Regent Seven Seas Voyager Bangkok to Dubai Day 5 - We finally boarded the ship!
Our internal clocks are still goofy since we both woke up around 5:00 this morning. I guess that's a good sign that we're catching up on sleep. We went down for breakfast at 6:30 and ran into our guide, Sarah, who joined us for breakfast. It's always interesting to spend time with someone from a different part of the world and learn about the differences in our cultures.
We got back to the room with 90 minutes to pack, so about 75 minutes more than we needed. That let us take it easy and relax before our travel day.
In the blog over the past two days, I've discussed the temples and things we saw. One thing I didn't talk about was Cambodia's past. Our local guide, Kien, lived through Cambodia's recent past. He is 45 years old and has witnessed a lot. He only talked about it briefly, but he acknowledged some of the less popular things about Cambodia. The first is that education is not compulsory. I think this is the first country we have visited where we heard that. Even the poorest countries seem to require education at least to the sixth-grade level or so. Not here. If a family needed the kids to work the farm, they worked the farm and did not attend school. Amazing.
Next, he talked about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime. Between 1976 and 1978, up to three million Cambodians were executed and buried in what has come to be known as the Killing Fields. That represented nearly 40% of the population. In Siem Reap, we drove by an area with multi-story shopping. Kien explained that this was one of the Killing Fields. Because of the bodies buried here, the land had very little value. A developer bought it for pennies on the dollar and turned it into a shopping area. As a child, Kien said he was scared to come here because of the bodies. I can't imagine growing up in an environment like that. While Cambodia is certainly doing better today, the lack of compulsory education means that, as a society, Cambodians remain at a disadvantage. Kein said that there is hope this will change.
Back to today...
We got our bags packed and relaxed until our 9:30 meeting time in the lobby. The team had everything ready to go, and we were quickly on our way to the airport.
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| Saying farewell to our fantastic local Siem Reap guide, Kien |
They really did a nice job organizing everything and coordinating getting the 16 of us through immigration and security.
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| The brand new airport in Siem Reap certainly showed local culture |
Our flight was on time and we arrived back in Bangkok a little after 2:00.
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| I got to try another local beer on the flight |
Once again, they shepherded us through immigration and baggage collection, and we boarded our bus for Laem Chabang shortly after 3:00. Google estimated the trip at 1:35, so we should have been at the port by 4:45. Traffic and one wrong turn had a different opinion and we arrived at the ship about 5:15.
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| Bidding our terrific escort, Sarah, a fond farewell at the cruise terminal |
A little rant coming...
This is our first Regent Seven Seas cruise. Regent bills itself as ultra-luxury, so we were expecting, well, ultra-luxury. We arrived at the ship with our luggage from the Angkor Wat pre-stay. We got to the ship's gangway, and there were no crew members there to assist anyone. We had 16 guests who had to schlep one or two suitcases up the steep gangway to the ship in the 90+F heat. Not very luxurious. Having never been on a Regent ship, we didn't know where to go. The Hotel Director put us on an elevator and to go to the service desk. We found that where we checked in and got our room keys. We asked where our muster station was so that we could check in per instructions. The agent told us where it was. That meant we were schlepping our luggage to the muster station since it was 5:25 and the station closed at 5:30. Oh, and he told us there was a new Regent cruiser reception in the Observation Bar at 5:30. Uh, OK. On the way there, the Beverage Manager, Vladan, saw us and asked if we wanted some help. He helped with our bags and got us to the muster station, only to find that the crew had knocked off five minutes early. Then, he helped us to our room, which was much appreciated.
We asked him if there was a specific dress code for the first night, since many cruise lines relax their dress code on embarkation and disembarkation days. He said that there was no exception after 6:00. Nice. We have two minutes to get to the reception, but we need to dress for dinner first. We changed and hustled to the Observation Bar only to be a couple of minutes late, missing the introduction of the officers who should be making sure our cruise is exceptional. Nice. Vladan found us there and helped to catch us up.
We had dinner reservations scheduled tonight at 6:30 at Chartreuse, a French restaurant. He asked if we would like to change that. With our blessing, he called and moved our reservation to 7:30 to make our schedule a little easier to deal with.
We returned to the room from the reception, and Arlona got unpacked while I worked on this. We decided to see if we could dine a little early and headed to Chartreuse at 7:10. We were asked if we would be willing to share a table. We agreed, and it was a great decision. We had a lovely evening getting to know a new couple, also on their first Regent cruise. It really was a great time, and we hope to see them more during this journey. As for dinner at Chartruese, we weren't impressed at all with the French fare. The food was bland and nothing to write home about. We will not be seeking additional reservations there. We couldn't get a reservation at the Prime 7 steakhouse until our last night on the ship. We will try to change that tomorrow, but we'll see how accommodating they are.
We were both still tired, so we decided to skip the show tonight. Why cruise ships insist on doing the evening performance at 9:30 or later in the evening is beyond us. This is especially true on cruise lines that cater to an older crowd. It is what it is, so we'll see how many shows we decide to attend.
We returned to the cabin and I got unpacked. That was it for the day, and we were ready for bed. Tomorrow, we will drop anchor near Koh Samui, Thailand. We have an Ancient Temples tour scheduled for 11:00.
The first day on Regent has not impressed us. It is a disappointment following the excellent pre-cruise stay that we booked through Regent. We're hoping that things will improve tomorrow. As for wrapping this up tonight, the internet on the ship, claimed to be, "the fastest internet at sea", absolutely sucks and I'm struggling to get this to post. Really hoping that things improve tomorrow.
