Pretty awesome sight, David. It reminds me of when we were on MUSH and the coast guard helicopters flying beside us.

That is one amazing picture!

Nicest older lady been in infirmary for 2 days. Had surgery as soon as she reached hospital. Her husband wasn't allowed to go with her so he is still on the ship. I feel so bad for him. He'll be able to get off 1st thing in the morning. No news of success of surgery. Good photo David. I just watched the helicopter fly by. Our dinner with GM started late due to this emergency.

Arrived in Rio about 1 hour ago. This city is huge and looks interesting even from our ship. I have had to cancel my tour for today but will get to go tomorrow. I will be missing the Lesser Rio that Joanna and Marcie have raved about. Hate having to give up seeing all things possible, but I can enjoy watching the city from my balcony.
No new news about the woman who was air lifted off. Will report back if I hear anything second hand that sounds interesting. It seems many of the passengers are using private guides to visit all sorts of Brazilian sounding sites - time on the beach, night clubbing, etc. Will try for photos, especially this evening when all the lights of the city are ablaze.

Ah, so the helicopter was to take the woman off to the hospital.

Be careful in Rio, lots of thieves. There is much to see and do, but remember you can't Blame it on Rio!!!!!

Hi Betty! Hope you enjoy your relaxing day in Rio! I'd love to see that city,even just from a balcony on a Regent ship. It snowed a couple of inches here in Avon / Vail yesterday. But up top on Beaver Creek, there was at least 6" new snow. We had a great time! It's fun seeing the racers for the mens World Cup races that are this weekend at The Beav. Alice has been getting up at 5:00 to work on a paper, then we play hard all day! You can sleep when you're dead!

Love reading your reports!

Kim, Great quote!!!!!

Guess who?

Fantastic Shot :nw: :nw: :nw:

Betty, I hope you get to enjoy Rio. Are you going to a Samba show? Thanks to Cyndi and David, Alan and I enjoyed a great tour of Rio. It had been far down on my travel list because I thought the favelas would be depressing. While any poverty is hard to see, Rio has this wonderful energy about it. Now I want to go back.

David what an amazing picture!

Great shot David....Who took your picture? :D

We have left Rio and are rocking and rolling up the coast. Captain thinks heavy rains tonight. Humidity 100%.
Glad I decided to book this leg at the last minute. I would still be sitting in the Atlanta airport if I had left yesterday.
Your unknown, he should be LCT's "professional" photographer, is David himself. He was able to "get to Jesus" before the clouds and rains came.

Betty, that happened to us last year. We got to Jesus in heavy wind with sun then clouds, then sun, then clouds. Later in the day, they stopped running the tram up the hill. We lucked out.

Seeing the Jesus statue at the top of Rio was certainly hit and miss. David, what a great shot you took! Love it!!

Betty, hope the seas calm down & have a great trip up the Amazon and back to Florida.

Cheers, Anne

Safe travels back, Betty. Hope you're not rocking and rolling too much. I had no idea you were staying onboard this long!

David, your photo of the statue at Rio is great!

David that photo was amazing, truly amazing.

Betty hope things calm down and you have an enjoyable trip back.

Aren't Fred and Pat onboard? And Wendy? Hopefully you will meet up with them and have some great fun.

Priscilla - the Rio to FLL was a very last minute decision. Last minute as in unloading luggage at Houston airport departure lanes and Clay suggested I stay on. I couldn't get that luggage checked and find a phone to call Ngaire fast enough.
I did have to change rooms & will spend the morning rearranging everything to my liking.
My philosophy on missing Jesus in person - I'll have to return one day.

This thread may now become officially “Capetown-Rio Seamail”, as the ship is now blessed (or cursed??) with the presence of a few more LCTers who boarded Friday in Rio, including Wendy & David and Pat & me.

Prior to embarking the Voyager, Pat & I spent four excellent days in that lovely city, using a superb private guide, Cedric Diniz, whom we shared with Wendy & David on two of the four days. Contrary to the soggy experience of the passengers who were in Rio only on Friday and Saturday, the 4th & 5th, our first three days in the city were delightfully dry. That allowed us to see Corcovado and the Christ Redeemer in full sun, misty clouds, heavy fog, and every combination of those meteorological phenomena. The views of the Christ in the mist, both from the ground and from our helicopter, were probably the most dramatic – quite mystical.

The views from Sugar Loaf were in some ways even more spectacular than those from the slightly higher Corcovado. Both of the two mountains provide fantastic vistas of the amazing city, which is a unique combination of endless sweeping beaches, miles of high rise hotels and apartment houses backed up against the mountains, and the largest urban forest in the world, Tijuca Forest. Rio easily lives up to its special name, “a cidade maravilhosa”, the marvelous city!!

It appears that all visitors to Rio do not share our enthusiasm for the lovely city, however. At one particularly magnificent outlook in the Tijuca Forest on our way up to Corcovado, we heard a member of another small tour group (whose guide must have raved about Rio’s beauty one-too-many times for the guy’s tolerance level) loudly declare, “Well, maybe we have finally seen all of beautiful f***ing Rio, okay??!!” Our own little group of five, including our guide, absolutely cracked up and, of course, immediately adopted that expression as our trademark expression for the rest of the week. I was dearly hoping that the guy would have boarded the ship on Friday so that we could share “fond” memories of touring Rio; but, so far, I haven’t seen him onboard. The funniest part of the story is that at first we thought that he was the guide!! Wouldn’t that have been the Rio guide from hell??!! Sadly, it turned out that the guide was a very sweet Carioca who loves her city and simply had the bad luck to have had a major jerk as a client.

Ah, considering the rather limited bandwidth of the signal we’re getting on board and the consequent problems I’ve experienced in my attempts to remain online with this laptop, it might be prudent for me to break my ramblings into segments. Thus, this is to be continued… (Let that be fair warning to you all who will now know to add this thread to your “blocked” list.)

Tchau, Fred

Continuing our little stream of consciousness from Voyager – somewhere in the seas off the coast of Brazil, motoring north to Salvador da Bahia.

On Friday, Pat & I decided to make a special tour day and go with our guide to the gorgeous little city of Petropolis, in the mountains above Rio. It was the location of the summer court of the royal family and is utterly charming, with many exquisite houses and palaces built by the German architects whom the royal family favored in the mid-19th century. The old part of the city seems more German or Austrian than Brazilian, except for the amazingly lush tropical plants. It is somewhat disconcerting to visit the cathedral there, built in a very severe Gothic style, surrounded by gardens of palm trees, banana trees, and exotic flowers, such as anthurium and hibiscus. Sort of like being in some psychedelic world of Brazilian, German, and Hawaiian influences.

Most of the passengers – including your simple correspondent, Fred – who boarded yesterday in Rio, did so in torrential rain. While that aspect was not pleasant, it made for easy conversation as a shared annoyance. Often, shared annoyances are just as good for conversation starters as shared pleasures, no??

Despite the dreadful rain for much of Friday and Saturday, the rain gods gave us some respite during our sailaway yesterday (Saturday). As we sailed out of that “beautiful” (you can add your owned preferred adverbs, depending upon your own experience and preference for naughty language) harbor, Terry Breen was giving her astonishingly knowledgeable yet remarkably accessible commentary; and, suddenly, the Christ Redeemer statue (which had been for the whole day entirely obscured by thick clouds) appeared in the gentle mist. If I run into Terry on the ship, I certainly intend to ask her how she carried that little trick off. It was indeed pretty ****ing spectacular, to say the pretty ****ing least!! Clearly, that lady has some major weather juju. One might think of engaging her to ensure good weather at an outdoor wedding or bris, no??

One rather funny (or maybe horrifying, if someone has a fatalistic view of things) episode yesterday was the mandatory lifeboat drill. At the sound of the Assembly Alarm, we dutifully reported to our assigned muster station, Constellation Lounge, where we were rather brusquely informed that the space wasn’t yet ready for us. Geez, if not then, when?? After a few minutes of our watching crewmembers in jackets of a genuinely painful hue of yellow dash about in clear confusion, the Asst Cruise Director took the microphone to inform us (without the irony that would have been appropriate) that many of the crew had just boarded the ship that day and had not yet received any safety training and therefore couldn’t really assist us in this drill.

He hurried through a short instruction on donning the jacket and told us that because of the heavy wind we would not have to go out to the decks where the lifeboats were located. Then, he released us back to our cocktails, with the assurance that if there was a genuine emergency the crew would have been trained by that time… Please bear in mind that when this little adventure from the Twilight Zone occurred, we were already far out at sea, four hours from Rio. The one consolation Pat & I took from this episode was that we would be in a small group of passengers who would share a lifeboat with the crew – I think that fact should go a long ways to ensuring that we would manage in an emergency, no? In the ship goes down, I would much rather be in the lifeboat with capable seamen (and a chef or two) than with a bunch of hysterical Floridians who are worried about the status of their Louis Vuitton luggage. (Okay, Okay, feel free to begin the flaming about my being such an anti-elitest bozo…)

Well, fatigued readers, the cocktail bell will soon ring and I must throw myself into my suit and tie by then; so this will wrap it up for today.

The seas remain a bit rolling but quite tolerable.

Cheers, Fred

Oh Fred, I just love your reports and fantastic sense of humour! What marvellous comments on the lifeboat drill. May you have only smooth seas from now on. Lee

Fred, thanks for checking in. Yes, Terry Breen does seem to have mystical weather abilities. Hope you enjoy her and your beautiful ****ing cruise.

Fred, thanks for taking time to entertain and educate. I love to read your seamail!

Reporting from the lovely Voyager on Monday, the 7th of December, in the Y.o.o.L 2009:

Although we’ve not yet had the pleasure of running into Betty & David, we are keeping our eyeballs peeled (yikes, kind of a creepy ophthalmologic reference, isn’t it??) for them. Hmm, all things considered, that is pretty much what I just had done a couple of months ago when I had Lasik, wasn’t it??!! Oh well, this post has clearly begun so medically bizarrely that it has nowhere to go but up…

A few early impressions of Voyager, as this is our first cruise since the big dry dock. She looks wonderful. Despite my admitted fondness for Latitudes and consequent sadness that it has gone away, we had a very decent dinner at Prime 7 a couple of nights ago. Our waiter was a most amiable Scot, Andrew, with just the perfect blend of product knowledge and Scottish cheek. We’ll definitely return to Prime 7 on this cruise.

The new décor in Compass Rose is visually quite lovely. The new chairs are comfortable for the seated passengers but a total nightmare for the serving staff, since that ridiculous return on the back of each chair effectively reduces aisle space by at least six inches per chair. The serving staff hates those new chairs and surely has erected somewhere down in the staff quarters a little voodoo shrine where they can poke pins into a model of whichever dimwitted interior designer came up with the idiotic notion to place such heavy and walk-space-intrusive chairs into that dining venue.

Last night at CR, I had a beef preparation that was as close to perfection as it could be – seared on the outside, red all the way through, yet fork tender. We were worried that with our beloved Cornell leaving for the Mariner, things might go a bit south in the galley. So far, we have seen no evidence whatever of that, to our great relief and to the not-so-great relief of our already-tightening clothes. There is something quite odd about the air on Regent ships that seems to shrink our clothes even when they are simply hanging innocently in the closet. Maybe this is something that the EPA should investigate, no?? Where is Al Gore when you need him??

Today, we were in Salvador da Bahia (also spelled loosely in various Regent documents as Salvador de Bahia, Salvador de Bahai, and Salvador do Bahaa). The first one I mentioned is the correct one, according to our guides and the two atlases in our suite. In any etymological event, we had a very good city tour, the absolute highlight of which was a magnificent one-hour performance (just for the 30 of us) by the Bale Folclorico da Bahia. It was stunning!! The dancers were splendid.

Regent absolutely did its job on this tour, despite a lot of tedious carping from people on the tour who complained that there was far too much walking. The description said that there would be about 700 yards (total) of walking – that’s about half a mile, dear friends and fellow travelers – and that is exactly what it turned out to be. One old fool repeatedly and loudly yammered on that he’d been forced to walk at least five miles in the course of the tour!! We didn’t quite understand that measurement, unless he’d made a hell of a lot of visits to various men’s rooms, in which case he might be well advised to: (1) read his tour description; and (2) get his Flomax prescription renewed.

We are now at sea, having departed Salvador de-whatever a couple of hours ago. Tomorrow, another wonderful sea day on which we can sleep in, drink all afternoon, take naps, etc. Ah, life on Voyager is indeed good!!!!

I remain, your more-or-less conscious chronicler of this voyage, Fred

The only thing better than reading your reports Fred would be being on board with you (for me, not necessarily you).

Betty: Hope you're enjoying your new cabin.

Lee

Lee - new cabin? No! Still miss my 1st one but at least I now have everything in its place. I do still see my old neighbors. I haven't seen Fred, Pat or Wendy either. David has a hair style that makes him easy to recognize once you have seen it for the 1st time. And naturally he is wearing t-shirts with "witty" slogans. He really is hard to miss. He would say the same about me since I'm wearing as little make-up as possible!!!
Spending this sea day ordering Xmas presents. It's difficult to remember it will be the 25th very soon. No decorations on the ship yet.
Am meeting lots of new people - many Brits. It's always fun to try to interpret "their English."
Don't have the new camera/laptop totally figured out yet, but I keep trying. Photos will follow when this miracle occurs.

For "little make-up" read no make-up! You can recognize Betty's cabin by the big "wet" spot outside where she dumped her room service tray in the hallway and up most of the walls. Fred: I'm looking for you- is your avatar photo a recent one?

Ah, David - What to say about my avatar?? It is several years old. I am now older, grayer, and more jowly than in that photo. Further, since my Lasik surgery a couple of months ago I am not wearing glasses most of the time. Otherwise, I look pretty much the same, more or less, kind of... (If you were by any chance at the Public TV at Sea Q&A session today in the Observation Lounge with Charlie Cook, I was the guy who asked whether Obama might soon lift the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in the military.) As it seems that you are likely a bit more recognizable than I am, I will continue to keep my eyes open, peeled, and otherwise on high alert for you. Cheers, Fred

I’d like to throw in my two cents here. This is our 85th day on a Regent ship. All of them have been wonderful. If our first five days on Voyager on this trip are the norm, this will be the best cruise of all. The service has been attentive, friendly and prompt. We perceive a happy crew working together very well. We have a butler for the first time. Ved is spoiling us rotten. We are working very hard to not get too used to it. We dine mostly in Compass Rose, breakfast and lunch as well as dinner. The menus have been excellent and the food hot and tasty. We couldn’t ask for more.

Two nights ago we experienced Prime 7 for the first time. Excellent. We MUST go back one more time on this cruise! I had the large lobster. Perfection. Fred had the surf and turf and was quite pleased. We expressed reservations about the crab claws to our head waiter, Andrew, an attentive, friendly and enthusiastic Scot. He insisted we try the crab and brought a sample to all four of us (as if we needed any more food). It was excellent. The only downside to P7, IMO, is it is almost impossible not to order too much food.

We love the new décor of the ship. And the entertainment on board has been outstanding. The Observation Lounge pianist, Vlado, is quite good. We’ve closed the OL listening to him every night. And the duo performing in the Voyager Lounge is also excellent, as is the ship orchestra performing in the Horizon Lounge. Our Vegas-type performer Glenn Smith is the best of his type I have experienced cruising. The new group of Regent singers and dancers is also the best I’ve experienced. And last night we enjoyed cabaret singer K T Sullivan perform. She was everything I had hoped for and received an enthusiastic response from a large audience. And there is much more cabaret singing to come since this is one of the themes of the cruise. This is a more active late night crowd than I’ve seen on a Regent ship in a long time. It is also one of the oldest crowds; yet the Voyager Lounge is filled with enthusiastic senior dancers before and after dinner. Bravo!

Another theme is public television at sea. Our first speaker had been Charlie Cook from PBS, who is magnificent. He’s spoken twice now in the theatre with an hour of follow up each time in the OL. Superb. It doesn’t get any better than this. I am a happy happy camper indeed! Fred will have to drag me off the ship on 12/18. Pat

Well, well, well .. Betty, David, Fred, Pat, Wendy and David wandering around the ship, each having a marvelous time. Doesn't get much better than that! :p

Keep up the excellent travelogues, folks. We are vicariously enjoying it. We are reciprocating. Know we are vicariously wrapping Xmas (or whatever holiday you prefer) presents and braving the post office/parcel place lines to spend $$$$$$$$$$$ on shipping the thoughtful yet whimsical items for all on our 'send to' list. We'd hate for you to feel left out of that annual pilgrimage.

Betty, we've had a confluence of Facebook therapies. I'm on the level in Mafia Wars where we collect eggs. I can spare you a few if you'd like.

Cheers, Anne

Pat and Fred
Loving your reports. I know I can rely on you for a truthful report. You don't give praise easily. Loved you Christmas card. Loved Cambodia. We need to talk when you get back.

We are finally back on line!
Rumour has it that Regent didn't pay their satellie bill! We shall find out if Mariner lost their connection also.
Finally found Fred...he is a lot, lot younger than his photo shows!

David,

I think you need your eyes checked. or you have found a different Fred.

Does Fred have anything to say about this strange observation by David ???

After two days without telephone and internet connection, it is good to be back in touch with the world (although if one must be isolated from outside world contact, the Voyager makes for a very pleasant haven indeed).

David - I will slip the payment for the compliment under your cabin door later today.

Ralph - While I do find David's observation a bit exaggerated (after all, I am only a lot younger than my avatar photo appears, rather than the "lot, lot younger" posted by David), I will happily accept any compliment that drifts my way. Further, since I had only agreed to pay for one "lot", I now owe an additional fee to David. Hmm, maybe he would accept our unopened bottle of champagne??

Ah, time to go to Compass Rose to check on the special Indian lunch that is being prepared for us (Wendy & David, Rod (mojorisin) & Sarah, and Pat & me). I know that Ngaire will be so sorry that she missed it, considering her great passion for spicy Indian grub.

More later, if I can tear myself away from the Pool Bar long enough to post.

Cheers, Fred

This cruise continues to please us immensely. Seas have been calm but the weather too hot, as we expected. So the cool comfort that surrounds us inside the ship is particularly pleasing. We have now met a good number of folks who post on CC and/or LCT, delightful folks all. I continue to be extremely pleased with the entertainment offered. The new Regent singers performed their new show for the first time three nights ago with their dancing peers clapping enthusiastically in the audience. I thought they were exceptionally good. Unfortunately, attendance was light. Last night the comedian/magician performed to a large enthusiastic audience. He was very good but not really my cup of tea. Last night another cabaret singer from the Mabel Mercer Foundation group, Craig Rubano, sang Cole Porter. Simply sensational! And Charlie Cook from the Public Television at Sea group has spoken again, once in the theatre and a second time in a Q&A in the Observation Lounge. He fills every seat and, IMO, for very good reason. The only weak point in having these two groups on board is the ship has closed La Veranda on two nights to accommodate each of them in private dinners. Not good form! It happened last night resulting in pretty crowded seating in Compass Rose. IMO they should accommodate the groups on one side of La Veranda and keep the other side open for all the other passengers. (But maybe that would pose a separate set of staffing challenges.) Nonetheless, both groups are a great plus for this cruise.

Life couldn’t be better aboard Voyager. Barbados the day after tomorrow. Pat

Great to hear from you, Fred and Pat. It's nice to know that the Voyager looks great, and your observations about the quality of the entertainment are good to hear. Also, it sounds as if you hit the jackpot with Public TV at Sea and Charlie Cook. Enjoy!

Our Indian lunch today was absolutely one of the most memorable meals we’ve had on a Regent ship. It was served family style but quite elegantly (that apparently discordant description should make everyone even more certain of my precarious mental state). The six dishes presented demonstrated wonderfully the full range of Indian flavors, from mild to quite piquant. Our Brit friends declared that the meal was entirely comparable to a meal at Veeraswamy, the most famous Indian joint in London (at which I’ve eaten many times; and I share their assessment of today's experience). The food today was terrific, as was the service. The whole staff (both in the galley and on the floor) clearly reveled in presenting a special treat for us. This was Regent at its best!!

After lunch, in a torrential downpour (we’re talking monsoon here, folks!!), the ship did the silly Crossing the Equator ceremony – even though we in fact crossed the equator yesterday. It was the usual gross combination of people having nasty goop dumped on their heads and exhibitionists (including one quite mature fellow wearing a very, very small Speedo) showing way, way too much skin. Geez, with all of these great white whales, where is Captain Ahab when you need him?? It appears to be one of the sad rules of cruising that the people who should wear those wonderfully brief sorts of swimwear are not usually the ones who do. For my own part, I spare the world and my fellow passengers the spectacle of my all-too-ample pale flesh and do not position myself as a Moby Dick.

Ah, enough dopey Herman Melville references for today; so I will close. Looking forward to braised lamp shanks in Compass Rose tonight, if I can summon up the appetite after our magnificent Indian feast. (I will do my best to manage at least one lamb shank, even if I cannot handle my usual two…)

Cheers, Fred

Fred,
Remember that with a couple of glasses of nice red wine the Lamb shanks go down much easier. If enough red wine it will be no trouble to do at least two lamb shanks.

Pleased to hear such good news about the Voyager.

Sorry to have missed what sounds like a perfect cruise.

Fred - We call those wonderfully brief swimming costumes, budgie smugglers! Appropriate? Lee

Lee, that is priceless :ohmy: