It is now tomorrow!

As I write this, we have crossed the International Date Line and it is now “tomorrow”. We’re already in the Fiji Islands and will dock in Lautoka, Fiji in the morning. Fortunately, “Passages” had a great article on the International date line in yesterday/today’s issue so we better understand it. It can be mind-boggling!
After some 18 hours of really rough seas with winds gusting up to about 65mph we're enjoying the smoother, no smooth but MUCH smoother waqters.A couple of very lazy days at sea have now passed and we’re looking forward to a shore excursion tomorrow after 4, or is it 5?, days at sea!
Today’s update includes pictures to illustrate the last post.

Next Stop Fiji

Like with the last post, I’d hoped to include pictures with this post but I just wanted to get something up and didn’t get them included. Perhaps I’ll add some in the next couple of days or wait until we get home. Hope you’re enjoying our occasional updates.

Saturday, the 23rd, Papeete, Tahiti.

As the morning light awakened us, we looked out to the east to see a beautiful South Pacific sunrise welcoming us to French Polynesia.

From a distance, and when we traveled inland, we found Tahiti to be a beautiful island. Papeete itself is big busy town with lots of people and lots of traffic.

Here we were docked rather than anchored. I wandered the market for a while, came back to the ship for lunch with Tom before departing on our selected shore excursion “Tahiti Natural Treasures”. It was very hot there so we were quite pleased to have an air-conditioned bus! Should our travels bring us back to this part of the world, we will schedule it for the cooler dryer months of July – August.

The tour took us on a half day exploration of the island’s east coast. There was a lot of driving but we made a couple of stops that were spectacular, the guide was great and the coach was very comfortable. One stop was at the three waterfalls, we only went to the lower one (seeing the others would have required a looong strenuous hike) and, even in the rain is was beautiful and marvelously refreshing to look at and feel the mist coming from it. We stopped at the Paul Gauguin restaurant for either a local beer (Hinano) or fresh juice. Tom and I chose to share a beer. Quite tasty! We agreed it tasted similar to Heineken.

The restaurant was set on the water, had a thatched roof, natural wood bar, tables and chairs.

The third stop was at a local botanical garden, the Spring Garden of Vaipahi. There, we found that most of the plants we knew well from our years of living in Miami. When we return home, we’ll have to compare the latitudes of the two places, one north of the equator, one south of the equator.

The evening brought a special Polynesian dinner on the pool deck. The crew really outdid themselves! The window walls around the deck were covered with palm fronds they’d picked up in Nuku Hiva. All of the food tables had ice sculptures, each different. Watermelons were carved into animals, salads were shaped into fish, just incredibly beautiful! And, the food was truly good. Yes, it did include the traditional roast pig. The pigs may have been cooked in ground ovens and brought aboard as the meat was that tasty!

After dinner, the show “O Tahiti E” was presented by local Polynesian dancers, singers and musicians. WOW, what a show!

We over-nighted in Papeete.

Sunday, the 24 – Moorea

Leaving Papeete around 5am we arrived in Moorea (about 15 miles away), arriving around 8am. Here, the tour we had selected was an “Off-Road Safari”. WOW, what a trip that was! The vehicle was a small four-wheel drive pickup with a canopy over the truck bed and two bench seats facing each other. It would hold 8 people, fortunately there were only 5 in our vehicle as it was another hot and humid day!

The highlight of the trip was a very steep and winding climb up to the top of Magic Mountain. It looked like some of the inclines were 45º and may have been if physics will allow a truck to climb that steeply. At the top of the “road”, we all got out and walked up another hundred or so yards to the peak. The path with deep dropoffs was about 100 to 115 yards of concrete with ridges for grip. It had steep inclines at least 45º and hairpin turns. Our only support was a rope and that ended about 10-15 yards before we reached the top. Bottom line, it got scarier and scarier the higher we went!

By now, the rain had stopped and we had a GLORIOUS view of the bays below! “Truly awesome” is the only description that fits!

Back to the dock and back to the ship, we headed straight to the pool bar for a bloody Mary. We needed it after all the “not for the faint of heart” roads we traveled today!

A “Sundowner Sail Away” on the top deck was planned but rain caused it to be cancelled. The ship served the fresh coconuts with a very special colada type drink in them to guests in the Observation and Horizon lounges! Yep, the drink was delicious!

This evening’s show was performed by the Regent singers (4 of them) and the Regent Signature Orchestra and was “A Tribute to the Beatles”! These guys and gals are great!

Monday, the 25th – Bora Bora

We were anchoring at 8am and we needed to be in the theater for our first tour at 8am so we had an early breakfast at La Veranda. It had opened earlier than the usual 7:30am to accommodate the guests with early tours.

Our first tour was a glass-bottomed boat tour out to the coral reefs about 20-25 minutes away. This was our first sunny day thus the mountains and surrounding islands were clearly in view and beautiful to look at. Tom mentioned he’d thought Moorea to be the most South Pacific like, I felt the same about Bora Bora.

Because of all the recent rains, the water over the reefs wasn’t as clear as we’ve seen in pictures however; we could still see the colors of the fish as they came up to retrieve the fish provided by our captain. There was a snorkeling option, however, since we’re not experienced at it we chose not to do that. We saw some of the other Regent guests on boats close to where ours was tied up. To prevent damage to the coral reefs, they have installed anchor bouys.
Back at the pier, we boarded a tender back to the ship for a brief encounter with air conditioning and a bite of lunch.

We tendered back to the pier and joined our afternoon excursion of a “Le Truck” circumnavigation of Bora Bora. It resembled a school bus with open air windows, was made of wood and plastic chairs with a cushion on the seat, a plastic chair bolted down to make the seats. It would hold 37 people, fortunately, we only had about 18 people. Did I mention the weather is HOT and HUMID? It reminds us of the hottest most humid summers we ever had in Miami; of course, we were MUCH younger then and could tolerate them better!

We made several stops for photos. One stop was a rest stop at Mama Edna’s. In addition to the rest rooms, they had fruit for sampling. I was glad to see the fresh coconut meat, a favorite of mine! And, of course, it was a business! The primary items were beautiful pareos for sale at $10 each. That was about half the price I’d seen before. Yep! I bought 2 of them! They did a demo on how to tie them. I’ll have to refresh my memory when we get home and have don’t have to pay extra for internet service!

The last stop was at the apparently famous “Bloody Marys” restaurant and bar. We’d not heard of it before however, many of our shipmates were familiar with it. Yet, you bet, we did have a Bloody Mary! The building had a sand floor and rather than a coat check, it had a shoes and sandals check! It was open air and had a traditional high ceiling thatched roof, natural wood bar, bar stools, tables, etc.

We sailed out of Bora Bora around 4pm and after a “sail around” salute to also anchored there, Holland America’s Rotterdam, the two ships exchanged appropriate horn blasts and we headed west northwest to Apia, Samoa.

Tuesday, the 26th – At Sea

We may be getting “old”! After 3 shore days, we were truly glad to be having 2 days at sea where we could be lazy and do our own thing! Tom went for a spa appointment at 9:15. After the bumpy roads, a good deep massage was in order! I attended two lectures, one on South Pacific culture, one on Tahitian cooking presented by our Executive Chef and his Tahitian wife. Their toddler son was also there. The chef’s wife and son had boarded in Papeete.

Tom had come down with a terrible cold and spent most of the day sleeping. He did have a hot dog and some potato salad for lunch but didn’t even feel like getting up for dinner.

After having eaten so much for the past few days, I chose to skip dinner, however did dress up a little and headed to the theater to see “The Platters”! One of my favorites! Tom and I had attended my 50th class reunion back in October (’09) and one of our classmates had put together a CD that included a medley of their songs of our high school years. Although not the original singers, they maintained the sound! They opened with “Only You” and closed with “The Great Pretender”!

Wednesday, the 27th – At Sea

Last night was another “set the clocks back” night! I’ve forgotten what the time differences are now. Once again, we awakened to a beautiful sunrise around 5:30am, took a few photos and headed back to bed. We were up around 7:30 or so and Tom sounded SO much better so we cleaned up and went for breakfast around 8am.

When we got back to our cabin, Tom headed out to do some more reading on his book. I worked on typing up log notes and then attended another Apollo space program delivered by General Charlie Duke. He is such a wonderful man!

During Charlie’s lecture, the seas turned rough! I mean really rough! Staggering was not an uncommon scene as folks departed the theater! Fortunately, along almost all of the walls there are “grab” rails!

We have some great pics and video (I think) of the ocean as seen from a “rocking and rolling” ship! It got worse as the day went on. According to bridge information shown on our TV, the winds were sustained at perhaps 25-30mph with gusts up in the 55-60 range! The lowest deck above water is deck 3 so water line is midway deck 2. Water was crashing over the bow on deck 4 and splashing up as high as the bridge on deck 10!

The Captain spoke over the PA system and advised speed is drastically reduced and we would not make Samoa. He changed course and were now headed to Lautoka, Fiji. He referred to the winds as a gale. To those of us who have experienced Florida, it would be a tropical storm!

Around 6pm or so, our cruise director advised that the evening shows had been cancelled or postponed.

We’ve somewhat enjoyed the “rocking and rolling”. It’s been humorous to have drawers and doors opening and closing on their own! Tom figured out that putting socks between the drawers would stop that so as of now (10pm wherever we are) we have no more banging of drawers and doors!

Looking at the display on the information channel, we were sailing quite straight between ports until we changed direction to bypass Samoa. The current line from that point, albeit in a pointed direction, has a lot of “waves” in it.

Tom had turned in and I was working on this so we stayed in all evening. Hopefully, by morning he will be “all better”! I think it is fortunate that we’re not going to Samoa tomorrow as he probably wouldn’t have felt like making the shore excursion. Unfortunately, we won’t get to see Samoa, however fortunately we’ll be reimbursed for the “up charge” for the shore excursion we’d chosen (most are included but we particularly wanted to do one that had an up charge). I’ve made another spa appointment to use part of the refunded dollars… that’s another fortunate part!

Land Ho! – Nuku Hiva

Two days ago we had our first sight of land in a week! Ahhh! Twas wonderful to see land again, and beautiful land it was! As we’d expected, we weren’t on land long enough to regain our land legs!

(Yes, the food on board is good!  Fortunately, a friend cautioned to be sure all waistbands are elastic.)

Nuku Hiva is the largest island in the Marquesas Islands. The Marquesas are in turn, the northernmost string of islands in French Polynesia. This was an anchor port and although the waters were quite a bit calmer than prior days, it was quite a challenge to board the lifeboat turned tender!

On arrival at the dock, in true Polynesian tradition, we got “lei-d”!  Rather than take the provided transportation (a couple of buses and many private 4-wheel drive vehicles), we chose to walk along the edge of the bay where our shore excursion “feast” was set up.  Other tenders followed behind ours.

This was not the professionally produced type of festival that tourists typically see at Disney but rather local folks putting for their best for their guests. Yes, yes, they were well compensated by the cruise line!

Drums were hand carved and dancers and drummers were wearing locally hand made dresses or grass skirts. Tom has some great video of the dancing! The event was held on the grounds of the palace of a former Chief of the island. Many of the old stone statues and some of the foundation stones of the palace are present still.

Late morning, the pigs that had been cooking for the past 24 hours, were taken out of the ground oven. Many folks found it disgusting, I could only think of the delicious meat that was about to be served… remembering the ones my brother-in-law in Hana, HI had prepared some 20 years ago when we were there.

We had learned earlier that the restrooms at the festival site were out of order and it would be necessary to go back to “town” about a mile away, for facilities. We made sure we’d seen all there was to see and then headed back to “town”, i.e., the dock area, to use the restrooms and explore the town a little, very little! This time we took a shuttle “taxi”.

Tom particularly liked sitting in the front seat as the driver was a very pretty and shapely young native with colorful flowers in her hair and wearing a sarong.  The cruise line had hired virtually all the locals with cars to serve as our taxi drivers. I noted that this young lady had several real leis hanging over her rearview mirror and that they almost covered her pair of large fuzzy dice! Americanized, huh?

We noted an old outrigger leaning against a tree and then observed a sleek new version in the surf beyond.  After a quick round of the open air market where locals had their handiwork displayed, we headed back to the cool air of the ship! We are so spoiled!

From the Observation Lounge, with Bloody Marys in hand, we watched the locals on their sleek modern outrigger “canoes” (kayaks), enjoying the wakes from the tenders!

That’s today’s report! More pictures will be posted when we return. Today, Papeete, Tahiti is in site!

R

At the End of the 6th Day at Sea - Update 1/20/10

YEAH! Connectivity! Perhaps updates will be more frequent!

Because of the extra provisioning requirements for a 23 day journey in a port that is not a regular port of call for the line, we were about 7 hours late departing San Diego. However, at this point, we have more than made up the time.

We’re now in our 6th full day at Sea and are becoming very spoiled! We’ve been up early every morning and hit the jogging path for a mile walk minimum. So far that has kept us from over stretching the elastic waistbands! We’ve pretty much restricted ourselves to fresh fruit, fresh vegetable juice and cereal for breakfast. Our vegan friend would be in “vegan heaven” to have the kind of variety all pre-prepared!

This “all inclusive” way of traveling is definitely the way to go! And after being “over-served” (ha!) the first day, we’ve learned that we don’t have to consume all the Dewar’s’ on board. We even found that The Macallan, my favorite single malt, is included in the all “inclusive”.

And the food! There’s lots of it, creative and beautifully presented. And, it is great! It’s been a hard lesson to learn that we don’t have to totally clean our plates! We have been totally amazed that we’re going on 7 days away from the last provisioning and the fruits, vegetables and flowers are still fresh!

The entertainment has truly been fantastic! The ship has a Singers & Dancers group of 6 gals and 4 guys as well as a nine piece orchestra. They have done some incredible shows. It’s hard to believe they manage to learn and present such a variety. The talent here is far greater than what we have seen on other ships.

The orchestra is unbelievable. One minute they’re backing up the singers and dancers, the next they’re backing up guest artists “The Unexpected Boys” (overwhelming talent in this group) and when they’re not on the main stage, select members are in one or more of the lounges playing for listening and dancing, doing so in a “jammin’” fashion!

We have each taken advantage of the spa (Canyon Ranch at Sea) and will probably schedule another session. Albeit part of the “not included” service, it has been worth it.

Last night, we crossed the Equator and today was the “Crossing the Line” ceremony, a watered down and hilarious version of the Navy / Coast Guard initiation ritual commemorating a sailor’s first crossing of the Equator. During that celebration, we lost our (Slimy) Pollywog titles and became (Trusty) Shellbacks!

Well, tomorrow, we’ll see land for the first time in a week. The way the boat has been rocking and our legs have adapted to the rocking, we’ll probably loose our balance walking on terra firma! Another guest commented “we’ll all walk like toddlers with dirty diapers!”

R

PS to my girlfriends: The Captain is “drop dead” gorgeous! And he’s a nice friendly man to boot!

In San Diego

We're sitting on our balcony, 7 floor up, looking straight out at our ship.  It's a beautiful sunshiny day!  So far, everything has gone perfectly!  Only one item, I forgot to give the limo driver the voucher for our ride to the airport!  But that was taken care of by putting it in the mail.

Also in port is Carnival's Spirit!  Sizewise, it makes our ship look like a little boat!

Holiday Inn here is a great place to stay.  The restaurant, Elephant & Castle Pub is a great place to drink and have dinner in the evening and, not the worst place for breakfast.  It has the atmosphere of a bustling pub and was a fun place to have a drink, or two!, last night!

This will be the last post for a while.  We're about to head across the stree and board our ship sooo, stay warm and we'll update when we can.

R (10am San Diego time)

At the Tampa Airport

The first "leg" of our journey is behind us!  The ride came on time, and the driver was quite pleasant and efficient.  Execucar does do a great job!  We were totally surprised when we checked the time after we got thru security.  In less than one hour, we had come the some 30-35 miles from home, checked our bags, taken the "train" out to airside and passed thru security!  WOW!  What a pleasant surprise!

The only "downside" if there is one, we had 3 hours to wait before our flight departs (at 12:35pm).  We're still quite glad we came up early!  We had a bite of breakfast and settle in near our gate. 

The airport now has free internet access, thus a chance to add another post.  Multiple posts in one day will definitely be a rarity as we will increasingly not have reasonable internet access.

Just checked and the plane for our flight is arriving within 10 minutes of schedule!  YEAH!  We should be on our way to Dallas in about an hour and 20 minutes.

R

On Our Way

YIPPEE!  Today's the day we are on our way!

We had everything packed last night and were up at 6am this morning to finish our checklists.  We're now all done and just waiting for departure time.  The "coach" for the airport will be here at 8:30am and we'll be on our way.  So far the flights (here to Dallas and Dallas to San Diego) are on time and weather looks clear all along the way.

We'll spend tonight in San Diego and board our ship tomorrow.  We depart San Diego at 2pm (5pm EST) heading southwest, way south!

Hope everyone is thawing out after the freezing weather of the past week.
R

Australia Here We Come

This is the first entry in our upcoming "trip of a lifetime" blog! Updates along the way will be dependent on "free" or reasonably priced internet access! And, where possible, links for further information on places we're visiting are included (if it's underlined there is a link!).

As this is being posted, it is less than 2 weeks now before we're off on another adventure! YEAH! We leave home on January 13 headed to San Diego. On the 14th, we'll board Regent Seven Seas' Voyager for a 23-night cruise to Sydney. Stops will be in the South Pacific (Marquesas, French Polynesia, Samoa, Vanuatu, New Caledonia). This cruise does not make calls in New Zealand as many others do.

Once in Sydney (on Saturday Feb 6th), we'll fly to Melbourne for 3 nights (two full days). On our first day there, we have planned a hot air balloon ride over the Yarra Valley (wine country!) early in the AM and then that evening dinner on the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant. Dinner while "cruising" the streets of Melbourne sounds like such fun, and, a great way to see the city at night while seated and with a drink in hand!

The 2nd day in Melbourne, we have no specific plans other than a visit to the tallest building in Melbourne at the top of which is "The Eureka Skydeck", the highest viewing deck in the southern hemisphere. And, once there, we plan to take advantage of "The Edge", the world's only edge experience! It is a glass cube which projects 3 metres (~10 ft) out from the building, with you in it - suspended almost 300 metres (~1000ft) above the ground!

The next day, we'll be up early (for us!) to head to the train station for an 11+ hour trip to Sydney. We chose to take the train as an opportunity to see some of the smaller villages between Melbourne & Sydney. This will be our first train trip together. Yes we've taken little train tourist excursions but never used one as a true means of transporting ourselves from one place to another. Our personal website (under Flinn Fotos --> S.Pacific) has a map of the trip with the names of the towns.

Once in Sydney, we'll head to hotel and "crash"! It will have been an extremely long day!

The next day (a Wednesday), we'll once again be up early and head out on an all day tour to the Blue Mountains. The second full day in Sydney, we have nothing in particular planned. We've talked about taking the ferry over to the zoo but there are so many other options.

On on the third full day, our last day in Australia, we'll start off early morning with a backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House. Following that, we're off on a 30 minute seaplane tour of Sydney harbor.

And, our treat to ourselves on our final evening in Australia, will be dinner at 360 Bar & Dining some 80 stories up above the streets of Sydney! We love rotating restaurants so this will definitely be a special treat!

And then on Saturday, we'll head back across the wide Pacific on a 13-14 hour flight on a Quantas 747 (our first 747 flight) to Los Angeles and then another 5-6 hours of flying to get back to Tampa.

After being away for 32 nights, home and our own bed will look MIGHTY good!!

R