As we woke up at 9am, we were already at Phuket Island! The cruise arrived Phuket at 8am and most of the cruisers who joined the land tours have disembarked at 8:30am. We had our breakfast at Bella Vista; the restaurant was quieter than usual.
Unlike Penang, Phuket has a smaller port that is unable to handle big cruise ships like SuperStar Virgo. We had to transfer to a smaller ship to get to Patong beach. We arrived Patong, a popular tourist spot in Phuket, at about 11am. There were hundreds of market stalls lining the streets and beach selling bags, apparels, souvenirs and local food.
Patong Beach at a glance
My first impression of Patong is that it is a little over-commercialized, with touts everywhere we go. We were approached by many taxi drivers when we walked around the streets, some of them even followed us around. We didn’t see any regular meter taxi service here; most of them are unlicensed. We negotiated with one of them and we paid him SGD35 (800 baht) to drive us around Phuket until our departure at 5pm.
Me and Edison at Patong beach
Phuket is indeed a shopaholic’s paradise with a great variety of shopping, from bustling open-air village food markets, street stalls and local shops to western style department stores and up-market specialist shops. However, we didn’t shop much here. The items sold at the departmental stores are not cheap (the prices are even comparable to Singapore!). The quality of the products sold at the street stalls and local shops are not up to our expectations.
They have Robinson Shopping Center too!
We returned to our jetty at about 5pm, and then we boarded the smaller ship to our cruise ship. The wave was much stronger now and I can feel the ship swaying. I started to experience sea sickness; luckily I managed to endure till we reached our cruise in about 15 minutes. On the other hand, Little Edison seemed alright with my husband carrying him when we were on the ship.
This is the smaller ship that we board to our cruise ship
This is the picture of SuperStar Virgo, taken from this ship when we were approaching it.
The 13 deck SuperStar Virgo. Beautiful, isn’t it?
At night, we attended the Gala Dinner at Bella Vista restaurant. All the guests are required to dress formally to this dinner. The food was beautifully presented, wonderfully spiced and taste awesome. Forget about the kilos, we ate to our heart’s content!
Little Edison at the Gala Dinner, half an hour before he dozed off to Dreamland
Our Little Edison was super wiped out after the Phuket excursion and he dozed off the middle of the dinner. It was a busy and tiring day for all of us. All in all, I like Phuket for its simple and casual life – a perfect get-away from the hustle and bustle of city life!
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