20250505 Regent Seven Seas Voyager Cruise Bangkok to Dubai, Day 14, Sea Day Sailing

Regent Seven Seas Voyager Bangkok to Dubai Day 14 - Sea Day in the southern Bay of Bengal

Before we get into today's sea day activities, I want to talk about a situation on the ship. That situation is probably norovirus. Why, "probably"? Because the ship isn't talking about it. We have discovered that before Voyager arrived in Bangkok, there was a significant norovirus outbreak on the ship. This cruise that we are on is a segment of a larger cruise. This means that there are many passengers on the ship who were on before we boarded. That means they were here for the outbreak.

What has been happening since we've been on the ship is a shift from day to day. Like many cruise ships, this ship has a jigsaw puzzle table. Someone dumps out a massive puzzle, and throughout the day, folks stop by the table, putting some pieces in place, ultimately resulting in the puzzle's completion. What's been happening is that the puzzle is out, but then, the puzzle is gone, and a note is in its place explaining that increased sanitizing protocols are in place. A day later, the puzzle is back out. Then, the puzzle disappears and the note reappears. In the Captain's sea day noon reports, he stresses hand washing. But nobody with actual information is talking about what is going on. This seems like a stupid course of action. Last year, on our Princess South Pacific cruise, we had a norovirus outbreak. Every day, the Captain announced the number of new cases, the number of recoveries, and the number of ongoing cases. People knew what was happening, and nobody made assumptions. Here on Voyager, it's all hush-hush, but we know something is happening because the protocols keep changing. It seems short-sighted, but this is more typical of cruise lines than the open communication we experienced on Princess. The breakout hasn't reached a point where they stop buffet self-service and dish out the food for you, but we sure don't know how bad the outbreak is. 

OK - enough about that - on to today.

We hit the hay early last night and were still in bed until nearly 8:00 this morning, so we must still be catching up on sleep. After breakfast, we had an immigration adventure. While our next stop is Sri Lanka, India jumped the gun and processed the entire ship's immigration today. There are several Indian immigration officials onboard. This morning, they set up multiple immigration stations in the Horizon Lounge. Starting with deck #6 (our deck), we were called to the lounge for a face-to-face immigration process. The ship was trying to throttle the flow of passengers so nobody had to stand in line for a long time. It didn't work.

The process did not go well. The fingerprint readers were not working. They had cameras but weren't using them. All the sixth-floor passengers stood waiting as nobody was processed. Eventually, they abandoned trying to scan fingerprints, and things started moving. I noticed that when they called deck #7, they asked that the even-number rooms report, further throttling the passenger flow. This means entering India should go smoothly since our passports have already been cleared.

Our first Regent points opportunity was putting up on the sports deck. Today's challenge was simple. Putt a single hole. Get a hole-in-one and get three points. Take two putts, get two points. Three or more putts netted one point for participation.

Arlona attended a crystal bracelet jewelry-making session, creating this new item.

We met up on deck #5 for Baggo. In many of the games, Arlona and I wind up competing against each other, so we always get the same number of points. Since we pool the points, it doesn't matter who wins. Having said that, I beat Arlona in Baggo. (Don't worry, my payback is coming)

We spent some time on the balcony, enjoying somewhat lower temperatures, a nice breeze, and a good book.

This afternoon's first completion was carpet bowling. Essentially, it was like miniature bocce. We were on different teams, so one of us was going to come away with points. Today, that was me.

The next completion was a skeeball-type game. We had to bounce a ball on a trampoline of sorts and bounce the ball into scoring holes. Arlona absolutely demolished me and set the high score for all players, netting her extra points.

Trivia came next. It was another tough game today, and we finished out of the points. The failures:

• What candy replaced cigarettes as a standard U.S. Presidential giveaway in 1988?
• We guessed jelly beans - it was M&Ms
• What European Prime Minister was a singer for two years in the band, Ugly Rumors?
• We guessed Boris Johnson - it was Tony Blair
• Apiphobia is the fear of what?
• We guessed needles - it was bees (we had this before but couldn't remember)
• Wilkes Land is a location where?
• We guessed Australia - it was Antarctica
• American soldiers were known as G.I.s - what does that stand for?
• Government (or General) Issue
• Who wrote The Three Musketeers - and a bonus point for each one you can name
• We didn't get Dumas as the author, but did get a point each for Athos and Porthos, missing Aramis
• What was Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother's name?
• Mycroft

Like I said, it was a rough day.

After pre-dinner cocktails in the Observation Bar and a nice dinner in Compass Rose, we headed to the room for the night. Tomorrow is our third and final sea day before we reach Sri Lanka. We'll be doing a weird 30-minute time shift tomorrow night as this area of the world does that.