Santos, Brazil February 28

Our port today is Santos, Brazil, which is the largest port in South America and serves Sao Paolo as well as the rest of Brazil.  We took an eight hour tour to Sao Paolo which is about 50 miles away, 1 1/2 hours driving each way.  It is about 2000 feet in elevation and the drive there takes you through some pretty rain forest on a very modern highway but kind of scary with winding turns and tunnels and lots of trucks. There are 20+ million residents in Sao Paolo.  While we visited a couple of nice parks and a museum and we were driven through some of the better parts of town the city is covered with "favelas" which is a nice word for slums. There is a huge homeless problem with people sleeping all over in building doorways and parks, including the better parts of town. Trash litters the city.  Graffiti is everywhere, much worse than we have seen in other spots in South America. The graffiti is on homes, businesses, walls, statues.  Some was even high on multi-story buildings.

Beautiful sunrise as we entered the port 

 Huge granite sculpture in a park area

Beautiful old building covered with graffiti

Ten story building with graffiti all the way up.  How do they do that??















The highlight of the tour was a typical Brazilian BBQ lunch.  It included a great antipasti bar with a very diverse selection from sushi, lasagna, veggies, to cheeses, salads, and steak tartar.  After you visit the buffet, servers start coming around with all sorts of meats that have been cooked over a fire and slicing them onto your plate.  No sure what all of it was but you could have as much as you liked and it was very good.

The antipasti bar

Lots of meat choices 

More meat!















We made a quick drive through the town of Santos and along the nice beach before returning to the ship.

The beach area is about 8 miles long

There are lots of small food stands along the beach 

Some of the beach area is more like a park















Just before 6 pm we went up to the Observation Lounge to watch the sail away.  We noticed that there were no dock workers to handle the ships lines and just assumed that some of the tours were not back yet, wrong!  A little after six the captain came on the PA and announced that we had a problem with an emergency generator not working and we could not sail until it was repaired or they had another solution.  We would stay at the dock overnight and the ship would try to arrange some tours for tomorrow.  The fun continues.

Lovely view of the favelas from out suite (looks like it will be for three days)

Porto Belo, Brazil February 27

We could not remember being in this stop in 2012 until we took the tender to shore and saw the town area and remembered just walking around.  Our tour departed about half an hour late because of the large swell and the difficulty loading the tenders.  Our tour was to a park area where we rode a gondola up to an amusement area.  We took a walk down 200 steps where there was a viewing platform (that meant 200 steps back up!) unfortunately the view was exactly the same as the one from the gondola.  We then took another gondola down to a beach area where we only had 10 minutes to spend there before taking the gondola cars back to where the buses were parked.  It was a very warm, humid day so we were glad to get back to the ship.

The first section of the ride 

Small cars were for up to six people 

 Nice view of the luxury condo area

The view from the platform















We were supposed to have an event for Gold, Platinum and Titanium guests on the forward deck area (normally restricted to crew) for sail away at 4:30 pm.  Luckily the event was moved indoors to the Observation Lounge as about 4 pm  a thunderstorm hit with heavy rain, thunder and lightning.

Nice ice sculpture for our afternoon event

Lots of nice tempting sweet treats 

Our view of the sail away















There was a major problem on the ship.  We are out of Ketel One vodka.  Tom has actually started drinking Grey Goose and Belvedere. He is trying to organize an airlift.

Sea Day February 26

This was the only sea day of this short segment.  It gave us a day to relax and catch up on a few things including laundry and paying some bill online.

This was also the evening for the Seven Seas Society party and we were invited to have dinner with the new captain that took over her duties in Montevideo.

The party was very nice with the return of serving canapes including caviar and shrimp.

The captain was delightful, very easy to talk to and we had a wonderful evening.

Seven Seas Society Party

Noel with General Manager Davor

Having dinner with the captain 

Captain Serena is the first female captain for Regent

Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil February 25

Our first port in Brazil is Rio Grande Do Sul, a "technical stop"  as all cruise ships coming from the south are required to stop here.  There is very little to see or do here so we just stayed on board.

Great news!  An announcement was made at noon that the code red was being reduced from level two to level one.  The launderettes are now open, there is salt and pepper on the tables we can serve ourselves at the buffet and we had snacks at cocktail time, yeah!!

The tables are back to normal

Montevideo, Uruguay February 24

We are back in Montevideo again.  We tried to get on a tour that included some of the places we had already visited plus a beer tasting but no luck and all the free tours had wait lists. We did go for a short walk around the area but since it was 90 degrees we really got a workout.  There is a large building near the pier that is full of restaurants.  These restaurants all cook meats over wood fires so being in this building is like being in an oven. When we were here in 2012 we did have lunch in one of these places but it was just too hot this time.  It felt good to get back on the ship and the air conditioning!

The "code red, level 2" continues.  We sailed at 5 pm and tomorrow we will start the first of many stops in Brazil.

Large colorful mural

Roasting meats

This restaurant had a rotating grill

We were docked right in the city

Better pictures of the ship graveyard

Punta Del Este, Uruguay February 23

We arrived to fog in Punta Del Este with the ship sounding the horn about every 60 seconds we were sure no one could still be asleep.

We did not take a tour as we had seen just about everything on the previous three times in this port.  The fog cleared off early and it was a beautiful bright day.  We spent some time sitting and reading on our balcony and enjoying the mild temperature.  We did notice that there were a lot of jelly fish floating in the water, they were all sizes from only about two inches across up to about 10 inches, probably not a day to be swimming.

One of the larger jelly fish 















For lunch we sat out on the deck behind the La Veranda restaurant.  It was a very nice day and it was fun to watch the tenders coming and going from both our ship and a large MSC ship that was anchored near us.

Large MSC ship anchored near us

Having lunch on the fantail















We have new trivia partners and we did not do very well at tea time.

Our evening entertainment was a pianist/comedian, it was very entertaining.  Tomorrow we will be back in Montevideo for the second time this cruise.

Buenos Aires, Argentina February 22

This is our third day in this port so we just took the port bus to the terminal to have a look in the shops.  Not all of them were open and the ones that were seemed rather expensive so we did not stay long.

Our lovely view for three days














One interesting thing currently going on in this area is acres of floating plants called "camalote".  This area of South America has had a lot of rain (El Nino again), that has resulted in flooding, so these plants are everywhere.  They move around with the wind and tidal surge and form large "mats" that are constantly relocating.  One of our tour guides said that a lot of snakes have been arriving on these plants. She assured us that they were not poisonous, but we doubt that she was being truthful!

The camalote piles up in the dock area 
















Thirty minutes later it was starting to pile up against the ship

 

As we sailed out into the river there were many large floating "mats"















We went to the Observation lounge about 6 pm for our usual evening cocktail and to enjoy the views while we sailed from Buenos Aires.  There is supposed to be a dress code after 6 in all public areas but it appears that the new guests are not aware of  that policy as the lounge looked more like a picnic with many people in shorts and tee shirts or jeans.  It also got so loud that we could not enjoy the piano music so we left.

There are quite a few guests from South America on this leg and also a group of about 30 from Indonesia.  The Indonesia group took up a large section of the dining room including the Captains table.  It makes it hard for the restaurant staff when so many come into an area all at once, especially when they don't understand English very well.

Buenos Aires, Argentina February 20 and 21

Our ship will spend two nights in Buenos Aires and the changeover of guests will take place on the 21st.  Of course we arrived about 45 minutes late and all the tours were pushed back.  In this port you have to get on a bus to get to the terminal (about a 10 minute ride) and then walk a winding path through the terminal to get to the tour buses.  We did not have a tour during the day so we spent our time reading, napping and packing up our cold weather clothes.  About 10 minutes after we put the suitcase under the bed our steward showed up with our coats and hats (gift for "Grand Cruise" passengers) that were supposed to be delivered at the start of the cruise.  It would have been nice to have those coats when we were in the cold weather!

We had an evening tour that went to a tango show.  It was really great, one of the best entertainments we have seen.  Unfortunately they would not allow photos once the show started.  There were eight dancers, five musicians, two singers, and two gauchos.  The costumes were fabulous and we could not believe how many costume changes they made right down to jewelry and shoes.

The Tango Show was in a very nice restaurant 

The stage was quite small and it was amazing to see 4 couples dancing the Tango at the same time in such a small area

So many passengers went on the tour that we pretty much filled the restaurant















On Sunday we had the changeover of passengers and began the Buenos Aires to Rio segment.  We took a tour as they are applying a "sanitation barrier"  all over the ship and if we stayed on board we would have to be confined to the horizon lounge until the task was completed.

Our tour included a bus ride through the northern suburbs which are very nice.  There were lots of large homes, and many restaurants and nice businesses.  The President's home is in this area.

We made a stop to visit a gothic cathedral and then continued on to the town of Tigre located on a delta where two rivers join.  We boarded a nice tour boat (it was air conditioned!) and cruised for an hour .  The area is very popular and being Sunday we saw hundreds of families enjoying the day on or near the water. We saw many small vacation or weekend homes on islands.  The only way to reach these homes is by water.  These homes are serviced by "market boats" and they even have trash collection.

The San Ysidro Cathedral

Our tour boat

There are about 25 "rowing clubs" on the river and this is one of the oldest, founded in 1905 

There are hundreds of weekend vacation homes on the islands.  Some are shacks and some are very nice like this one 

Historic home preserved under "glass"

The area also had many "resort clubs", many with restaurants and beaches















It was an enjoyable tour and we came back to the ship in time to get a late lunch (2 pm).  Many of the new guests were already on board sitting around with their hand luggage waiting to get into their suites.  It ended up being a long day for them as the sanitation process apparently ran very long and the rooms were not ready until 4:30.

Montevideo, Uruguay February 19

.Once again we had a late arrival this time due to a dock space not being available until 3 pm.  We had been scheduled to take tours but with the late arrival everything got pushed back so we decided to stay on board. Tom hates to miss cocktail hour!  Because of the continuing code red there has been no serving of peanuts, chips, canapes, etc. in any of the lounges so we purchased our own package of chips and have been taking them into the lounge in a plastic baggie.  We were not the only ones, we saw at least two other couples with packages of nuts that they had purchased in Punta Del Este, feels just like we are on a Carnival cruise!

We finally received a comment card, we were beginning to think they were afraid of the comments they would receive as there had been no mention of the card and they usually show a video requesting you fill one out and turn it in.

It was rainy and overcast as we approached the dock in Montevideo

We assumed these ships are the Navy in Uruguay 

There was a huge ship already in the harbor 

It's hard to see in photo but this is a ship graveyard with about 25 ships halfway sunk in the mud

Punta Del Este, Uruguay February 18

We arrived about 7 am in Punta Del Este and it was a beautiful, warm sunny day.  This is a great resort city with many high rise hotels and condos fronted by beautiful beaches.  The city is clean and safe and a great place to just walk around.  The harbor area has loads of seafood restaurants and just a few blocks away is the main street where there are more restaurants and lots of shops.

High rise condos and hotels along the beach

We used a large local tender to get into the pier

There were quite a few very nice yachts in the harbor

Our ship was anchored quite a ways out from shore.















We have been here before so we did not take any of the organized tours and just took the tender into the town and walked along the waterfront and then on the main street.  It seemed quite warm after being in the cold weather of the past 10 days.  We will be packing up the cold weather clothes in the next few days after sending it out to be laundered or dry cleaned (we still do not have access to the passenger launderettes).

We did see a dive boat come alongside this morning but have not yet heard anything about our propulsion problem.  We did receive a letter this afternoon that they will be doing ship wide sanitizing in Buenos Aires and if you want to remain on board you will be confined to the Horizon lounge for about three hours while this is done.  Luckily we have a tour that day so will not have to deal with that situation.  We hope this takes care of the virus problem and we can go back to normal operations on board.

The captain did make an announcement that it had been determined that there was not a problem with the propulsion system and that we could resume cruising at full speed when necessary.  This really doesn't matter for the trip between Punta Del Este and Montevideo as they are quite close and it would only take a couple of hours.  We left Punta Del Este at midnight and we will have to basically float around until 2 pm tomorrow afternoon when we are scheduled to dock in Montevideo.