LIVE -To and From the Amazon - 11/17-12/12/2017

Jackie,

Hopefully, you have signed up for the"Boi Bumba Folk Show" in Parintins. That, and our visit to Devil's Island were the highlights of our Amazon trip. Is Terry Breen aboard giving talks on the area? Her lecture on Devil's Island brought it to life during our excursion.

Jackie:

Definitely want to hear about your experience on Devils Island - we had to miss that due to unfavorable tendering conditions. And take your cooling devices for Boi Bomba - that venue gets quite warm!

Following along as we're booked on this itinerary next November. First time Regent cruises and grateful to find your "live" thread. Thanks for sharing your adventure.

 

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Hello, we are booked next year on the same cruise. Like you I am so glad to find this post. We leave on our first Regent Dec. 11 and are looking forward to it. Same ship, so we will get a taste of the year to come.

I looked at the Regent web site and yes - Terry Breen is on board. Lucky Mariner people.

She's the best!

Peggy

Thanks Jackie for all your posts and great information!! Will see you in Chile in Feb 2019. Stay cool.....

Can't believe that I just lost my long post. Must remember to keep "saving".

Dance report for tomorrow night the night of the Grand Deck BBQ under the Caribbean Sky.

7:00 - 7:50 p.m. - Dancing on Deck: The Regent Signature Orchestra plays for your listening and dancing pleasure on deck this evening. Get out your dancing shoes and join in the fun.

9:00 - 10:00 p.m. - Live Dance Deck Party Under the Stars: After joining us for a spectacular feast, enjoy dancing under the stars. Cruise Director Lorraine, the Mariner Production Cast Singers, accompanied by the Regent Signature Orchestra will take you bak to some of the great songs of the 60's, 70's and 80's so you can boogie down on deck with the Mariner Product Cast Dancers. NOTE: If I could dance, I'd love the chance to dance with one of the extremely handsome Mariner dancers (and the women are gorgeous!)

mdunne48 - how nice that we will be on the same cruise on Explorer in February 2019. This cruise is driving me a bit crazy. It is such an expensive cruise! We will have to just decide to book a higher category suite because it is a very special birthday for my husband (and, IMO, he deserves the best)!

Peggy, yes - we are so fortunate to have Terry Breen onboard. We have yet to hear her speak but will catch up on the television and will be attending her lectures during the 3 sea days prior to arriving at our first Amazon port.

Kwaj girl - thank so much for the heads up about the fact that we will likely not see the shore during our sea day in the Amazon. That is good to know!

BB from CA - Hmmmmm, we have booked another excursion at that port because we don't like crowds. Based on your comments (which we appreciate), will look into changing our excursion. Is the place where it is held air conditioned? We will check out Devil's Island!

Travelerpair - what month are you booked on the Amazon cruise next year? Hope that your December cruise is wonderful. Despite needing a bit of refreshing, the Mariner is wonderful. To be honest, I'd rather be on the Mariner pre-refurbishment than the Navigator post-refurbishment (okay - I know that many disagree with me).

Had dinner in Sette Mari -- the veal was perfection. Since there is so much food available on the table (the appetizers) and on the buffet, I only ordered pasta and soup (both excellent). It was so good to see Francisco (Maitre 'd and long time Regent crew member). I predicted years ago that he could become the first Filipino General Manager. Hoping that he gets promoted soon to Restaurant Manager as he has equal or better customer service skills than those in that position. Such a gem. We are thrilled that he will be onboard Voyager for our March, 2018 cruise. Kudos also to Luigi and Alexi (servers in Sette Mari) who provided everyone with over the top service!

Hello, we are booked next year on the same cruise. Like you I am so glad to find this post. We leave on our first Regent Dec. 11 and are looking forward to it. Same ship, so we will get a taste of the year to come.

Enjoy your December Regent cruise and hope to see you on the Roll Call for the 11/25/18 Amazon cruise.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=54559030#post54559030

TC- ask Francisco about his watch ( We both have the same one ) we kid about it every time we see each other. Look forward to see him in March.

Wishing you a speedy recovery. I went through the surgery three years ago and never thought that I'd be walking in high heels (2 - 3") now.

Thank you...:)

TC- ask Francisco about his watch ( We both have the same one ) we kid about it every time we see each other. Look forward to see him in March.

Will do!

Many thanks for the dance updates - so nice of you to bother to look for and share this info while on vacation! Given what you have shared I am looking forward to our cruise even more than I was before as for us time on the dance floor really makes our day. Knowing there are scheduled dance times also will help me know what to pack as I like to be in a skirt or flowing pants for dancing so will need that too - your 180 lbs of luggage made perfect sense to me :-).

Am also very appreciative of the info you are sharing about the ship and the food - that’s also sounding terrific!!

So glad you are enjoying it in spite of the heat.

Jackie,

The Boi Bumba excursion, as posted by Regent, states that the venue is air conditioned, however, you do have to walk about 15 minutes from the tender drop-off point to the site. Someone who has been there since we were there may be able to tell you how cool it is inside, We were there in 2011, and I don't remember it being overly cool, but that was 6 years ago. That year, the show was the only excursion that Regent offered. I did notice that they now offer a "highlights tour" that requires more time walking outside. We decided to tender over early and walk the city before the show on our own, and stayed awhile in the city after. (We can tolerate heat a bit.) The show itself is only one hour long, but the costumes, "floats" and presentation made a lasting impression.

Bill

Kwai girl you for sure are right! We enjoyed the Amazon trip as well. We not only were surprised by the width of the river but mostly by the commercial devellopment in this area. Probably we should have gone 10 or 20 years earlier to see the Aamazon that we thought it would be.

There is a great plus however,compared to the old times. No yellow fever shots necessary anymore . And......We did not see one musquito the whole trip!!

The humidity was better than we experience in New Orleans. Welcome into the NEW world of the Amazone.:cool: We certainly enjoyed the trip and were thrilled by seeing the pink Dolphins while having lunch on the outdoor deck of La Veranda. (We were not impressed by all the brown water, but have to admit that we never saw pink dolfins in the muddy Mississippi...:halo:

To us the best of the trip was not being on the Amazone, mind you Maus is just another cosmopolitian city however surrounded by a lot of trees. It was the excellent service of the Regent crew that made our trip really great!

For now we plan the Medeiterranean again. Even after 7 Regent trips in this area, everytime this is a real treat!

Whatever you decide, happy cruising!

We did the 2016 Circumnavigation of S America which included about 1 week in the Amazon - I was truly amazed about the width of this river - often you could barely see the coastlines....and when you get to the "merging of the waters' you will definitely see the brown water vs the black water. And the pink dolphins!

Jackie. Thank you so much for doing this live review. I love live reports

Devils Island, when were there last November it was HOT and I like hot

Sounds like you are prepared, tho

Kwai girl you for sure are right! We enjoyed the Amazon trip as well. We not only were surprised by the width of the river but mostly by the commercial devellopment in this area. Probably we should have gone 10 or 20 years earlier to see the Aamazon that we thought it would be.

 

There is a great plus however,compared to the old times. No yellow fever shots necessary anymore . And......We did not see one musquito the whole trip!!

 

The humidity was better than we experience in New Orleans. Welcome into the NEW world of the Amazone.:cool: We certainly enjoyed the trip and were thrilled by seeing the pink Dolphins while having lunch on the outdoor deck of La Veranda. (We were not impressed by all the brown water, but have to admit that we never saw pink dolfins in the muddy Mississippi...:halo:

 

To us the best of the trip was not being on the Amazone, mind you Maus is just another cosmopolitian city however surrounded by a lot of trees. It was the excellent service of the Regent crew that made our trip really great!

 

For now we plan the Medeiterranean again. Even after 7 Regent trips in this area, everytime this is a real treat!

 

Whatever you decide, happy cruising!

Your information about the Amazon is most welcome. It is starting to seem like it is taking forever to get to the Amazon. Tomorrow is Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Today is Granada where we went to the fish market and spice market. Will be posting photos of fish and of the Navigator from yesterday.

VERY hot -- 88 degrees with 75+% humidity. Had a great lunch and have work to do on the computer this afternoon and will enjoy being in air conditioning. Suite staying around 70 degrees which is tolerable. It is too hot for us to sit outside for the BBQ but will try to take photos of the wonderful offerings. This is always a cruise highlight.

Have to switch devices in order to post photos and will try to do that soon.

Going to try to post photos - hoping that this won't be a disaster

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Going to try to post photos - hoping that this won't be a disaster

 

 

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Navigator with view of the "duck tail"

Entrance to. Fish Market

Do any of you fishermen/women out there know what this beautiful fish is? Haven't seen it before

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Just guessing that it is a Red Hind (think Grouper), but we are certainly open to correction.

VERY hot -- 88 degrees with 75+% humidity.

Or as we'd say in South Carolina: "Wednesday". Jackie, I don't think you'd survive one of our summers - I go to the Med in the summer to cool off!! :')

Posting photos

Well, that didn't work. So, I'll talk about this evening.

The BBQ was amazing (even though it was a tiny bit too hot for us to attend). We did take pictures with my iPhone but it didn't want to post photos. We dined in CR and the local "destination dish" was delicious. Also, our new favorite server onboard, Kevin, helped to make the evening perfect. He is from India and I predict that he will eventually be a butler -- I tend to have an "eye" for this after being in Human Resources for many years.

Tomorrow is the last port until we reach the Amazon. Suddenly prices in the Boutique will increase 25% due to taxes imposed upon cruise ships in Brazil. And, if I remember correctly, unless you have a permit to perform onboard the ship in Brazil, the entertainers will not be performing. This is one of a few reasons why I do not care for Brazil. However, having said that, I want to share this information (taxes, etc) for people reading this thread.

For those that read my September review of the Mariner, I mentioned issues of food not being up to temperature in LV. I can assure you that this is no longer the case. Food is hot and is much more flavorful. Unfortunately, the person that makes soup on Explorer is a "master" (IMO) and perhaps he should give his tips for soups with a deep flavor to chefs on other ships.

Cannot resist responding to "Bill" (not sure if his post was on this thread or not). Admittedly I am a "wimp" when it comes to heat but I would challenge him to visit the Pacific Northwest when it is 55 degrees and I'm not even wearing a sweater and he would likely be wearing an overcoat:-)

Although it will be raining in Manaus when we arrive, the five of us are going on the 7-8 hour private tour. I may melt (which could make some posters very happy) for I'll survive and be thankful that our visit to the Amazon is over. Time will tell.

General Manager, Andreas has been amazing. As I may have mentioned, we met on the cruise where our luggage was lost (along with 28 other guests) for 10 nights. This created a strong bond. There are not enough words in the English language to explain how much respect I have for this man.

Wishing everyone that is reading this thread a very Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving Travelcat2 and happy to hear that the food preparation has been good and arrives warm as it should. By the way, if the temperature on the Amazon turns out to be horrid let us know. If it is, my trips to the Amazon will be just online to the Amazon store. :-)

Jackie, we were upgraded (double upgrade!!!) to that suite many years ago on a Mexican Riviera cruise. We had booked the Seven Seas Aft suite, which we absolutely loved, but just 'had to' take the upgrade. One night Mark sat down on the bed, and the slats slid sideways and the bed collapsed! The butlers were running around wringing their hands and wailing, our attendant was already out of uniform, so she sent one of her cohorts who quickly put things right again. It was SO funny! We liked the suite, but continued to love the SSA better. Bed having slats may be telling on how long ago it was. Mariner was our first Regent ship and continued to be our favorite.

Jackie, we were upgraded (double upgrade!!!) to that suite many years ago on a Mexican Riviera cruise. We had booked the Seven Seas Aft suite, which we absolutely loved, but just 'had to' take the upgrade. One night Mark sat down on the bed, and the slats slid sideways and the bed collapsed! The butlers were running around wringing their hands and wailing, our attendant was already out of uniform, so she sent one of her cohorts who quickly put things right again. It was SO funny! We liked the suite, but continued to love the SSA better. Bed having slats may be telling on how long ago it was. Mariner was our first Regent ship and continued to be our favorite.

Pam, thank you so much for sharing your experience. I would have laughed to see your attendant's reaction:D. We were booked in a Mariner Suite which we really love but this suite is over the top. As I've mentioned, IMO, it is better than the Grand Suite on the Explorer simply because of the amount of room I the living/dining room. We also love the Seven Seas Aft suite.

Here it is - the eve of Thanksgiving and we are so thankful to be together and to be able to cruise on Regent. We have had our share of medical issues which makes us even more thankful. Wishing you a great Thanksgiving and a heathy and happy year ahead.

Jackie

I forgot until you mentioned her reaction. The next day she "apologized" for having been out of uniform, and basically let us know that butlers were a helpless lot. She was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed our conversations with her.

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I would say that I am there with you in spirit, but you are braver about the heat than I am.

Happy Thanksgiving. Will try again to post BBQ photos

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