It's hard to believe that we have completed two segments of the Discovery Collection already.

We had two fabulous days in Mumbai. I had found a private guide from Trip Advisor and we had Sandhiya and our driver, Mr. Patel for both days. We were able to pack our two days filled with the different places we wanted to see. Our new friends, Shirley & Ken joined us and we got back on the ship this afternoon tired and happy.

We met Jerry at the pool sailaway party this afternoon and hope to meet Peggy tomorrow.

We have gone as far as we can losing time, so now all our clocks go backward until we get home.

Life is good on the Navigator.

It's nice to have a bunch of sea days this segment compared to last segment's port intensive itinerary. Today is th first of them. We don't turn our clocks back until tomorrow night so, with the US going back to standard time, we are 10 1/2 hours ahead of East Coast time. Cruise Director Paul Reynolds was able to get a duo (similar to Marty & Holly) on board and they really make a difference. Last night after hours in Galileo Capt McNeill and his S O Carolina from Buenos Aires joined our table. Carolina is very charming and we enjoyed meeeting her.
Jim

So sorry you did not make the TAJ Jim, what a long and tiring day that must have been. Great dinner table story. I know you will make the TAJ one of these days.

Cannot wait to come aboard in Cape Town. I have been in Regent withdrawal and so look forward to seeing everyone and settling into a nice rack of lamb. Those lounge performers can make a difference sounds like they have a good duo now.

Jim and Pat,
Wish I was joining you for some great steak tartare. Have you had any this trip?

Susan,
We had steak tartare for lunch one day with a group but it was made in the galley and shaped like a hamburger patty - not as good as before. we'll get a table prep tartare soon and report.

We're in Cochin, India right now and heading for a comp event that includes tasting of the unique food of this region.
Jim

I've finally emerged from the fog of jet lag (after a 15 hour flight from JFK to Mumbai which followed an 8 hour layover there) so thought I should check in. We spent one night at a very nice Taj hotel in Mumbai and then had a quick and smooth embarkation. We had dinner with Jan and Fred our first night on board, but yesterday I really felt bad. Jerry and I laid down at around 2 in the afternoon and woke up at 9. So we ordered room service and went back to bed--missed formal night altogether. But today I feel like a human being again. We had a nice time in Cochin today at a ship provided "Kerala experience" and a local hotel on the water-- a cultural show and nice buffet of local foods. Back on the ship now--so I'll probably even make tea and trivia today. More later.

Peggy glad you arrived safe and sound. Jet lag is posing more and more of a problem for us as we "advance" in years -

Jetlag is a killer! Happy to hear that you've overcome it, Peggy. I'm looking forward to your posts and to meeting you in Cape Town.

Peggy, I feel your pain :mecry: Flying 1st cl. or business is still punishing and often as expensive as the cruise itself. say hi to Jerry and try not to miss me too much ;)

Flying all the way to India is a real drag, I've done it. Glad you are coming out of your fog. And as you now go west, you'll start catching back up every day or two!

Enjoy the Maldives and Seychelles!

I will miss you Suzie :mecry: :mecry: I was hoping we'd have new upgraded biz seats from Atl to JNB on Delta for Samba- think it is old work horse plane nothing fancy - doubt I'll ever get one of those "bed' thingies - we have flown other airlines in biz all pretty much the same but I thought the ANZ "premium economy" (oxymoron) was a good $$$$$ deal -

Yah: we are stuck with the old Delta 767 that I believe will be retired in 2009, the lie flat seats are being installed I was reading on Flyertalk in spring of 2009.

For what we all are paying in miles they should wheel in a bed for us...

FV

Crystal and I took the Backwater Houseboat Excursion yesterday instead of the comp one. After a bouncy 1.5 hour ride, we arrived at Alappuzha, a large lake with many small canals where people live and work. It was fascinating to see people working in the rice fields, washing their dishes and clothes in the water. It was quite peaceful and iddylic. It was a great way to see how the people of this area really live.

After the sailaway, Crystal and I stayed up on deck 11 and saw a large number of dolphin greeting us as we entered the Indian Ocean.

Life is good.....

Beth that sounds like our kind of experience - love the "off the beaten track" trips -

Nice report, Beth, glad you and Crystal had a good time.

Flight to JNB for ROAR did NOT have the new seats that are anticipated for Delta, like Frank said for 2009. They were hard. But a lot better than being crammed in back if flight is full. Still, a lot of points to give up for same.

YES mucho points!!!!!!!

It sounds like you are all enjoying some of the more tranquil settings in India. Peggy, I hope the jet lag is over soon.

We enjoyed Alappuzha and the backwater boat ride, too. Beth, isn't is quite a setting? We finished up with light rain and a beautiful rainbow. Our guys decided they needed to drive the boat, so the captain kept a close eye while we proceeded along the canals.

Keep up the sea mail. We're loving it!

Cheers, Anne

Well, rats--I just wrote a long post about the Maldives that went into cyberspace. Her'e the short version: We're anchored off Male, Maldives for a half day. This is a spectacular island country consisiting of 1190 islands--we're at the one with the most population. It has beautiful clear,blue water and lots of motorbikes. We visited the Friday Mosque and an unusual fish market. The fish are all laid out on a marble floor and for some reason it doesn't smell bad in the market. We can see several of the Maldives islands from our balcony--including the island airport. Tonight we're eating Indian food at Portofinos. Tomorrow the theme changes to Asian for a few days and then it becomes a steakhouse. So far the food has been great.

Beth the tour you and Crystal did sounds great. Peggy I hope you are feeling better - thanks for the "short version" of the Maldives!

Keep having a great time y'all! :app:

Today there was a "ship voting" for US president, 70 percent voted and the results were revealed after the show. The non US residents went for Obama, the US residents went for McCain and the overall vote was for McCain. When we wake up Wednesday morning our time, the West Coast will still be voting so we'll see what happens in daytime (unless court cases delay it again.)

Crystal and I went on a snorkeling private beach excursion in the Maldives. It was absolutely gorgeous. We found a palm tree to sit under when not swimming with the fishes!!! It was a great afternoon.

Looking forward to snorkeling in the Seychelles in a few days .....

We are sitting here looking at a huge rainbow over the Indian Ocean. Looking forward to a beautiful day at sea.

OK OK 2 weeks more for us - I will report the rainbow to Tony and he will hope for another on our trip - he is rainbow guy!!!!!!

AND I thought he was a Sambuca guy.

No need to edit a great Sambuca guy

Wish Carol and I were going to be on that cruise. It will be a great one. Have to wait for FUN to have some fun.

Ralph he sees rainbows while sipping Sambuca everywhere - we will miss you both so much but look forward to FUN!!!! J and T :hug: :hug:

We have a couple of sea days coming up--usually my favorite part of a cruise. Although there was a rainbow in the sky this morning, now it's just clouds and rain storms all around us. Very fitting for this sad, sad day. We're planning a depression party tonight with a fairly large group--we'll be crying in our beer -- or sambuca as the case may be.

Peggy, Again I feel your pain :(

We just had our Equator Crossing Party. All the polywogs were staff and crew. No actual passengers were included. What a show! Jean-Michel Cousteau was King Neptune, how appropriate, and fell into the fun quickly. The Captain and his gong were ever-present. The fun included eggs, sausages and colored kool-aide type liquids. After all the fun was over, Captain McNeill was the one in the pool cleaning up all the mess. Again, he was a class act.

Thanks for posting, Crystal. Sounds like another fun Equator Crossing Party. We'll be seeing you soon.

At 2:00pm we had a “Crossing of the Equator” ceremony where Pollywogs become Shellbacks. I won’t explain in detail because you need to see it to understand it. For those of you who have witnessed this event on Regent (Radisson) it was the best of any I’ve seen out of 10 or so. The actual ship’s doctor portrayed the drunken doctor and did a fabulous job, the pollywogs deserved the part and the Captain went into the pool with the rest of the cast. Everyone was commenting that this was the best show we’ve seen. The program went on in sunlight and finished just before we headed into rainclouds.

We had a great snorkeling excursion in the Seychelles today. Jan & Fred were with us along with new GAMErs Martha & Tom from Boston. We feed the fishies, had a submarine ride in the coral reef and after that finally snorkeled. We saw some beautiful fish and coral. The Seychelles are beautiful. The Hanseatic is docked right behind us.

The full cruisers were treated with a party with a local band and dancers tonight and we picked up our door tags. Tonight Cody, (a singer who was on the Mariner last November) had a fun 50s and 60s Rock and Roll Dance Party. We were all out there having a good time. Hope he will do it again on the CT - Rio run.

Tomorrow: another snorkeling day in the Seychelles. :app: :app: :app:

Beth, the 50's and 60's rock and roll dance party is right up my alley. Hope they repeat it on the way to Rio.

Donna, I will make sure to ask Cody to do his rock and roll party during SAMBA.

We walked around La Dique this morning. Got a nice walk in and saw a lovely little island. This afternoon, the Hanseatic and the Navigator switched islands and we went snorkeling near Cocco Island. It was the best snorkeling I've experienced. I was withing inches of swimming with a sea turtle, saw rays and fish I've only seen pictures. The current was very strong, but luckily our catamaran had a motorized raft that came around and got us back to our boat. It was a wonderful excursion.

Our mission the morning of 11/09 was a snorkeling excursion on Coco Beach. We took the tender to the main dock and transferred to a catamaran capable of carrying 50 passengers but only 25 were put on each one. We took 25 minutes getting to the island which consisted of piles of large granite boulders and one small beach which was about the size of a normal bedroom. About 50 yards from the beach was a small outcropping of boulders with no beach and the reef stretched between the 2 islands. We snorkeled from the boat and the water was spectacular. Although the reef is mostly dead from a 1998 tsunami the fish were incredible. The variety, colors and quantity of the fish was amazing and it was the best snorkeling I’ve ever seen as far as viewing fish. The water ranged in depth from about 40 feet to 1 foot and the fish were everywhere. There were hundreds of sea urchins and an occasional sea turtle and ray. The water was so clear you could see for long distances. After about 90 minutes of snorkeling we all returned to the boat for a 90 minute cruise around several nearby uninhabited islands. One of the catamaran crew played guitar and sang, we saw dozens of dolphins frolicking around the boat, flying fish “flew” out of the boat’s way and the scenery was magnificent. The boat’s crew had 3 fishing lines trolling behind and they caught a mackerel and a dogfish. We returned to the dock to a long line waiting for the last tenders. It was going to take at least 3 tenders to clear the line so we wandered around the village a bit. La Digue was quaint and it reminded us of the Bahamas in the 1950’s. When we returned to the ship, Captain John was on the tender dock helping guests make the treacherous step from the tender. He is the most involved Captain I’ve ever sailed with.
Jim

Cody plans to do both the rock & roll and Beatles parties on Samba. We've been warning Paul & Louise that the Stars Lounge is way too small for our group (also one end is smoking and the smell permeates the whole area) and that Galileo's would be much better. Cody prefers Galileo's as well. We'll see if they listen and if they don't, we'll have to pack Stars so full they'll have to move us.
Jim

We had a great time in the Seychelles as well. We did a great tour in La Digue that included a ride on one of their unique oxcarts. Our driver decided to race another cart and our Ox won--it was great fun. We spent some time in the National park and then went to the famous beach that's pictured in every brochure about the Seychelles (and other places as well). We just took the ship shuttle to the beach in Praslin--the powdery white sand on the beach was spectacular. The only downside was the $10 beer in the beach restaurant. Being pretty remote, the Seychelles is also very expensive. Now two sea days to recuperate. We had dinner last night with some friends we met From Fort Worth. We'll have Asian food in Portofinos tonight with Jan and Fred.

The Seychelles must truly be beautiful. Can't wait to visit some day.
Peggy, Jim, Crystal and Beth, see you soon on the Navigator.

This DC has been a truly enjoyable cruise, visiting places we haven't been before. Because of problems in some of the ports the itinerary next year will be somewhat altered (if the Puzzle Palace in FLL pays attention to staff & guest reports.) Stops like Alexandria, Fujairah & Qatar could be eliminated and places like Muscat could become overnight. I'm glad we've done this cruise on the Navigator because many of the ports don't have the infrastructure to handle a lot of visitors at one time. Many of the excursions have been waitlisted and can't be expanded because the number of busses, minivans, boats etc is quite limited. I think it will be quite a problem next year on the Voyager with 200+ additional guests and many will be very disappointed in not being able to get on the popular excursions.

On a happy note, Terry Breen is scheduled t come aboard in CPT and sail to FLL. We're looking forward to the SAMBA crowd - we've been trying to warn the staff of what to expect.
Jim

We have also wondered about the size of the Voyager in some of these ports.

And yes, ditto what Jim said. We've been trying to "prepare" the ship for the SAMBAites' arrival.
;)

Donna.

Here is a photo of an uninhabited Seychelle island. Some 5 star hotel is under construction on the island. The small huts you see are self-catering bungalows you find all over the islands. They appear to be bare-bones.