We recently returned from the Voyager in Europe where we did two back to back cruises starting in Rome and ending in London. We chose to participate in Food and Wine themed Circle of Interest programs on both segments and since I wasn't able to find out too much about these programs in advance I wanted to share our experiences. These programs are available through Regent for a fee and include both onboard and shore based activities.

On our first segment the guest hosts for the program were Alan Tardi who is a food and wine writer, chef, and former restaurant owner from New York and Nicola Biscardo who is a wine maker and exporter based in Verona, Italy. The program included a get acquainted cocktail party on the first night of the cruise, a private dinner for our group in La Verandah, a wine tasting and an olive oil tasting both onboard the ship, and a special pasta making demonstration and dinner at Restaurant Da O Vittorio in Recco, Italy. There was also an optional shopping trip to a food market in one of the ports for an extra fee that we declined. Alan Tardi was pretty low key, but Nicola more than made up for it with his exurberant Italian charm! Overall we found that it was a nice way to meet some of our fellow passengers and we did enjoy the activities and felt that they provided value for the cost involved.

On the second segment our hosts were Clay Mauritson and his wife who are wine makers from California and Max McCalman who is a maitre fromager or cheese expert from New York. They provided activities to the ship in general as well as the special events for our group. Once again we had a welcome aboard cocktail party, a special dinner in La Verandah, a wine tasting and a cheese tasting onboard the ship, and in Bordeaux we had a special excursion to the Chateau Beychevelle and Chateau Pichon-Longueville wineries. The visit to Beychevelle was especially nice. The property was breathtakingly beautiful and we were able to join the manager and some of his staff for lunch in their dining room which was apparently a first for them. We had the opportunity to taste eleven different wines dating from 2006 back to 1955. Needless to say everyone was dozing off on the ride back to the ship! Both Clay and Max did a great job with their presentations and we were quite pleased with the overall program.