Today, March 22, 2026 we will embark our cruise ship in Singapore by taking a taxi service from our hotel to the port. Once at the port, we will drop our bags off with the porters then get in line to check in. We always bring our carry on luggage with us. Luggage does occasionally get misplaced on the port and we want to have enough to get by for a couple of days if needed. Also, rooms are often not ready until later in the afternoon which means if we want to swim, or sit in the sun, we may need additional supplies.
We arrived at the port around 12:15 and we were through security and checked in within 30 minutes. Surprisingly, our room was ready immediately after boarding. We like to do a first look photo of our cabin because we know it will never look this way again once we set sail. Our luggage hadn’t arrived by 1 p.m.,so we stowed our carry-ons and completed our “muster” requirements. This is a pretty easy process these days, we simply have to watch a video then report to our lifesaving station to sign in.
Next we made our way to Good Spirits Lounge to listen to some live music and have our custom embarkation day drink, a “Dirty Banana”. This is our favorite cruise drink. We are planning to do a full ABC adventure of drinks while on board, so stay tuned for that update!
Cruising feels like it is synonymous with food. Following our drink, we headed to lunch at the buffet. About 700 people are joining the cruise at this port and most of the remaining 1300 passengers have disembarked for the full day stop in Singapore. As a result, the ship actually feels ghost like! Normally I say to avoid the buffet on embarkation day but the ship was so quiet we headed that way next.
There wasn’t much to do since we were still waiting for our bags, so we decided to disembark to mail some postcards, we had no idea this would result in 7 more miles of walking, bringing our Singapore total to over 35 miles in 5 days!
We were back on board by 5p.m. We found 2 of 4 pieces of our luggage had already arrived, the other 2 pieces had ended up in the “naughty room” so we had to go identify them and have them inspected. The item in question turned out to be nothing more than a jumbled set of cables, so the bag was released. By 6p.m. we finally began unpacking. We have this down to a science and are usually done within an hour, this time it took 2 hours because we started with the wrong cases. Alan is in charge of unpacking and setting up the main cabin, I am in charge of the entrance, closet and bathroom area. Our cases have been specifically packed into different “zones” so we can quickly move through the process. Alan gets entertainment, office/vanity, the food area and our bedsides, while I am in charge of setting up our communication zone, first aid/medical area, emergency items, the bathroom and unpacking of all the clothing. Having finally achieved “elite” status, meant we had a fully stocked mini bar upon arrival. Because this is part of the world cruise, we were also given some very nice swag including 2 umbrellas, a tote, bookmarks, luggage tags and a rubber duck
At around 6 p.m. we met our cabin steward, who is called Rupert, he is from India. He would soon become our morning smile and our evening relaxation guru. We asked, as we always do, for extra hangers, ice in the ice bucket and spare towels. We handed him a beginning tip, hoping to show our gratitude for all that these hard working crew members do. We had also brought a gift from Traverse City…cherries, chocolate covered cherries and cherry sours.
At 8 p.m we finally ate dinner. Tonight was Mongolian night at the buffet. It was amazing! Now we were free to explore the rest of the ship. The Coral Princess is the sister ship to the Island Princess, so it feels very familiar to us.
Our departure from Singapore wasn’t until 11pm. The evening entertainment was typical for most embarkation days, a comedian. They usually tell the same jokes about “too small shower stalls”, so we decided to skip the performance.
World Cruisers tend to be an older crowd. Passengers normally disappear to bedrooms by 9p.m., tonight was no exception! There were only a handful of guests on the top deck to bid goodbye to the beautiful Singapore skyline. As we set sail towards Thailand, the lights of Singapore blinked behind us. I don’t know if or when we will ever be here again but I am satisfied that we have seen most of what we wanted to see. The next two days are sea days so things will go at a slower pace.
