Thanks, Beth, for the send off. We are all packed and just waiting for my sister to pick us up and take us to the airport. Easy flight to San Francisco today with no weather delays in our town.

I'm creating a blog and will post a link when I get it started.

Will see a lot of you when you board in Sydney.

Jan

Have a great time. A dream come true

Hey Jan,

Can't wait to read your blog to hear all about yours and Fred's great adventures. I am so jealous you get to cruise with Martha and Tom again. Have the best time.

We finally have enough internet to post. The four days across the Pacific, the internet has been the slowest I've ever seen it. We are in Hilo today and at least we can do a little more than we have been able to do before.

Cruise has been great so far. Seas pretty calm and we reached Hilo two hours early.

I posted the first entries on my blog but no pictures yet. I have to figure out how to upload. Nothing really exciting anyway.

Here is the link to our blog

http://janfreds2011adventures.blogspot.com

We will do our best to keep updated if the internet will let us!

Jan, it's great to hear from you! I am looking forward to reading your blog and I will put the link here in the Cruise blogs 2012 post as well.

Glad to hear from you Jan, and that you are having a great time.

Enjoying hearing from you!!!

Funny. Just read about the Disney dream and the reviewer was complaining about the slowness of the internet. Not just a Regent problem.

I've just updated our blog as the internet is a little better this afternoon.

Sailing has been great with good weather. The Voyager is in great shape. We think the food is among the best we've had. Nothing is prefect and there are items that aren't as good as others, but overall, it has been fine.

Ship is not full - a little less than 500 passengers on this leg. Supposedly it will be full Auckland to Sydney.

SOO excited - we get on in Sydney

Today we are in Moorea after five lovely sea days. Weather continues to be great and seas pretty smooth.

I updated blog but there is not too much in it as seas days seem to fall into the same pattern.

Looks like most of Kangaroo have their docs now. Looking forward to seeing all after you board in Sydney.

Jan, I know it is full next leg; can you find out how full we are for the Sydney to Beijing leg?

See you soon!

Jan and Fred, so nice to read your blog! Maybe when I get onboard after Feb 23 or whatever, Sydney, we can have dinner with our mutual friends Peggy and Jerry!

Jan, enjoyed the blog. Hopefully you went dolphin watching in Moorea with Dr. Michael Poole. If so, I'm sure you enjoyed it--he knows all the dolphins personally. Oliva, we'd love to do dinner with you, Jan and Fred--we'll find a good time when we get onboard.

I'll try and find out how full it is from Sydney to Beijing. We are in Bora Bora today. We have not had CNN except for one day the entire trip so all the news we are getting is FOX and it doesn't seem to be very current. Lots of their regular programming with a few updates.

Our Dolphin watching was with Dr. Poole's son and we only saw ONE Dophin which was worrisome to the crew as Dolphins are very social animals. They were worried that something was wrong with this one...a young one. But we did see two turtles and flying fish! Dr. Poole was in New Zealand at the time of our trip.

Hopefully will have the chance to have dinner with most everyone at one time or another after Syndey.

Jan

Finally a port with a cam.
Here is Voyager from the Russell webcam in the Bay of Islands.



Heres the link for today... Russell webcam


Auckland for the next 2 days... Auckland webcam

nice

In Auckland, "parked " beside the Hilton.
The other ship is Pacific Dawn, ex Regal Princess.
Voyager overnights in Auckland , but seems it has to move
to the container wharf for tomorrow,
as 2 other ships will be in town,
Volendam and Arcadia.

The ship will be pretty full Auckland to Sydney - 670. From Sydney to Beijing - about what we have had from San Fran to Auckland - less than 600. There are only 92 full world cruisers, i.e. going all the way to South Hampton. I haven't heard how many are doing the San Fran to Rome "world cruise". I've only talked to one other couple that is getting off in Dubai after embarking in San Fran.

Beautiful day in Auckland...so far no one has mentioned the ship will move tonight or in the morning. Hopefully it won't be too bad. We can see the container wharf just on the other side of the Pacific Dawn. We docked about 6:00am and they came in about 6:30AM this morning.

Jan

No surprise. All the WC regulars are currently on the South America circumnavigation. I guess that Mariner trip is going really well too.

Hope you're able to meet Carla and Frank, they just boarded in Auckland. We'll be boarding in less than 2 weeks.

Jan, last year, three of the dancers on the World Cruise had personal blogs. Can you check with the current cast to see if any of them are updating blogs and don't mind more readers? Truthfully, Jamie's blog is kind of boring as there is no gossip and he will never post anything negative.

thanks,

Marc: Those dancers were Heidi, Heidi and Heidi??? :lct: :hug: whoops not be politically incorrect you did not say all were female dancers :hello1: :hello1: :hello1:

Karen has the link to them on the top post under travelouges; I think two female and one male.

Don't go getting all serious on me Marc!!! Going to see you and Arlene in 2 weeks can't wait

Two weeks?!?!

I still have one more business trip and then four days in LA visiting family before we leave for Sydney. I need to start packing soon.

See you very soon!!!!

Arlene is in charge of our Sydney plans; maybe we can get together night before boarding.

:lct:

We are up for anything and seeing you both will be great!!!!

I'll talk to the ones I've met..mostly the singers, and find out if anyone has a blog. Interestingly, there are only 2 singers and 4 dancers.

This segment (Auckland to Sydney) has a really different feel. The first segment had the most walkers and wheelchairs I've ever seen. This one has a lot less but I haven't seen one new person that we know. Quite a few new passengers from England and Canada.

Looking forward to seeing Kangroo on board.

Jan

Oh..I did update my blog a day ago. The internet has been kind of slow since the ship became full.

In Christchurch today ,
at the port of Lyttleton.

Very nice stalk, David!

Thanks David. I'll never get tired of looking at that ship (or the Mariner)! Lee

I updated our blog yesterday.

We will be arriving in Hobart this evening instead of tomorrow morning. The Captain says we made such good time for the first 30 hours that we wants to get us into port early so we can get a good night's sleep instead of bouncing around the Tasman Sea.

See the folks on Kangaroo in just a few days.

Hello to all. Thought I would check in. The Voyager looks great! We are having a great time taking advantage of all the tours we can. I believe Jan had posted there are a lot of walkers and wheelchairs this trip and that statement is for sure, never seen so many I agree. We have eaten in both signatures and Prime 7 and are eating in Prime 7 again tonight since a very nice couple asked us to join there table. The butlers had to work that one out but were able too.. Prime 7 is the best meal I have had to date.. Our penthouse is a great room, we are towards the front of the ship so we are feeling the motion a lot more than any trip before.. Two nights ago I had to leave dinner and go back to the room, just felt awful, the Tasman sea is a rough place.. All the ports have been great so far and on shore the weather has been very good as well. Service has been shaky at times in Compass Rose and La veranda. This staff works so hard but I truly feel they are understaffed in the Compass Rose. We got a chance to speak to cruise director Jamie Logan a couple of times, he really is a nice guy and is all over the ship: I see him everywhere. In my opinion there is no comparison Jamie as a cruise director is leagues above Pee Wee Herman on the Mariner last month.. We are excited to get into Hobart this evening, I think the trade off with the Captain making such good time is a lot of people got sick with the rough seas and the speed of the ship.. Will check in again soon. Full day tour tomorrow...

FV

cabin #???? miss you -

We are in 1009. great room 1 floor up is pooldeck.. Miss everyone, Carla asked if we could stay on til Bali, I told her we have to get back to reality at some point. Sitting in our cabin on the couch watching these waves is impressive.. The winds kicked up today on the pooldeck all of a sudden and deckchairs were flying around, one flew over the pool. staff scrambled out to help from all areas, wind was crazy. The Captain had worked the Pasta station at the buffet today, that one was good for a couple of laughs, seemed very good spirited.... Thank God For BONINE!!!!!

Hi Frank! Carla is on to something....stay on until Bali (or better yet Beijing!)

Surprise us!!!!! Stay on!!!! :hug: :hug:

Hobart today..
Must be a bit windy as the cam was jumping around,
so shots are a bit blurry...
in port with Asuka II

Yes, it was windy. The weather was changing as we left Hobart so the Captain chose to change our course and go around the west of the Island instead of the east. This morning we had fog, rain, and wind. It was going to get worse so Captain Scala (who is the best!) decided to go as fast as he could and get us to Melborne tonight.

It is now about 9:00pm in the evening and we are sailing in very, very smooth seas in the bay. We had a bumpy crossing with high winds but luckily no big swells. The wind was high enough that we were certainly bouncing and if you were prone to be seasick, you would have been. We will be docked between 11-12 tonight but we won't be cleared until the morning.

About 6:15pm we entered the bay and everything calmed down and we had a wonderful evening.

Tonight was the Gold, Platinum, Titanium event which was a Bingo Reception hosted by the Captain. Now, I know that sounds weird but Captain Pier Paolo Scala is a lot of fun. Early in the cruise, on the first segment, he hosted a bingo party for the crew where he bought the prizes. The crew just loves him!

So tonight there were 230 invitees to the party and about 1/2 showed up. There were 5 games with the Captain being the bingo caller. Amazingly, Fred won the first game...now don't fall off your seats, but the prize was.......
a lesson with the Executive Chef on steak tartar!!!! How exciting (smile, smile). We can bring another couple and learn how to do steak tartar!!

The prizes for the next games were....
* 2 oz of caviar
* a trip to the "wine cellar" with the Head Wine (now I can't even remember how to spell it...it is late tonight)
* two bottles of premium wine
* an invitation from the Captain to join him on the bridge for the sail away from Melbourne with a glass of champagne.

The weather on land is much better and we are looking forward to a nice today tomorrow.

See all Kangaroos soon.

Jan

What a day... Talk about rough. There are a lot of sea sick people. We just got into Melbourne... Nice temps and the Captain has been great with the informative weather.. Sitting in my suite watching the weather change within minutes is pretty impressive.... Internet has been so slow I am getting older watching the screen.. Full day tours next 2 days.. excursions are welcome at this point...
The Voyager is in great shape for the Kangaroos arrival...

I loved the Melbourne ports. Have a wonderful time. You will see your koalas. Say hi to Carla.

I just went back and read all of these posts. I didn't realize that this was the NZ to Aus cruise. I'm glad you all are having a great time. Frank, we had that room too on one of our trips when we were upgraded! Mmm, learning how to make steak tartare...what a great prize!!! It sounds like a great trip. Frank and Jan, what tours have you been doing and what have you especially enjoyed?

Congrats to Fred on his GPT bingo win!! I bet I know the couple who will be sharing the luscious steak tartar lesson with you!!!

Melbourne ports were great. We did two full days of touring, our first was better went to a wonderful winery and got to see the Koalas up close and personal. Melbourne is really a great city..

FV

I am so enjoying all the news, if not the waves.

We have reasonable internet this afternoon, so I got by blog updated (without pictures) through Melbourne. Hopefully I can keep it more timely this segment.

Weather in Sydney this afternoon is blue skies with light wind after a little rain showers this morning.

We have been off the ship all day so haven't found any Kangaroos yet!

Hi Jan,

Looking forward to reading about your adventures!! Hopefully the ROOs are easier to spot now that you all are in a confined space for a day. :cool:

Finally decided it was time to get the blog uploaded and posted. This morning we are in Manila waiting for clearance. We all have to go through the theatre where they are using thermal cameras to make sure we are not sick. Very easy and not very time consuming at all. It will still take some time to clear the ship, however. Since we are in one day early, they were not able to have the immigration officers fly over to Malaysia and sail with us to Manila to do all the paperwork. The crew can't get off until midnight since all their paperwork was for tomorrow but most of them are already excited.

We are losing about 52 staff and gaining another 52 tomorrow as contracts are ending and beginning.

Enjoying all the roos and wish their segment wasn't so close to being over.

you must be having the time of your lives

I finally sat down and got the blog updated. This has been a great trip and having all the Kangaroos aboard has been a treat. We have made more friends in the group this time and are looking forward to sailing with any or all of them again!

We are continuing on without them. We were told today that the next segment, Beijing to Bangkok is full so guess we will have a lot of new people on board when we return from our overnight in Beijing.

We are about to dock in Xiamen, China and the weather has turned bad. It is raining and cold! We need Ngaire's weather luck today.

The ship is full and the passenger mix is a bit younger. There seem to be several smaller groups sailing together and so far they don't seem to mix. However, it is still early in this segment.

We had a great time in Shanghai. I got our blog updated through Shanghai so if you are interested there is more detail there.

Still missing the Roo's!!

Jan

Jan and Fred, we miss you too. I'm sorry we never got to have the second wine tasting in our Suite--how did the time go by so fast?? We've been home for four days and I'm finally beginning to feel like a human being again after a horrendous bout with jet lag resulting from our flight from Beijing. Hopefully we'll see you again soon on another cruise.

Thanks for checking in Jan. We miss you guys too!! Keep enjoying and sharing with us.

I didn't realize I hadn't posted my blog for several days. I had written it but forgot to post.

Yesterday was the first day we had sun, blue skies and at least a little heat..not too much though. The weather has been a bit gloomy since all the Roos left!

Sailing today towards Ho Chi Minh City. We realized today that we only have 30 more days on the ship....but then there is that 30 days more before we get home that has me thinking about what to ship home and what to take with us!

Jan

Me again...I've updated our blog through Bangkok.

Now we are on our last segment, so sad. The new passengers came on in Bangkok and we have about 550 passengers. Haven't seen a single face that even looks familiar.

Seas continue to be smooth and the weather hot and humid.

Jan

I've now read about half of your wonderful blog. Thank you so much! I know that is a bit of work, but so enjoyable for us!!

Thanks, Cindy. I'm a bit slow in updating it some days. I updated it yesterday through Phuket. We are about to dock in Madras India this morning. It is very, very hot!

The Indian Ocean gave us a terrific crossing. It was like a mirror most of the way with no wind and no waves and lots of sun and a bright new moon!

Not too many days left for us on the ship...but then we have the 30 day post-cruise adventure in Duabi, Oman and South Africa culminating with Roar III second section.

Jan

oh my! i was wondering how you were going to get home and then head for Africa. How silly of me, of course you are just staying on. What a fabulous trip of a lifetime. I am so sorry we will miss you in Africa. What stories you will have to share over a glass of wine with your group. Enjoy!

Finally, I got my blog updated and posted. My laptop has been giving some problems until I discovered that a small paper had got caught underneath it and had caused it to continue to overheat and turn itself off. Think I have that fixed now.

We are in Cochin, India after spending two days in Sri Lanka. I say two days because we had to miss Galle because of swells and weather that would not let us tender.

We really liked Sri Lanka and would go back there if we were ever again in this part of the world.

Jan, just caught up with your blog and enjoyed reading all about your adventures. So many of the excursions you've chosen were different than ones we've chosen so really enjoyed reading all about them.

Thanks for taking the time to take us along.

I have been following your blog as well, and have really enjoyed reading about your travel. Asia is one part of the world I haven't visited (except for Turkey), so that has been really interesting to me, esp your reports about Sri Lanka.

I am really behind but I posted an update yesterday. We are off the ship and onto our next30 day adventure. This resort, Al Maha Desert Resort about one hour out of Dubai is fantastic. The wildlife is not as extensive as Africa. BUt the scenary and the resort is fantastic. The food is the BEST we have had In over 110 days we have been gone. If anyone is coming to Dubai for more than a couple of days, you must come here.

Jan