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Cruising with ‘angklung’
For the kids: Passengers enjoyed a carnival on the Voyager of the Seas featuring, among others, Shrek and Fiona
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span class="inline inline-center">For the kids: Passengers enjoyed a carnival on the Voyager of the Seas featuring, among others, Shrek and Fiona. JP/Kornelius PurbaPT Pazia Pillar Mercycom, the distributor of Acer computers, recently invited top computer retailers for a five-day cruise. The Jakarta Post’s Kornelius Purba also joined the event. The following is his report from the trip.
The romantic and dreadful scenes in the film Titanic were in the minds of some passengers while they boarded the Voyager of the Seas, the world’s fourth-largest cruise ship.
The recent incident with an Italian cruise vessel was even more vividly remembered by some of those anxious passengers.
The Costa Concordia capsized in January of this year when its captain, Francesco Schettino, recklessly brought the vessel too close to the shore near the island of Giglio in Italy.
But, any anxiety disappeared after passengers heard the voice of Captain Charles Teige welcoming them through loudspeakers. We were in safe hands during our voyage, which took guests from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and Phuket in Thailand before sailing back to Singapore.
Voyager of the Seas is operated by Royal Caribbean International and can carry 3,114 passengers. More than 1,100 crew members work on the ship. Built in 1999, and weighing 142,000 tons, the ship is 1,020 feet long and 158 feet wide.
I was lucky because my room featured a bay window, which I shared with an enthusiastic TV cameraman.
The first day of the trip started from the newly built Singapore International Cruise Terminal, just a few hours after arriving in the city-state from Jakarta. After attending the mandatory emergency safety drill, passengers dined at the Windjammer Café located on the 11th floor. There was a lot of variety on the menu, including Indian and European selections. A formal dinner was served later in the La Boheme Dining Room.
Food and beverages at the designated restaurants are part of the package, but room service and alcohol are at your personal expense, with guests required to register with a credit card or cash deposit. The price of a glass of red wine was about US$8. Liquor was also available at the duty-free shop.
Passports were also held by the ship’s organizer during the trip for safety and comfort reasons.
In the evening, the crews performed a “DreamWorks” characters festival. Many children and even adults were excited to see the likes of Shrek and Fiona, Po the Lungful Panda, and Jack the Lion.
The next morning we arrived in Kuala Lumpur where there was a shore excursion planned. The organizers took us to two boring destinations: To buy chocolate at a local shop and to shop at a mall.
The atmosphere during the second night on the ship was cheerful because various kinds of entertainment was available. The ship provided so many games, diversions and sports facilities that there was almost no reason to get bored, of course without thinking about the financial consequences.
Some passengers, including elderly couples, spent much of their time (and of course their money) at the casino or playing bingo. They were lured by the offer of a bingo prize, where “for just $5 you have a chance to win $1,500,000”.
At the casino, one could be tempted by the chance “to win an estimated jackpot of over $420,000”.
We arrived in Phuket on the third day. The main purpose was to enjoy the Phuket Simon Cabaret performed by transgender artists.
I regret not adhering to the advice of my roommate “not to follow the official tour” and go around the city alone instead, as there was no opportunity to visit the famous Patong Beach. Phuket offers many attractive destinations and entertainment options, and clearly many more than what tourists can get in Bali.
The approximately 600 Indonesian passengers on the cruise were the guests of Pazia, the distributor of Acer in Indonesia. They were able to attend having won rewards for surpassing their sales targets, which, according to a shop owner from Jakarta, “should be able to sell more than 300 computers per month to get one ticket.”
Pazia president director Yuliasiane Sulistyawati claimed Acer has become the country’s best selling computer in the last seven years, and to maintain the achievement various rewards are provided to its stop sellers.
On day four, the Indonesian passengers brought Indonesian bamboo instruments to the La Scala Theater because Yuliasiane wanted to try and create an “angklung world record performance” on a cruise ship.
The founder of Museum Rekor Muri, Jaya Suprana, was present to “baptize” the record. The ship’s captain also played the angklung when the participants played one of boy band West Life’s popular songs.
“We want to promote our rich and diversified cultural heritage to the world. The company does not only think about profits,” Yuliasiane said.
Jaya made a strange comment in his opening remarks, apparently because his organization had attended hundreds of record-breaking events before and he was confounded to say something unique. And it was at the cost of the master of ceremonies, who was apparently transgendered.
“This is the first time I have attended a ceremony where the sex of its MC is unclear,” Jaya joked.
Pazia also invited popular talk show host and motivator Paulus Winarto. His fresh ideas were enlightening, but unfortunately Paulus, who was born in Papua, made at least two rather racist jokes abut Papuans.
Later the ship harbored and the cruise ended on its fifth day back in Singapore.
