Day One

We left home at 5am for Newark airport, not worrying at all about the weather because as compulsive as I am I had the airline website up all night making sure that my plane was most definitely at the gate!  Uneventful flight, other than the fact that it took FOREVER to get the plane loaded with passengers and we were only about half full!  Don't know what was up with that but even the flight attendants were scratching their heads.

The Regent rep, Joyce, was waiting for us in the baggage claim area and we met another couple (Ed and Anna) who had come in at the same time on another flight.  All of us took a shuttle bus to the port and I spent some time chatting them up and invited them to join us at the Meet & Greet tomorrow.

We were onboard, sipping our
first cocktails in no time flat, sitting at separate tables (Mike under an umbrella next to the pool with his laptop and Blackberry in action;  me at the Pool Bar enjoying a smoke) and grabbing a light bite to eat.  They have replaced the lounge chairs with a lighter (aluminum?) frame which are very comfortable but I miss the old teak ones and I wonder what they did with all of them.  Cabins were ready promptly at 2:30 so we headed down but our luggage hadn't yet arrived. 

Back up on deck 11 to check out my fellow passengers, I was suprised and pleased to find and recognize Bonnie and Joel (2009 members of Trivia Team Luongo!).  I also met Cindy and David (lonestarlady on CC/LCT).  New friends met in addition to Ed and Anna are Kathy and Phyl (her mother) who are travelling together.  I'm sure we will all be seeing a lot of each other over the next two weeks. 

Ran around the ship delivering invitations to the Meet & Greet including the "souvenir" calendar magnet I made for everyone.  Hope they like it!

Muster was awful -- way worse than the way Capt Delavault ran it! And it's the first (presumably last) muster Mike has ever attended in all our years of sailing! 

First we were herded in to the Horizon Lounge for a long lecture and demonstration about using life jackets. Then we had to sit through a speech about the policies on board.  Then we had to all stand and single file march out to the life boat stations where we were clustered in groups out on deck standing beneath our potential life boats.  After standing out there for a while, the officers finally came by to give their "approval" and then a mass of people all headed for one of the only 2 doors available for re-entry.  It took so long I didn't even have time to shower before having to rush back up on deck for sailaway!

Arriving at the pre-arranged location, I saw Cindy & David had already secured the Texas flag to the railing.  I also met Peggy and Elaine (xrvl and sealover on CC) and finally got to meet Susan and Wayne face to face (nanook).  We all waved and waved like crazy so hopefully the webcam will have caught us -- I haven't gotten a chance to go over there yet because this internet is slooooooooow.

Enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Signatures with my new friends Susan and Wayne and Dick and Carolyn.  We laughed and laughed -- it was so much fun!  Food was good, we all ordered almost the same thing (either lamb or beef)

without realizing it and then did the same thing for dessert (either chocolate/raspberry tart or something else that was like a puddingy/tart/flan type thing). 

The menu hasn't changed in two years.  Our waiter was Mijai and he was a lot of fun, as was Aurelia the sommelier.

Post dinner went back to the cabin to change into more casual clothes, Mike went to bed and I headed up to the Popcorn movie which was "The Social Network" but I couldn't get into it so stopped by to check out the casino then came out to Coffee Connection to get a tea but there isn't any hot water so instead I sat down at an empty computer to type this.

Note:  There are 275 passengers onboard who are on for the full Circle South America.
Note:  Poor Carolyn & Dick (full cruisers) have not had a very good start to their first Regent cruise.  First they were brought over to the ship from their hotel at 10:30 this morning and then had to sit in the port for a looooooooong time.  Then as of 6:30 they STILL hadn't received their luggage that was shipped 2 weeks ago!

The only employee I recognize from the past so far is the casino manager which is really weird because the casino contract is now held by Century rather than Casinos Austria.  All the employees have been very friendly and solicitous but I haven't made any connection with any of them yet.

Off to bed, tomorrow is the Meet & Greet "cocktail party" at 11!