Day 2 on the boat started with a much needed sleep in. I will say man I sleep good on a boat. That very very slight rocking must work for me. When we finally got up we headed down to get some breakfast as we wouldn’t be arriving in Penang until 2.30 we had a lot of relaxing time which was great. We were wandering around the ship when we bumped into Melvin who is one of the people I have been chatting to online. It was great to meet him in person.
At 10 we went to Trivia and did pretty well..we missed the first question from chatting to Melvin but still got 12 correct. The winners only got 16. Anthony also was the only one that got the question “What is the only animal that has been scientifically proven to laugh and have a sense of humour”. I will put the answer down a bit in . . . 3 . . 2 . . 1 . . The answer is a rat.
It took us until 2pm to start getting into Penang. We spent the time eating some food, sleeping on the deck chairs on our balcony and hiding some more ducks around the ship. We got to see a show in the 2 70 venue showcasing their robot screens. There are 6 robot arms and each one costs 1 million. Michelle (cruise director) said that this venue costs more then Royal Caribbeans first ship, which is crazy to think about.
Then at about 2pm we docked in at Penang. We went upstairs to get a good view of the city as we were docking.
By about 2:30 we were ready to get off the ship and it was so crazy stepping off and seeing the actual size of this ship. It is so big, you don’t realise when you are in it. We stopped of course to take a couple of photos.
As you get into the actual city you have to run a gauntlet of Taxi companies, there were people everywhere trying to get you to book a tour. We just kept walking through everyone. Towards the end some guy asked us again and we said we made it this far so we don’t need a taxi and he just laughed and said “Just keep walking! You’ve got this!”
Our first stop was the Chew Jetty which was about a 1.2km walk from the cruise terminal. The Chew jetties are heritage listen and the form a part of a residential neighborhood called the Clan Jetties within the city of George Town which is the old town in Penang. The Clan jetties comprises seven wooden villages lining the coast each owned by residents of a specific Chinese clan – Ong, Lim, Chew, Tan, Lee, Mixed Clan and Yeoh jetties. The chew jetties are the most touristy ones to go and look at. The houses and shop are all along a jetty and it was odd to look at. There are heaps of shops and restaurants here to look at too.
After exploring the jetties it was time to do Amy’s own devised UNESCO World Heritage/Street Art tour. George Town, Penang was once an important part of the Straits of Malacca trading hub. The city is known for its British colonial buildings, Chinese shophouses and mosques. As well as old heritage buildings Georgetown is full of street art. My favourite ones were the hand painted ones on concrete. The streets of George town were so busy and it was super hot but we made the most it.
The other really cool thing we found on our walk was the old Penang fire station. This firestation was completed in 1909, it was the first on Penang Island to be run by dedicated fire-fighters. It is still used today and is a really beautiful building.
We explored some of the buildings and found a cat shop which was great to look around. We were getting tired so we decided to head back to the ship.
We had dinner in the main dining room again which was amazing. We got swapped into literally the best 2 servers ever. Our main waiter was Kudzanai who is from Zimbabwe and our assistant waiter was Ryan from the Phillipines. These 2 were literally the best, so friendly and entertaining and absolute pleasure to dine with. We have requested to move into their area every night. I am really enjoying cruising.