TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

Over the past couple of years, I have become some kind of regular for cruises originating from Singapore to Penang (Georgetown) and Phuket. Thus, I seldom find the need to disembark during port days. Instead, I utilised the port days to swim in the pools onboard, when everyone else are on their show visits. After my swim, I will usually walk around the top deck (Deck 15 of Quantum Class ships) and enjoy the bird's eye views of the port and the surrounding areas. This photo I took with my mobile phone shows Georgetown as viewed from the top deck of Ovation of the Seas as the ship was berthed at Swettenham Pier. Bird's eye view of Georgetown as seen from Swettenham Pier, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia (2026)  

I visited Penang again in March 2024 when I took a cruise which had a stopover at the Swettenham Pier in Georgetown . Due to the relatively short stopover of only around half a day,  I only disembarked to walk around the pier area to take photographs of the cruise ship. Back to the ship at dusk, I was at Deck 15 and had a rather good view of the city when I spotted this photo opportunity of the setting sun.  Taken with my iPhone 15 Po Max , this is the view I witnessed onboard Spectrum of the Seas ' Deck 15 of Sunset over the City . 📸 Sunset over the City, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia (2024)

South-East Asia, Malacca Strait This article was originally published in this blog in July 2022 as one of my Trip Recollections articles. The article reminisced my first ever cruise trip and also my first ever visit to Penang's Georgetown as part of the cruise ship's port call. Even though this was a relatively short 3-nights regional cruise, I really enjoyed the trip. While I had since went on longer cruises including a 12-nights cruise from Yokohama to Singapore, this first cruise will always be fondly remembered as the one that "introduced" me to a cruise vacation.  A bucket list item well and truly checked.  ****************** I finally got to enjoy my first ever cruise experience. A short 4-days, 3-nights cruise from Singapore's Marina Cruise Centre to Penang's Georgetown in Malaysia onboard Royal Caribbean's Spectrum of the Seas. Deck 15 of Spectrum of the Seas, Royal Caribbean Cruise, Straits of Malacca (2022) Maybe it was my first time on a cru...