Circumnavigation South America Mariner Jan 6

Decided to start my own thread instead of jumping in with Rachel as she will be departing while we are doing the complete circumnavigation.

We have been on for two days and all I can say is that Regent is just outstanding in all venues. The food, just my opinion, has been above and beyond. We ate in Prime 7 the first night and it was excellent. From the shrimp cocktail to the cheese plate, to the wines and the sherry.

Tonight we ate in Compass Rose on the early side, 6:45p, and the meals again were terrific.

Our room on the Mariner is slightly (50 sq ft) less than on the Voyager and we can feel that in the closet area. If we were not on for so long, I would not have brought all these clothes and it would have been sufficient.

Seas have been great, just gently rolling. Woke up last night and wondered if we were still sailing. The wind early this morning was very strong, but we still walked an hour.

If you have any questions, please ask and I will try and answer.

I think the fact that you are dining "on the early side" will give you a much more positive experience than some other passengers.

Really looking forward to your posts. We did FLL to Lima on the Mariner last year:)

If you have any questions, please ask and I will try and answer.

No questions, s2000drvr, but will be glad to read of your experiences. Some other threads have complained about Compass Rose delays and poor service. It is good to hear your positive, first hand reports.

Yiur experience so far mirrors ours. Glad you are staying on the whole time and blogging as it will just me continue my cruise longer, at least vicariously.

Today the sun is shining, but the winds are still strong. This morning around 7:15 we walked our one hour walk along the deck. The sunrise was absolutely beautiful with hues of pink that lit up the sky. In all the days when have been cruising, I think this is the first time we have seen a sunrise. We sure have been missing something special.

Decided to try La Veranda for breakfast. It was fine, nice selection of fresh fruits, muffins, cereal. I am not an egg fan, so I did not venture that way. It was not crowded and it seemed like the tables were cleared promptly. Coffee, juice, water, were served immediately.

Today there was an informal meeting of CruiseCritics hosted by Ray Solaire, the Cruise Director. We had a nice time exchanging our thoughts, etc.

Tonight is the Captain's welcome reception. We will again dine in Compass Rose.

That is it for now aboard the lovely Mariner.

How did you learn of the CruiseCritic get together? Was it in Passages?

Good to hear that things are going well:)

The Cruise Critic get together was announced in Passages. Ray said he would announce more get togethers whenever Blue Whale (Dororthy) wanted.

How did you learn of the CruiseCritic get together? Was it in Passages?

 

Good to hear that things are going well:)

It was in passages, but I totally missed it till after I read this post. Just didn't see it on the agenda as it kind of blended in with all the other morning activities that I don't usually do. Need to read better next time.

The seas are still gently rolling and it is about 8:15p. We had dinner in Compass Rose and enjoyed the duck and bok choy. Had the cheese platter and it was different from last night. The sherry was really good, also.

The service in Compass Rose was fantastic tonight as it has been the other nights when we have dined there. The wines were excellent, a nice Chardonnay from CA was poured.

Tomorrow we will be at our first stop: Curacao. We will be doing the beautiful beaches tour.

Looking forward to hearing about the beach tour. Hope you have great weather!

Thanks for posting. We're thinking of this cruise (just the first leg) for next year maybe. (A pretty big "maybe" though.) I'll be most interested in hearing about the excursions, our main reason for cruising now that we're less comfortable doing our own thing as in yesteryear.

Wishing you many (!) happy days ahead, as you live one of my dreams.

I am so glad your are posting about your trip. We did this same trip last year on the Mariner...it was a great experience. We did get to sail to Antarctica, but I know they added some new ports and extra overnights in place of that part, so should be wonderful also. I am so glad we did the whole trip...it was really interesting to contrast and compare the different countries of SA as we sailed along.

You are lucky to have Ray as CD...he is wonderful and made our trip really special. Trivia was one of the best my husband has ever done mainly because Ray is such a great entertainer...don't miss any of his shows!

Please keep posting and Happy Sailing.

cwn: Did you have a favorite country? Are there posts with your impressions somewhere on CC (esp. the excursion part)? Thanks.

Today we had gently rolling seas, but very high winds, about 45 mph. It was not fun walking on the deck, but did 50 minutes of it. This entitled us to an ice cream after lunch.

We did the Discover Curacao's Beautiful Beaches excursion. We went down to the theater promptly and within a few minutes we were loaded onto an a/c (somewhat) bus. The narrator explained a few things along the way. We saw their landfill.......The scenery is pretty typical of these islands, lots of goats, some chickens, dogs, iguanas, pretty foliage.

We arrived at the first beach Cas Abou Beach. We were told to report back to the bus in one hour which would bring us to 2:30p. The beach has very gently rolling waves, but lots and lots of coral instead of nice beach sand. We had on our Land's End water socks which really saved our feet. The water was clear and warm, very refreshing. The sand on the beach floor was perfectly smooth.

Rich did do some snorkeling, but they did not provide any equipment that we saw. Rich said the snorkeling was fair, no strong currents.

There is a snack shack and restrooms on the beach.

We all had chosen some lounges that were stacked up. We did not notice the sign on the tree that said lounges were $3 each. This is not a big deal to us, but it would have been nice if we were told of the charge, again, not a big deal. I paid the guy and noticed that others did not pay because they were in the water or snorkeling. Just was not consistent, but really not a big deal at all.

Most of us gathered at the buses for our next stop at another beach. Notice I wrote most of us?? Thirty minutes later, the stragglers finally showed up. We were not happy campers or should I say cruisers at this point. Seeing there were two buses on this tour, some of us decided we would rather get back to the ship instead of seeing the second beach because of time constraints. We would have gotten back after 5p and that did not suit some of us. Others had chosen to go back by taxi as they must have been quite perturbed by the lateness of the 3 that did not show up at the 2:30 timeframe. We had a choice in this, but Rich and I decided to go back to the ship. This is not a fault of Regent, but the fault of fellow cruisers who either did not hear the 2:30 announcement or did not care. This is just my opinion on this, but we had a great time at this beach. Just be forewarned about the charge of the loungers.

Tonight again we dined in Compass Rose which was fantastic.

cwn: Did you have a favorite country? Are there posts with your impressions somewhere on CC (esp. the excursion part)? Thanks.

Yes, we did a daily blog with pictures for the whole trip. It tells about what we did in each port and what happened on board on the sea days.

We didn't post to CC because doing both takes too long and we turn the blog into a travel book when we get home.

Check out:

www.circlesouthamerica2011.blogspot.com

Scroll down to the botton of the page...this is the end of the cruise....then click on Jan to get to the first part of the cruise. It will be day by day with the first day starting at the bottom of the page.

We really enjoyed this adventure especially the first part because we had some great cruise mates for that segment!

......We did the Discover Curacao's Beautiful Beaches excursion....The narrator explained a few things along the way......The scenery is pretty typical of these islands, lots of goats, some chickens, dogs, iguanas, pretty foliage.

 

We arrived at the first beach Cas Abou Beach. We were told to report back to the bus in one hour which would bring us to 2:30p. The beach has very gently rolling waves, but lots and lots of coral instead of nice beach sand. We had on our Land's End water socks which really saved our feet. The water was clear and warm, very refreshing. The sand on the beach floor was perfectly smooth.

 

Rich did do some snorkeling, but they did not provide any equipment that we saw. Rich said the snorkeling was fair, no strong currents.

 

There is a snack shack and restrooms on the beach.

 

We all had chosen some lounges that were stacked up. We did not notice the sign on the tree that said lounges were $3 each. This is not a big deal to us, but it would have been nice if we were told of the charge, again, not a big deal. I paid the guy and noticed that others did not pay because they were in the water or snorkeling. Just was not consistent, but really not a big deal at all.

 

....Seeing there were two buses on this tour, some of us decided we would rather get back to the ship instead of seeing the second beach because of time constraints. We would have gotten back after 5p and that did not suit some of us. Others had chosen to go back by taxi.......We had a choice in this, but Rich and I decided to go back to the ship......

That was the tour we had signed up for, but it was canceled due to the heavy rains the day before. Glad to hear about what you saw and what the beach was like in case we are ever there again.

We had planned to ride the tour bus to Cas Abou and leave to group there, had clear this with the ship beforehand. We wanted to snorkel/shore dive then just take a taxi back to the ship early and see a bit of town since we had never been to the island.

We wound up just walking off on our own, as the ship's tours we were interested in were full. We explored the town and then took a bus in town for $15 a piece that followed one of the Regent tours around.

Sorry your tour was such a mess. We encountered a few rude people on our tours also. Hope it doesn't happen to you again.

Sunny day in Aruba. We decided on the Passport to paradise -De Palm Island Snorkeling tour. We were in the Constellation Theater right at 8:20 and we were quickly called to leave. We had a great a/c coach, plush seats. It is about a 10 minute ride to the ferry to get over to De Palm Island. The ferry ride was maybe 5 minutes.

Once there we were directed to the areas of interest. Rich did the snorkeling and was pleased with the amounts of fish that he saw. The water was a bit cool, but not cold and he did enjoy this tour. There are areas to get something to eat from breakfast foods to lunch, drinks of all kinds. There were changing rooms and plenty of restrooms. This tour lasted about 4 hours and it was a slow and delightful way to spend some time in Aruba. There are plenty of lounges and lots of grass huts if you wish to be in the shade.

We did do some looking around in the downtown area as it is very colorful.

Last night we were asked to fill out a comment card. What a chore that was as I could not find anything at all to write about. I thought about the food, service, wine, shows, and I could not come up with one thing. However, I did write about the wonderful staff, great service, etc.

That was so nice that you put positive comments on the comment cards. They will appreciate that so much.

You have some wonderful ports ahead of you. We were on the cruise with CWN last year (her DH was the star of our trivia team). The passengers and crew on that sailing were great! Hope it will be as good for you.

That was so nice that you put positive comments on the comment cards. They will appreciate that so much.

 

You have some wonderful ports ahead of you. We were on the cruise with CWN last year (her DH was the star of our trivia team). The passengers and crew on that sailing were great! Hope it will be as good for you.

Thanks, TC. All the crew is just fantastic. I cannot say enough positive things about them. I just received a note back from Franck Galzy thanking me for my feedback.

We are now sailing to Colombia and are anxious to see what awaits us.

OP: Thanks for continuing to post and great to hear that the voyage is going so well.

cwn: Thanks for the blog info--wonderful and very very helpful.

The thing that Regent likes to hear above all else on those comment cards is which particular staff/crew are doing a good job and why. By name. They take this very very seriously. Of course they also want to know when something is not right... and normally will come back to you on it at once.

If you run into Franck please ask him if he is onboard for the TA that follows your cruise... and I thank you!!

Gerry

Today we woke up to hazy skies, humid and warm, just the way we like it. The hour walk along the deck was perfect with a slight breeze.

We heard Terry Breen for the first time, although we have heard many positive things about her. Her talk today was excellent, so informative. Cartagena was more modern than I thought it would be, seeing this from the ship.

We enjoyed an excellent lunch of Thai chicken in Compass Rose. The service has been excellent.

An announcement was made that there would be a shuttle to take everyone into town if they wanted to go. Another announcement was made about 30 minutes after the first announcement that stated that the taxi unions barricaded the shuttle so they could not leave. Everyone probably at that point would need either a taxi or go back to the ship.

We will be on a walking tour of Old Cartagena tomorrow which should be interesting and perhaps picturesque.

Tonight is a South American Pool Deck BBQ. They have cleared all the lounges and have set up tables everywhere. There has been so much work in the preparation for this. We will definitely take part in this event.

Interesting about the taxi's. We found the port in Cartagena to be lovely. Looking forward to hearing your input about the barbeque. Regent sets up incredibly beautiful barbeque's.. . . but, the weather has never been conducive to our sitting ourside.

Tonight is a South American Pool Deck BBQ. They have cleared all the lounges and have set up tables everywhere. There has been so much work in the preparation for this. We will definitely take part in this event.

I wish we would have had a deck barbeque on Mariner last week. I don't recall ever being on a warm weather cruise that didn't have one before. The night before our forced second day in Cozumel would have been the perfect time.

They didn't have that festive,special lunch time BBQ either. This is what I meant by no festive feeling.