if there was a network available, and voila! There it was!

We almost expected to find a Wireless@BD SSID...

We both quickly checked our emails and facebook accounts while standing right at the corner. But it was not satisfying enough. Besides, I was all primed to post a blog entry on that day too, and did not want to lose my muse.

Stepping back, I studied the building carefully, just like a good Jedi. Then, I noticed something that we missed before. In one of the ground level shops, there was a stairway tucked to the side, with some signs that indicated that other shops were available upstairs! Whoo hoo!

We scooted upstairs and found the shop offering WiFi services, only to be quoted USD 2 per 10 minutes. WTF?!?!

Mumbling and grumbling, we decided to risk a trip to the Dark Side. We hid on the stairs next to the shop and continued using their unsecured network. DuH.

Don't disturb. I'm telling the world about traveling in the USA

It wasn't the most comfortable of places, though. Dirty as a stairs would be, with people walking up and down periodically. But I did finish my blog entry on that day, so all's good.

The cruisers after us might wish to consider taking a taxi to the beach instead, where there -may- be internet cafes. Just don't bother going into town!


In Castries, St Lucia
With the aforementioned email interviews and follow-up questions cleared in Dominica and Barbados, we told ourselves that we would only go online at St Lucia for awhile, just to clear mails - nothing heavy.

We had to take a water taxi to town across from where the Carnival Victory was berthed. Walked through the so-called Visitor's Centre and we found a small yellow building across the street, with a shop named The Business Centre.

Internet rates were USD 2 per half hour. That's alright, we told ourselves. We should be done by then! So we agreed. Next thing we knew, with all the emails, comments to reply, Facebooking and for me, MyBruting, one hour was up!

Ended up paying USD 8 for the use of internet. Can you see how our costs just escalate? :p


In St John's, Antigua
We were greeted by a welcome sign the moment we got off the gangway onto the dock at St John's.

Mai tu liao!

We followed the arrow (lead us to slave traders we also dunno) and came to a bar. Okay, great! We picked a table and plonked our stuff into a chair, prepared to order a drink so as to be 'allowed' to go online.

But I guess that the bartender really doesn't take well to stinginess. He gruffly told us that the tables were for customers who were ordering food. Those who were only ordering drinks had to go to the bar, under his watchful eye. Fine, we went, and maybe just out of spite (the Dark Side is seductive), decided to order one drink to share instead of two.

Too bad her laptop can't be charged up with a megawatt smile

But, like I said, stinginess is probably not appreciated here. When the wife wanted to plug in her laptop to the power socket, the bartender told her that our purchases do not qualify us to use his electricity! Bleah.

Since my laptop battery was still going strong, I let the wife use my laptop when I was done. A preview of the disaster to follow, perhaps?


In Basseterre, St Kitts & Nevis
We got off the ship at Basseterre and went under the archway that identified Port Zante. I guess there were many more cruisers who were familiar with the place, because all along the sides of the walls, we could see people on laptops, some even plugged in for electricity!

Disdaining to sit in such a musty, dusty place, we decided to take a walk around town first to see if there were any other options. After all, we have already whet our appetites for free internet...

There is a tour company simply named 'The Tour Shop" right outside Port Zante, that offers internet on its premises. I think it was around USD 6 per half hour, but again, on an unsecured network. With nowhere to hide and secretly go online, we quickly just checked our mails on our iPhone/iPod and moved on.

Just beyond the main throughfare, we found a restaurant that offered free internet as long as you purchase something. Again, fair enough. We bought a couple of drinks and conch fritters and settled down to make our presences felt by our friends in Singapore and elsewhere again.

I was halfway through this post when the connection dropped completely. It's a good thing that there were a couple of other unsecured networks nearby that I could use!

Argh! I lost the network!

Unfortunately, we can't remember the name of the restaurant, but the directions are pretty simple. At the eleven o'clock direction from Port Zante, there is a circus (in the USA, they call it a rotary) called, well, The Circus. The restaurant is at the one o'clock point of the circus. It's a small entrance, and you need to head up to the second floor to find the restaurants and bar proper.

And... that's it! Our budget guide to good internet services while you are on the Carnival Victory! Of course, the opportunity cost is that sometimes, you end up missing some of the sights that others are going for, but with the costs of these shore excursions, I think we were quite happy.

In total, we spent less than USD 30 going online during this cruise. Considering that the Carnival Victory charges USD 0.40 to USD 0.75 per minute, depending on the plan you sign up for (don't forget that internet on the ship is via satellite, and is very slow!), I think we did pretty great!

Oh, and this entry is also the last of the 'On Board the Carnival Victory' series. Next post, new destination!

On Board the Carnival Victory: Pirates of the Caribbean

I remember when I was working in MAS, in the Organising Secretariat for the Singapore 2006 IMF & World Bank Annual Meeting, we would receive RSVPs from various governors and Heads of State in response to the social events that we were organising in conjunction with the main meetings. There were a few names from exotic-sounding countries like St Thomas and St Kitts & Nevis. I knew little else about these tiny nations, other than the fact that they were part of the Caribbean. My mind would draw a total blank when I tried to picture their location on the world map.

So the thought of visiting a string of these exotic Caribbean isles proved very exciting to us indeed. Out of the 7 cruise destinations that we covered, we had a couple of favourite ports-of-call while others didn't quite appeal to us very much. This is going to be a picture-book entry. Mainly because writing about 7 places in detail in a single entry is going to keep me up all night. And also, having more pictures goes to prove that we did more on the cruise than check out the buffets.

1. San Juan, Puerto Rico

Dan's done a pretty detailed recap of our day exploring the city like a couple of wet dogs. Thankfully the weather cleared up in the evening and we got a view of the waterfront looking quite pretty in the night.

View from our ship, looking over at the Royal Caribbean vessel docked next to us

2. Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas

We woke up to a beautiful view of St Thomas. Pretty white houses capped with red roofs dotted the hills throughout. Little white yachts bobbed gently on the still waters of the harbour. Simply serene.

A picture of serenity that can still and quieten the most frantic heartbeat

We wandered around the shops a bit but didn't find anything to our liking or budget. There was a cable car ride to a viewpoint on the hill but we didn't go on it because:

(i) it was a gloomy, cloudy day - not the best for photography;

(ii) we had a pretty good view of St Thomas from the ship deck already;

(iii) we were quite fanatical about keeping our spending to the bare minimum after suffering some hard-to-swallow damage in the Bahamas and Puerto Rico; and

(iv) we were quite happy sitting in a Philippino Internet cafe under a speaker blasting songs from the late King of Pop and being amused at the sight of a bustling Philippino community on this tiny faraway isle.

Staying grounded in St Thomas, which has a rather pretty and colourful dockside scene

3. Roseau, Dominica

This is my favourite port-of-call. I loved the riot of colours splashed all over town - buildings in candy hues and old school murals depicting ketchup bottles and tins of luncheon meat (yes, that makes pretty good public art!) It was bloody hot walking around while lugging our laptops and cameras, and my blistered feet (thanks to the awfully long road march to Old San Juan the day before) were protesting like mad, but it was hard to tear ourselves away, even though we were absolutely dying for the air-conditioned comfort of the ship.

For charming the socks off us, Dominca gets the most number of photos in this entry.

Yup, it's true that Chinese food finds its way into every corner of the planet

Who needs to take out advertisements in the papers when you can just paint on the wall?

I love how they even painted half the packet of baking on the window pane, so that the picture looks complete even with the window open.

Maggi brand is really popular here! It's on walls, umbrellas, everything.

Making a big BIG statement

Only the stone facade was left of this old broken-down house. I hope the new owner preserves it.

Still smiling pretty even though I made him pose with this frightfully girly pastel combination of purple, cream and grey.

I love the stone facade and mosiac border on this wall. Man, I even like the swirly patten on the wooden board!

Fruit juice stand against a backdrop of green, red and yellow - a popular colour combination in the Caribbean.

Red, yellow and green combi again at the market place

Checking out the roadside stall selling pirated movies - a luxury we Singaporeans no longer have

Designed to make you thirsty

3. Bridgetown, Barbados

Barbados turned out to be a total disappointment. Maybe it was because we didn't head for the beach like everyone else. Yes, there ARE days when we really don't feel like being at the beach. Mostly cos we are too stingy to rent an umbrella (ever since we had to leave our K-Mart one behind in Miami) and it's sometimes hard to enjoy the beach without an ounce of shade.

We found Bridgetown messy, chaotic, un-pretty and totally charmless, and ended up trudging around town, seeking out unsecured WiFi networks to tap into. Even if it meant sitting on the hard dirty floor in a secret stairway until our butts turned blue from the lack of circulation (see Dan's upcoming entry.)

Excited at being in Barbados...

... but bored to the bones in Bridgetown

4. Castries, St Lucia

We found our way to Reduit Beach after navigating a puzzle comprising narrow city streets and a busy bus terminal, and doing some guesswork as to where we were suppose to get off the bus. We thought that we would finally have a chance to put our new US$5 snorkels to good use but the water proved too murky for us to see much, except for some fishy shapes at shallower depths.

Grilling in the full blast of the sun cos we're too ngiao to pay for an unbrella

Does anyone remember this cartoon from the '80s called The Snorkels?

Waiting for the spit in my mask to dry. It may sound gross but it keeps your mask from fogging up.

5. St John's, Antigua

Oleks, one of the waiters onboard the ship, told us that Antigua was a great beach destination with more than 365 beaches on the island - a beach for each day of the year! A cab driver approached us at the pier, offering to take us to Dickenson Bay for US$10 each way. We weighed convenience against price, opted for the lazy way and hopped on. Less than 10 minutes later, we found ourselves on a touristy patch of sand, dotted with other cruise passengers lolling around on their Carnival Cruises beach towels. As with all other touristy beaches, Dickenson Bay was teeming with vendors hawking banana boat rides, jetskis, handicrafts, etc. A little too crowded for our liking, but it made for a pleasant enough afternoon in Antigua.

Quiet time - in between being approached to buy grass hats, shell necklaces and beads

Pretty blue waters, but not clear enough for snorkelling

6. Basseterre, St Kitts & Nevis

Along with Roseau, we liked Basseterre for its colourful buildings and colonial charm. We settled down to a very simple afternoon programme which involved people-watching from an open-air balcony, WiFi, conch fritters and iced tea. On the way back to the ship, we chanced upon a small park and made a small detour to gawk at a brilliant Flame of the Forest tree in full bloom and to play in fire-engine red phone booths.

Striding through the streets of Basseterre

Watching the world go by at the main roundabout in town...

... from a cheery colourful cafe.

The only time we paid for a meal while on the cruise - conch fritters. A Caribbean specialty. In my opinion - all air (literally) and nothing to shout about

Under the Sea! (literally) Hee hee :P

The sky on fire

Paying homage to the Travellers Palm - in hope that we will be able to carry our year-long trip to full term

And that puts a wrap to our jaunt around the Caribbean. Unfortunately, we didn't get to fulfil our Kokomo Dream - Aruba, Jamaica, Bermuda and Monserrat were out of our reach this time. We'll just have to put our exploration of the Caribbean Sea on hold for now and come back when we're a bit richer. Maybe in 10 years time, maybe 20, maybe even more. Who knows? But in the meantime, the Kokomo Dream lives on inside us.

"There's a place called Kokomo, that's where we want to go to get away from it all...."

On Board the Carnival Victory: That's Entertainment!

Part of what makes cruising fun is the entertainment that is already "built into" the price that you pay. At least, this is the case for our cruise on Carnival Victory. I have some vague memory of paying for a topless revue on Superstar Virgo many moons ago, and falling asleep. Yes, yes, surprising tidbit, but true. Topless revues make me sleepy. Ask the wife who bought me birthday tickets for the (now defunct) Crazy Horse show at Clarke Quay, and she'd tell you the same.

With a multitude of activities going on on various parts of the ship at all times, it's really hard to be present for all the entertainment and activities and yet have time for food, excursions, and quiet time.

Here are a few of the activities we enjoyed over the 7N cruise:

1) Early morning movie screening on the pool deck.
Other than the day of the Michael Jackson memorial, there was a movie screening on the giant screen at the pool deck every morning. One in particular was a thrill for me - the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie!


I had actually caught this movie when it first hit the screens with my colleagues from IATA. But the thrill of watching lightsabre fights never ceases. Oh, and an added bonus was that I managed to identify the special scene where R2-KT was featured! Coolness and kudos to the Star Wars team for adding this special droid in the movie.

2) Mini-Golf
The wife, of course, is not as big a Star Wars fan as I am. So while I was watching the movie while having breakfast on the pool deck, she was first stoning, then looking downright bored. That's when I tore myself from the movie, to challenge her in a game of mini-golf.


To be honest, we are NOT fans of golf. Sacrilege to many people, I know, but it's not for lack of trying. We did take lessons, but got totally bored with the technicality of the game. I guess we just prefer "active excitement", like diving, wakeboarding and rock-climbing.

Mini-golf is pretty different from golf though. Just hit the ball, and wish for a bit of luck! The nine holes on the ship were pretty crowded, but we had fun all the same, manuvering our golf balls through logs and tunnels, and using the walls to rebound the balls into the cup.

I won the first game, but the wife won the second. Because I let her.

3) Karaoke
During a couple of the evenings, we sauntered into the karaoke lounge after our full-service dinner just to check it out. Now, as far as karaoke is concerned, we pretty much suck. My singing is passable only when I'm singing along to the iPod in the car, and the wife only comes alive at songs that she can totally sound cute in (yes, songs like Barbie Girl and Lemon Tree... she and her siblings are famous for singing and dancing to these songs).

Suffice to say, we karaoke only in secure rooms with close friends who constantly assure us that we are not embarassing ourselves. The karaoke lounge on the ship was totally different from what we are used to! Firstly, you sing in public. On a stage. Secondly, there is no music video, cheesy or otherwise, to distract yourself with. Only the lyrics appear on the screen. Thirdly, the songs list is really Americanised. In addition to the standard pop songs, you have gangster rap, country and a whole lot of songs from Broadway.


After much egging, and a quick double-check to ensure that there are no other Singaporeans who would be embarrassed at associating themselves with us, we decided to perform "I'll Cover You", from the musical Rent. I think we did pretty well, considering we DID screw up our parts. Well, some people clapped anyway. As the compere absent-mindedly said after our performance,"We need more people to choose your songs and come up to sing. As you can see, this is really just for fun. There's no need for you to be good."

Ouch. :p

4) Nightly entertainment in the theatre
There are 2 live shows every night in the main theatre, except for the first and last nights of the cruise. On the first night, the cruise director himself took the stage, and did a pretty decent stand-up routine. The point of all that, of course, was to introduce himself and his team to us, and to assure us that "What's done on the ship... stays on the internet".


On the other nights, there were other stand-up routines, jazzy song and dance acts, and even magic shows. We skipped all of those due to fatigue from our shore excursions and double daily gym visits.

On the last night, though, we had some guests who had outstanding performances in the karaoke perform for us. This show, called the Carnival Legends, we just had to watch! And to tell the truth, these guys were was pretty good! James Brown even did his funky jerky legs dance while singing "I Feel Good"!

5) Latin music bar
I'm a little ashamed to mention this, but then again, I'm one of those who like to speak his mind whenever possible. For about 3 months last year, the wife and I took salsa classes, up to intermediate level. But since then, we have scarcely practiced our moves, and all the tricks and patterns have now been forgotten.

We went to the Latin music bar, hoping that the beat of the music will help us remember some, but to no avail. As the live band scrolled through salsa, cha cha and bachata tunes, we were left doing the basic one-two-three, four-five-six steps with a couple of spins and cross body turns thrown in. Sad.

Ah well, we're headed to Latin America almost immediately after the cruise anyway. Where better to pick it up again? In the land where salsa originated, it should be as easy as one-two-three, four-five-six.

We hope! :)

The Mystery Explained?

My sister is notoriously bad at getting her geographical and scientific facts correct. To recap, this is the girl who peered over NYC from the viewing deck of the Empire State Building and asked where the Pentagon was, got Lima and llama mixed up, then claimed that coffee was laced with nicotine and cigarettes contained caffeine.

She left a comment on our blog entry about our electronic equipment going awry and insightfully pointed out that we were within the confines of the Bermuda Triangle when it started happening. And boy did she get the Triangle area spot on i.e. the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, with Miami, Bermuda and San Juan forming the points of the triangle encapsulating the Bahamas.



Known as the Devils Triangle, the region is famous for the mysterious disappearance of a number of aircraft (including an entire flight squadron) and vessels, which were alleged to have vanished in circumstances beyond the boundary of human error, piracy, technical equipment failure or natural disasters.

Stories have it that strong magnetic forces in the region can cause compasses and electronic equipment in machines to go quite bonkers.

There are also tales of these disappearances being attributed to paranormal activity or extraterrestrial beings aka aliens. Which could explain why my sister got her facts straight this time - I have always suspected that she was from Mars...

But yes, it is all rather creepy isnt it?

On Board the Carnival Victory: Feeding The Hungry

From March till June, we survived on a diet of cheap fast food (2 MacD's cheeseburgers being a standard meal) and treated ourselves at IHOP once in awhile. With the exception of the 3 weeks when my folks were in town and creating home-cooked wonders like wanton soup and chicken rice, our daily meal options usually revolved around MacD's, KFC or Taco Bell. And Ben & Jerry's.

The food situation was even worse when we hit the Bahamas where fastfood hardly made a beep on the cheap food radar and local food cost more than a BK Budget Meal. We survived on 16 packets of instant noodles, a loaf of bread, a pizza, 10 chicken wings and FOC breakfast.

So, as you can imagine, being on a cruise opened up the Golden Gates to Food Heaven. There are various buffet stations at which you can stuff yourself silly at and fine dining at the dining rooms every night.

Our first dinner at the Atlantic Dining Room was open-seating - meaning you just get slotted in at any table with other guests. We joined a large family and their friends who hailed from Florida and New York for a yummy 3-course dinner. The daily selection of dishes is pretty good - I just focused on the seafood, the seafood, and the seafood.

Fresh fruit as an appetizer

Fried tiger shrimp and yes, that's Char Bee Hoon!!! Dan was jealous

As mentioned in Dan's earlier entry, we were on a mission to gym twice a day - once before breakfast and a lighter workout after dinner. We tried to keep breakfast a healthy affair so as not to undo all the good done in the gym. I was very pleased with the selection of cereals, milk, yogurt, fresh fruit, oatmeal and real fruit juice with pulp (not orange sugar water.)

Dan fell in love with Lucky Charms breakfast cereal on this trip

Have I mentioned before how much I LOVE breakfast cereals? By mid-week, I was working through 2 boxes each morning.

For lunch, there's the main buffet comprising a salad bar, cold cuts, soup, bread, pasta, hot meats and a fall-of-the-chair heavenly dessert station. The side stations churn out hot dogs, burgers, fried chicken, fries, coleslaw and Chinese food. I made a beeline for Yangtze Wok for our first lunch on the cruise and asked for everything they had - springroll, stir-fried veggies, stir-fried beef, tofu and fried rice. It was a huge disappointment. Everything tasted the same, being cooked in black bean sauce throughout. The spring roll and fried rice were so salty my tongue felt numb. Anyway, later that evening at the gym, the surging movement of a moving ship coupled with the up-and-down movement of the ellipical machine invoked a bout of nausea, which resulted in the black bean meal going down the toilet.

I avoided the Chinese food station like plague for the rest of the trip. The other guests in the queue didn't seem to realise that if the real Chinese aren't queuing up along with them, there must be something wrong with the food.

My not-so-nice Chinese meal

I loved the East River Deli which churned out hot and cold sandwiches from 11am to 11pm. It was a hot favourite with the other guests too, judging from the long queues, no matter what time of the day. The grilled ham and cheese, and the hot turkey on country roll were tops!

Bread, I love bread.

A 24-hour pizza station? Sounds crazy! Plus a 24-hour ice-cream bar? Sounds divine! But true! We only succumbed to one slice of pizza each but knocked back quite a few soft serves. It's not Ben & Jerry's, but it tastes pretty darn good after a hot walk about town.

Melting together with our ice-cream in the hot Caribbean weather

And finally, even though we boarded this cruise not knowing anyone else on the ship, it's inevitable that food brings people together. At the fixed-seating dinner each night, we dined with a lovely family from Michigan - yummy mummy Minna and 4-year-old Aidan. We had a great time exchanging info about our lives back home and our daily shore excursions. Aidan was a riot! This cute little boy is so chatty and bubbly and entertained us with his doodlings of his mummy and Dan with lopsided ears, big noses and funny bodies. And he eats all his veggies cos he likes all things green! Isn't that cute? Too bad my favourite colour was blue for the longest time and my parents gave up on feeding me veggies until I was 16.

With Minna and little Aidan. The chicken nuggets make a daily appearance at the table too, for Aidan.

Our dedicated dining staff who took care of us were wonderful too - Oleks from Ukraine and Sumi from Indonesia (from Bali!) Oleks makes the best recommendations on the daily selection and he was right - the beef, grouper, ribs and dessert dishes he chose for me were tops! He even sent dessert to our cabin when I was feeling too tired for dinner one evening. Sumi makes the most amazing puppet creatures out of cloth napkins, sending Aidan into fits of laughter each time.

2 of the dinners on the cruise were designated Elegant Dining nights. Guests had to be formally attired, which meant no jeans for guys. Needless to say, our travel wardrobe wasn't catered for these rules and when we saw people dressed to the nines in suits, ballgowns and tiaras, we shyly hid in the buffet room where it was casual dining still. When Oleks and Sumi missed us on the first Elegant Dining night, they kept encouraging us to just come for the second one, nevermind our dressing. They made us feel at ease (Oleks even helped by pooh-poohing at the other overdressed guests) and served up a great dinner as usual.

With Sumi & Oleks

We're suffering withdrawal symptoms from the good food and great service already. Thankfully, food in Colombia is muy delicioso and not expensive, so we're exploring new eating options here. But more on that later!