Day one was consumed with travel, David and I already flown from Alicante to Manchester and stopped overnight, we all (David and I, Graham and Diane) then left the hotel at 6am to board a very full Etihad flight to our first stop in Abu Dhabi. Two hours into the 8am flight, just as we were passing over the snow capped Alps, expecting breakfast, we were surprisingly served lunch, a tasty choice of chicken biryani or beef casserole.

The views from my window seat were spectacular, aqua blue seas, stacked white cloud formations, miniscule Aegean islands and tiny coastal villages that, in reality, were large cities but dwarfed by 35,000 feet of atmosphere with an outside temperature of -61c. At one point a red Turkish airline jet shot past us, below us going in the opposite direction, so close I could see its tailfin logo, yet if I had blinked at that moment, I wouldn’t have seen it!

First 7276 kms (3899 miles) done!

Coming into land at Abu Dhabi, we had to circle several times and were lucky enough to fly over the F1 race course!

The airport at Abu Dhabi is stunning, spacious, quiet, ful of glossy marble walkways and designer shops and restaurants, where a pint of lager was £11!! Time went very quickly and soon we were off on a bigger jet, the Airbus 380-800, sadly no free upgrades available 😢

Arrival at Singapore, another 3658 miles away, was quick and easy, bags arrived in a spacious bright well organised glass building and we were collected by a prebooked taxi and taken to our hotel for the next 36 hours. We were instantly hit by 28c but high humidity, we perspired but we coped!

Coming in to land at Singapore
View from the taxi
Clark Quay
The river boats
Such greenery!
Our hotel for the night
View from our hotel room.
One of the river bridges remind you of London bridges
Lots of iron statues around the city
Dusk skyline
Amazing architectural hotels
The famous Sands Resort
Old Parliament buildings are now an art museum

Singapore is Organisation Capital! Clean, green, spacious, tidy, quiet, pristine and fabulous!

We’ve walked to the business area, skirted along the hundreds of food bars in Chinatown, mooched along and lunched in Clarks Quay, witnessed the spectacular Marina Bay Sands Resort with its 150 metre rooftop overhanging pool, changing multitude of colours from dusk to night and walked a total of 15,000 steps around some of the the river quays, and we’ve all been totally surprised at the peace, structure and tidiness of such a big city. Its simply fantastic!!!!

Room service dinner, Australian wine and chilled beer in the room helped us cope with the +8 hour difference, ready to be collected the next morning and taken to the cruise port along with loads of other cruisers. By the end of the day, we were absolutely knackered and ready for a sleep!