The Mighty Amazon!

Greetings Friends & Followers,

It’s been too long a time since my previous post and my apologies for that. Dana and I left home right after Thanksgiving, which was very nice by the way, and boarded the SEVEN SEAS NAVIGATOR on November 28th. Since then it has been nothing less than a whirlwind as we have pushed hard to get our department set up as we like it. We have not worked here in ten years – which is hard to believe! Thus, we found that there was an awful lot to do…

The ship looks great and there are, of course, many crew on board whom we have sailed with before – in fact, they still keep turning up! That has made a nice welcome for us. We have a strong and talented team here with Daniel Green as Captain and Carlo Gunetti as General Manager. We have sailed with Captain Green on several occasions but never as Master and from our standpoint he is doing a remarkable job! Besides being extremely skilled at handling the SEVEN SEAS NAVIGATOR he seems to be everywhere all the time and our guests love that.

We sailed with Carlo a few years ago on a Grand Asia Pacific Cruise and he is a real gentleman and a terrific leader. He normally works with his lovely wife, Gabby but she is not here now. Carlo heads home at the end of this voyage and we’ll certainly miss him, though it was great to see him again.

This sailing we have also had guest speaker Terry Breen, whom many of you know, and everyday she amazes us with all her knowledge about the Amazon (or South America, The Panama Canal, Alaska) – without ever using a note! She will head over to the SEVEN SEAS MARINER after this journey for their Circle South America Cruise coming up shortly.

The Jean Ann Ryan Cast of performers are also so impressive! They too have had to put in lots of extra hours lately working on some special events for the cruise and for the holidays we created and have been nothing less that 100% supportive – so talented! I could go on and on about all who is here because it is such a great working environment for us and a wonderful cruising environment for our guests.

As for our journey, which is shown on the itinerary tab on my blog, shows we are currently on a 23 day Amazon Cruise. I happened to sail on the industry’s first Amazon cruise on board the T.S.S. STELLA SOLARIS way back in 1984 and a few other times since then, as well. But it has been a while now and it’s nice to be back. Going up river we stopped at Santarem, but there was no time to get out.

Next was a new port for me, Boca Da Valeria where I was able to hop off for about an hour. I must say that port was a big surprise for me as it has all the infrastructure of a big city right in the heart of the Amazon!

From the dock where we tendered our guests a shore it didn’t look like much…

You couldn’t really see the town too well from the water. But once you walked in a short distance you could see it had a Main Street.

A school.

A church.

A restaurant.

A bar.

A zoo.

A soccer stadium.

Waterfront property. 

Great views.

Fresh fish.

Mass transportation.

Sattelite communications.

Professional guides.

Trash collection.

Public restrooms.

A Welcoming Comittee.

Even a shopping Mall. |

In actuality, this port was on our itinerary to give us a glimpse at village life on the Amazon. I thought it was a delightful little stop and the entire community came out to provide us with an extra special warm welcome! I was so glad I took the time to step ashore and experience it.

Jamie Logan, Cruise Director