January 3 – AT SEA

enroute to Jamaica

Weather – 26º, humid-ish, still windy

Steps – 6,153

A lost hour wasn’t welcome this morning, but it as a sea day, so we had no where to be. We knew we’d have to give the one back we took a few days ago.

Today was a basic repeat of yesterday once we made it to the pool. One thing different was that we sat apart. Once one Einstein decides to sit in a lounger one (not 2) away from the next one this inevitably causes singles and breaks up pairs. Kind of like sitting at a bar – if you don’t want to sit next to a stranger, fine…but sit TWO away from that stranger. We actually were surprised to see any open chairs at all, so we put up with it. We don’t exactly talk to each other the whole time, so it was fine.

not a bad place to blog!

I read some of my first book of 2025 – “Hello Beautiful”, a novel from the ship's library. I read 24.5 books in 2024. I didn’t set out of read 24 in 24, but that’s what happened. Somewhere in the midst of 2024, I decided I should look at screens less and
read more, so that’s what I did. As I approached the end of the year, I realized I had 24 in 24. I powered through my last book “Paris”, the Paris Hilton memoir and then if my Ina book wasn’t a 7 day borrow, I’d have had 25. A goal of 25 in 25 is set!!

Our seating arrangement caused a bit of confusion for the Krystian the bar tender. Chris ordered 2 Aperol Spritzes while I went inside to listen to the

tiny lemon squeezer thingy

captain’s noon announcement. I came back, walked up to the bar, Krystian saw me coming and told me “your husband ordered 2”. Ok great!! When we brought them, he was mighty confused.

Our predinner activity was the Regent loyalty gathering. We’re not super into the gatherings, but there tends to be caviar and info on how many passengers are new to Regent and not-so-new. We are the not-so-new with about 360 days sailed, but we there was one woman there with over 4,000 days sailed with Regent!!! There was caviar, but the most interesting thing was a tiny Lucite lemon squeezer on my plate with a couple of shrimp.

So, with little else to report from today’s activities, some observations…

Kivy's magic!

1 - This cruise is definitely younger with a ton of kids. Our only Christmas cruises have been long – these aren’t appealing to families with kids in school and
parents with jobs. There are also a bunch of virgin Regent cruisers. This has been neither here nor there for us mostly, other than groups tend to be loud.

There does happen to be one particular family with older kids (late teens, early twenties) that I could do without. Last night at the show, they caused a bit of a gong show – they arrived 30 minutes into the 45 min show with a drunk grandpa who almost fell into the lap of a woman he had to climb over to get to a seat. Then they were a bit loud and boisterous and felt entitled to the first and second rows, it was as though hey had NEVER been to a theatre.

2 - I suppose I’d rather smell perfume than BO. However, if I can smell you before I can see you, I think you’re wearing too much. Occasionally, when on the balcony pre-dinner, enjoying the sea I think I’m alone, and then a sniff tells me I’m not.

first book of 25 in 25

cover of daily 'Passages'

3 – The crew, and by crew I don’t mean the ‘officers’, I mean the workers from the Philippines, Indonesia, India and many others, who can’t do enough for the passengers. Just writing about them makes me a bit emotional. These folks, a million miles and as many months from home, make our vacation fantastic. ALWAYS with a smile, a “morning ma’am”, a “what can I get you ma’am?”, a “can I get you another drink ma’am”.

Speaking of crew…Kivy, our room attendant, surprised us with a bottle of wine today. On Regent everything alcohol is included with the fare. You can basically get anything you want for booze in your room as a bit of a bar set up. We never ask for anything more than a couple of bottles of wine – we get plenty of booze on the ‘outside’. We drank our first bottle of wine a few days ago and was hoping Kivy would replace it. He never did and we didn’t see him to ask. Today he

oh, Rivy!!

showed up with a new bottle and told us he had to ask us if we wanted it –
sometimes you see a lot of your room attendant, other times not so much. This asking is a new procedure. I get it and it’s AOK with me. In fact, I was thrilled to see Kivy at our door. 

I was actually even more thrilled 2 days ago when we returned to our room to find a bowl of mixed nuts. Earlier in the cruise, I made a bowl for myself from the breakfast bar to keep in the room to add to my yogurt. Kivy must have seen it and made us a

another 3-er

more substantial bowl – I was so touched at this level of caring. Then today when bringing the wine, he asked about the nuts. I told him how much I appreciated them, but I think there was a bit lost in translation, because not 20 min later, room service showed up with ANOTHER bowl – we had barely touched the first bowl.

THEN…when we returned to our room at the end of the night we found another bottle of wine and 4 Dr. Peppers (Chris’ afternoon on the balcony bevy of choice.)