May 18 – AT SEA, Cruising the Gulf of Oman

Weather – 38º

Steps – 6,387

Vietnamese beer

Humidity – high

CAVIAR SUNDAY!!! Regent serves caviar for breakfast every Sunday. For us to participate, Sunday pretty much has to be a sea day. If we are in port for an excursion, we (I) opt for a quick breakfast in the room. Caviar Sunday isn’t really as extravagant as it sounds…we have 2 plates each of 2 kinds of caviar served on blinis and toasts accompanied by the classic toppings…

hard boiled egg, chives, sour cream, and red onion. Then it is a kind of DIY situation, where you add any or none of the toppings to the caviar – I had one naked and one with sour cream. Tonight, there was a caviar appetizer on the dinner menu which I got – somehow, I couldn’t fine any at lunch.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon were spent at the pool. It was hot…a bit hotter and I would have bailed. I found a couple of excuses to go inside to cool off at a few points.

At the pool, we read, blogged, had an Aperol Spritz, beat the heat with a cooled off with a cool towel, and listened to ‘Cool by the Pool’. We plan our days around entertainment on the ship. ‘Cool by the Pool’ was a 45 min set done by the onboard pianist, Kelly. We’ve sailed with Kelly before and were thrilled to learn she was here.

cool towels

We are always on the hunt for new (ideally, local) beers. The ship was recently in Viet Nam and brough on Bia Saigon – it was a very typical lager, these beers (including the Canadian ones) are always a bit on the sweet side for me.

We knew we had an early start to the evening, so right after lunch it was naptime back at the room.

The evenings festivities started with the Captain’s welcome reception, followed by dinner with Callie, the cruise director. Callie is new to Regent in the last year and is from South Africa. It is always interesting chatting with ship’s staff – they always have interesting stories.

Then it was on to tonight’s show “Rockin’ Soul’ – it was fine. We had the pleasure of sitting in front of a group of chatty singers – so annoying!

Lastly, was a game of Name That Tune. The theme was 60s and 70s. We teamed up with a couple of Brits that were about our age and Mary, a woman that was significantly older. Mary wasn’t too familiar with most (any) of the songs and at one point mentioned that she was hoping for an Elvis tune. We actually had an Elvis song, but…Mary didn’t get that one either. Then she lamented where Glenn Miller had gone…good grief, Mary!

I have a tendency to criticize the age of the musical selections on Regent and have no intention of stopping. I thought songs of the 40’s and 50’s were as old as it would get…nope. We broke a record this cruise listing to “Smoke Gets in your Eyes” – any idea how old that baby is? 92 YEARS OLD!!! It was recorded in 1933!!!!!