While waiting for sis to come, I was standing at Citystate Holiday booth outside shokudo promoting royal caribbean cruise holidays (which is their niche). There came a young saleslady who handed me a brochure, telling me i should book now for the year-end cruise cos it's cheaper to book now than later.

I took a look at the price and found out booking through the internet is cheaper (http://www.royalcaribbean.com/). I told her this, and she said: "Booking through the internet is abit confusing. Furthermore, if you book through us, we'll get the tickets and vouchers ready for you."

I went personally to its website before and realised it was pretty easy to book online, and much more convenient, rather than having to go down personally to the travel agency. Plus, why should we bother about tickets and vouchers since technology enables us to go "ticketless," or what we normally refers to as "e-ticket?"

Next question I asked, even though I knew of the size roughly: "How big is the ship?"

The salesgirl replied: "It's a bit smaller than superstar virgo, but all meals are included in the price. So it's pretty worth it."

I think she really has a big problem. By saying that, does she mean superstar virgo or any other cruise ships don't provide meals at all?

Personally, I feel she could have cited that "Royal carribean cruise offers more in terms of facilities. It boasts of an ice skating rink and rock climbing wall that superstar virgo doesn't have." But of course bearing in mind that she should use this to someone like me, cos I'm still young =) Cannot apply the same sentence to oldies keke. In fact, those who would choose royal carribean is really intending to vacation, instead of those aunties seeking gambling. And aunties are more likely to stick to star cruises because they are familiar with the ship (resistance to change) and they can earn points to redeem cabins!

Next I took a look at the arrival time into singapore and shot another question. "I could see that the arrival time into singapore at the end of the trip is so early at 0700am. Do we have to get down the ship immediately? I'm afraid I can't wake up that early."

She replied: "Oh usually they disembark passengers according to deck numbers. So all in all it may take up to 3 hours to clear all passengers."

Actually I got another question popping up in my mind, but I just don't wanna be over difficult. "What if I'm the unlucky passenger staying on the deck that needs to disembark first?"

But I switched to asking: "Oh, cos I'm afraid that we may have to check out like say, for e.g., 1-hour before ship's arrival time, that is 0600 am. Then that will be really difficult for me."

Again she doesn't answer my question to the point. Instead she replied: "Oh, you can leave your luggage outside of the cabin the night before you arrive, but of course you have to keep some change of clothes in your cabin."

FAILED!

It's really so exciting to see how people handle sales sia. But when it comes to my turn, i'll make blunders as well. However, that salesgirl really needs to have more product knowledge. Without it, difficult lah!

Then while still waiting for sis, I saw an old lady approaching them. She asked for more pictures. Another salesgirl could say in front of the old lady "aiyo y all de brochures not much pictures one?" Her colleague told her to use the laptop in front of her. She just ignored and searched high and low hoping for brochures with more pictures. Lol.