If at first, . . .

Sea Mail from Mariner:

Well we got to Singapore just a little delayed and then boarded the ship for dinner with Marc and Arlene and Marc’s Mom and her husband. There were ten of us and a lot of lamb. After flying all day I was not that hungry and could not do the lamb justice. It was excellent. Finished up dinner with soufflés for dessert. I indulged in one of those it was wonderful. So nice to see Marc and Arlene and I enjoyed our little time together. Just too short I was wishing they were staying on board. Met McKeever briefly at the dinner table, they were sitting quite close to us.

Saw many familiar friendly faces it is like coming home. Last night Count Florida just sat with another couple and lo and behold it was jdreyfus who posts on LCT. It is such a small world. Of all the people they sit with another LCT poster. There are not that many LCT members on this trip but we will get together at some point and visit.

Had a wonderful piece of prime rib last night and have to admit right after dinner I crashed. Went to bed at 10.00 pm and then of course woke up early this morning. Tonight I am sure I will get into my normal “at sea” routine of staying up at night and sleeping in the morning.

This is the first morning and the sun is shining and the sea looks like glass. It is SO calm. What a wonderful way to start the trip. Internet was down this morning but backup now. So I am going to post this first installment. Formal night to night and we have the lobster tails and beef tenderloin tonight – light lunch in order today. Be back later.
Sea Mail from Mariner:

Well we got to Singapore just a little delayed and then boarded the ship for dinner with Marc and Arlene and Marc’s Mom and her husband. There were ten of us and a lot of lamb. After flying all day I was not that hungry and could not do the lamb justice. It was excellent. Finished up dinner with soufflés for dessert. I indulged in one of those it was wonderful. So nice to see Marc and Arlene and I enjoyed our little time together. Just too short I was wishing they were staying on board. Met McKeever briefly at the dinner table, they were sitting quite close to us.

Saw many familiar friendly faces it is like coming home. Last night Count Florida just sat with another couple and lo and behold it was jdreyfus who posts on LCT. It is such a small world. Of all the people they sit with another LCT poster. There are not that many LCT members on this trip but we will get together at some point and visit.

Had a wonderful piece of prime rib last night and have to admit right after dinner I crashed. Went to bed at 10.00 pm and then of course woke up early this morning. Tonight I am sure I will get into my normal “at sea” routine of staying up at night and sleeping in the morning.

This is the first morning and the sun is shining and the sea looks like glass. It is SO calm. What a wonderful way to start the trip. Internet was down this morning but backup now. So I am going to post this first installment. Formal night to night and we have the lobster tails and beef tenderloin tonight – light lunch in order today. Be back later.

And from count Florida: We are having having a thoroughly delightful time, at the moment sitting around outside Club.Com trying the great coffee from the new (at least to me) Coffee Corner, and trying to send the above brief report. Ralph M. and I have been trying to get updates on Wilma - "6 mil in Florida without power" is the headline in the Sarasota paper, so we are OK on the west coast north of Venice, where we live.

More later . . .

Thanks for posting, guys!!

Masaki

Mike and Pat...don't worry, everything is fine here - we didn't even lose power. Had dinner at JRyans last night!

Please say hello to Jody and Cathy for us - we've cruised with them on the Mariner before. Wish we were there will all of you now, but will be happy to settle onto the Navigator in a few days.

Enjoy and please give our regards to everyone!

Thanks for posting, Count and Ngaire,

Continue to have a great cruise. I love the thread name. It reminds me of Coffee Talk with Linda Richmond, the old SNL bit. :D

Thanks Count and Ngaire for the sea mail! So far, dinners have sounded tasty. I am so glad to hear the Mariner has a coffee corner now!

It's nice to live vicariously

Thanks for posting! Have fun!

Babs

Ngaire, I assume your luggage arrived with you since you didn't say otherwise. Nice to hear from you, have a super trip.

Thanks for posting - so glad you are off to a good start!

Sounds like a dream to me........makes me hungry!!! have a wonderful time.
cindy

Sea Mail from Mariner:

Another wonderful dinner and very relaxing day at sea.

The new coffee corner is really great. It is a larger area than the Voyager and has the best machine. The coffee is great out of this top of the line machine. The tables have been expanded and it is a great place to have a cup of coffee, work on our lap top and visit with people passing by. Quite a social gathering spot. Have nice baked goods and cookies all the time that I am still managing to resist.

Today again, it is a glorious sunny day with incredibly calm seas. Picture post card perfect. Hope it is like this in Bali tomorrow. Yes, we are going to Bali and I am delighted about that. So looking forward to it. Six of us are going to get either one van or two cars and go out into the country and small towns. Ralph has already been here so he knows the places to go and I am quite pumped about my first trip to Bali.

Dinner last night was lovely. We ate with the Staff Captain and he has spent a lot of time in Antarctica so one of the couples at the table are on the Hanseatic so there was great interest in what he had to say. Food was great, closed the dining room – AGAIN.

Internet is up and down and I am amazed that Marc posted so much. It is not easy and is slow. It took us about four times to post yesterday. I am composing on our lap top and then copying it over to post. Marc we could not handle the accounts so my office is sending you a check.

Okay signing off now. Some good speakers today so I am going to attend the cooking demonstration and then both seminars. Busy day at sea – isn’t life grand

Hi Ngaire!

Seems like you had another "tough" day at the office ;) ! Let us know how it goes on Bali.

Hi Ngaire,

Good to hear from you! Wishing you a lovely time in Bali!

Hi Ngaire,

Your trip sounds wonderful. I hope you get a chance to go to Ubud in Bali. On the way there are lots of places to stop that have handcarved pieces that are just gorgeous. Ubud has many artists that paint tropical bird scenes, these are so beautiful. I could only manage to get one painting home unfortunately. Would love to go back someday.

Looking forward to hearing about your adventures. Enjoy!

KarenM

Hi Ngaire

I put this in another thread but you may not have read it, so at the risk of boring everyone silly, I'm going to repeat it.

You have no idea how close I came to joining you on the Mariner in Darwin. At the promotional night, they gave me a flyer about cruising from Darwin to Sydney but it was just too rushed. With encouragement from Michael, was I tempted! If I'd only had another couple of weeks notice, I probably would have made it.

I have now been invited on board the Mariner between 2pm and 4pm on Tuesday, 8 November while it is in Sydney. As I didn't get to cruise on it, this has got to be the next best thing! Yahoo!

Do you leave the ship in Sydney?

Lee

Ngaire - My suggestions:

1. Do go to Ubud. Visit Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA) in Ubud Bali, which is located on Jl. Pengosekan in downtown Ubud. It features Indonesian painters along with dance and theater classes. We were there when they were teaching young girls the basics of Balinese dance. Seeing that class underway was among the most memorable parts of our visit.

2. If you have time, have lunch at Ku De Ta restaurant in Seminyak at Jalan Oberoi 9. Phone is 361/736969. Probably the best of the restaurants we visited & a lovely beach location. If not, Dirty Duck near Ubud seems to be a favorite choice.

3. Don't try to head up to the rice fields. Traffic takes forever.

Cheers, Anne

So good to hear that you're having a good time and good weather! Keep the sea mails rolling in!

Love the sea mial, Ngaire. Keep it coming (have a good time, too.)

Glad to hear you are having such a great time Ngaire! Keep us posted.

Anthony

Ngaire, thanks.

We sure miss being onboard. Continue to have a wonderful cruise.

Marc

Bali today. We did it on our own with a van and six of us for $20 each. The van did not really have adequate air conditioning so it was a little hot. I must say I don’t understand why Bali is so popular. The island is bigger than I anticipated and there are a lot of different areas and of course we could not see them all.

We headed for Ubud which is the place to visit. All the way to Ubud it was just really crowded, lots of traffic and quite dirty, lots of garbage around. I was surprised by this I had a different picture in my mind. In Ubud there were a lot of shops, I did buy one piece of jewelry and we visited the market. Just general junk stuff in the market as is normal. Then we visited one of the best hotels on the island Amandari. Minimum room is $650 a night. We saw a room that sells for $800 a night. The view over the mountain was beautiful and the hotel was laid out very nicely I just don’t see the value here for that kind of money though. The people are the highlight. At the hotel the staff were very warm and accommodating people, and the little children were delightful. I had a picture taken with what I thought would be one little girl but others ran over to be in the picture. Sweet kids and did not ask for money for the picture. It was quite refreshing. We then went to a look out point that was quite attractive. It was just a lot of driving. We were tired so passed visiting the temple and came back to the ship. Glad I have been to Bali and I think if you stayed here you may come to appreciate it more as you spend more time with the Balinese and not stray as far from the comfort of a luxury hotel.

Tomorrow Komodo Island. I have my fingers crossed we see one it is certainly not for sure we just go for a walk and cross our fingers.

Ngaire, hope you see a komodo dragon tomorrow. If all else fails you can see the one Olivia and I saw at the Sydney zoo. Love your sea mails!

Thanks for your report on Bali, Ngaire. Happy to hear you got to experience this destination. Hope you get to see a Komodo dragon up close, but not too personal!

Wishing you a continued great time!

I know that if you see a komodo dragon that Ken will get a great picture for all of us to share. Party on!

Just make sure it doesn't bite Ken's toes, like what happened with Sharon Stone and her husband!

Can't wait to hear about the komodo dragon sightings. Thanks for the sea mail. Keep it coming!

Enjoying all your reports and looking forward to future ones! Enjoy!

Ngaire,

I'm loving your Sea Mail! Continue to enjoy and to post, if you get a chance!

Betty

Ngaire,

I agree on Bali... Saw it several years ago and the Temple was the best as there were no vendors , beggars and scam artist. I too expected something very different.. . We hired a van also but had to force the driver to show us the sights and not take us to every curio store and relatives art studio. <img border="0" alt="[bang]" title="" src="graemlins/banghead.gif" /> At least you saw it...

Bali is probably a better stay-over destination than a same-day stop for a cruise ship IMHO. We were there for five nights at a private home and had a van & driver for 3 of those 5 days. It was magical because of the people and being a part of their day-to-day lives. Cheers, Anne

One of the most unusual and amazing things we saw during our single day in Bali was a cremation celebration. We were in a small tour group and our private guide arranged for us to stop and make a small donation to the family to join in the "party". Often families save for a quite a while to be able to afford the pomp and circumstance that is required for the final send off of their dearly departed. It was a memorable part of our visit.

I also have a fond memory of the beautiful countryside - the terraced rice patties were such a brilliant green color. And as we passed small streams we saw natives swimming and splashing in the water.

The road side shrines and the temples were also worth seeing.

Sounds like an amazing trip Ngaire, hope you continue to enjoy it and have a great time. Thanks for posting - keep it coming! Another chance to live vicariously thru someone cruising somewhere!! :D :D

KOMODO ISLAND

We arrived at Komodo Island and things started to look grim. There was a delay in debarking and then Barry started to fill us in on the problems. The dock that was supposed to work with the tenders could not work. It was too high. Plus the dock had deteriorated and was not that safe in areas. They were trying to figure out a way to get us safely ashore. They thought about building a ramp but that would not work. They thought about a smaller boat to land on the beach but there was a big swell. Then they tried to negotiate to use a local boat but that was not looking promising. The local authorities also wanted to charge each person for taking pictures. Can you imagine that mess with everyone having to line up to pay. RSSC solved the camera charge problems by paying for us all. One thing solved but still how would we get ashore. Everyone was so concerned we all wanted to go. Three hours after we were supposed to be disembarking, success!!! They hired a local boat tied that to the dock and then disembarked the tender onto that boat and then onto the dock. YEAH ashore we went.

This is a desolate island. Very little vegetation and dry. On arrival there were the normal vendors selling local products and PEARLS. I knew I had to have some pearls from Komodo Island before I reboarded the ship. Little kids everywhere saying “hello”. Not really bothering us to buy anything just saying hello and smiling. We landed actually on a beach area but they had built a wooden deck area to take us to the path just up from the beach.

We set off in groups with guides with forked wooden sticks to stop the dragons from eating us. I had been told that the dragons were free to roam but we would be “encaged” in a path. NOT true. Wide open to the dragons. Not really any concern thought after all the guides had a wooden stick!!!! We saw our first dragon pretty quickly. By now it was nearly mid day and they were shading themselves under buildings to keep cool. They looked very lethargic but the guides made us keep a distance of about six to eight feet away. Carrying on down the path we passed the “hotel” which consisted of three huts on raised poles. Cant quite imagine spending a vacation here!! Outside the hotel was a dead deer which was pretty much consumed and it was a morning kill for the dragons.
In this area we saw another large dragon under a building. Now if I had half a brain I would have stopped here - seen the dragons – pearls were waiting. However, not wanting to miss a thing I went on to the next circle path with the group. Well it got hotter and hotter. The path was pretty flat but it went on and on and not a dragon or anything in sight. Pretty boring landscape. After walking for 45 minutes in the heat we reach a point where they gave us water and they had hung a pig in a tree and there were three big dragons underneath the tree drawn by the smell of the pig. This really did make it worth it as they were not hidden under a building and were moving around a bit. Ken got some good pictures. Then we found we had to walk back just as far to the beach. So another 45 minutes back. Talk about HOT HOT HOT.

When we made it back to the beach the “glow” of buying pearls had faded away. Plus now all the little children who had just said hello had everything to buy you could imagine. They must have been told not to bother us until we got back from the walk. However, I still liked the idea of getting pearls from Komodo Island so decided to have a quick look. Most were really not good at all but they did have some strings of twisted pearls that looked okay. The clasps were of course really cheap but at the whopping negotiated price of $20 how could I go wrong. Ken wanted me to buy more but you could tell the clasp would break pretty soon and the restringing would be more expensive than the pearls so I really did not think it was worth it.

Back on board the air conditioning and shower were really wonderful.. We were SO delighted to get ashore and actually see the dragons. They said we were the first large ship to come in about five years. From what we could gather the Navigator was the largest ship that had ever been there. It is shame more ships don’t stop here it is unique and the only place on earth you can see the Komodo Dragons. Yes, it was hot and yes it was a long walk However, for me it was well worth it. Besides I needed to work off some of the food I have been eating. Mark one up for Radisson for coming to Komodo Island.

Dinner last night was in signatures. The menu did not look as appealing to me but ended up being really good. The crab soup was outstanding and the beef tenderloin was outstanding. The service was as good as I have ever experienced in Signatures. All in all a wonderful evening. Tonight we are eating with the F&B manager, I really like him so we are looking forward to the dinner.

Ngaire, glad everything worked out on Komodo. Glad cruise going well. Thank Rogerrio again for us; we really enjoyed food, drinks, and service on the Mariner.

Wow Ngaire! Some adventure! I admire your fortitude.

Who is the F&B manager?

Sounds quite exciting. Thanks for sharing.

i just googled komodo dragons, it has been a long time since i read anything or saw a picture oh my........there is a really good article about them and the island. Very graphic description of them. You are brave indeed, i may have been having margaritaville on the ship.
Cindy

What a great adventure, Ngaire. I was hanging on every word you wrote. Radisson really came through in getting everyone off the ship and out to experience Komodo. Kudos to the staff on a job very well done.

Thanks for sharing your wonderful and exciting day with us! So looking forward to seeing Ken's photos!

Ngaire,

I had to laugh out loud -- your trip to Komodo Island so closely mirrors ours! I have NEVER been so glad to return to an air conditioned ship!! On our trip, the guides proded the dragons on the trail with those pronged sticks so they would move. We went to an enclosed area where there were several lounging and they fed them. I certainly never felt in danger despite the dramatic stories, just HOT!

I try to keep my mouth shut, so many are excited to see the Komodo Dragons. For us, one trip there was plenty. Next time, we'll stay onboard and enjoy the ship.

Enjoy the rest of the trip!

Betty

Thanks for sharing that, Ngaire - would love to see them one of these days!

Masaki