6D5N Cruise on Royal Caribbean Quantum of the seas - Part 2

As promised, this post will talk about the rest of my cruise from 3rd day onwards with Royal Caribbean's new ship home ported in Singapore, Quantum of the seas. Read part 1 here.

Day 3 - Penang

On the 3rd day morning, I woke up to some views on the balcony. The ship is approaching Penang early in the morning at 8am.

Ship approaching Penang

At Penang swettenham pier

View of Penang from my room balcony

The ship arrived early at Penang while I was still preparing to go for breakfast. There is no fixed time which you need to go down the ship as its really just free and easy. I went down comfortably around 9am plus after breakfast.

Going down the ship was fuss free. There was no queue at all and within minutes, we're stepping on Penang's land already. This is the first time I've been to Penang so its quite a new experience for me.

Penang pier. Quantum of the seas ship on the left. 

If you did not know, Penang has this free CAT bus which is provided by their local government. The bus covers quite a lot of areas along Penang and is completely free. I took this bus for all the places I went. The frequency of the bus is quite good most of the time around 5-10 mins.

View of the ship from the pier

The view of the ship from the pier was extraordinary big. The siza of the ship is bigger than the pier itself! The free CAT bus has stops just outside the pier. Its only around 5 mins walk. The first place we wanted to go is Chew Jetty which I read online is one of the must visit places in Penang. Its just 3 bus stops away from the pier by CAT bus.

Chew jetty has this kampong like feel which is interesting to see the history of Penang back then.

After visiting Chew jetty, we went in search for the famous Penang cendol at Penang road. Before having the cendol, we also bought some local delicacies such as Tamban biscuits and snacks from Ban Heang. The tamban biscuits were not bad. This shop was near to the cendol place so its quite convenient.

We found the cendol shop in one of the alleys at Penang road and ordered 1 each plus some fried kway teow to share. We were still quite full from the breakfast on the ship.

They put duck egg on the fried kway teow which is quite unique. However, taste wise, I have tasted much better ones in Singapore though.

The rest of the morning was just roaming around Penang and some short foot massage before we headed back to the ship at around 2pm. Going back to the ship was easy also but there was security checks which went very fast. I'm not sure if there's any prohibited foods which cannot be brought onboard but all the snacks I bought passed through security without any problems. I did see a person who was holding a cup of fresh fruit and the security didn't allow that.

After days of eating, its time to shed some of those calories. I went to the gym and it was so empty. The gym is huge with many equipment to use. Lots of treadmill for running also. I think I counted about 20 treadmills available.

After gym, it was time for a late lunch as we were getting hungry. We only had Cendol and shared 2 plates of Char kway teow for 4 person.

There's food always available on the cruise. We went to cafe@Two70 where they had gourmet sandwiches available. We also went to Sorrentos pizza for some fresh slices of pizzas.

The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around and taking some short nap. This is cruise life, so relaxing. Soon, it was dinner time again at Silk restaurant.

The dinner had some Asian options with Thai curry and rice so it was good for my parents who were not so used to western cuisines. Its funny how their Asian choices actually tasted better than the western options. We ordered Coq Au Vin and the chicken was totally hard and dry. My steak was overdone also when I asked for medium. This was feedback to the restaurant staff and they were kind enough to offer their apology and send a fruit basket to each of our rooms. This I feel was a good gesture and thoughtfulness. When we went back to the restaurant again, they remembered us and asked if we received the fruit basket.

Fish with rice - Quite good

Thai fish curry - Not bad 

Coq Au Vin - Chicken Dish, meat was too hard and dry

Steak Diane - Steak was overcooked and totally dry

Some berries dessert. Very nice

Creme Brulee - My favourite

Tiramisu - Very strong liquor taste, extremely soft and nice

Fruit basket from the restaurant to apologise for the food quality

Day 4 - Phuket

On day 4, we arrived in Phuket early in the morning at around 7am. It a little more tricky at Phuket because the ship is tendered in the middle of the sea and we have to take a smaller ferry to the land itself.

They made an announcement that those who wish to get down the ship to Phuket island may do so before 8am to take advantage of the early tendering process. After 8am, we will need tender tickets to get down the ship.

For me, I didn't get down the ship before 8am. We still went for our breakfast as usual at the Windjammer and it was still very crowded. Guess everyone is not really in a rush to get down the ship also.

At 8am, they started to ask people to go and collect tender tickets. I went to collect tickets at around 8:30am and there was no queue at all. I took the ticket no 9 and in just 15 mins, we were called to proceed to the gangway to take the ferry to the main island. Process was very fast we were on the ferry in 5 mins and reach Phuket island in 15 minutes.

View of Phuket from my room balcony

View of the ship from the tender boat to Phuket

The pier which the tender boat stopped at

Reached Phuket Patong beach

First activity in the morning is to go for massage. I found a good massage place called Healthland massage but I underestimated the distance to go to that place. We took around 30 mins to walk all the way from Patong beach to the massage place.

After massage, we went to find lunch and proceeded to walk from the massage place towards jungceylon shopping centre. On the way, we saw a seafood restaurant which looks promising. They had some live seafood on display and price was reasonable too. We proceeded to have lunch there.

In the end, we ordered their set meal which consist of the following dishes: Lobster, prawns, shellfish, crab, pineapple rice and tom yum soap was included. The cost came up exactly at $100. The seafood is fresh as its all live so I think the price is really reasonable. Don't think we can get this kind of price back in Singapore.

After lunch, we walked all the way to jungceylon shopping centre as we were already nearby. Inside the shopping mall, there's nothing much to shop so we only bought some local snacks back. From the shopping mall, the walk back to the pier to take the ferry back to the ship was still quite far and the sun was really hot. We decided to take a taxi which cost $8 for a 5 mins ride. Their taxi is surprisingly expensive there.

We were back on the ship around 3:30pm. Many people were also heading back by this time even though the last time to take the ferry back is 7pm. For the rest of the afternoon, I went for a swim at Solarium as well as the indoor pool. Its always great to have a swim on the ship and its relaxing to soak in the hot tubs which is aplenty on this ship.

For dinner, I was allocated to Americon Icon grill restaurant this time as my reservation was much later at 8pm. The environment here is much brighter and noisier which I prefer the silk restaurant environment which is more calm and relaxing. I feel the service at the silk restaurant was much better also as the waiters were more friendly there. However, Americon Icon grill food was much better in my opinion. I'm not sure if it was because of the food on that day or they really have a different kitchen staff which was better.

Tomato soup - Not bad

Coconut shrimp - very nice

Almond crusted cod fish - This was the best dish I had on this cruise

Wild mushrooms risotto - Rich and creamy

Braised beef

Three Cheese Ravioli - A must try

Some banana caramel dessert - Super delicious

At the end of everyday, the housekeeping will fold some animals using a towel. On this particular day, they decided to fold a monkey hanging on a clothe hanger, quite funny actually.

Day 5 - Sea Day

The ship left Phuket around 8pm on day 4 and started sailing back to Singapore. The whole of day 5 is sea day which means everyone is on the ship and has nowhere to go. The ship is also the most crowded on this day.

True enough, breakfast at windjammer is really crowded but I still could find seats after awhile. The next activity is laser tag which is quite fun actually. I reserved my time slot at 10am and was able to get in within 10 mins. It was so fun I queued for it to play another round but had to wait close to an hour this time.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, going to the pool and solarium again and just enjoying the facilities the cruise had to offer. As this was the last night, they had a good theater performance called Sonic Odyssey. In my opinion, this was the best show for the cruise. They used all kinds of instruments in this musical including an Earth harp which is amazing.

After the Sonic Odyssey show, there was a vistarama fireworks party at Two70 lounge. Its a virtual fireworks party and they manage to make everyone so high and happy.

After this party, it was already 11pm. The next morning, we woke up early for breakfast before 7am and the ship is already at Marina Bay Cruise Centre. Getting off the ship was orderly as they already told us where to go according to our stateroom numbers the night before.

That's all for my 6D5N cruise on Royal Caribbean Quantum of the seas. To add on, I also had the surf and stream WIFI and it was good most of the time except for a few occasions when the WIFI disconnected. I guess this is normal while out at sea and I realised when it disconnects, its always during stormy weather. Other than that, the internet was fast and I was able to use whatsapp, surf the net and use Facbook without any problems though the internet doesn't come cheap at about $20 per day.

Will I go on the cruise again? Probably not unless I get bored of travelling and just want to relax again. There are many other countries I still want to explore so I might as well spend my money on more exotic travels in the future.

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Income & Expenses For Year 2019 - My Expenses Has Almost Tripled From 2015 to 2019

In just 1 weeks time, 2019 will come to an end and we will welcome a new year 2020. I have still been tracking my income and expenses on a monthly basis so I thought its good to do a self check on my financial health as the year comes to an end.

Over the years, my expenses have gone up as I decided to relax the tight budget which I used to keep back in 2015. In 2016, I wrote a post titled "The day I stopped tracking my daily expenses". Of course after that decision, my expenses started to go up and has almost tripled from 2015 to 2019.

Here's an overview of my expenses for the last 5 years:

In case you're wondering, in 2019, my expenses came up to be almost $23,000. I'm not sure if mine is considered high or low expenses in Singapore but to me this expense is still a manageable one. No matter what expenses we have, the most important thing is we do not spend more than we earn and still have savings for the future. For me, the higher expenses is a result of a conscious decision to spend more.

Does spending more money makes me happier? I think it actually does. I've felt less restrictive towards spending money than how I was 5 years back. I would eat out at restaurants more often, buy gifts for people more generously and go for more overseas trips etc. I managed to go Japan this year which is a place I've always wanted to go. Even though the cost is not low for a Japan trip, but still it was worth every cent.

However, due to my savings habit which I had since young, it was a struggle for me to increase my expenses initially. I was sort of constantly worried if I would be ok if I spend more but always at the end of the year when I do my financial health check, I would still have quite a substantial sum of savings. I always remind myself every year that its ok to spend a bit more to remind myself to live life to the fullest.

Having more income helps in this journey of increasing expenses while still accumulating savings for financial independence. I would honestly say I have worked harder this year than any other year after I changed jobs and taking on more projects and responsibilities in order to get better work performance which leads to higher pay and promotion. Unfortunately, it has lead to some health issues such as insomnia and migraine headaches which I had to see a neurologist recently and be on daily medication to control it for the time being.

Here's an overview of my income, other income and expenses:

Basic income comes from my full time job which I am currently in my third job now which I switched to back in Oct 2018. This has lead to higher basic income year after year. Other income has naturally dropped due to lesser time for this category because of the busyness of my full time job. Nevertheless, combined income has increase year after year due to higher basic income. I am still able to save more than half of my combined income as a result of this strategy.

I am still trying to increase my basic and other income as I feel there is still much room to grow. For basic income, I am targeting a promotion which hopefully I am able to get in 2020. This will bump up my basic income by a substantial percentage else the normal increment will be around 3%-4% only. For other income category, I'm planning to increase my investments in stocks further. It is not easy to spot good stocks which are at a good price to invest in at current market conditions. Hope 2020 will present some opportunities for investment.

Moving forward in 2020, I expect expenses to go up further as I prepare for my big day in year 2020. My new house will come in 2020 also. Its going to be a busy year ahead. I realised I did not make any new year resolutions in 2018 for year 2019 but well, I think life still went relatively well for the year.

Hope your year went well too and may a better year come for all of us in 2020. Merry Christmas and Happy new year to everyone!

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