.jpg)
This isn’t complete and unedited. Put here for a place taker.
Today we arrived in Newcastle. Today’s tour will be to Alnwick Castle.
More edits (obviously) and pictures will be added soon.
This isn’t complete and unedited. Put here for a place taker.
We slept well through the storm last night. The Explorer is a very sturdy ship and we barely felt the rough seas. The captain said that we made great time and we looked out to reasonably clear skies and lots of sea-borne windmills as we traversed the English Channel. Waking up at 9:40 (Dale thought) we called for room service breakfast. Somehow, Dale’s phone ended up an hour ahead for the real time but we ate breakfast, both took showers and both watched different movies. It’s nice having two 50” widescreens!
Which brings us to the shower. Wow! The best shower ever. Left and right triple heads, rain shower head above and a hand wand. The shower is at least twice the size of the standard one on the other ships and you don’t have to step into it. The sacrifice? You don’t have a tub which we didn’t use anyway. Fantastic!
At noon we headed down to the French restaurant Chartreuse. They no longer have lunch at the Compass main dining room so you must eat at La Veranda, Prime 7 or Chartreuse. We finally got the fabled Pouilly Fuisse, Margaret had some wonderful Hamache and half chicken and Dale had some veal. Great service, nice surroundings and a 2 hour lunch. Judy and Franco had trained us well!
This isn’t complete and not edited but we put it up for a place taker.
Today we’ll be driving 2.5 hours to Southampton to board the Regent Explorer. We got up at 7, put on the coffee in our room and began packing. Judy prepared breakfast for us and at 9 we loaded the bags and were on our way. Lots of nice conversation took place on the way.
Franco made good time and got us to the port in about 2 hours. We gave our bags to the porter and said our “goodbyes” to Judy and Franco. It was very sad for all of us as we thought about how much fun it would be if all of us were going on the cruise. But, they were going on holiday to Spain for a week and our cruise was fully booked. We took pictures and they were on their way.
Since we were quite early we had to wait about 15 minutes before entering the embarkation area. The whole process was very quick and within 15 minutes we were sitting in La Veranda with a glass of Macon (French white wine region) eating lunch on the back deck. Storm clouds were threatening so went inside and sat in the protected, back seating area until our room was ready.
The room was very nice, a larger Penthouse suite than the normal Regent suite.
Description of the ship. Everything’s new and state-of-the-art. Nice chandeliers in the hallways. Large TV’s on each side of the wall that divides the bedroom from the living room and two doors that can be closed to provide privacy to the bedroom area. The bathroom is larger, has two sinks and the shower is huge. Nice sized closet, a bar area a separate table for eating meals and a double sized balcony.
We attended the orientation session for donning your life jackets at 5:30 in one of the lounges, checked out the fitness center, dropped off our life jackets and went to the Observation Lounge for a drink or two. I greeted the piano player named Ross who I had met on a previous cruise and had given me piano lessons! He is a musical genius and he’s now added a synthesizer which makes him a one man band.
We met a couple from Florida’s The Villages named Joanne and Lloyd. They were a lot of fun and a good way to have a couple martinis. The skies were dark and it appeared that a decent storm was brewing. This was confirmed later by the captain over the PA system as he told us about 10 foot swells and rain. As our cabin was pretty much in the middle of the ship from bow to stern and top to bottom we felt we would do just fine. We went back to our room to get ready for dinner.
We had a reservation for the Prime 7 steakhouse specialty restaurant at 7:30. Margaret took a quick side-trip to the semi-enclosed smoking area on the pool deck for a quick cigarette with a nice lady from Colorado. We always meet interesting people in the smoking area and this was no exception. Later we would find several more.
The Explorer’s Prime 7 was like all the others we’ve been to but was a bit larger and had different seating arrangement for the non-sharing tables along the wall. Dale found them to be somewhat uncomfortable and awkward but we worked around it. Dale had the surf and turf with lobster and Margaret had the Alaskan king crab. The crab was amazing (at least 2 pounds) and Dale’s steak was fine. He ended up eating half the crab too and loved it. Even though we turned down desert they brought us some chocolate treats done four ways. The wine was decent house Pinot Grigio and Merlot.
More edits and pictures coming soon.
This post will discuss the AGA stove when it is complete.
More edits coming soon.