The maiden voyage of Superstar Virgo from Manila to Kaohsiung to Hong Kong and back puts the Philippines on the luxury cruise map
By AA Patawaran
Video by JC Villanueva
Something inebriating about arriving at the harbor, in this case the Port of Manila, Pier 15, just behind the historic Manila Hotel, and looking up at a great big ship, 268 meters long, 32 meters wide, and 13 stories high, that would sail away across the high seas.
MANILA AS HOMEPORT
It was a movie moment. In the case of the Superstar Virgo, operated by Star Cruises under Genting Cruise Lines, it was a major first, a true inaugural for a well-known ship that’s been cruising mainly Southeast Asian waters since it first floated out of drydock in Papenburg, Germany to be delivered to Star Cruises in Singapore in 1999, where she soon entered service for the Asian cruise market she was specifically designed for.
I’d cruised the Straits of Malacca, Andaman Sea, and South China Sea on the Superstar Virgo that sailed from Singapore in the early 2000s, but I didn’t realize until I stepped into the Deck 7 lobby of the cruise ship that my voyage from Manila would be a homecoming of sorts.
All of a sudden, taking in the grand staircase and the soaring atrium of the lobby, I was in a familiar place, except that I was doing something for the first time: I was boarding the first ever international cruise line to sail from Manila not so much away to exotic destinations but toward our vision, in the words of Philippine Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Tulfo-Teo, “as a regional cruise center to serve as homeport and eventually as center for cruise crew training, maintenance services, and ship building.”
From Manila, the Superstar Virgo was to sail across the magical waters of Southeast Asia with ports of call in Laoag, Ilocos Norte; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and Ocean Terminal, Hong Kong. That was six days and five nights at sea, minus the hours spent at the intermediate stops.
I joined a party of 70 organized by long-time Star Cruises PR consultant, party planner, and travel connoisseur Keren Pascual and, as with every trip he has ever arranged, ours was a carefully selected coterie of lifestyle editors, travelers, fashion designers, lifestyle influencers, as well as top models and beauty queens, including Miss Universe Philippines 2016 Maxine Medina and Miss International 2016 Kylie Versoza, who, along with model L.A. Aguinaldo, was ambassador of Superstar Virgo. Quite a big party, but with everyone raring to have fun, it didn’t seem quite a challenge to organize us all. We hashtagged our group #AlwaysFamous.
ALWAYS FAMOUS
Every meal was a dress-up occasion, although we only dressed up formally on the eve of our return to Manila for the captain’s dinner at Genting Palace preceded by a fashion show featuring Rhett Eala’s “Queen” collection at the lobby’s grand staircase. The 20-minute show, directed by Robby Carmona and hosted by designer Rajo Laurel and supermodel Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez, was a showcase of the graceful-as-liquid gowns that Rhett created in colors reminiscent of tropical waters for Maxine Medina for the Miss Universe pageant held in a Manila in February.
Other than this one strictly formal occasion, the dress code for the rest of our stay at sea was easy and, more than anything, fun. It was a nice touch to get all 70 of us together on the same page. Dinner soon after we left the Port of Manila on Day One had us dressed in “luxe pajamas” at the open-air Taverna Bar and, with fashion models in our squad, you could imagine how our little slumber party on the upper deck, only the starlit sky above us, might as well have been a night on the town, albeit in fluffy slippers instead of stilettos, eye pads for head bands, and some stuffed toy or, in the case of Tessa Prieto Valdez, a pillow in place of a purse.
Indeed, sleep was in no way in order, as the night was young. After dinner, we trooped to the Galaxy of the Stars, a concert lounge on Deck 12, where Filipino-Norwegian singer Markki Stroem performed a repertoire of jazz classics and jazzified pop songs like Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.”
The next day, we docked at the Port of Currimao in Ilocos Norte and, although there were many points of interest nearby, like the sand dunes of La Paz, the beaches of Pagudpud, and the baroque St. Augustine Church, a Unesco World Heritage Site completed in 1710, in Paoay, our group ventured over one hour away by bus to Vigan, Ilocos Sur for a buffet of Ilokano specialties—the Vigan longganisa, bagnet, and empanada—at Hidden Garden and a leisurely walk down the cobblestones of Calle Crisologo, a relic of the Spanish times. Even here, as a group, we chose to be color-coded, in earth colors and solid pastels.
HIGH FASHION ON THE HIGH SEAS
Back on the ship at dusk, we had just enough time to shower and change for dinner at Genting Palace, a large dining hall type of establishment on Deck 7. The dress code this time was Grease, the 1978 iconic musical that starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The girls came in either side of the Olivia Newton-John character Sandy Dee, the one in pig tails and rock and roll skirt with petticoat who said, “I don’t drink (no!). Or swear (no!). I don’t rat my hair (eew!). I get ill from one cigarette (cough, cough, cough)!” or the other, to whom she later transformed, having found the guts in a black off-shoulder top under a feisty leather jacket, to declare “You’re the one that I want (you are the one I want), oo, oo, ooh, honey.” It was here, over wine so perfectly French, that I met Tetta Agustin, who regaled me and the others at the table with her stories worthy of the attention of Diana Vreeland. She was a top model for Hubert de Givenchy and Yves Saint-Laurent. I mean she wore YSL’s “Le Smoking” on the Paris runway in 1975!
Dinner did not cap off our second night on board the Superstar Virgo because no sooner than I took the last spoonful of my ice cream dessert had I been dragged from aft to bow, from Deck 7 to the Deck 13, into a small club, in which, all drinks on the house, and tequila tray going around, we danced the night away to celebrate Markki Stroem’s birthday as well as Keren Pascual’s.
The next day, we woke up, just in time for a Bloody Mary under the blue skies and to watch Superstar Virgo slide into the Banana Pier in Kaohsiung, the largest port city in southern Taiwan, where a traditional dragon and lion dance welcomed us warmly, replete with authentic Taiwanese souvenirs and snacks with which we were showered. We spent a few hours in this little city, the “Miami of Taiwan,” where, with 300 sunny days a year, the sun always shone, and whose cuisine had been likened to a small China, as the city’s restaurant bustled with all the regional nuances of Chinese cuisine—Shanghainese, Cantonese, Sichuan… Too bad, we didn’t get to go binging on street food for which Taiwan is known, though walking down a quiet, almost desolate street, Tetta and I found bottarga or the roe pouch of a mullet or tuna dried and cured in natural sea salts and laid down in the sun on the street to dry. A delicacy in the Mediterranean, as well as many other countries like Lebanon and Senegal, it is considered the “caviar of the south,” best served as an hors d’oeuvre in olive oil and lemon juice with bread or a crostini or in a pasta dish and Tetta was so regretful she did not buy enough. She did consider going back to get more, but she would have been left behind by the ship.
JEWELS OF THE ORIENT
And yes, it would have been tragic had she decided to buy more bottarga. The Virgo left the pier as soon as we got back on board, leaving us with only half an hour to change for dinner at the Pavilion on Deck 6. Nevertheless, everybody showed up at dinner according to the requested attire, a throwback to the 2000 Hong Kong film by celebrated filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai, In the Mood for Love, which starred Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung and the qipao (or cheongsam in Cantonese), and so the mood of the evening was romantically and decidedly oriental that even the men wore jackets with dragon embroidery or calligraphy or Mandarin collars. I should have worn a plain white shirt, a slim black tie, and a cigarette between my lips. That would have been so very Tony Leung. Another Markki Stroem concert and some drunken dancing followed at the Galaxy of the Stars.
Our group had a Zumba session every morning on the helipad on Deck 13 or the Promenade on Deck 7. Sunrise is always a good idea, so is sticking to your fitness routine wherever you are, even in the middle of South China Sea, particularly the sometimes rough waters between the southern edge of Taiwan to the tip of southern Kowloon, otherwise known as Ocean Terminal in Hong Kong. But either the two single joined bed in my Oceanview Stateroom with balcony was a magnet or there was just nothing like sleeping in while adrift on the water, especially after a late night, and with the ship heaving, swaying, surging gently to cradle my dreams. I had a good night’s sleep every night on board the Superstar Virgo, and I would wake up refreshed and revitalized, too late for Zumba or the sunrise but early enough to catch the breakfast buffet at the Mediterranean or its terrace on Deck 12.
Hong Kong was the next stop. We docked right outside the complex of malls, from Gateway to Harbour City. While some of my friends hurried to cross the bay to catch the vernissage of Art Basel Hong Kong, I chose to stay in Kowloon, mainly to browse the bookstores. My agenda was to get back on the ship while everybody was out. Alas, I took such a long walk in Hong Kong that I had only enough time back on the ship to lay myself on the lounge chairs on the view deck that I had to myself, along with its breathtaking views of the Hong Kong Harbor, with my just-bought book How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton on my lap. Alain de Botton also wrote The Art of Travel, which I consider one of my best finds by a living, contemporary philosopher with whom I have had the rare privilege of corresponding on social media. Dinner that night was at leisure, but I had a nightcap with friends from another cruise group at the luxurious smoking lounge of Galaxy of the Stars while an all-girl band outside was performing a playlist full of Madonna songs that shut me up mid-sentence to exclaim, “I haven’t heard that one in a long time.”
ON THE HOME STRETCH
The next day was D-day, the one day in our six-day/five-night voyage that we were to spend entirely on the high seas and we started the day in the right spirit, inspired by this year’s Academy Awards favorite La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. It was a brunch party with everyone dancing on the bow of the ship, under a clear sky with clouds bright white and silvery and shaped like candy. Lunch followed at Genting Palace and we had the rest of the afternoon to rest and dress to the nines not only for the Captain’s Gala but also Rhett’s “high fashion on the high seas” before it. There were many shows featuring acrobats and contortionists lined up after dinner at the Lido Theater, but many of us ended up at the 24-hour dining outlet Blue Lagoon, ordering wine by the bottle or slurping Chinese noodles from oversized bowls.
Something very introspective about being on a ship sailing across the vastness, but ours was such a good company that I resisted the urge to spend interminable hours at my cabin balcony or to seek refuge at the Spa and Health Club, a pampering session at the hair salon, or a little alone time doing laps in the pool. I didn’t even find a minute to spend at the library and the writing room. I console myself that this trip, after all, was an inaugural, a milestone that put the Philippines on the cruise map, I was right to have spent it at five-day-long party.
Besides, as this circular voyage from Manila to Kaohsiung and Hong Kong and back and on again runs through the summer months, until the end of May, I am sure I will have many opportunities to go sailing again for the silence. www.starcruises.com
By AA Patawaran
Video by JC Villanueva
 |
| MANILA ON THE CRUISE MAP Cultural dance performers greet Superstar Virgo as it homeports at the Manila South Harbour |
MANILA AS HOMEPORT
It was a movie moment. In the case of the Superstar Virgo, operated by Star Cruises under Genting Cruise Lines, it was a major first, a true inaugural for a well-known ship that’s been cruising mainly Southeast Asian waters since it first floated out of drydock in Papenburg, Germany to be delivered to Star Cruises in Singapore in 1999, where she soon entered service for the Asian cruise market she was specifically designed for.
I’d cruised the Straits of Malacca, Andaman Sea, and South China Sea on the Superstar Virgo that sailed from Singapore in the early 2000s, but I didn’t realize until I stepped into the Deck 7 lobby of the cruise ship that my voyage from Manila would be a homecoming of sorts.
All of a sudden, taking in the grand staircase and the soaring atrium of the lobby, I was in a familiar place, except that I was doing something for the first time: I was boarding the first ever international cruise line to sail from Manila not so much away to exotic destinations but toward our vision, in the words of Philippine Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Tulfo-Teo, “as a regional cruise center to serve as homeport and eventually as center for cruise crew training, maintenance services, and ship building.”
From Manila, the Superstar Virgo was to sail across the magical waters of Southeast Asia with ports of call in Laoag, Ilocos Norte; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and Ocean Terminal, Hong Kong. That was six days and five nights at sea, minus the hours spent at the intermediate stops.
I joined a party of 70 organized by long-time Star Cruises PR consultant, party planner, and travel connoisseur Keren Pascual and, as with every trip he has ever arranged, ours was a carefully selected coterie of lifestyle editors, travelers, fashion designers, lifestyle influencers, as well as top models and beauty queens, including Miss Universe Philippines 2016 Maxine Medina and Miss International 2016 Kylie Versoza, who, along with model L.A. Aguinaldo, was ambassador of Superstar Virgo. Quite a big party, but with everyone raring to have fun, it didn’t seem quite a challenge to organize us all. We hashtagged our group #AlwaysFamous.
ALWAYS FAMOUS
Every meal was a dress-up occasion, although we only dressed up formally on the eve of our return to Manila for the captain’s dinner at Genting Palace preceded by a fashion show featuring Rhett Eala’s “Queen” collection at the lobby’s grand staircase. The 20-minute show, directed by Robby Carmona and hosted by designer Rajo Laurel and supermodel Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez, was a showcase of the graceful-as-liquid gowns that Rhett created in colors reminiscent of tropical waters for Maxine Medina for the Miss Universe pageant held in a Manila in February.
Other than this one strictly formal occasion, the dress code for the rest of our stay at sea was easy and, more than anything, fun. It was a nice touch to get all 70 of us together on the same page. Dinner soon after we left the Port of Manila on Day One had us dressed in “luxe pajamas” at the open-air Taverna Bar and, with fashion models in our squad, you could imagine how our little slumber party on the upper deck, only the starlit sky above us, might as well have been a night on the town, albeit in fluffy slippers instead of stilettos, eye pads for head bands, and some stuffed toy or, in the case of Tessa Prieto Valdez, a pillow in place of a purse.
Indeed, sleep was in no way in order, as the night was young. After dinner, we trooped to the Galaxy of the Stars, a concert lounge on Deck 12, where Filipino-Norwegian singer Markki Stroem performed a repertoire of jazz classics and jazzified pop songs like Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.”
The next day, we docked at the Port of Currimao in Ilocos Norte and, although there were many points of interest nearby, like the sand dunes of La Paz, the beaches of Pagudpud, and the baroque St. Augustine Church, a Unesco World Heritage Site completed in 1710, in Paoay, our group ventured over one hour away by bus to Vigan, Ilocos Sur for a buffet of Ilokano specialties—the Vigan longganisa, bagnet, and empanada—at Hidden Garden and a leisurely walk down the cobblestones of Calle Crisologo, a relic of the Spanish times. Even here, as a group, we chose to be color-coded, in earth colors and solid pastels.
HIGH FASHION ON THE HIGH SEAS
Back on the ship at dusk, we had just enough time to shower and change for dinner at Genting Palace, a large dining hall type of establishment on Deck 7. The dress code this time was Grease, the 1978 iconic musical that starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The girls came in either side of the Olivia Newton-John character Sandy Dee, the one in pig tails and rock and roll skirt with petticoat who said, “I don’t drink (no!). Or swear (no!). I don’t rat my hair (eew!). I get ill from one cigarette (cough, cough, cough)!” or the other, to whom she later transformed, having found the guts in a black off-shoulder top under a feisty leather jacket, to declare “You’re the one that I want (you are the one I want), oo, oo, ooh, honey.” It was here, over wine so perfectly French, that I met Tetta Agustin, who regaled me and the others at the table with her stories worthy of the attention of Diana Vreeland. She was a top model for Hubert de Givenchy and Yves Saint-Laurent. I mean she wore YSL’s “Le Smoking” on the Paris runway in 1975!
Dinner did not cap off our second night on board the Superstar Virgo because no sooner than I took the last spoonful of my ice cream dessert had I been dragged from aft to bow, from Deck 7 to the Deck 13, into a small club, in which, all drinks on the house, and tequila tray going around, we danced the night away to celebrate Markki Stroem’s birthday as well as Keren Pascual’s.
The next day, we woke up, just in time for a Bloody Mary under the blue skies and to watch Superstar Virgo slide into the Banana Pier in Kaohsiung, the largest port city in southern Taiwan, where a traditional dragon and lion dance welcomed us warmly, replete with authentic Taiwanese souvenirs and snacks with which we were showered. We spent a few hours in this little city, the “Miami of Taiwan,” where, with 300 sunny days a year, the sun always shone, and whose cuisine had been likened to a small China, as the city’s restaurant bustled with all the regional nuances of Chinese cuisine—Shanghainese, Cantonese, Sichuan… Too bad, we didn’t get to go binging on street food for which Taiwan is known, though walking down a quiet, almost desolate street, Tetta and I found bottarga or the roe pouch of a mullet or tuna dried and cured in natural sea salts and laid down in the sun on the street to dry. A delicacy in the Mediterranean, as well as many other countries like Lebanon and Senegal, it is considered the “caviar of the south,” best served as an hors d’oeuvre in olive oil and lemon juice with bread or a crostini or in a pasta dish and Tetta was so regretful she did not buy enough. She did consider going back to get more, but she would have been left behind by the ship.
JEWELS OF THE ORIENT
And yes, it would have been tragic had she decided to buy more bottarga. The Virgo left the pier as soon as we got back on board, leaving us with only half an hour to change for dinner at the Pavilion on Deck 6. Nevertheless, everybody showed up at dinner according to the requested attire, a throwback to the 2000 Hong Kong film by celebrated filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai, In the Mood for Love, which starred Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung and the qipao (or cheongsam in Cantonese), and so the mood of the evening was romantically and decidedly oriental that even the men wore jackets with dragon embroidery or calligraphy or Mandarin collars. I should have worn a plain white shirt, a slim black tie, and a cigarette between my lips. That would have been so very Tony Leung. Another Markki Stroem concert and some drunken dancing followed at the Galaxy of the Stars.
Our group had a Zumba session every morning on the helipad on Deck 13 or the Promenade on Deck 7. Sunrise is always a good idea, so is sticking to your fitness routine wherever you are, even in the middle of South China Sea, particularly the sometimes rough waters between the southern edge of Taiwan to the tip of southern Kowloon, otherwise known as Ocean Terminal in Hong Kong. But either the two single joined bed in my Oceanview Stateroom with balcony was a magnet or there was just nothing like sleeping in while adrift on the water, especially after a late night, and with the ship heaving, swaying, surging gently to cradle my dreams. I had a good night’s sleep every night on board the Superstar Virgo, and I would wake up refreshed and revitalized, too late for Zumba or the sunrise but early enough to catch the breakfast buffet at the Mediterranean or its terrace on Deck 12.
Hong Kong was the next stop. We docked right outside the complex of malls, from Gateway to Harbour City. While some of my friends hurried to cross the bay to catch the vernissage of Art Basel Hong Kong, I chose to stay in Kowloon, mainly to browse the bookstores. My agenda was to get back on the ship while everybody was out. Alas, I took such a long walk in Hong Kong that I had only enough time back on the ship to lay myself on the lounge chairs on the view deck that I had to myself, along with its breathtaking views of the Hong Kong Harbor, with my just-bought book How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton on my lap. Alain de Botton also wrote The Art of Travel, which I consider one of my best finds by a living, contemporary philosopher with whom I have had the rare privilege of corresponding on social media. Dinner that night was at leisure, but I had a nightcap with friends from another cruise group at the luxurious smoking lounge of Galaxy of the Stars while an all-girl band outside was performing a playlist full of Madonna songs that shut me up mid-sentence to exclaim, “I haven’t heard that one in a long time.”
ON THE HOME STRETCH
The next day was D-day, the one day in our six-day/five-night voyage that we were to spend entirely on the high seas and we started the day in the right spirit, inspired by this year’s Academy Awards favorite La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. It was a brunch party with everyone dancing on the bow of the ship, under a clear sky with clouds bright white and silvery and shaped like candy. Lunch followed at Genting Palace and we had the rest of the afternoon to rest and dress to the nines not only for the Captain’s Gala but also Rhett’s “high fashion on the high seas” before it. There were many shows featuring acrobats and contortionists lined up after dinner at the Lido Theater, but many of us ended up at the 24-hour dining outlet Blue Lagoon, ordering wine by the bottle or slurping Chinese noodles from oversized bowls.
Something very introspective about being on a ship sailing across the vastness, but ours was such a good company that I resisted the urge to spend interminable hours at my cabin balcony or to seek refuge at the Spa and Health Club, a pampering session at the hair salon, or a little alone time doing laps in the pool. I didn’t even find a minute to spend at the library and the writing room. I console myself that this trip, after all, was an inaugural, a milestone that put the Philippines on the cruise map, I was right to have spent it at five-day-long party.
Besides, as this circular voyage from Manila to Kaohsiung and Hong Kong and back and on again runs through the summer months, until the end of May, I am sure I will have many opportunities to go sailing again for the silence. www.starcruises.com
