Royal Caribbean Cruise (Part 1) : Legends of the Seas

On Monday, I was with 40 other omy.sg bloggers, all excited to go on board the Royal Caribbean Cruise - Legends of the Seas for a preview of the cruise ship.

The 40 of us will blast the Singapore readers with photos and videos of what we saw on the ship. Are you excited?


We were at the Singapore Cruise Centre at 10 AM.
It's the time when you can read on twitter people complaining about the Monday blues.

For the 40 of us, we were not complaining. We were looking forward to the Monday Blue. The Blue from the Royal Caribbean logo! Who knows, maybe on the ship, we might all dance to the blues!




We are all not 'paid' to do this. We were only required to write about our experience on board the ship. We got a free lunch thrown in and they will pick 10 most interesting posts from the 40 bloggers to go on a real cruise!

We were there for a few hours only, so we can't possibly cover everything that's on board this huge ship. We had 4 hours on the ship. By 2 PM, we are to get off the ship. The paying guests will be arriving and going for a luxurious cruise!

After getting off the cruise preview, I took a cable car ride to take a photo of this cruise ship. If you have taken the ferries to Batam/Bintan, you can see compare the size of this ship beside the ferries. The photo above is to show you how big the Legends of the Sea is!




The Legends of the Seas has 11 levels of food and entertainment! Entertainment for children includes kid's room, game machines, etc.

You think there are people who take a cruise so that they can exercise without being disturbed? Maybe! There's a gym fully equip with all the machines you need! There's also a mini golf area on board.

For food lovers, you can eat non stop. I will show you some of the food places you can eat in the next 2 posts.

I have not board any cruise ship before, so I was quite excited.




It look like a floating hotel doesn't it?




They have musicians entertaining us as well. I took a video of them playing. I will load them up later.
The music they play I was told will be the music of the destination the cruise ship will be going to!




Keeping you hydrated are all sorts of drinks.




Some drinks are already paid for in the price of the ticket, some need additional payment.




Did I mention all sorts?
Oh, yes, I did. All sorts of alcoholic drinks too!




All from the different drink points all over the ship.




Oh, you want to pose as a drunken sailorman, you can!




If you would rather eat ice cream and sit on the deck chairs like these tourist (pictured below), you can too! The photo below was taken around 4 pm. These folks are lucky to be on board such a nice ship!




For the introduction to the ship, you might want to visit Walter's blog entry. He has done a good job describing it. My dear friend and fellow food blogger Camemberu has also got an entry with a cheeky photo as well. Take a peek here.

Some of my other blogger friends who joined me with the cruise has also blogged about it.
Ed: the Daddy Blogger,  MaryAnn: The Mummy and Photographer and Eunice: the lady behind TravelerFolio It was great to meet up with them. By the way, one of them and I share the same birthday!

I will just focus on food photos without much commentary.
Part 2 and 3 will be all about food!

Part 1: Legends of the Seas
Continue to Part 2: Windjammers
Continue to Part 3: Romeo and Juliet

Royal Caribbean Cruise (Part 2) : Windjammers

Part 2: Windjammers.

Windjammers is the buffet restaurant on the cruise.



I will show you some photos of what's inside this restaurant.



The first thing we saw when we entered was this Thai Statue.



What a nice touch. Fruit carving welcoming guest on board!



We only had 5 minutes of so to 'walk through' the restaurant, so here are only some quick snaps.



Lots of people heading to the coffee flasks!
They are serving Seattle's Best. (Singapore folks, if you are like Momo who like Seattle's Best, you can get them from Burger King now!)










You can have the indoor seating with the comfort of air conditioining.
(nearer to the food too)




Or you can take a seat in the open air area, to enjoy the warm sea breeze.



Back to Part 1: Legends of the Seas
Part 2: Windjammers
Continue to Part 3: Romeo and Juliet

Royal Caribbean Cruise (Part 3) : Romeo and Juliet

Part 3: Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet was our last stop and the stop we were waiting for.
We were all tired and hungry and we want food!



The kind folks from the Royal Caribbean invited us for lunch here.



It was refreshing just to get in here.
All of us were wishing we were really on a cruise! We sure want to live like these for a few days.



We were divided into 4 groups to 'conquer' the ship. This was part of my group.
We were the first group to arrive!

Alas, this was not the Amazing Race, so we did not win any cruise for being the first to arrive!





Our lunch menu.




Red or White, your choice.







For each table, there were two serving staff serving.
If you need anything, ask them!




This (should be) Singkarn.





Of the many choices on the bread basket, I picked the sliced loaves.
Then I noticed, hey, we were served poppy seed bread!

Did you all know, you can't get poppy seeds in Singapore? It is illegal to sell them. So we don't get this bread in Singapore. Come on board the cruise if you want to eat it!

*** Appetizers ***

The Shrimp Cocktail Royal.




Asian Style Chicken Soup




Caesar Salad.

*** Entrees ***

Shrimp Ravioli




Lamb Shank with Rosemary




Chef's Halibut

*** Dessert ***

Ivory Chocolate Fondue



That ends our tour of the Royal Caribbean Cruise - Legends of the Seas.
Thank you omy.sg for getting us on board the cruise.




Back to Part 1: Legends of the Seas
Back to Part 2: Windjammers
Part 3: Romeo and Juliet

600 calories or less meal: Ananda Bhavan Vegetarian Restaurant

This was an invited food tasting session courtesy of the Singapore Health Promotion Board. 

Here's Destination No. 5:
Ananda Bhavan Vegetarian Restaurant (Near Mustafa)




The final destination for the day's outing was to Ananda Bhavan Vegetarian Restaurant in Little India. If you are wondering where it is, it's just beside Mustafa.




I did not know that fried bee hoon has so many calories!
For a meal with less than 600 calories, you get a portion of this brown rice bee hoon with mixed veggies and a side dish.




If you do not like bee hoon, try the wholemeal chapatti.
Two very big pieces of chapatti and two side dishes.




The tasting portion here was for us to try it out.
I particularly liked the cauliflower curry. It was very appetizing and it goes well with the chapatti. The palak paneer, I like it without the paneer (cottage cheese).  I like palak (spinach) only. Ya, my taste buds is a bit different.

For the brown rice bee hoon, it was very peppery. If you like peppery food, you will like it, if not you will be wanting to drink lots of water to cool down your tongue.


Ananda Bhavan Vegetarian Restaurant
95 Syed Alwi Road
Singapore 207671

*******

That ends our food tour. A big thank you to the Health Promotion Board for educating us.
If you want to know more about Eating Healthy or Living Healthy, here are some options:

For Facebook addicts:
You can 'like' the HPB page and get informed of how to keep yourself healthy. They also inform their fans about the different activities they have. 'Like' http://www.facebook.com/hpbsg now!

For iPhone, Android phone addicts:
If you are looking for an App that has calories count of our local delicacies, HPB has created an app for us! HPB DietTracker is now available for free! If you are an iPhone user, click here to go to the Apple App Store. If you are using other phones, download the Java App here.

600 calories or less meal: O'Briens at SGH

This was an invited food tasting session courtesy of the Singapore Health Promotion Board. 

Here's Destination No. 4:
O'Briens at Singapore General Hospital




We were quite surprised that we were brought to the hospital for food tasting! Are we going to get so clinical about counting calories? ( I sound lame?)

It was not hospital food that we were tasting. It was O'Briens Lower Calorie Specials.

The healthier options were either the wholemeal sandwich or the wholemeal pasta salad with a box of fruits.




The wholemeal pasta salad served was huge! That's a normal size fork. (Take a fork out to compare if you want to know the size) If you are a small eater, I would recommend that you share it with another person.

I am not an 'olive eating' person, so I did not eat any olives. Although it was wholemeal pasta, it did taste quite pleasant. If you are not used to wholemeal food, try eating a few mouths first, your taste-buds would get to like it. After that, you can probably wallop it all. The dressing is a bit too oily for me. (Probably because I usually have my salads naked! i.e. no dressing)




If you are more of a bread person, this cranberry sauce with turkey breast ham is nice.
After eating at 3 places before coming here, I was full and did not want to have anymore food. But after tasting 1 triangle of the sandwich, I took another one! I like the mixture of savoury and sweetness is rather pleasant.




The big box of cold cut fruits was an absolute delight. We asked the HPB folks: "There's so much fruits, won't it exceed the 600 calories limit?" No, they replied. But to keep to the 600 calories, no coffee or tea.

The 4 bloggers were busy eating the fruits and taking photos but we noticed something. (Since the last stop,) the nutritionists stopped touching their food. Have they been counting calories and stop eating when their quota was reached? Or they are shocked at how we can eat so much?



O'Briens (SGH Outlet)
1 Hospital Drive
Singapore 169608

600 calories or less meal: Cafe Pralet

This was an invited food tasting session courtesy of the Singapore Health Promotion Board. 

Here's Destination No. 3:
Cafe Pralet at Eng Hoon Mansions



Our third destination was to Cafe Pralet by Creative Culinaire at Tiong Bahru.
The cafe's opened by Chef Judy Koh who also has a baking school next to it.

Chef Judy Koh's personal assistant welcomed and was our hostess for the leg of the makan tour. I remembered her proudly telling us, whatever they teach to their students next door, they sell it here at the cafe. It's a testimony to the students that whatever they learn, the recipes are all products that can be sold and it's popular by the cafe's customers.

Oh, for those who follow this blog, do you remember I decorated a cake here before?



We were there to try the Lower Calorie Meals served. We are not suppose to be tempted by the other gorgeous cake and desserts they sell!

No GST and service charge here folks!



We had the Fresh Vegetables Sauteed Mushroom with Crisp Wholemeal Panini.
This was a meatless dish, so it's suitable for vegetarians.

The wholemeal panini was really crispy, I was hallucinating that I am eating keropok! You know the crunchy noise you hear when you eat keropok? If it is really keropok, it would be probably the healthiest and nutritious wholemeal keropok ever! The vegetables between the panini had a nice crunchy texture too. It's a nice mix of veggies and sauteed mushrooms.



What was particularly nice (and I want to eat some now as I type) was the wholemeal olive oil cake!
Made from organic wholemeal flour, fresh unsweetened orange juice and olive oil, it was really light and fluffy. It's like chiffon cake and cotton candy combined.

Chef Judy said they don't add any preservative or additives to their food. They are a baking school, so they use the various baking techniques to make it possible.



For our sampling size, we got the mini panini and mini wholemeal orange olive oil cake. How 'romantic' to be served a heart shaped panini!

With the nutritionists beside us, we only touched the mini portions. 



Coffee for those who need their caffeine boost. A few folks with us just had to have their coffee break.
If you are wondering, a cup of coffee with sugar has around 85 calories. :-)

The set meal costs $12.80



Cafe Pralet
Eng Hoon Mansion #01-03/04
17 Eng Hoon Street
Singapore 169767

Tel: 6324 1663