This was our fifth Celebrity cruise and ninth overall. We took two years to plan a big trip to celebrate my wife’s 50th birthday and our 15th wedding anniversary! To be fair, we only picked the cruise after we selected the destination (since we wanted to burn a ton of airline miles to fly Singapore First Class). It worked out that this 14-night round trip out of Singapore fit the bill perfectly.

It has always been our preference to arrive at our departure port at least a day early, in case of any flight delays or cancellations. We arrived into Singapore three days prior to the ship’s departure. This gave us plenty of time to explore this city-state. Though we were told that March is one of the best times to visit weather-wise, it was still plenty hot! Overall, the city was very clean, and easy to get around due to the world-class transit system. Wherever we went, we never felt unsafe and most everyone spoke English.

We stayed that the Conrad Singapore. Taxi ride from Changi Airport was about S$45. Uber and Grab (an Uber-like service particular to Southeast Asia) are also available. An absolutely stunning hotel, with a very short and easy walk to the MRT (subway). As we are Hilton Diamond members, breakfast was included with our room. They had the most amazing breakfast buffet we had ever seen in a hotel! Executive lounge was OK, the biggest complaint being that it was too small for the number of people eligible to use it (though they did make some accommodations by setting up a third buffet on the 4th floor, which was great). Staff were absolutely brilliant in their service. Read more