Normally, we like to plan our own excursions but decided to take the lazy way out and do NCL excursions for this cruise. This excursion sounded interesting; we figured that spending a few hours on a boat was a pleasant way to spend a morning. We were to dock at 10 am and would be back on the ship in time for a late lunch. Or so we thought…

One of the advantages to being in a suite is that you are escorted off the ship by the staff, ahead of everyone else. So, if the port is a tender port, you meet at one of the suite restaurants and are taken on an elevator to one of the lower decks to board a tender. No tender ticket necessary, and you get on the tenders before any other passengers. If the ship is docked, you are escorted off the ship separately from everyone else. However, if you take a cruise line excursion, you must go to the theater with everyone else and wait for your excursion to be called. No advantage whatsoever if you book through the cruise line. Nice advantages if you book your own excursions. Seems backwards to me.

So, we headed down to the theater, only to be told we had not yet been cleared by the port authorities. Langkawi was supposed to be a port where we docked, but for some reason, we would be tendering instead. We waited for nearly two hours for our excursion to be called. By then, it was lunch time, and the tour hadn’t even started! We waited further to get on a tender, and then waited at the other end for an additional half-hour for the rest of our tour group to get off the tender boat. It was hot and by then, we were a bit crabby. We assumed (incorrectly) that since we were doing a boat trip that we would board the boat at the tender dock. Not so, we had to walk a long distance to get to a bus, and then it was another 45-minutes until we got to where the boats were located. Along the way, our tour guide regaled us with folk tales of Malaysia. We finally arrived at the UNESCO site where we would finally start the excursion.

Due to the size of the group, we were split into two separate groups. The guide told us we would be making several stops; first up was a fish farm. I am fairly sure there was no fish farm mentioned in the tour description. There was a restaurant attached and I was optimistic that there would be food involved since by now it was way past lunch time. No such luck. I did get to feed a stingray which was the highlight. Fish farms aren’t too exciting.

Next up was a stop to watch sea eagles. I think we call them seagulls, but I could be wrong! They come in two colors here and it was virtually impossible to get a decent picture from where I was seated. Incidentally, our guide told us we didn’t need life jackets; not sure there were any on board. We saw other boats with the passengers wearing life jackets, however.

Our final stop was at the bat caves. The best part of the stop was watching the monkeys that hung out by the entrance. The caves themselves were nothing too spectacular. There were some bats hanging out on the ceiling of the first cave. There was a spot to look at the mangroves and our guide gave us lots of fascinating information regarding the trees. Unfortunately, by then, I was too tired and hungry to bother taking notes so can’t pass along any information. To get through the second cave involved crawling through the opening. As we left, the guide pointed out mud fish on the shore. We saw lots more mangroves as we headed back to the pier.

By the time we got back to the boat, it was 5 pm. We decided to never take another NCL excursion – nothing was organized well, the excursion wasn’t really as advertised, and we had already seen the cities we were visiting. Instead, we would take advantage of being escorted off the ship by the concierge and her staff.