Hello, I blog!

I was on a short cruise trip with my parents and Dayna last weekend on board Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas.

It was a fantastic trip on the whole – excellent weather (which we totally lapped up by spending more than half our time on board on the top deck), free-flow desserts (ooh-la-la) and excellent company.

More on the trip later in a second blog post. Today, I’d like to share about this little impromptu project I was up to while I was on board, which I call #onboardpostitproject.

After boarding the ship, I suddenly became curious about the livelihood of the crew who worked on board. I had some free time in between and thankfully, 3G connection (was still in Singapore’s waters then) so I managed to read up a little online.

Was pretty disheartened to discover about the cramped living conditions (below the waterline, no less) and the long hours put in by the lower-ranked crew (particularly the housekeeping and dining room crew) and began racking my brains about how I could minimally, add a smile to their day while I was on board.

The post-it project came about randomly as I was walking down the long corridors to our stateroom. Initially, I thought of pasting random post-its on my fellow travellers’ doors to say hello. Then, I decided it’d be too creepy. Then, I remembered what I read earlier that day and realized, hey – why not direct some of those cheerful/funny messages at them instead?

Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur on Day 2 – I began my mission of scouting around for post-it notes and markers. Seached several stationery stores in The Pavilion but to no avail. Daiso eventually came to my rescue when we were at Sungei Wang (another shopping mall).

Back on board the ship later that day, armed with a stack of post-it notes and a packet of markers, I gleefully set about #onboardpostitproject.

Not all the post-its are documented, unfortunately. About 3 of them were left unphotographed because I forgot. And I was “testing the waters” with the first couple of post-its, so I just stuck them on … and scooted off quickly (just in case anyone saw me).

The first target was obviously, our stateroom. I’m pretty sure our housekeeper laughed when he saw this.

Not sure if the housekeeper would get the pun of this one, but I thought it was funny anyway.

Our bed came with a total of four pillows, but Dayna requested an extra one on the first night – so she had three while I had two.

Upon returning from our ground excursion on the second day, we returned to our room to find that the extra pillow had been put on the wrong side of the bed. (She was pretty upset about it. Haha.)

Our sides have already been labelled (i.e. “Brenda’s side” and “Dayna’s side”), so I added the second post-it on Dayna’s side indicating that she’s the one who needed the extra pillow.

The next day, the pillow went back to the correct side.

A different “good night” message every night was stuck on our door, to greet anyone that walks by. I hope I made some people on Deck 7 smile with this.

This was the only one of the three ‘good night’ post-its I documented – forgot to photograph the rest. :(

Snuck this post-it on the housekeeping trolley as I passed it the next day. Housekeeping is hard work, thanks for doing it for us. (:

The note I left at Starbucks, Langkawi. Unfortunately, the lattes on board the ship were a little too tasteless for my liking, and I was craving a Starbucks badly. Needless to say, Starbucks made me beyond happy.

There was this private dining section at Windjammer Cafe which was cordoned off, but a staff member decided to let us sit at this private area after he witnessed us struggling to find seats.

The private area came with a fantastic window view of Langkawi and loads of peace and quiet. Happy people, we were.

Upon boarding the ship on Day 1, I observed how everyone in the lift was pressing the wrong thing and remarking how the buttons “didn’t work”. The floor indications did look like a button, just imagine the confusion.

So I tacked this on for the laughs. (And hopefully, to send an implicit message that their lift’s button panel has bad, bad usability issues. :P)

We returned to our rooms every day to find a new towel art. The day before, we had an elephant and now, a monkey suspended on a hanger above our beds. (Pretty darn cool.)

Dayna’s favourite animal is the panda, so we left our housekeeper (Zhi Guo) a challenge on a post-it. Would he take it up? (;

We walked into our stateroom the next day to discover that it was indeed game on – Zhi Guo had accepted our challenge!

Not only that, he left the CUTEST MESSAGE EVER. This guy has an amazing sense of humour.

We were also amused by how he had drawn his panda to look exactly like mine. :P

Just before leaving our room for dinner, I tacked on additional post-its on Zhi Guo’s masterpiece to form the panda’s eyes and mouth. (Still doesn’t quite look like a panda but hey.)

Later on, we bumped into Zhi Guo on the way back to our room. He grinned and made a remark about how the panda was now a lot cuter than before. We had a good laugh together.

Then, we reached our rooms to find that he had repositioned the panda to the small table beside Dayna’s side of the bed. (Whoa, it was almost as if he knew it was Dayna who wanted the panda!)

On the final night, we left this post-it for the two ladies who served us nightly in the dining room. (We had the same waitresses assigned to us every night.)

These additional “tip” envelopes were also left in our room on the second last day, supposedly for us to hand to any crew member who impressed us the most. Of course, it had to go to our wonderful housekeeper for being so sporting!

Unknown to us, my mum also tipped him on our behalf. And when she did, Zhi Guo had remarked to her “Your daughter is so cute! She keeps leaving notes for me in the room!” (That was what mum told me. :P)

#onboardpostitproject had to conclude when I disembarked, unfortunately. But well, I hope I have helped put a smile on some of the crew’s (and some fellow travellers too) faces.

Until next time!