Jan 4 - Day 1

Circle South America begins photos
Friday - January 4 2008
Sorry we are so late getting this posted. We have had a couple of very busy days and will try to get caught up now.
Wow, there are 168 people on the Full Circle South America 60-day cruise this year! But, that is not starting at the beginning. Yesterday did not begin well. Margie did not sleep at all the night before and Clay was victorious in knife fights in his dreams, so both started out rather exhausted. Margie's clock had failed the night before and Clay sat on his glasses and broke them the next morning working on the clock! Margie had discovered that the prescription sunglasses she had purchased months earlier and never tried on before the trip had lenses that did not fit. That meant an earlier departure had to be made yesterday to stop at the Opticians'. All glasses are now repaired as is Margie's clock. So, everyone got a better night's sleep last night. Well, that plus the wonderful beds here at The Biltmore, beginning after midnight, but that is another story. Clay and Debbie set off to The Ritz-Carlton in Naples to pick up the Hertz rental minivan at their 10am appointed pickup. It was not there. The office had been open since 8am and the guy showed up about 8 past 10 to tell us that he was "waiting" for the van. It was at the airport and was expected to arrive about an hour later. This was only a 6 hour rental! He offered Clay a Chevy Trailblazer instead. Clay accepted it and packed it up with Matt's help and Steve's (Margie houseguest) then announced that Margie and Debbie couldn't come, no room. Well, we did all squeeze in but it was not a good start. Since Hertz had confirmed this 7-passenger van reservation in October, we cannot recommend the Naples Ritz-Carlton Hertz office. It was not acceptable for them to expect to deliver on a 6-hour rental one hour late!
The trip over was less than a 6-star luxury experience when we made our first Rest Area stop at one of the 2 full service rest areas on Alligator Alley to a line of Portapotties and no running water in the building. Eeuuw!
It was very cold in South Florida on Thursday. Record-breaking cold! It was 31F at Margie's house when we left. The wind was brutal and it did not warm up much as the day progressed. As we neared Miami, there was a bank of low dark clouds overhead, very ominous. The people here at The Biltmore seemed stunned by the weather as well. There appears to be no heating in the public spaces and they are very cold. The Gala last night, we were told, was originally scheduled for an outdoor terrace and the whole thing was moved indoors to the Alhambra Ballroom. It was a lovely room with a high, beautiful painted and coffered ceiling and protected from the wind but not the cold. Fortunately, with 120 people in it, it become tolerable but not comfortable. When we exited to the lobby at the end of dinner though it seemed toasty compared to the freezing lobby and halls! Good news is that each guest room has a thermostat and is heated.
We had a series of unfortunate emails Thursday. The first one in the morning was from Gold Points (a Carlson loyalty program, Carlson owns Regent Seven Seas Cruises for now). It said that Goldpoints was becoming a redemption-only program effective March 31, 2008. The good news was that we could earn Goldpoints until then and they would have no expiration date. So, a mixed message, but not really bad news for us. Cruising RSSC earns 5 points for every $1 spent for first-timers and 10 points per $1 for repeat cruisers. Obviously, we were expecting a great bonus from this program based on our costs for 2 cabins for the 3 of us, especially as Clay and Debbie were repeaters and earning at the higher level. As we were dressing for the Full Circle cruisers Gala, we received a second email. It began by telling us we should have already received the redemption-only change notification and informing us 'however' that RSSC will NO longer issue Gold Points effective Jan 2 and realizing that many of us over the years had valued this progam and would have assumed that we would be receiving Goldpoints. (Ya think?) 'With that in mind...' they had a table of Future Cruise Credits they would issue us in lieu and a list of conditons on them that for all intents and purposes yanks this loyalty program out from under us. Again. Thanks RSSC. Feeling the love now. The last email was from the private guide we had booked for Sunday in Grand Cayman. He has an emergency and was cancelling. We hope to hear back from him about helping us with alternate arrangements, but no reply yet. (The Biltmore wants an extra $9.95 a day for Internet, so we have chosen to go without until after we board Mariner.) So, that all pretty much sucked.
The Biltmore is a beautiful old hotel with an amazing pool. The USA's largest unheated hotel swimming pool. (Joking! They don't tout the unheated part!) The Biltmore also automatically tacks $9 on every room's tab for the use of the parking lots, phones, hotel facilities and your choice of newspaper. We were not queried on our choice, but received the Miami one. This kind of set wrong with us.

Arrival was a bit chaotic between 2 and 3 yesterday, but everything got accomplished with lots of smiling, chilled help and glasses of a Washington State sparkling wine that was very nice. The Biltmore Lobby has 2 giant birdcages in it. They were covered with massive velvet drapes to keep the birds warm, but you could peek in and they were charming little birds with little wicker houses. It must be really wonderful in warm weather.
After checking in our cruise luggage and getting settled in our rooms, we had a few hours to kill before the evening's welcome festivities. We set off to tour the property. We pretty quickly ran into Sherm and Bobbi. Debbie and Clay were on the World Cruise with them in 2006. They told us where to find the best vantage for viewing the pool. They asked us how we liked our beautiful Circle South America pre-departure gift, the gorgeous engraved brass telescope on stand. Umm, the 3 us got no telescopes or other gifts at all. Oh, maybe they weren't for people in the cheap cabins or for first time cruisers. Sherm and Bobbi felt bad that they had told us, but we were happpy to hear that they had really loved the telescope and described the box that was dropped at the front door by the deliverer. Debbie called home and asked our neighor to check our front porch. But, we have been gone almost 2 weeks and if it has been on the porch, it is probably long gone by now. Plus, we have all been at Margie's house and she did not get a dropped off delivery of any kind either. Anyway, we had a nice chat and Margie flattered Sherm on his cruise blogs. Margie is Sherm's biggest fan!
So, off we went on our Arctic Breeze tour of The Biltmore. Happily, Roy and Bob really hit it off. Oh, who is Roy? How could we have failed to introduce Roy? Margie did not want to experience 2 months of trip mascot envy over Bob, so she went out and found Roy. Roy is a tiny Corduroy Hippo. Margie orginally named him Hippy, but that lacked character, so he is Corduroy Hippo, but his Mama calls him Roy. He is adorable and should serve Margie well. Plus, Bob likes him!
Next, we dealt with our unhappy email messages. Then dressed for dinner and down to the lobby we went. Here we learned that we were 120 for cocktails and dinner. 168 for the full Circle SA. The Mariner is bookednearly to capacity for almost all segments. The difference between the 120 here now and the 168 on for the full Circle was explained by Mark Conroy as people who booked too late or were already on Mariner now. We immediately met Babs and Jim in front of the bar. Debbie had met Babs on the Internet on cruise message boards and they had exchanged photos, so Babs caught us on the way in. Debbie and Clay also ran into another couple they had met on the 2006 World Cruise, sorry if mangling the names, but think it was Mark and Karen. We knew them as the bike people. They had their own bicycles on the 2006 WC. We asked but they did not bring their bikes this time around. Babs and Jim were sitting with a couple from the 2007 WC and they knew Sherm and Bobbi as well. We wound up at a dinner table with Sherm and Bobbi and (is this right?) Paul and Kim and Mark Conroy, president of RSSC. There were several high level RSSC employees scattered at tables throughout the room.
Mark Conroy made a short speech before dinner as did Darius Mehta. Darius was an absolute gas, Margie and Debbie loved him, he's very silly. Mark said he had to be in New York next week to erase RSSC debts as a condition to finalizing the Apollo buyout next month. Also, to raise $600 million to build a new ship. Debbie thought she heard him say it was $600,000 in debt that had to be removed and Clay thought he heard Mark say $600 million. Big difference, but we all still heard the same gist. RSSC must remove some large debts in order for the Apollo deal to close. (Guess shutting down their Gold Points liabilities was a big first step towards that goal.) Mark's speech was short. He said that the need for a new ship was the reason, Carlson did not want to spend the money on 1 new ship when they could build 100 TGIFridays instead.
For dinner, we were just served whatever came out to have or leave. They served cold shrimp appetizers, main course was a miniature buffet on a plate of a crabcake, green beans, potato casserole, veggie spring roll, and rare filet of beef and dessert was a small warm chocolate cake served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and 3 raspberries and raspberry coulis. The wines were both red and white and appropriately enough both for Argentina. During dinner Mark talked more about the RSSC under Apollo and he was very positive about what it means for him as well as some of the other high level RSSC managers, as he is thrilled that they will become invested in Apollo.He pointed out that Apollo had 30% ROI last year and he was eager to be a part of that. He was also impressed with Apollo's recent purchases of Oceania and Harrah's. He did not have much to say in either his speech or at dinner about the changes from a passenger's perspective or about any new ship. He did tell us he had been in this business a long time, beginning as a mail clerk working through college at NCL.
During cocktails at least 2 more couples asked us about our telescopes! Babs who is 2 doors down from us on the ship had received hers and told Debbie she should speak to one of the RSSC employees present about getting ours. Debbie spoke to Rose Clark after dinner, who told her Darius was responsible for the telescopes and that she was very sorry we had not received ours. She made a note on her guest list that none of the 3 of us at 2 addresses had gotten ours and she later told Darius. They both told us to expect to receive them after we return home in March and Darius let slip that we would love our post-cruise surprise gift as well! So, we have something to look forward to months from now at home! That will be nice.
Got back up to our rooms about 10pm and were astounded. Our dinner had been in the ballroom on the other side of the hotel. Apparently, our rooms on the third floor are directly above one of the other ballrooms. It sounded like they were filming a Bollywood extravaganza down there! The floors and walls were vibrating. The picture frames were bouncing. Each song seemed to last only about 45 seconds and then the DJ would work the crowd and they would just scream and the music would start again, followed by more screaming and the walls and floors shaking! It did not stop until shortly after midnight and that was a mercy. If we hadn't been so exhausted, it would have been hilarious. We were up early next morning. Clay went down to the Fitness Room for a treadmill workout after we found the Miami paper on our door.
Since we all wound up waking early we went down to breakfast at about 8am. It was served in a beautiful courtyard surrounding a fountain. Unfortunately, it was really cold. It turned out that it was colder inside than outside, but we snagged a table directly under a large propane heater under the roofed part of the courtyard. At check in, we were provided voucher that said they were worth $38.70 for breakfast in the morning. When we went to breakfast, they told us we could only have the hot/cold buffet andthat even cranberry juice was an extra charge. Debbie told them then to take the cranberry juice back that she would not pay extra. We had the menus when we sat down and the buffet was either $10 or $12 depending on what you had and the pancakes were only $10 or $12 so we did not understand why our vouchers weren't going further. Finally, after Debbie bellyached some more in earshot of the waitress, she returned with the vouchers and the menus and told Debbie she could indeed have BOTH the buffet and pancakes and asked if she should order them for her. Yes, chocolate chip, please. The waitress did not offer Clay or Margie anything though and did not bring the cranberry juice. At some point, they must have worked it all out with the staff because we heard each table being seated after that being told that for $38.70 they could basically have the buffet and just about anything else their hearts desired. Oh, well.
When we checked out, we were told that there were no charges at all on Clay's credit card. So, we were happily surprised. We are not sure though whether it was because we had already complained about the Indian Wedding to midnight last night, or if RSSC was picking up the whole tab.
There was a lot of confusion about when and where we would confirm our luggage loading and board the coaches. No 2 people gave out the same instructions, but we all did finally get loaded anyway. Evidently Mariner was late anyway. So, anyway we went to the port and there were a lot of people lined up in the terminal building already waiting to board at about noon to 12:30pm. They had us sit waiting on the buses until they got all those people seated in a holding area and the computers working then they jumped the 3 busloads ahead of them. That must have been very annoying!
From that point, boarding took about 30 minutes. Cabins were not ready until 3:15pm but we were allowed to put our carryons in the rooms and then up to lunch in LaVeranda between 2-4. We asked to have an extra bed removed from one cabin to give some extra space and to have the balcony divider between our 2 cabins removed. Our stewardess, Aida, gave us 4 no answers on removing the bed before she told Debbie that she would ask the Housekeeper. Debbie thanked her and the bed was removed before the block party. The balcony divider was removed before dinner. We were an hour late leaving Port Everglades, so the muster drill, sailaway, block party etcetera were delayed. Since the announcements regarding the reschedules were confusing and luggage was still arriving at 6pm, we missed the sailaway and only went to the block party. Most of our neighbors are onboard for the Full Circle which is nice. Margie also had an invitation to the Singles Get-together at 6:45pm, so she went while Clay dressed for dinner. Debbie and Clay had cocktails in Horizon Lounge with Babs and Jim as previously arranged, while Margie was also in HL for singles. Babs, Jim, Margie and Clay went to Signatures for their 7:30 reservation and Debbie scooted upstairs to LaVeranda for the Italian Steakhouse. The Signatures crew were all very happy with their meal. Debbie had a good meal at LV as well. One note is that Debbie presented at the door as a party of one. The man in front of her was also a party of one and there was a couple behind Debbie. The maitre d' had seated about 8 people as singles on 2 and 4 tops already. He never asked anyway if they would like to be seated with others! He asked the gentleman behind Debbie how many in his party and he said Debbie was next. The maitre d' asked Debbie and she replied just me, he barked at her "I don't have anymore single tables." She smiled at him and replied that she would happily be seated with others. He said Oh with a stunned expression and looked around at the 8 singles! It is hard to believe it was his first time doing this! He was working there at lunch earlier. Anyway... The waiter said that the passenger load for this segment is 540 and the crew is relieved. He said that last cruise was very full at 710 with 80 children and that there were up to hour waits for dinner or for courses and the crew did not feel they could do their jobs to make the passengers happy. Glad not to have been on last week!
It was pretty early to bed for us and the seas are pretty choppy and we were exhausted from all the standing around waiting and unpacking. We did not get enough hangers to finish the unpacking anyway.
So, our thoughts on Mariner. Right now, mixed. It is definitely a smoother and quieter ride than Voyager. Good thing. The standard cabins are about 50 square feet smaller than Voyager and we hate that! Also, the Mariner bathroom has the outlet in the ceiling and when the lights are out in there so is the power to the outlet. What is up with that? Also, Voyager has the light strip around the baseboards to serve as a nightlight and there is not one on Mariner. Thus, we are not really happy with the cabin at night. Clay and Debbie had brought their projection clock and thought that would help. But, since the makeup table outlets that we used on Voyager are on the other side of the closet door on Mariner we started to run an extension cord and somehow Clay got the idea to slap a plug adapter on the clock and plug it into the 220 outlet there for a while. The clock is not a dual-voltage device and he fried the projector. Bad news is that we lost our bedroom nightlight. Good news is that the rest of the clock/indoor-outdoor temperature display is battery operated anyway, so we only lost the projector.
Margie was a slow started and is adjusting badly to the rocking, rolling ride. So, while she did make it to breakfast and part of Terry Breen's first talk and the mandatory evacuation drill, she is not feeling well. Debbie got an allergic reaction to the metal on her Relief Band already from last night and is hanging tough with double doses of meclizine and her Sea Bands for now. After falling out of the bathroom this morning and injured the right big toe joint on her foot by landing on the top of it, She iced it for 20 minutes, took a big dose of ibuprofen and then suited up. Did 45 minutes of step aerobics badly and missed Terry's talk by staying for full body conditioning before the muster drill. Muster was mercifully short since they decided not to take us to the lifeboats because we are rocking a lot. Leanne is the instructor and she said it was not this rough last segment, but it had 80 kids and was very crowded. Tough to know which is better or worse!
We have an invitation to a party at 11:45am for the Full Circle SA passengers. If it is short, we plan to go to Compass Rose for lunch so we can request menus deliver the night before to the cabin. Mariner evidently does not have the current days menus on the TV the way Voyager did. Also, Clay and Debbie's TV only plays in black & white. A report is in on that. Mariner also does not have the flat screen interactive TVs of Voyager and Navigator. We have heard no updates on that and everyone is heavily advising us to go check out DVDs.
Debbie and Clay went to the party for Full Circlers. It was just snacks and drinks in HL. We stood in a couple of lines and then heard a few words from the staff and Captain. Captain Romero is on until Buenos Aires, then it will be Captain Delavault. (Is that spelled right?) Anyway, the 2 lines were for our door plaques and then for our jackets. There was a table with jackets from Small to XX-Large where you could try them on before leaving with them. Since Margie was feeling seasick and in bed, Debbie got her one in the same size as hers. The jackets are navy with navy embrodiery Regent Seven Seas Mariner Circle South America 2008, come below the butt and have hoods. They are rubbery to be waterproof and have large zippered pockets inside. If we had known we were getting them instead of last year's windbreakers we would have packed very differently. But, they are nice and we will get use out of them.
The noon navigation information was that we are in 7 foot seas and trade winds.
There was a seafood lunch on the Pool Deck. Clay would have liked that but Debbie wanted to go to Compass Rose but Debbie wanted to get up with the Dining Room manager about having menus delivered the night before since they seem to be unavailable otherwise. Also, Margie wanted to try some candied or crystallized ginger but did not want room service coming to her room and Mariner does not have bowls sitting around like Voyager. You have to get it from a waiter or not at all. So, we went to Compass Rose. We both had a very nice 3 course lunch.
Tonight is Formal night and the Captain's Welcome reception and dinner. The Compass Rose menu did not look too appetizing to Debbie and Latitudes looked closed. Not sure where we'll dine tonight. We got a DVD in case Margie wants to watch one later. The show in the Constellation Theater is Ballroom Dancing, but we'll pass. Think this pretty much catches us up, so this will be a good stopping point.
Circle South America begins photos