Hello and welcome to our look back at a recent cruise journey we enjoyed onboard the Celebrity Millennium, where we started at the port of Singapore, sailed up to Malaysia and Thailand before heading across the Indian Ocean and onto Sri Lanka and India where we finished at the city of Mumbai.

This adventure is often billed as the Spice Route due to the historic trading route that took ships between Europe, the Middle East and onto Southeast Asia.

From the off I should really say that if you want a relaxing holiday, where you can catch some sun and enjoy a stroll around fascinating ports, this isn’t the itinerary for you.

If you want an adventure where you simply must go with the flow sometimes and take things for what they are, this could be the choice for you as whilst offering some issues along the way, the rewards are certainly worth it.

So, without further ado, here is our look at our Spice Route adventure where we sailed from Singapore to Mumbai between November to December 2024.

We will take you through what we got up to, the issues we came across and our thoughts on all parts of the journey.

Our adventure started off at Manchester Airport, where we flew directly to Singapore’s Changi Airport with Singapore Airlines.

The flight is a long one, around 13 and a half hours for our trip but it is one me and my wife have taken before and one that is almost worth it.

Long term readers of this website will know all too well that the city state of Singapore is one of our favourite places on earth and despite not visiting since 2018, it still lived up to our lofty expectations.

We arrived at the Lion city on Thursday and would set sail on the Saturday, so all in all we had one afternoon and 1 full day before heading to the cruise terminal early on our third day there, which is far far too little time somewhere such as Singapore, where there is just so much to see, do and enjoy.

It probably sums up the city that one thing we really wanted to do when arriving at the airport was not to get away as quickly as possible, as is the case at every other airport we have been to, but we actually chose to stay.

That is because Changi International is actually a tourist destination in its own right and since we were last there, it has opened the impressive Jewel.

Technically, the Jewell is simply a shopping center that links 3 of main terminals at the airport but as someone who isn’t a fan of shopping at the best of time, never mind when on holiday, thankfully, it is so much more than that.

Its highlight is a huge waterfall that flows from the ceiling and down into an underground food court with the centre of the shopping centre been an open area, full of plants and seating areas and with several attractions including a glass walkway, rope walks and gardens.

As we landed early in the morning, we dropped our luggage off and then waited for the waterfall to be turned on for the day which is done with some pomp and ceremony and saw a big crowd turn up but we waited from high up in one of the roof top gardens, which offered a great vantage point.

From there, we would use the countries perfectly clean and cheap MRT system to jump from Changi to Orchard Road, where our hotel was located.

After checking into the Yotel Orchard Road hotel, which offers incredibly views from your room, we jumped on the MRT once again to firstly head to the cruise terminal, to take a look at Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas and then jumping back on the train to Marina Bay.

We took a short walk around the bay, visited the Merlion and then walk around to the side of the hotel to visit Illumi- a lightshow that was there for Christmas.

On our way, we saw some of the wild otters that call Singapore and Marina Bay home, something we have tried to do on all of our visitors but have never managed to do.

The next day saw us start with breakfast at Bread Talk, my favourite bakery on the island and then a visit to the beautiful Singapore Botanical Gardens.

This is a great place to walk around, enjoy the gardens and see some incredible wildlife, with our couple of hours there taking in monitor lizards, macaques, dragonflies, butterflies and plenty more.

Our visit was cut short by some heavy rain that would settle in for the next few hours, but such is life when travelling in the region during the rainy season.

After hiding from the rain, we headed downtown to China Town to do some early gift shopping and with that out of the way, we headed to Lau Pa Sat, our favourite hawker centre, for tea.

Our final plan was to walk back along Orchard Road to our hotel, to take in the incredible Christmas lights but the rain would come back, and we simply went back to our hotel.

The next day, we simply woke up, took the train back to the cruise terminal and checked in to join our ship, the Celebrity Millennium.

Unfortunately, this took far longer than you would expect as the terminal staff had been told one thing via Indian immigration, the passengers had been told another and the line were expecting something else.

This all revolved around a QR code which terminal staff though we already had, we knew we hadn’t been sent it and the line were expecting it to be given once onboard.

That is what happened, but it took around a couple of hours of going from queue to queue at the terminal for an answer to be come to and for boarding to be allowed but it was far from the end of Indian Immigration issues.

That was all still to come however and we were now onboard so after some exploring, we did what everyone does and went to get some food before doing some unpacking and then heading up on deck to watch us set sail, with coincided with the first light show from Gardens by the Bay, right next to the cruise terminal.

Our journey would take us to 8 ports of call, across 4 countries and with 2 overnight stays at which we did a range of ship excursions, private excursion and simply explored on our own.

Port Klang, Malaysia

Our first port of call was the port of Klang, in Malaysia, which is often billed as Kuala Lumpur as the huge metropolis is around an hour away by road.

The entry into our berth reminded me a lot of Rotterdam as the vast Klang container port is located along one bank of a channel, although whilst in Rotterdam it is a long stretch of river, in Klang it does open up at both ends.

There is an impressive cruise terminal in Klang, but we wouldn’t get to see it until later in the day as a US Aircraft Carrier was docked there, leaving us to use an empty container ship dock.

With no facilities offered to us, you either had to be on an excursion or jump on a shuttle to the port gate and to be honest, there was still very little on offer there as whilst Kuala Lumpur is one of the region biggest cities, Klang has little to nothing on offer to visitors.

Thankfully, we had booked a shore excursion that simply took us to KL and back, with time to explore on our own.

Me and my wife had already spent some time in the Malaysian capital, so we simply headed to the KLCC for much of the day and had lunch at the food court at the foot of the impressive Petronas Towers.

We started by taking a stroll to the new Saloma Link Bridge before heading back to the park around the twin towers.

From there, we strolled back through the covered walkway between KLCC and the shopping district of Bukit Bintang, where our coach back to the ship would pick us up from.

After enjoying dinner onboard the ship, we would watch us sail away from Klang, past the cruise terminal and out into the Malacca Strait before having an early night to get ready for a two day stay in Georgetown on the Island of Penang.

Penang

To start with, I probably should start with a warning about Penang as despite having good facilities at the terminal, you are not allowed to simply walk out through the main entrance, but you are taken to a side exit, which is a tunnel full of people trying to sell you excursions and taxi rides.

The people in there were fine and when you said no, they moved on to the next person but waiting on the outside of the tunnel was a gaggle of people trying to sell you things and whilst many were fine, the odd few were far far to pushy and 1 guy in particular followed my wife for far to long until I had to step in and get rid of him.

Sadly, that is the first impression you are given about Penang, and many may have left with a poor impression of the place but thankfully, everybody else we met along the way were friendly and helpful.

We had 2 full days on the island of Penang, so we broke our time into exploring Penang Hill and the outskirts of the capital and on the second day, we explored George Town itself.

To do all of that, we walked from the cruise terminal to the nearby bus station and bought a travel bus card, which gave us unlimited bus travel.

From there, we jumped on the bus to Stesen Bukik Bendera which is where you can take a funicular to the top of Penang Hill, a former British hill station that has now been developed into a tourist attraction with lots to enjoy.

We have done a number of funiculars, but this one has to be one of the most impressive, partly due to the steepness of some of the sections but also because of the speed in runs at.

There was a huge queue to not only pick up your tickets but to board the train, but we had bought premium tickets that let us jump both queues and would definitely recommend doing that.

At the top, we took a walk around the main square, saw an old train, took in the stunning views from a couple of the viewing decks and then walked off to the Habitat.

This is an area given over to nature where you walk through the rainforest on paths, bridges and on a raised tree top walkway.

Whilst we did see plenty of birds, insects, butterflies and dragonflies, we sadly didn’t see any monkeys or snakes that are said to be seen often there.

After grabbing some lunch, we jumped on an included golf cart back to the main square and took the funicular back to the bottom, again we got to avoid a large queue.

We then jump on the bus once more and this time went around the corner to the impressive Kek Lok Si Temple, an impressive Buddhist temple complex set into a hill side.

I have been fortunate enough to visit a number of Buddhist temples but this is the first one I have gone to where you need to take a couple of funiculars to from the bottom of it to the top level, such is the size of the complex and steepness of the hill it is built into.

The complex is dominate by a huge pagoda and a large statue that sits at the top of it but to be honest, whilst impressive when you are there, it is far more impressive from a distance.

Your visit is somewhat ruined by the commercialisation of the temple, where you go from one gift shop to the next, but it is somewhere I would recommend visiting, although if you can, I would do it on your own as whilst shore excursions were offered there, everyone we met there on an organised trip were complaining that they didn’t have enough time to explore all of the different levels.

After walking through the streets of Ayer Itam, we jumped back on a bus and headed to the centre of George Town commercial district where we were going to go to the viewing platform at The Top, a huge skyscraper, before heading for tea at the Kimberely Street night food market.

Sadly, those plans fell through as it started to rain heavily and after a quick walk down Kimberley Street to at least see it, we jumped straight back onto a bus, back to the cruise ship and grabbed tea there instead.

With us back onboard a bit earlier than we expected, we headed into the theatre for the first time to see Stephen Barry, a Irish singer who brought an operatic style to pop and rock songs and whilst he was certainly talented, he won me over as a huge Jim Steinman/Meat Loaf fan by singing I’d Do Anythnig For Love (But I Won’t Do That).

Thankfully, the rain stayed away the next day, and we would get to explore George Town on foot, starting with a walk down Beach Street to see some local architecture, before heading to the sea front and to a number of jetties.

Whilst now a tourist attraction in the main, complete with gift shops, these jetties are still places where locals live and work and each has their own different history, culture and community that make them a fascinating place to visit.

The city has a thriving street art scene, and it has been turned into a walk of sorts, so we would set off in search of a number of these works and whilst we couldn’t find all of the ones we were heading for, we found plenty we didn’t know where there.

This was a great way to see the city and to make the most of walking around George Town, but we did also make sure to include a number of the main sights of the city including the Kapitan Keling Mosque, the Goddess of Mercy Temple and the narrow streets and architecture around Armenian Street.

Penang is just one of those places where you can simply walk from the ship, stroll around its streets and constantly come across things of interest.

That continued as we walked from the town centre and back to the ship as we walked from the colonial style government buildings, down the sea front promenade and past an historic fortress.

We were joined by the Anthem of the Seas in the afternoon but with those onboard that ship only having a few hours to explore the city before setting off later that night, I was so grateful to have had 2 full days there, although that really wasn’t enough.

Phuket

When visiting the Thai island of Phuket, there are a couple of places that you can arrive at. One is in the far southeast of the island and is a commercial dock that you pull up at whilst the second place is to simply drop anchor off of Patong Beach.

It was the latter where we arrived and it was very well organised, with local motorboats coming to meet us that could take plenty ashore on each trip, and much faster than using the ships tender boats.

We had plenty of time on Phuket which worked perfectly for us as we had a shore excursion to the incredible Phang Nga Bay in the morning, which is around 2 hours from Patong and back on the Thailand mainland, but we still had time to explore Patong when we got back.

If you don’t know, Phang Nga Bay features a series of limestone cliffs complete with caves that seemingly rise from nowhere, out of the sea and into the sky.

It is also known to many for its appearance in James Bonds, The Man with the Golden Gun or in 1997’s Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies.

Our adventure started down river in the rainforest, where we took a longship out into the sea and around many of the islands and onto the village of Panyi Village.

This is a floating village that is home to a Muslim community that has called Panyi home for generations.

It is connected to one of the cliffs, but the only part of it to actually be on land itself is a Mosque and cemetery, with all of the village’s houses, schools, shops, cafes and restaurants built out in the sea.

It is a fascinating place to visit but one that has also sadly been spoilt by having far too many tourist shops.

From there, we jumped back onto our boat, sailed back to the rainforest jetty and set off on the couple of hours journey back to Patong.

Despite hitting lots of traffic, it was rush hour for our return journey, we would still have plenty of time to explore Patong and it famous Bangla Road.

We started by heading to the Malin Plaza market, which is a mixture of tourist market and street food markets and after a quick look at some of the tourist stalls, we grabbed some chicken gyozas for a quick lunch before setting off to explore.

We walked down one of the main shopping streets, past some huge hotel complexes and past a couple of shopping centres before arriving at the iconic Bangla Road.

For those that don’t know, Bangla Road is home to many huge nightclubs, bars, ‘adult entertainment venues’ and more and whilst not somewhere me and wife would head for a night out, it was interesting to walk along it during the daytime to get a true Phuket experience.

The street starts at the beach and after a quick walk on it, we would walk along the long seafront back to the tender port and back to the ship.

Phuket has lots to offer and much of it can be simply enjoyed on foot from the tender port, so it is well worth visiting in our opinion and whilst it certainly has a hedonistic element to it, away from Bangla Road, it is great for families.

With a lie-in awaiting us the next day, we once again headed to the theatre to watch an English trio known as This Ones For You, who did a Elton John tribute and whilst not a huge fan of Watford’s number 1 fan, it was an enjoyable show.

Sea Days

We next had a couple of sea days as we cross the Indian Ocean, which gave us plenty of time to relax, enjoy a leisurely lunch before heading into the restaurant for the first time and watching a show in the theatre.

That at least was the plan heading into our first down day, but we would have to deal with Indian Immigration for the 2nd time and that meant more time spent queuing for no particular reason.

Everybody on the ship had been given a time to head to the ‘Meeting Place’ for an in person visit with an immigration officer, which basically came down to an Indian immigration office having to see you are a real human before giving you the all important QR code that would be needed to be used to gain entry and exit every port of call in the country.

Sadly, this mean us arriving for our appointment at 3.30 in the afternoon, only to be met by a huge queue going from the ‘Meeting Place’, through the atrium and down a corridor past peoples cabins.

We finally got to prove we were human around 3 hours and 45 minutes later but sadly that meant we missed out dinner booking for 6pm and not really fancying a trip to the theatre.

At least that was only the first of 2 sea days, so on the next day, we did get to relax and enjoy dinner in the MDR and also credit should be given to the Sri Lankan officers onboard who simply sorted everybody’s visas without impacting anybody’s holiday.

On the second sea day, we would get to see our first production show on the Millennium, known as Elysium, which whilst offering nothing new to cruise production shows, was professionally done and a good way to spend 45 minutes of your night.

Hambantota

On the face of it the port of Hambantota is not the best welcome to Sri Lanka as, well, there’s nothing there.

To me, it is Asia’s version of Le Verdon and whilst our visit to its French cousin was a waste of time, we had an excursion to remember booked for Hambantota.

The port gives access to the incredible Yala National Park and that is where we headed for a safari.

It was about an hour drive to a hotel, where we had lunch and then a 15-minute drive onboard our safari jeeps to the entrance of the National Park, but even before we entered the park itself, there was lots of wildlife to see.

From the coach itself we saw lots of birds, crocodiles and an unfathomable number of cows and from our jeeps we saw monkeys, crocodiles, birds, buffalo and more before entering Yala itself.

In Yala we saw all of those animals and plenty more including kingfishers, bee-eaters, wild boars and numerous elephants but sadly we missed out on seeing leopards and bears, both of which were top of our want to see lists.

Despite that, it was an incredible day and one that will live long in our memories, so if you ever find yourself visiting Hambantota, don’t waste time trying to find signs of life and make sure you book to visit one of the nearby national parks.

Colombo

Aside from the immigration issues, and there’s still more to come there, and a bit of rain, we had had few issues so far on our adventure but that was sadly all to change on our day in Colombo.

I’d like to start with a warning to not use a local company called Colombo City Boy as that is who we chose to book a Tuk Tuk tour of the city with but not know how much of a mistake that was.

It started well as we were picked up on time, shuttled from the port to a pickup point and set off with our driver.

When booking, it stated we would have an English-speaking driver but sadly ours only had a limited understanding of English and whilst not a huge problem, it did mean any questions we had about the places we visited, he couldn’t answer and that did take away from the experience.

We were told that one of the temples we would visit had a fee to enter, which needed to be paid in dollars, so we took some with us but that soon changed and the first 2 temples, neither of which were the one with the fee, now needed $10 each to enter, of course paid to the driver.

One of the main reasons for booking the tour was to visit the Gangarama Sima Malaka temple, which is built on a lake but as we got close to it, the driver said later to us.

The alarm bells were now starting to ring a bit and instead of heading to any of the other places we were supposed to, we were taken to a tea shop, a gift shop, a jewellery shop and to see a ‘gardener’ friend of the drivers, who wanted money off us for pointing at a tree.

With half of the tour missed, lots of money given over that there was no mention of needing to do we were nearly back at the pickup point, so we presumed the tour was coming to an end.

What happened next was the driver took us back to the centre of town, well away from the port and then demanded more money from us to take us back to the port.

To say I was angry was an understatement, but my wife was now panicking we were going to get stuck and what was a disappointing day was one that was ruined.

So again, do not use Colombo City Boy tours in Colombo.

Thankfully, after some back and forth, the driver took us back to the pickup point but until we got out of the car back at the ship, there was always a doubt we would get back with is a horrible situation to be in.

We complained to the manager sorting out their tours ship side but there seems to be an expectation that scamming clients is expected, which is sad as we met so many friendly people in Sri Lanka and that just gives visitors a bad taste in their mouths and puts people of from visiting the country.

After a somewhat disappointing day, we shook it off and went to the theatre and we were glad that were did as there was a rock-violinist known as Katei, who was Australian.

Whilst billed as rock, it was mostly pop music covers to start with but then things took a turn for the better, for me and wife anyway, as he performed incredible version of the main songs from Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro- 2 Japanese anime’s that my wife loves.

He spoke of his love of the genre and of Japanese culture during the show and sadly that led to a Australian women heading to the onboard shop he was selling his merch at after the show to verbally and racially abuse him.

As an aside, on the first day a note was left in our stateroom basically asking us not to be racist when in port, which I thought was overkill to begin with, but this incident showed that it was probably needed- sad times we live in.

Kochi (Cochin)

We were due to arrive into Kochi in India at 2pm on the Monday and would leave late afternoon on the Tuesday, so we had plenty booked for our first ever visit to India.

Sadly, all of our plans quickly went out of the window as waiting for us in our stateroom when we board was a notice to say that our excursion for the first day had now changed to the 2nd day.

We had a full day of exploring the city by its network of ferries and water taxis as we love to get away from more touristy areas and head to where the locals, live, work and shop.

During the sea days, we had changed up our plans and put together a way to see most of what we wanted to see but those plans would soon be out of the window as Indian immigration would hit again.

We would once again need to queue to see an immigration officer, and nobody would be allowed back on the ship until everybody had left and been seen.

To stop the huge queues at the terminal, we were all given a number to get off in a similar way to disembarkation, but that just meant we had to wait for an hour or so onboard the ship, before heading over the terminal to queue up once again.

Sadly, it was throwing it down on this day in Kochi and there was another aircraft carrier blocking our position at the terminal, so it would mean a longest walk on wet and uneven ground to get to the terminal.

Unfortunately, there was little to know help for those with mobility problems, but shuttles/golf karts were provided for those staying in The Retreat.

After the queue in the terminal, we decide that the day was a write off as it would be dark in under an hour, so we simply took a stroll around the gift stalls that had set up behind the terminal and waited for everybody to get off of the ship, so we could get back on.

With a day wasted, there was some good news as Celebrity had put on a performance from a local Kathakali performance group in the main theatre, which was a great way to at least experience some of the local culture despite not getting to spend time on shore in Kochi.

The next day, which should have been a day of exploring on our own was now our shore excursion to the Backwaters of Alappuzha.

Thankfully, the rain had disappeared, and it was now a sunny day, which was ideal for exploring the backwaters in what turned into a great day.

We would drive through the back streets of Kerala, which is a communist ruled state in India, and it certainly would be different to the other regions we would visit.

It is always fascinating driving through small villages when in a new country as it does give you a great insight in the lives of the people of where you are and with universal health and education, many of those living in Kerala seemed to have a better quality of life than those we would come across later in the journey.

We arrive at the tourist town of Alappuzha, which is where 100’s of houseboats set off daily to take visitors around the backwaters of Kerala.

It reminded me a lot of the Norfolk Broads over here in the UK and as someone who loves exploring the broads, it was no surprise that me and wife loved our time on the backwaters.

Our houseboat was set up with bedrooms on the lower level and a large open deck on the top level and with plenty of room for the 25 or so of us onboard, we could easily move around and take plenty of photos and videos along the way.

You sail past small villages where people go about their daily lives, including washing their clothes in the rivers, and past temples, schools, shops and rice fields.

On our way back to the ship, we stopped off a luxury hotel resort for lunch as it was around an hour and half from the ship to the boat.

Mormugao/Goa

After another sea day, which included the gala lunch and dinners for the trip and an well done comedy magic show by Malin Nilsson and Carlie Caper, we arrived at the port of Mormugao in the state of Goa but sadly this was a day that wouldn’t quite work out the way we wanted it to.

We booked a shore excursion as we were only docked until the early afternoon and the port itself is far away from anywhere walkable, but the tour turned into a waste of time.

Our tour was called the Churches of Old Goa, which would take us to some of the largest churches in the region including an impressive cathedral before heading to the capital of Panaji, which is full of many impressive buildings.

There was an important event happening at the cathedral with the exposition of the relics of St Francis Xavier, something that only happens every 10 years.

Sadly, that meant that instead of been able to look at the churches and the grounds they are set in, huge tents and queues were everywhere, and tourists were certainty not welcome.

You can’t really blame those in charge for that, but it is something the line and the local agents should have known about and not offered our tour.

Something that couldn’t really have been expected was a small group on our tour basically deciding that the want to do something different to what was on the tour and bullied the tour guide into allowing them to go off and join the huge queue of people.

This would not only mean that we wouldn’t have time to go to the capital, the main reason we were on the tour, but it also meant people would spend a lot of time stood around in the heat of mid-day.

Sadly, that led to an elderly gentleman on the tour collapsing with heat stroke, some of the group of mutineers, as me and wife named them, now walked off and joined another tour group to continue with the day whilst we all waited with the rest of the group and tried to get medical help.

Thankfully, the gentlemen soon came back around and after some time, he was deemed fit by the medical team to head back to the ship, so we all raced through the massive market that was set up for those on pilgrimage and headed back to the bus.

We arrived back at the ship just after we should have departed but we needn’t worry about been late as there was a massive queue awaiting us to get back on as not only would we have to queue to go through immigration once again, but this time the army was awaiting us to search us all.

This took a long time, and men and women were split up, so it led to some chaos in families trying to get back together before heading for immigration.

It probably took around 45 minutes to get back on board but in the heat, it felt much longer, and tempers were started to get flared for some passengers.

To help unwind, we once again headed into the theatre that night and watched another production show, this time based on songs from Broadway and Hollywood musicals.

Mumbai

We arrive at Mumbai, our final port of call but sadly it was difficult to see any of it as the pollution levels were so high that a smog covered much of the city.

Most people on the ship had now gotten a chesty cough as the pollution levels just continued to get worse but in Mumbai, it was actually starting to get difficult to breath.

It was also set to be another day of having to scramble for a plan as whilst we had a private excursion booked to take us to the hills around the city where some famous caves are before having a tour of the key tourist spots in Mumbai, it fell through as nobody turned up to meet us.

You have to take a bus from where you dock to the port gate, known as the green gate, and after waiting there for some time, we jumped back on the shuttle bus to go back to the ship to plan what to do.

That of course meant going through army security once again and immigration, as we had to do when we left the ship, so it all took far too much time.

We decided to simply walk from the green gate to the Gateway of India, a large stone arch and take a look at some impressive buildings and squares along the way.

Sadly, it was difficult to take much in as the traffic was chaotic at best and with no pavements, you spent the whole 30-minute walk avoiding scooters, motorbikes and even cars trying to get around the queues for every junction.

Upon arrival at the arch, there was another army security check and queues to get in and so many people there that it was impossible to take it all in.

There are many boats leaving for tours from next to the arch and there is also the famous Taj Mahal hotel but with so many people and so many fences for security, you couldn’t walk around and enjoy it.

With the heat and smog getting a bit too much, we headed back to the ship and simply relaxed with a drink or two before getting our luggage ready for leaving the ship the next day.

The next day, we would need to leave the ship and get to the airport and to be honest this was something we were dreading as the security had been so tedious for the whole of our time in India, we were sure it was going to be even worse for disembarking the ship.

To our shock, they had all but given up on security and immigration to leave the ship and there where little immigration checks and no army security checks.

Sadly, that didn’t mean that things were smooth sailing as we had booked a shuttle through the line to take us from the ship to the airport and despite been given a number and told to go to the theatre on the ship, there was nobody waiting for us there and no buses aligning with the number that we had.

With a mass of people all trying to do different things and numerous shuttle buses, coaches and tour buses to choose from, it became potluck as to which queue you joined.

Nobody had a clue what was going on, nobody from Celebrity was there to help and local ‘agents’ stood doing nothing.

We saw a coach with Airport Terminal 2 written on it, so joined the queue to load our suitcases and thankfully we got our bags onboard.

The coaches only had a small boot space at the back of the coach to load bags, so people had to start loading their suitcases onto spare seats inside of the coach, so we dread to think if everybody with a shuttle booked got onboard a coach, with a quarter of the seats taken up by luggage.

The journey to the airport was long and slow but it did give us a fascinating look at life for locals in Mumbai and sadly, it should be said that it was a humbling experience.

We saw many neighbourhoods where people were living in what can only be describe as squalor but right next to that, you would high rise luxury apartments in a city that is clearly one of the haves and the have nots.

Once at the airport, there was another army security check point to get into the building but with us arriving hours early for our flight to Dubai, we were in no rush.

The security inside of the airport got a bit farcical, with army checks and immigration once again, although the highlight of the experience was an army officer getting confused by an umbrella in my bag and thinking it was a weapon or something.

After that, things went smoothly, our flight to Dubai had no issues and then after a short wait, we boarded our flight to Manchester, again with no issues.

I will only write our brief thoughts on the ship here as we have already done an in-depth review of the Celebrity Millennium which can be viewed via the link below.

We sailed on the Celebrity Millennium, which is the oldest in the Celebrity fleet, but she has undergone extensive work to all parts of her so that when you are onboard, you wouldn’t think she is about 25 years old.

We sailed on her sister ship, the Celebrity Summit, last year so felt right at home as soon as walked onboard, although it did take away from some of that excitement you get when you step onboard a new cruise ship for the first time.

There were a few issues that cropped up throughout the cruise including a huge leak outside of the buffet and from a personnel point of view, our shower door just would not stay closed, and we had to prop it up with bottles to stop in banging when at sea.

They are just minor things however and overall, it was a great experience and she is a ship I would recommend sailing on.

Our stateroom was cabin number 097 on deck 7, which was a centrally located internal cabin and offered all you would expect from a Celebrity stateroom.

Aside from the issue with the shower door, there were no problems with the cabin as it offered plenty of storage, a decent sized tv, plenty of space for an internal cabin and a large comfy bed- what else do you really need from a stateroom.

So where do you start for an adventure such as this one aside from to say that if you are wanting a relaxing holiday, this itinerary is probably not for you but if you want an adventure full of memorable moments, this is one for you.

There were plenty of incredible things that we saw and experienced that were just incredible and there were plenty of things we saw and experienced were hugely disappointing and then there were some things that were incredibly humbling.

The pollution in India is a huge problem and after not suffering with any asthma related issues for years, it soon came hard for me the breath and I was quickly coughing and wheezing.

That, the immigration issues and the general lack of regulation in the tourist industry in the country would perhaps put us off of visiting India again, at least for the near future but I would love to go back to Thailand and Malaysia once again and to see more of those countries.

Then there is Singapore which remains our favourite holiday destination and it was great to take our first cruise from the Lion City, especially with Celebrity, who remain our favourite cruise line.