Cruise from Cape Town to Rio on Regent Mariner

• Cape Town - We arrived in Cape Town the day before going on board the Mariner. As part of the deal we had a night in the Westin Hotel in Cape Town. We took advantage of an excursion up Table Mountain on the cable car, which we had not done before
• Luderitz - Just walked round the town here, as we had seen Kolmanskop and the Desert Horses on previous trips
• Walvis Bay - A trip to Swakopsmund and another in the seal and dolphin boat
• St Helena - in the event we never got to St Helena, a member of the crew suffered a heart attack about a day out of Walvis Bay, and the decision the Regent made, taking all things into consideration, was to miss St Helena, and steam at full speed for Rio. The airport at St Helena was not yet working, so the only two viable options were to return to Walvis Bay (in which case the stop at St Helena would have been missed anyway, and the ship wold have been a day late getting into Rio, screwing up their next cruise leg) or to miss St Helena and sail at full speed to Rio, shaving a day off the scheduled voyage time (the patient being stabilised with drugs during the 6 day passage - medical opinion seemed to have indicated that this would not harm the patient, and that this way the ship would arrive in time at Rio). We were told that it cost an extra $25,000 a day in fuel to run the engines flat out, and an extra $60,000 for berthing at Rio, less whatever the cost of not running the engines during the day saved.
• The announcements were handled badly by Regent; they tried to gloss over the bypassing of St Helena, and apart from an announcement over the PA system at breakfast that day, nothing more was said. There was much muttering among the passengers, and in the end the Cruise Director had to back peddle and make a clarifying announcement on the ships TV channel a few days later. I sympathise with Regent having to make a difficult decision, but with a little more thought by the Cruise Director (or his superiors) it could have come across a lot better to us passengers.
• Life on Board Regent Mariner - this and that in the daily life on the ship
• Rio de Janeiro - With the change in schedule and early arrival in Rio, we had 5 nights in Rio, 2 on the ship and 3 in the JW Marriott hotel. This enabled a fairly comprehensive seeing of Rio - Christ the Redeemer Statue, the Sugarloaf cable car, the Botanical Gardens, the new museum on the waterfront.
• From Rio we flew to Iguassu falls and on to Paraguay

On to Paraguay

All Holidays