fruit carving | Here Comes The Planet

One of the best things about staying at an Asian resort is the breakfast buffet.

The buffet at our resort starts at 6:30 and our body clocks are several hours behind Thai time, which meant we are usually first seated in the best spot in the ‘adults only’ zone by 7am.

The food that Jess and I choose is a venn diagram with almost no overlap. Jess chooses a selection of toasts and jam then a bowl of yogurt and porridge, while I go for curry, eggs, bacon, salad, rice noodles…. literally a bit of everything else.

The coffee and tea cups at resorts are always tiny so I took one of my keep cups so I could make a bigger drink. It has the added benefit of being able to make a coffee then take it away and put it in the bar fridge in the room (I like cold coffee) for later in the day.

After the first few of days of buffet madness (first breakfast at 6:30 then second breakfast at 10:00 after yoga) , we’ve taken pity on our stomachs and slept in for longer and gone for only one breakfast today.

Our package with Luxury Escapes includes the daily breakfast, two other meals during our stay, two massages each, plus one free-flow cocktail hour every day. There’s two cocktail hours to choose from, one from 3-4 at the pool outside our room, and one from 6-7 near the main restaurant.

Map of the resort with our room where the red arrow points. The dark blue in the centre is a lake, not a pool. The aqua wing is where most of the families are most of the time. The resort is really well set out and keeps he kids

We’ve done most of our cocktail hours at the bar near our room, not only because it’s convenient, but also because we’ve become friendly with the bar staff there. They are very lively and we talk to one of the guys, Ton, who helps us learn Thai. So far we have mainly learned how to order a drink and explain how many drinks will lead to us being sick.

Cocktails aside, We did a language class on our second full day and Gabriel, the teacher, took us through some basic Thai phrases.

We have been practicing phrases and adding to our notes. Thai people are very kind and encouraging about us using as many words as we can.

We have done two yoga classes and also a fruit carving class!

We made tomato roses, cucumber leaves and carrot… tulips? The carrot was the hardest. Tomorrow we’re going to take the tiny carving knives that we were given as part of the class to breakfast and do the Michelin plate challenge, which is where you try to plate up buffet food to look like it came from a fancy restaurant. Then you get a member of staff to judge which is best.

Jess’ highlights so far:

Mango pudding

Warmer pool water (it was kind of cold when we first arrived)

Learning Thai, doing yoga and fruit carving

Having food made for her!

Our first full day aboard. We filled in the room service card the night before and were impressed by the gigantic quantity of tea and coffee delivered. We also had some fruit, a danish and yogurt.

The ‘Princess Patter’ newsletter is delivered each evening for the next day, so we ticked off a list of things to do. The first two full days of the voyage were at sea so there was plenty of time to fill. We managed to fit in:

A fruit carving demonstration.

A very interesting and informative talk on the bay of islands.

A Poi demo. No photos as I was too busy joining in:-) . While I was doing that Luke got us coffee from the ‘best’ coffee place on the ship. It was not good, but it wasn’t filter coffee. If you love coffee and you’re going on this cruise maybe bring some chocolate coated coffee beans or something because the coffee onboard is 2/10. Just don’t bother – and I’m not even a proper Melbournian coffee snob.

For our 6pm meet up I grabbed a selection of cheeses from the buffet and we enjoyed them with our drinks at the Wake View.

In the evening there was a 50s night at the piazza so Luke and I hit the dance floor. Michael took a video but I don’t think I have time to load it today. Here’s a pic of the piazza though.

Westfield vibes… but it also reminds me of the inside of a geode. The ship is so plain on the outside but the inside is like a glittering crystal.

After getting quite hot from dancing, Luke and I headed to the top deck for a spa and found one that was unoccupied. The pool level is kid-central during the day, but in the evening it was very quiet. A lovely way to end our first full day onboard!