It's the First Thursday this Week

BAY OF ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND

A few years ago I visited Russell New Zealand in the very quaint Bay of Islands, an overnight 150 mile run north of Auckland. It looked a lot like it looked then and as it will no doubt look years from now. (Nothing changes much at the Bay of Islands.) The pre-dawn view from my verandah was lovely as was the sunrise, when we arrived the bay was lovely, even the people were lovely. It’s a very lovely place. I took a 3 mile hike up and around the 350 foot high miles near the town with Ray, my old friend who is Cruise Director on Mariner. It was fantastic to renew our friendship. We met on Song of Flower in the early 1990s and have continued a tradition of taking hikes all over the world when we are both onboard. Ray was the original CD on all the Silversea ships and now has switched over the Regent Seven Seas Cruises, kind of coming back to the company that originally ran Song of Flower. Small world—unless you are flying economy.

EMBARKATION

After the ship’s porters unfortunately misplaced my carry-on bag with all my electronics and other essentials when I boarded, the folks whose suite it was mistakenly delivered to found it and the bag appeared in my cabin about 6 hours after my large suitcase on Tuesday. The large suitcase seemed to have its handle torn off between the drop off on the pier and the suite as well. The bag was retrieved by my cabin stewardess, Christina, only for it to reappear yesterday completely repaired to factory new. This is unbelievable, as it was sent to the ship’s “carpenter”, clearly a person of varied talents with a large supply of TravelPro spare parts. I’m beginning to like Mariner a lot. This is giving me some dissonance with my love of Silversea, but there are some existential differences. (Look up “existential”. I mean both meanings of the term.)

THE SHIP

The Seven Seas Mariner is beautiful. It has a 9 story atrium, large beautiful public areas, a 24 hour coffee place with latte's etc., fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice in three or four places from 6:30 am, etc. My dairy free pastries were waiting for me this morning, and my dinner last night was completed with a custom lactose free chocolate mousse cake. Same old, same old. Of course this ship is much larger than Silver Shadow. The corridor my suite is appears endless, and there is the obligatory atrium with glass enclosed elevators like most newer cruise ships. Why larger cruise ships need atria with class enclosed elevators is lost to maritime tradition, kind of like why tenders bob like corks. But what do I know.

I am much more comfortable on this 2^nd full day onboard since I have almost figured out which end of the ship is the pointy one. A big disappointment is that there is no dark place on deck to observe the stars. The Southern Cross was kind of a dim hint of itself last night, but that might have more to do with the excellent wine at dinner. There is an astronomy lecturer onboard. I will ask him if he knows how to be able to see the stars on this ship. (That should be fun.) Actually, there are four lecturers onboard: the aforementioned astronomy guy, a computer “expert”, an “expert” traveler who has visited these ports recently, and assorted table hosts and raconteurs. Of course, I was all these on Flower, but that was a long time ago. I am keeping a low profile.

The suite was designed by the same ship’s architect as on the Silversea ships. The cabin layout is identical but at 7/8^th size. I keep bumping into the wall. On second thought, this might be due to the excellent wine at dinner. My initial impression is that it is easy to get lost in the crowd even though this 700 guest ship has only 410 or so revenue passengers plus about 40 others, well below capacity on this segment. I heard that the previous SYD to AKL segment had about the same numbers. The service is quite good but somewhat less formal than on Silversea. On Silversea, the waiters annoy you with "drink sir" too often. The service elements are actually identical to those of Silversea: early bird coffee with fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice and pastries, the places to eat, the hours are similar for activities which are pretty much the same, etc., but there are interesting cultural differences that result in less consistent service but a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Both 6 Star Plus products are fantastic, but they feel a bit different. This is not a complaint about either cruise line.

In more detail, the service on Regent is less obtrusive or less formal depending on one’s point of view. Dinner service is efficient and almost invisible compared to the early interruptions of the wine, bread, water, and service waiters which make dining room conversation impossible until the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and yet to come have completed their visitations. Same for the morning coffee service. It is impossible to pour one’s own coffee or juice in the early coffee locations on Silversea as the attendant blocks your way and messes around with your saucer, cut, spoon, and napkin. Here they chat among themselves but are really to help. This difference in attitude is evident in the guests’ culture as well. Folks are easy to chat with—without the endless interruptions—there are a raft of single travelers (why they are on a raft is not clear), and it seems that other guests are much easier to meet and chat with. Unlike on Silversea where one gets a formal printed invitation to dine with officers but never other guests alone, the lovely Social Hostess, Lisa, phoned me late yesterday afternoon to ask if I’d like to join a lovely same aged (mine not the lovely hostess) woman, one of the ship’s lecturers who is a lovely similarly aged archeologist from Switzerland who lives in Tahiti, and similar aged guy who is a special effect engineer in Southern California. He said he “blows things up for show.” Glad he clarified this.

I get free Internet on this ship by virtue of the number of my revenue guest days on Song of Flower so many years ago, but I do not have free laundry as on Silversea. This is a big pain as I had forgotten about the elderly women who live in the laundry rooms. They schedule the availability of the machines and have clearly taken troll lessons. So I have reverted to washing my stuff in the sink and converting my suite into an assortment of clotheslines. Christina has not come by since. Will have to figure this all out. But so far, so good, I suppose if I don’t mind mildew.

I write this at 10:00 am (GMT +14 hours), Thursday 4 December. Note that this blog site thinks it's yesterday, as indicated by the automatically generated date stamp, as it is yesterday on the other side of the International Date Line. Twenty-four hours from now will be 10:00 am (GMT -10 hours), Thursday 4 December as well. So, the Date Line seems to be affording me two Thursdays this week. I guess this is better than two Mondays but not as good as two Saturdays. Many of the guests are enjoying the excellent dinner wine and won’t notice.

Two more sea days and then a late afternoon visit to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands which will be my 124^th country. But who’s counting.

Hope all is well with you. Keep in touch.