CRUISING INSIDE PASSAGE

Yellow arrow in red circle denotes our position at noon today.  It is an overcast and cool day with chance of rain this afternoon.  Smooth sailing today as we are in protected waters off Canadian coast. Around 6:00pm we will enter the narrow channel between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. There will be possible whale activity there so we will keep our eyes pealed.  Our naturalist, Terry Breen, will be narrating from the bridge so this "scenic cruising".

 Chef Dino (he's from Germany) did a German themed pool-side lunch today.  This poor pig took part.

                                                      This small pot is goulash.

This is last night's dinner menu.  The beef Wellington was perfectly prepared and very tasty.

At 5:00pm every day our butler brings us some canopes.  These are our two favorites:  cheese stuffed jalapeno peppers and barbeque hot dogs.  We had just returned from the all-you-could-eat crab feast so could not eat these.  Had to save room for our beef Wellington.

                                              Our great butler, Suresh, from India.

One nice thing about Regent is you request and they deliver.  Had this bottle of bourbon to keep me company.

This is our favorite chardonnay.  We requested Regent put on two cases of it just for us.  Our butler kept a couple bottles stocked in our refrigerator.  I also ask him for some cashews.  The bars and restaurants around the ship would only serve this wine to us.  Yes, we are very spoiled by Regent.
A couple commented to us the other night that the dining room staff always ran to take care of us.

Our butler would bring fresh fruit every day and the bananas would never get ripe.  So I left a message on this one.  Suresh is very serious but I bet he smiled when he saw this.   

This is Olga, my "doctor".  Every evening we would go to the Stars Lounge for cocktails.  Olga is our bartender there.  She is from the Ukraine (Russian).

I packed this morning while Rebecca was working out.  She is packing this afternoon.  This is our least favorite day of any cruise.  Packing and saying good bye to all our crew member family.  This nine night cruise has gone by way to fast.  This is why we like to take long cruises.  Our next cruise will be in January 2016--72 nights, "Circle South America".  Yesterday I booked another cruise for November 2016.  It is a 54 night cruise from Barcelona to Singapore.  It will stop in Israel, go through the Suez Canal, stopping in the Middle Eastern countries along the way.  It will also stop in Myanmar and India plus many other places.  We saw these places in 2013 with the exception of Myanmar.

Tonight we will be dining with Goran again.  He will also be leaving the ship tomorrow and flying to Europe so as to join another Regent ship, the Mariner.  His wife and two lovely daughters will be joining him on the ship in June for 21 days so we know they are all very excited about that.

Tomorrow morning at 7:00 am we will be docking in Vancouver, BC.  We should be disembarking the Navigator shortly after 8:00.  After collecting our luggage on the pier we will clear Canadian customs and board a bus to be transferred to the Vancouver airport.  I believe we will clear US customs at the airport also.  Our flight is not until 1:40 pm.  We fly on an American Eagle plane to Los Angeles then connect to an American Airlines  flight on to DFW.  Dallas weather tomorrow says 80% chance of heavy thunderstorms.  We are scheduled to arrive DFW at 11:00 pm but just hoping we get there sometime tomorrow night.  We are booked in first class for our flights so that will help make a long day a little nicer.

Here are some of our crew member friends:

                                              Our stewardess, Rosemarie, on left.

                                                                    Marlene, bar waitress

                                                              "Skinny", dining room waiter

                                                             Von, bartender

                                                    Hendra, dining room waiter

                                           Ali, head waiter, and Arthur, head sommelier

                                                        Ivan, dining room waiter

                                                         Erkin, head waiter

                                                         Ari, wine steward

                                                         Donald, head waiter

                                                                Siena, bartender

                                                       Redha, our steward

               Alin, Prime 7 mgr--Dino Schwager, executive chef--Goran, F&B Director

                                                  Suresh, our amazing butler.

There will be at least one more posting made after we get back home.  This evening we will be doing some scenic cruising and may see some more whales.  I have my camera with telephoto at the ready.  We did see two small dolphins playing this morning.