'07 Regent World Cruise-Segment 5

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Muscat, Oman is right out of “1001 Arabian Nights” with its walled old town, forts and the oldest souq or marketplace in Oman. Set in amongst jagged mountains next to the port, the mystery of this city remains because it is virtually unknown to Westerners. We chose to take a sunset cruise on an ancient Dhow boat used for centuries in this part of the world. We glided along the coast and saw where future development is planned on their beautiful beaches. The next day, a small group of us went by 4x4 vehicles through the mountains and off road terrain to a giant sinkhole, a wadi (a water spring oasis nestled between two steep mountains) and a white sand beach. Our Omani guides handled a flat tire within 15 minutes, leading us to believe this must be a common occurrence on these rough roads. A beautiful barbeque lunch under a tent and a swim in the aquamarine water welcomed us after a long morning of touring. Camels, the Queen of Sheba’s stomping grounds, a sardine fishing village and frankincense characterized our 6 hour stop in Salalah, our 2nd port in Oman. We think Oman will soon be on the tourist’s radar.

Ahhh, 3 days at sea to rest up and ready ourselves for a port intensive balance of this segment (8 ports in 10 days). To get us in the mood, the Latitudes restaurant became an Arabian Kasbah with exotic food, costumed waiters, a belly dancer and our tour manager smoking a hookah water pipe. Some of the passengers even dressed up in caftans and berkas. Loads of fun!

The resort town of Sharm el Sheikh was our 1st port in Egypt. We had read in “1000 Places to See Before You Die” that you must experience the colorful reefs, coral gardens and incredible variety of exotic fish of the Red Sea. We opted to take a glass bottom boat from the Hilton to see all of the above with one of the most interesting sights being a huge 500 year old brain coral. This area rivals any snorkeling destination that we’ve been to because of its abundance of sea life and easy access to it.

As a complimentary special event, Regent had planned an over night in Cairo including all the highlights. It all started Easter weekend when the ship anchored off the port of Suez at 3:30am. By 6:30am it became evident that the Egyptian authorities were not going to allow us to dock due to high winds. The Captain determined that we would tender into the port to catch the bus to Cairo. There were 18 buses divided into 2 caravans with a tourist police escort. Leaving only an hour later than originally planned we started our 2 hour trek across the desert only to be greeted by a blinding sand storm. Issues such as these must have been built into the original plan, because we arrived in Cairo almost on time with the 1st stop being the 4500 year old Great Pyramids of Giza. We couldn’t believe we were actually standing there next to the last remaining of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”. It was incredible! We took pictures from all angles except upside down. Next we drove to the legendary Sphinx a short distance away, with the Pyramids as a back drop. Later we lunched at the palatial Mena House Hotel, shopped, checked into our hotel on the Nile and then got ready for the evenings festivities. At 7:30pm when we arrived at the world renowned Egyptian Museum, we were surprised to learn that our group of 400 had the whole museum to ourselves. Apparently during the day the museum is packed full of visitors and hot because it lacks proper air conditioning. The temperature that evening was cool and perfect for viewing the treasures of the King Tut exhibit plus many other important Egyptian antiquities. It was mind boggling to walk through rooms filled with so much history virtually alone. Unfortunately no photos were allowed. Dinner was served in the front garden of the museum amongst Egyptian statues and a stringed quartet. All agreed it was an exceptional evening. On Easter morning we visited the oldest of the pyramids at Sakkara and a huge Ramses Colossus statue at Memphis before our Nile cruise lunch on a pharaoh type barge. Then it was off to rejoin the ship in Alexandria 3 hours away. We were all tired but exhilarated by what we had experienced.

Alexandria, named after Alexander the Great, although still in Egypt seemed more Greek or Roman probably because of its location on the Mediterranean. We arrived on a holiday (the Monday after Easter) and the locals were all at the beach along the miles of waterfront. Our highlights tour covered everything from the medieval fortress located at one end of the seafront promenade to King Farouq’s summer palace at the other end. The new library, the catacombs, the amphitheater and the museum all were visited with lunch at the best seafood restaurant in town. The whole table was served a wonderful dish of a whole fish including the eyes, fins and tail along with calamari and shrimp. It was a great welcome to the Med.

We arrived in our only Greek port of Rhodes on a beautiful spring day. We toured the medieval walled old town and could almost envision knights in full costume riding on horseback through the streets. Our tour included a visit to a Greek taverna where we watched the chef prepare tzatziki (yogurt cucumber concoction), a Greek salad with really red tomatoes and feta cheese, fried meatballs and lots more. Sitting in this quiet garden area after a wonderful meal we all agreed that it couldn’t get much better than this! When we got back on the ship, our cruise director had organized “Jamie’s Big Fat Greek Party” with Aisha dancing in an exotic Cleopatra outfit and a fun filled treasure hunt style game played at the ‘04 Olympic Village in Athens. For example men got points for coming up in women’s shoes and women got points for producing an empty purse. To see the whole thing on the ships T.V. the next day created a lot of laughter.

Surprise, it is 11:00am and Captain Dag has just announced that we’d be stopping at Katakalon, a 2nd Greek port for lunch. He’d rented 3 waterfront restaurants and the ship was able to dock just steps away to maximize our time here at this charming village. Another perfect day! That night we had to change gears from Greek to Roaring 20s. We had been invited to Hans’s 61st birthday party with the theme “Murder at the Juice Joint”. We were assigned characters, Chuck was north side mob member #1 and I was Flapper #2 and yes we dressed the parts with the help of one of our friends in the cast. For any of you who are wondering, the Police Chief did it.

Now it was on to Sicily. At 7:00am we opened our balcony curtains and there before us was the snow covered Mt. Etna with a bit of smoke coming out of her top (apparently there had been a small eruption the day before).
We were anchored off the small town of Naxos at the base of the volcano with the hillside town of Taormina to our right. Today we decided to take a leisurely walk into town and eat at one of the waterfront pizzerias. Pizza never tasted so good, especially since it was our 1st Sicilian pizza.

The next stop was Sorrento where we anchored off the beautiful Italian coastline. Today we mixed history, a visit to the ill fated town of Pompeii which was covered in ash from Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. with one of the most famous and thrilling drives along the Amalfi coast. We enjoyed lunch at a cliff side restaurant with breathtaking views before returning to the ship. As we cruised out of Sorrento, Captain Dag decided to take the Voyager around the romantic island of Capri so close you could see the hole in the jagged Faraglioni Rocks. Yes, that’s why we like this Captain.

It was Chuck’s 1st visit to Florence or Firenze as the Italians refer to this great city. We took the 10 hour tour to see the highlights from Michelangelo’s David, the Uffizi Museum, and the red Duomo of Cathedral Santa Maria, to the oldest bridge in Florence the Ponte Vecchio. We ended the day with gelato from Vivoli said to be the best ice cream in Florence. Yum!

We can’t believe there’s only 2 weeks remaining in our ‘07 World Cruise Adventure and we’re going to treasure every minute of it. Packing, did someone mention packing? Chuck reached his goal of 339 tokens with some help from his friend Grant and the Swarovski lion is now ready to join our dragon from ‘06. Hope all is well with all of you.

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