Here's a link to my Blog:

http://web.me.com/ray.schuette/Aegean_Wonders/Paths_of_Ancient_Cultures/Archive.html

The beginning of the Blog starts at the bottom of the page and the end is at the top. So, if you are interested in seeing what we are doing on June 18, click on that date and you will see Aghios Nikolaos. If you want to see the photos posted for that day, then simply click on the icon showing "click here for photos" or some similar verbiage.

The Blog will hopefully be updated in a timely fashion but it will be difficult as the cruise is so port intensive. However, no cruise videos will be available until we return home as the ship doesn't have near enough bandwidth to upload with.


I recently added the Greek Festival and Victor, Colorado only as a test to see if everything is working properly. If you have the time, take a look. I'll delete them a little later.

Lots to do between today and Wednesday before we're ready to roll and go out with the tide.

Cheers! Ray & Penny

See you Friday Ray and Penny. We have the ship ready and primed.

Thanks, JoAnn:

Babysitting grandchildren today and haven't packed a thing yet but somehow we'll (Penny) will pull it all together.

We dearly need this vacation.

See ya soon.

Cheers! Ray

See you Friday in Athens, Ray, Penny, JoAnn and all!

We're with you, Ray, ready for this vacation in a big way.

Bon Voyage Priscilla & John, Ray & Penny, Ngaire & Ken....Enjoy your much deserved vacation. :bv:

Were on board. Regent website promised an iPad in the suite - nowhere to be found though - good thing I brought mine and Mark brought his laptop.

Peter - Just ask your butler for one, we didn't get ours until he asked if we wanted one.

Looked for you upstairs, but will see you in Observation in a couple of hours.

Everyone seems to be showing up. Nice day in Athens, although we really didn't do much, just got off for about an hour and took a cab to get some fresh flowers and right back to the ship.

Had my hair appointment, it feels much better now, although I have to work on it a bit as I don't really like the way she blew it. Frank had his pedicure with the hot wax, said he enjooyed it. My theory is he just doesn't want to leave any shipboard credit unspent! :app: :eek:

It's is great to be sailing from Athens, yes to the Un-Tuts we have sailed more than 300 yards.

It was great to see everyone. Athens was very busy today with 11 ships in port, plus school was out yesterday so everyone was taking the ferries. There were 11 ships because 3 or 4 changed schedules due to the strikes on Wednesday.

Arlene, Stelios bought you some baklava

Greetings:

My Blog is misbehaving and won't update. Don't know what's wrong but will check with computer guru today.

Fun dinner with Susan & Russ, John and Priscilla.

More later. Want to see if Blog will update while everyone is still in bed.

Cheers! Ray

Ray, I have you "book marked!" I think all is in order! Nothing from dinner, though.

Olivia:

Thanks. I just checked and it finally seems to have taken all the photos. I do have to add some recents. Would you believe I didn't take any photos at dinner!?

I was so upset early this morning that nothing was working so I went back to bed mad and didn't sleep worth a rip. Seems my tummy is mad at me.

5:30a.m. and getting ready for breakfast and a tour.

Penny and I have dinner with the Capt. tomorrow and tonight is Capt's Cocktail party. We're really looking forward to both.

Cheers! Ray

Well everyone arrived including Ngaire and Ken and we sailed off right on time. Woohoo!

Fun dinner last night, 16 of us at two adjoining tables of 8, we had Brad, Leslie, Peter, Mark, Al and Kathy.

Arrived this moring in Crete and right outside our balcony is the town which is just lovely. We walked around for a bit, I came back while Frank walked to the museum and then when he got back we walked back for some lunch at a lakeside cafe, very good and a pleasant hour just sitting and people watching.


Now we are back onboard and ready to go to Tea and Trivia. Dinner tonight wiht Joe and Rose, a new couple. Its Captain's night and tomorrow will be our only sea day, then the 4 days of long long tours in Isreal.

What a relief to read that your cruise left as planned! Enjoy!

JoAnn, Bob wants to know how Frank's toes feel after the hot wax job. He's concerned that the good ole boys at the Bama football games won't understand what he does to his feet! :D

Greetings:

Our only sea-day so we are celebrating by doing practically nothing.

However, Ngaire called all the dogs to advise "Pooch" game is convening in the card room at 2pm so Penny is there now and I'll leave shortly to take some photos/video.

Tonight B&K hosted cocktail party and then Penny and I will be joining the Captain at his table.

Life is good!

Cheers! Ray
p.s.: New photos continuously being added to such sites as Mariner/Crew/Cruisemates/B&K gathering

Like Ray we are doing lots of nothing. Sat by the pool for awhile, went to the botique, had some lunch, Frank ran, I just got off the treadmill and our next activity is Trivia.

By the way, our team yesterday, Ngaire, Ksthy, Brad, Leslie, Frank and I scored a 15!!! Frank and Brad were the ones with most of the answers. Ngaire, Kathy, Leslie and I threw in a couple of "oh yeah thats right" or "I knew that" so we contributed. :woh:

Great hearing from you guys. Ray, I am enjoying your blog & pics - I am SO glad you weren't seriously injured from the "puddle" incident. I always have that problem while in port that I never look down to see where I am stepping because I don't want to miss the sights above and around me!

Enjoy the rest of your Seaday, everyone (sea "night" by now, I guess!) - I know Israel will be grueling but I can't wait to hear about it. Rest up!

And we want to see pics from the B&K cocktail party, please! :)

FINALLY I am writing a post. We boarded the ship at 5.25 pm and they were due to pull up the gangplank at 5.30 pm We were so lucky in Athens our bags were the FIRST off and as we had cleared passport control for the EU in Madrid did not have to go through that in Athens. Had we flown in from Heathrow we would probably not have made it. Stellios the taxi driver extraordinaire was waiting for us. He called other taxis to get the current status and found an accident on one freeway so he took an alternate route. Getting to the port he went past and back on the other side of the road from the heavy traffic. SMART cookie is Stellios I bless the day we accidentally found him he has been so fantastic for us and for many people we have referred to him. Without him we would have missed the ship I am convinced of that.

I think we were a little delayed in sailing but so busy getting organized I am not sure what time we sailed or when they pulled up the gangplank. Made it up to the informal welcome get together in Observation lounge and it was great to see everyone. We then had a wonderful dinner with friend of Ralph’s, Joe and Rose in Prime 7. YUM I did overeat.

First day we did a tour of Crete and found it to be a beautiful island with lots of hills, flowers and olive trees and lovely scenery with charming little Greek villages with the locals drinking their morning coffee. We also went to an area that had 10,000 windmills of course not all working now but that was interesting. After a quick lunch we walked around the port that is truly adorable and there is a lake in the middle of the town. I had taken off my athletic shoes and just had on some flats. Of course we ended up climbing up a ton of steps to circle around the lake “good camera shots of course” where are those “sensible” shoes when you need them!

We ran into my daughter Cindy and her friend Cheryl in town and they were all smiles they felt that they had hit the “shopping” jackpot. Fake designer bags, glasses etc were reasonably priced and they supported the local economy.

Last night we had a great dinner with Brad, Leslie, Al and Kathy. The food was fantastic. They actually had six entrees offers PLUS one dish from Signature and one dish from Prime 7. What a great idea this is and I have never seen that before. So you have eight choices for a main entrée.

So I was looking at herb crusted rack of lamb, lobster tail, prime rib and sea bass. What is a person to do with so much on one evening. I will not admit what I really DID eat but suffice it to say I did order a double rack of lamb and a few other things as well. Today in La Verandah I ran into Bernard from the FLL office the executive chef over all the ships and also the current chef onboard, Anthony. They asked me what I ate last night – I was not sure if they “had word” of my excesses so did admit to my gluttony. They seemed delighted as I guess for a chef the fact that one likes the food so much is “music to their ears”. I plan on making them very happy, maybe a whole symphony will be coming their way.

Today was a sea day so we played cards today our only chance to do that on this trip. It was a fun day and we shared space with the kids program in the card room as there was so much happening in all the public areas. Those poor kids, we were so noisy and the little darlings just hardly made a peep. It worked out fine.

I am also proud to report wins for LCT teams for trivia on both days. Frank, Joann, Brad, Leslie, Ngaire, Kathy won with a perfect 15 the first day. Today Mark, Peter, Linda, Terry and Mike won with 12 correct. The other two LCT teams with a respectable 11 and 10 were runners up.
There may not be much more trivia to come as we now are arriving in Israel with four days of 10+ hours touring. Going to be VERY tired when we leave Israel that is for sure.

Tonight we have our Brown and Keene cocktail party and Felice is going to do the drawing for the preliminary winners for the free cruise and then our dinners together in Compass Rose will immediately follow. Lovely group of people we are all very compatible.

Ken is working on some pictures that he will post but do forgive us if we do not get much posting done there is going to be very little time in the next four days.

everybody will be hitting the ground running tomorrow, some on private tours and some on Regent tours, We all have a mandatory "face to face" passport inspection with Israeli immigration in the morning; first calls begin at 6:30 AM.

Today was all about R&R and indulgence - a morning martini mixing class, Mediterranean fish bbq on the deck, World of wine wine tasting, Chocholic tea time, block party, B&K cocktail party, dinner with staff, etc. Whew!

We did manage to get in two pooch games for two tables of six - we shared space in the card game with the much more subdued MAriner club kids working on some beading projects. We sort of tried to curtail our language, when we remembered, with Susan uttering the immortal Texan phrase of disgust of the day DAG GUM, followed by other equally colorful explications of DAB NABBIT, etc.

Four long days ahead - we'll try to get some photos posted.

Yesterday my phone beeped and up popped a message - "Dinner with Ray & Penny." I never erased all the plans, boarding, etc. from my calendar after we cancelled, hoping that keeping it there will help us to better enjoy this cruise vicariously!

So far, so good - at least I didn't lose at Pooch!

Oh how I love reading about all of your adventures. Sounds like this is going to be a very busy trip for everyone. The food sounds wonderful too, love the idea of an entree from the specialty restaurants being offered. What a great group this appears to be, I sure wish we could be there too.

Stelios is the best isn't he Ngaire? He is so special to many of your clients. Susan, I hope you enjoyed the Baclava...sure wish I had been there to partake!

Keep posting everyone, I can't wait to hear all about your impressions of Isreal.

Stelios rocks!!! :app:

I, too, love the idea of an offering in Compass Rose of a dish from each of the specialty restaurants. Ngaire, do you know if this is something they will continue each night?

Realize it will probably be awhile before we hear from you all. But we are looking forward to it.

PHOTOS FROM AGHIOS NIKOLAOS, CRETE:


The landmark and center of the city of Aghios Nikolaos is a small lake named "Voulismeni". This lake was connected to the sea in recent times. The goddess "Athena" took her baths there.


The Bull.


Windmills used in acient times to grind wheat.


Ngaire, Cindy, & Cheryl. Breakfast on our tour in Crete.


More windmills.

Greetings:

B&K hosted cocktail party and Captain's table photo now on Blog..see above.

Wonderful evening. All three couples from Ohio were picked for preliminary drawing. WOW!

Elaine & Peggy: Elaine. The Captain much appreciated your remembering him and recalled how much he enjoyed you and Peggy. He was most sincere.

Cheers! Ray

Ngaire, Damien (GM), & Captain Felice, at the Brown & Keene cocktail party and drawing.


Ngaire, Captain Felice and his daughter Josephine, Ray, Penny, Ken, Kathy, & Al.

Great reports and photos! Thanks gang. Looking forward to much more!

It's so good to hear all the news from the CLEOns. Sounds like you are all off to a wonderful adventure. Congrats to the Trivia teams. The captain's dinner had a table filled with good looking folks. You all look just great. Keep the news and pictures coming!! Seeing the windmills on Crete reminds me of one of my favorite childhood movies, The Moon Spinners.... a good Haley Mills movie!! Kathy, I hope you are continuing "our" Trivia tradition.

Beth same thing I thought - great looking bunch at that table!!!! Know we all are loving pictures and mail!!

Fun evening last night at the BK cocktail party and then we had dinner with Damion, the General Manager, along with Russ, Susan, Brad and Leslie, lots of interesting topics and discussions and many laughs. After, everyone as far as we could tell headed to bed, we wandered around a little and I played the slots for awhile, then we too headed up, knowing that Paul would be giving us our wakeup call at 6:30 to start the immigration process. Met up in the coffee corner with a few folks who have now headed out on tours. Ours leaves in about a half hour.
Not looking forward to the long bus ride, but brought along the IPod so I can listen to music and tune out the guide if I want to.

I too, like Ngaire like the fact that they are offering something from Prime 7 and Signatures on the menu, for two nights now I have chosen the Prime 7 selection and the pork chop last night was perfect and even better than when I had it in Prime 7 last segment.

Thanks for the report JoAnn, it all sounds so perfect! As for Ken's picture, every time I see Kathy, she is even more beautiful!

Karen, I don't know what to say except thank you for such a nice compliment. One reminder though, do not underestimate the ability of our photographer extraordinaire!!

Beth, we're trying. Long days in port but hopefully LCT will be able to rack up a lot of trivia wins!

Ditto what Karen says!

OMG, just checking in for a minute (late) what a great picture of those of you with the Captain! After seeing his lovely daughter, just know she was among great company with this group! Nothing like a Dad on a ship, and having a great group like this to share good times that she could also enjoy!

Editing to say that Kathy, Penny and Ngaire look as beautiful as ever! Just got stuck on that pretty little daughter, I imagined her as so much younger!

Good morning from Haifa, Israel & the Royal Caribbean Mariner!! Here is a shot of the RSSC Mariner as we sailed into port this morning.

Thank you, Andrea, wish you could go over there and visit! What a beautiful sort of sunrise shot!

Andrea, that is pretty darn cool!

Thanks Olivia & Karen. I thought about calling Susan to tell her I was out there but it was way too early!

Andrea:"Good morning from Haifa, Israel & the Royal Caribbean Mariner" ????. Do you know something we don't?

I do David...I'm sailing on the RCCL Mariner!

Ah "Mariner of the Seas"! Now I understand.

Aaaahh, a bucket list item, Israel, has been accomplished and although we are bushed, we are most pleased we did this adventure while having the benefit of some really nice cruisers to enjoy it with.

Regent's transfer to the airport was smooth and uneventful. Well done!

We are in Delta's Millennium Lounge and it is terrific. What a selection of food and drink. Quite nice.

We're fortunately flying Biz. Class on this 10 1/2 hr. flight direct to JFK and then a 4 hr. layover while enroute to Cleveland.

Will finish out the Blog in a few days as long as I don't have some lingering "issues" with Apple.

Life is good.

Cheers! Ray & Penny