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The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-five

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November 26 (Thursday, Day 29, Cruising the South Atlantic Ocean) -

Port lecture

The Voyager had its 2nd annual mini Thanksgiving Day parade that was quite cute. It consisted of 4 band members playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” followed by two waiters carrying a large banner. Then there was a steady stream of around 20 crew members wearing costumes that matched the helium balloons they were carrying. Winnie the Pooh was carrying a Pooh balloon and a turkey was carrying a turkey balloon. They were trying to mimic the Macy’s Day parade with its huge balloons. Santa was the final parade entry and he was escorting two “Radio City Rockettes”. The parade started in the 4th floor atrium and went up all of the atrium steps until it finished on deck 11 by the pool. We had a great view of this 3- minute parade from deck 7 by the elevator. It was really pretty clever and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

More after the jump . . .

Parade banner

The band, taking a break

Mickey balloons, Mickey ears, and . . . um . . . other stuff

It's Batman!

Curious George

Santa and his, um, elves

After the excitement of the Thanksgiving Day parade it was time to eat lunch. Lunch was a huge buffet in the 4th floor atrium and then people ate in Compass Rose. The buffet had everything from caviar and steak tartare to chicken wings and sushi. There was definitely something for everyone. Filbert had a variety of German sausages and Snookums enjoyed the cheddar cheese soup and jambalaya.

Snookums did laundry and one of the dryers left big black grease marks on 4 of our t-shirts. She took them to the front desk and was shocked when they were delivered 2 hours later, washed, pressed and stain-free. Regent went way and above the call of duty on this assignment!! The problem with the dryer had been reported 3 days earlier (Snookums was in the laundry room when another passenger was telling maintenance about it) and Snookums noticed that after her incident the dryer was removed from the 7th floor laundry room.

Filbert ate his oatmeal and a Caesar salad in the room for his Thanksgiving dinner while Snookums went to Compass Rose (with her paperback) to see Regent’s interpretation of an American Thanksgiving dinner. She received two pieces of white meat turkey drenched in a very salty, dark gravy that didn’t seem to be turkey gravy. (She didn’t eat the turkey.) Under the turkey was a teaspoon of stuffing (NOT a tablespoon, just a teaspoon). There was a rosette of mashed sweet potatoes/carrots and 5 green beans all 1.5” long. Snookums ordered more mashed sweet potatoes/carrots (and wanted to ask for marshmallows to be broiled on the top, but didn’t!). When the waiter came to serve the cranberry/mango chutney (basically our normal cranberry sauce), she asked for the entire serving bowl which contained about ½ cup. The waiter was going to put a dab of cranberry/mango chutney on the plate, but she wanted more. She ordered the pumpkin pie and the lemon tart for dessert. The lemon tart was great, although not necessarily a traditional Thanksgiving dessert. The pumpkin pie was okay after she lifted off the 1/8” layer of sweet gelatin (maybe a thickened jelly of some kind?) off the top. It’s always interesting to see the ships’ take on American classics and we’ve seen a lot during our Thanksgiving cruises!

Sunset, November 26

November 27 (Friday, Day 30, Cruising the South Atlantic Ocean) -

We both went to the port lecture about how St. Helena is today (compared to yesterday’s lecture on Napoleon and his time in St. Helena). Today it was partly cloudy and 70° or so and the seas were very calm. Regardless of the temperature, though, there are always people on the chaise lounges by the pool in their swimsuits. Filbert spent the rest of the day writing his science fiction book and managed to write 7,500 words. Today was the first day he wrote any of his book. While Filbert was on a writing roll, Snookums went to three back-to-back 30-minute workout classes (Muscle Mix, Pilates Intro, Stretch). The Muscle Mix class is always a good one (i.e. hard), but the other two weren’t. She read her book and fell asleep around 6 PM and didn’t wake up until 8:45 PM. She decided to skip dinner and Filbert ate one of his protein meal replacement bars. We both fell asleep for real around 10 PM. It was obviously a hard day at sea for both of us!

For those of you that read our posts of previous cruises, you might have realized that Snookums isn’t going to any of the events where she could win Regent Rewards. She always participated in the Holland America Dam Dollar events. However, on Regent you can only get the “reward” (i.e. a paper chit) if you are actually the winner. Holland America rewards all participants so it’s easier to get enough chits for the free items that you can “buy” at the end of the cruise.

Next: Napoleon's exile!