Mariner Grand Pacific Paradise Voyage: Miami - Sydney, 10/10 -12/15/2018 - Rich48100

[papaflamingo]

I'm a bit behind Rich as the internet was terribly slow yesterday.  So I'll catch up a bit.  

We also had an easy couple of days in Papeete.  I was a little "under the weather" on our first day so we just wandered town, shopped a bit, and had a quick lunch at a cafe.  We also enjoyed the O Tahiti dance group on board.  They were really great.  

On the second day said goodbye to those leaving us and took a quick tour of the East Side including Venus Point, a beautiful Black Sand beach, where Captain Wallis (discoverer of Tahiti), Captain Cook, and Captain Bligh all landed.  Stopped at an overlook then toured the James Norman Hall museum (author of Mutiny on the Bounty).  The museum is an accurate replication of his home and located on the original property.  It contains original furniture and memorabilia.  It was a good day, but I must say I was way more enamored by Moorea, Raiatea, and Bora Bora.  Papeete is just too commercial for me.  But great to visit. 

We ended the day with a nice dinner with Rich and Barbara (Rich48100).  

Here are a few pictures of our 2 days in Papeete.  

Edited November 17, 2018 by papaflamingo

[papaflamingo]

Continuing to catch up, yesterday we spent a rainy day in Raiatea.  It's a shame since Raiatea is one of the most beautiful Islands.  Fortunately this was our second time as we were here on the last leg of the cruise and had more sunshine that day.

We ventured out on a wet 4x4 jeep safari.  It was quite beautiful inspire of the rain.  We saw the island from more of an inland view, stopped again at the Taputapuatea Marea (we were there last week), and visited a Vanilla Farm.  

After returning to the port we got back on board and relaxed during the fairly heavy and steady rains.  

We had another wonderful local show, again enjoying the wonderful dance and some folklore and customs.  They not only danced, but explained the story during the dance, did a parae tying demonstration (sarongs) on a few passengers, we all enjoyed that and admire the fun spirit of the "volunteers."  They also got some of the passengers up to dance, Margaret was chosen, and the all had a great time.  

As Rich said, we are in Bora Bora today, hoping for good weather.  

Here are a few Raiatea pictures.

Edited November 17, 2018 by papaflamingo

[Zoey1]

On 11/12/2018 at 10:24 AM, WesW said:

Malbec, Keith1010; thank you both—it was a privilege to have served our Country. 

 

Clskinsfans; am sure our Regent experienced World Cruisers can provide you answers to what they have missed most.  For Ida and I, and our Grand Voyage and five week+ cruises we miss authentic Southwest cuisine (made by Ida) and our beloved pets.

 

Marq; yes, Elda will be (along with Ray) your assistant cruise director for The Circumnavigation of

Australia next month on the Mariner—you lucky folks!

 

Forgot who asked about Poker on board, but spoke at length with bbfromca/Bill who is an avid

Poker player on board.  Bill plays whenever the Casino is open and lets me know most of the seven seats are taken up with fellow Poker aficionados.

 

JPR; thanks so much for sharing your Romantic (austere) Bora Bora story.

 

And fellow lead blogger Rich—thanks for taking us along to enjoy vicariously your special Grand Voyage event at the Conrad Hilton.

 

Good Morning as we near (about 2 hours)our next French Polynesian port, Raiatea,

 

Yesterday, on board Regent Seven Seas Mariner, we enjoyed an all morning “sail on a Catamaran” excursion around paradise, err mean Bora Bora.

 

We had perfect weather, lake-like ocean conditions for our Catamaran experience.  A small group of about twenty Mariner guests and Ida and I enjoyed being mesmerized by the beauty of stunning Bora Bora.  The magnificent verdant hills and Mountain are surrounding by the azure sea—your breath is taken away as you marvel at this Paradise.

 

Please enjoy about a dozen photos and videos of our outstanding Bora Bora

Excursion.

 

It was great meeting so many of you at the meet and mingle then getting to “ bump” into each other again throughout the sailing. We hated to leave paradise and then came home to see snow on the ground!

 

Wes,mwe were on the catamaran withbyiu and Ida and She and I were the only ones to get up,to learn the lovely dance. My hubby took a few photos but did not get any video of it, I was wondering if you had gotten video of it. My kids won’t be,ieve that I actually did that, but I figured heck, I’m in Tahiti! Please let me know. My email is nwmallis@aol.com. Enjoy the rest of the cruise!

thanks,

Wendy aka Zoey1

 

[WesW]

Hi Zoey1/Wendy; 

 

It was a wonderful voyage (Honolulu to Papeete); like y’all we too r now back home in chilly (no snow thankfully) weather.

 

Sent u a number of videos and photos from our terrific morning on the CAT in Bora Bora earlier this week. 

 

Please let me know if u received them. Wendy u and Ida rocked the boat...err CAT. 🙂

 

Ps..Rich48100/Rich and Barbara and Papaflamingo/Jim & Margaret; now am enjoying your posts on land—thank s for helping us vicariously continue cruising on the Mariner 🙂

 

pss.  Rich & Barbara; you’re very welcome—Ida and I relished meeting y’all and enjoying many delish Compass Rose Lunches with lots of laughs for extra dessert.  Our meet & mingles were  a team effort (betwee Regent Group Coordinator Jennifer Bartlett, Regent & CC, Mariner leaders, and most importantly, Rich you played a significant part in making them a success (28 cruise critics attended our m&m on Miami to Honolulu and over 50 cruise critic meet & mingles for our Honolulu to Papeete m&M—so Thank You too!

Edited November 18, 2018 by WesW

[Zoey1]

Wes,

Thank  you so much fir the pics and videos, my kids will get quite a kick out of them!

that was a magical excursion in whatbis probably my new favorite spot in the world...Bora Bora!

Regards,,

Wendy

[rich48100]

We made it back to Bora Bora, and the weather cooperated again. No Rain.  Did the Le Truck around the island, and last stop at Blosdy Marys’.  Nice relaxed bus ride to see highlights.  No muss no fuss.

 

just as we were leaving Bora Bora, the skies opened up, so let it rain.  We had our fun.  So many celebrities visited Bloody Marys.

 

enjoy some photos from our day.

[papaflamingo]

Not much to add for Bora Bora for us.  Since we did 2 snorkeling tours and Le Truck last week when we were here, we chose to simply wander the town a bit then go out to Bloody Mary's for lunch.   After a pretty decent lunch (and a couple of Bloody Mary's), we made our way back to the ship and sat on our balcony reading and enjoying the spectacular view of the beautiful Island.  Watched sail away in the rain and had a nice dinner and enjoyed the great company in the Mariner Lounge listening to Mr. H play the piano, then had some fun in Karaoke.  All in all a fun evening.  

Here are a few more pictures of this beautiful island. 

[papaflamingo]

Sunday was a beautiful and quiet day at sea.  After waking to a beautiful deep blue, calm ocean, we went to the wonderful Champagne and Caviar Brunch.  Attended a very interesting lecture on the effects of art, literature, and movies on the image of the South Pacific, and followed with the Meet and Mingle, placing faces and names to cc bloggers.  

After lunch we lazed by the pool then spent some time reading on our balcony enjoying the beautiful ocean.  

it was "Block Party" day so we gathered in the hall and met our neighbors.  Then a wonderful dinner a Prime 7 and an entertaining show by the comedian Noodles Levenstein.  Looking forward to another relaxing day tomorrow.

Here are a couple of pics of my "view of the world."  Not a bad place to be!  😎

[Hambagahle]

The water and the sea are so beautiful!  (and a real change from the grey skies here in Switzerland!)   Keep posting photos please!

[Travelcat2]

RIch and papaflamingo - still very much enjoying the photos. This was the part of your cruise that I was most looking forward to as we love French Polynesia. 

 

papaflamingo - hope that you are feeling 100 percent better!  Greetings from the Voyager. We just stopped so that the captain could see what is going on with a lifeboat that we encountered.  Should be interesting

[rich48100]

We had a relaxing day at sea as Papaflamingo described.  The meet and mingle party had a bout 25-30 attendees as well as the captain, cruise consultant, cruise director, assistant cruise director, general manager, social hostess, and probably others I am missing.  Great Bloody Mary bar and finger foods.  Great to put names to handles on cruise critic.

 

decided to play lots of games onboard and get Regent points to get some Regent memorabilia.  Block party was well attended and more of the entertainment team and officers made their presence felt.  

 

All in all all a great day at sea.  The weather continues to cooperate as well.  Another sea day today full of fun activities, talks, Seven seas society get together and the finished off by the entertainment teams Burt Bacharach medley.  One of my favorites.

 

no photos from me today.  Time for breakfast.

 

 

[sworksjr]

Joined this cruse in Pateete and will go thru to Sydney. As a first time Regent cruiser I am most impressed by the lack of lines and how uncrowded the ship feels

. 

We met several of the fellow Cruse Critic people at the Meet and Greet.

 

The block party is an interesting concept, as many times I have never met our neighbors on the cruse.

 

Papaflamingo and Rich48100 are doing a great job with pictures and descriptions, so I will only remark on my observations as a new Regent cruiser.

[pingpong1]

1 hour ago, sworksjr said:

Joined this cruse in Pateete and will go thru to Sydney. As a first time Regent cruiser I am most impressed by the lack of lines and how uncrowded the ship feels

. 

We met several of the fellow Cruse Critic people at the Meet and Greet.

 

The block party is an interesting concept, as many times I have never met our neighbors on the cruse.

 

Papaflamingo and Rich48100 are doing a great job with pictures and descriptions, so I will only remark on my observations as a new Regent cruiser.

Sworksjr - Thanks for joining the discussion!  It's nice to get fresh points of view and impressions from folks who are new to the Regent brand. Which line/s have you cruised on before?  It's helpful to know what you'll be comparing your observations to.  Thanks Again!

[sworksjr]

29 minutes ago, pingpong1 said:

Sworksjr - Thanks for joining the discussion!  It's nice to get fresh points of view and impressions from folks who are new to the Regent brand. Which line/s have you cruised on before?  It's helpful to know what you'll be comparing your observations to.  Thanks Again!

Thanks, our last 3 Cruises were on HAL, but we have also been on Princess, RCL, and Disney. Since HAL ships are the latest we have done, most references will be to it. I liked HAL, but wanted to try something different and thus Regent.

 

I prefer smaller ships. This ship, Mariner, is relatively close in size to HALs Prinsendam, but the common areas are not as crowded, so I suspect that the passenger to common area ratio is less on the Mariner.

[DavidTheWonderer]

13 hours ago, sworksjr said:

... This ship, Mariner, is relatively close in size to HALs Prinsendam, but the common areas are not as crowded, so I suspect that the passenger to common area ratio is less on the Mariner.

A good but approximate way of calculating the space per passenger is to divide the gross tonnage (GT)  of the ship by the number of passengers.

 

Mariner: 48,075 GT / 700 passengers = 68.7
Prinsendam: 38,848 GT / 740 passengers = 52.5

 

So Prinzendam has over 20% less space per passenger.

 

Of course, different lines divvy up the space in different ways.  Seabourn, for example, "spends" a lot of space on their lovely Seabourn Square.  So my numbers don't directly relate to the common area space per passenger, but are probably as good an indicator as any that can be easily found with Google.

Edited November 20, 2018 by DavidTheWonderer

[JMARINER]

20 hours ago, DavidTheWonderer said:

A good but approximate way of calculating the space per passenger is to divide the gross tonnage (GT)  of the ship by the number of passengers.

 

Mariner: 48,075 GT / 700 passengers = 68.7
Prinsendam: 38,848 GT / 740 passengers = 52.5

 

So Prinzendam has over 20% less space per passenger.

 

Of course, different lines divvy up the space in different ways.  Seabourn, for example, "spends" a lot of space on their lovely Seabourn Square.  So my numbers don't directly relate to the common area space per passenger, but are probably as good an indicator as any that can be easily found with Google.

FWIW,  I believe that the Prinzendam passenger capacity was increased in 2002 to 835 passengers.

J

 

[DavidTheWonderer]

3 hours ago, JMARINER said:

FWIW,  I believe that the Prinzendam passenger capacity was increased in 2002 to 835 passengers.

J

 

You are correct: I didn't look at the Wikipedia page closely enough.  That takes the number down to 46.5 GW per passenger, which is over 30% less than Mariner.

[rich48100]

Yesterday we made it to American Samoa.  Weather was spectacular again, maybe a little warm.  We went on the Pago Pago and Eastside tour in the afternoon.  Good tour guide made a big difference.  Busses were old with “natural” air conditioning.  Good enough to get us around.. 3 hour tour to show us around and spend one hour at $2 beach.  Nice spot for a swim and libation of your choice.  A bit pricey, but bought some drinks anyway.  Many of the entertainment team were there having a wonderful time.

 

overnight we crossed the international dateline, and now in Apia, Samoa.

 

here are some photos from yesterday.

[pingpong1]

Hi Rich!  I guess you're telling us that the drinks at "Two Dollar Beach" cost more than two dollars each?  

[papaflamingo]

Travelcat... thanks, I'm 100% again!  Nothing like a couple beautiful sea days!  

Sworksjr.. any and all additions are more than welcome.  Please add as much as you like to the blog.  The more the merrier. 

So, after a couple beautiful days at sea we made it to Pago Pago.  As Rich said...it was hot!  But really more like no wind.  

We did a tour called Villages Way of Life.  After talking to Rich, wish we had done his tour to Two Dollar Beach.  But ours was interesting anyway.  

We boarded our bus which, as Rich indicated, was "primitive" (see the pictures).  We went to a cultural show which demonstrated the old way of cooking, weaving plates and bowls out of leaves, and hot chocolate (very good in my opinion).  Also a few traditional dances.  It was fun and interesting.  Then we drove around some view points with a couple of stops including Flower Pot Rock, so named because it looks like a flower pot with all the plant life growing out of the top.  

After returning to the ship we walked around the town a bit and then climbed on board and relaxed for sail away.  We chose to have salads in our cabin for dinner then went to Cruise Director John Barron's show.  He is truly a talented performer.  We really enjoyed it.  Sadly he leaves us in Auckland.  

Crossed the International Dateline and went from Tuesday, Nov. 20 to Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22!  Easier just not to think about it.  😳

Here's a few more pics of Pago Pago.  

Edited November 22, 2018 by papaflamingo

[Travelcat2]

Happy Thanksgiving from the Voyager where it is about 9:00 a.m.  

 

I keep repeating myself but these pictures are wonderful - enjoying every one!

 

IOO (in our opinion), John Barron’s show is top notch!  Did they do a Thanksgiving Parade on Mariner?  They are doing a “Country Fair” on Voyager.

 

Continue to enjoy your cruise.  When we get home on thee 26th, I’ll be able to spend more time reading this blog

[rich48100]

Happy Thanksgiving to those in America from the Mariner.  Since we crossed the International Dateline, we celebrated our Thanksgiving yesterday.  A surprise occurrence yesterday, as we were at the Compass Rose entrance with another couple waiting for a table assignment at 6:30 we were approached by a restaurant manager saying there was a table for 4 available for 6:30 at Prime 7 and if would we like it.  We accepted and a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner ensued.  Thanks for the opportunity Regent.

 

Pingpong1, now as for $2 beach, that is the entrance fee to this private beach which Regent paid for.  Drinks, however were not included, so we ponied up $5 for a beer and $3 for a soft drink.  Kind of a rip, but if I can afford this vacation I can overspend this time for a libation.

 

As we approached our port in Samoa we were greeted by music and dance from shore, and someone dressed like a Turkey.  Wonderful performance by musicians, dancers and turkey.  Nice way to start our day.

 

As for yesterday on Western Samoa or just Samoa, whichever you prefer, it is a separate country.  It was a hot day in paradise.  We did a bus tour that included falefa falls and a wonderful tropical garden that has been in a family’s history for many years. Beautiful!!!! Also saw and went in an interesting church, and drove around seeing sights.  Enjoyed the trip.   Back on board for an enjoyable Thanksgiving meal.

 

Now on our way to Fiji.

 

Hear are some photos from yesterday.

[rich48100]

Here are a couple more photos that didn’t upload because of size limitations.

[sworksjr]

Just wanted to make a comment about th Miso Glazed Sea Bass. I have seen controversy on CC about how good it is. Let me start by saying that in general, I do not like fish. I usually only eat very mild fish like cod and haddock and even then it is betterif it is battered.

 

That said, I tried the Miso Glazed Sea Bass the other night and enjoyed it very much. Take my recommendation with a healthy dose of sea salt.

 

[papaflamingo]

We also enjoyed our day in Apia, Samoa.  As Rich said, Samoa is an independent country and Apia is the capital.  We did tour that included a different church from the one Rich saw, and it was truly beautiful.  Then a cultural center where they gave demonstrations on cooking, carving, and were actually tattooing someone in the old way!  Then a drive to a large outdoor market, and a wonderful visit to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum.  

Robert Louis Stevenson came here for 2 weeks and stayed 4 years.  He passed away at the young age of 44.  His grave is on the mountain above the house, about a 45 minute hike.  

The house contains complete replicas of how it was in his day, and some original items.  One of the most interesting displays are 4 First Editions donated by Queen Elizabeth II.  

Like Rich, we opted for Prime 7 and had a wonderful dinner with friends.  They offered turkey on the menu... I opted for a "traditional" 18 oz bone in Rib Eye!  Yeah.... it was GOOD!  Oh yeah... may not eat for another week (ok I broke down and did the Tex Mex buffet today).  😜

Anyway, here are some pics of our day in Apia.

Edited November 23, 2018 by papaflamingo