Not only are we going to get away from the cold but we are also on a fabulous ship sailing a fabulous itinerary. We are on the Regent Seven Seas Splendor for 16 nights plus an extra night pre-cruise and two days in Lisbon post-cruise.
March 11,
2025 – Travel Day
The itinerary provided by RSSC involved flying from ORD to Atlanta (ATL) and connecting ATL to GIG (Rio de Janeiro/Galeão–Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport [named for Antonio Carlos Jobim – Galeao is a beach near the airport – it all works out to “GIG”]). As part of the itinerary, Miranda was able to negotiate a pre-cruise night since it is a long flight with connections – and we wanted to minimize any chance of missing our connection and getting to Rio late.
We got word
just before we left that the ship would let us use an empty suite for the night
before we officially checked in. They
would also provide a pickup at GIG.
As with a lot
of international flights, this is an overnight itinerary. We are flying Delta for the first time in
decades. Our very first European flight
was on a Delta L1011 TriStar back in the late 1980s (Dallas to Frankfurt). I
still remember the passengers on that flight cheering and applauding when the
big jet touched down.
Our first
flight today, DL1477/LA659 (doubled coded with LATAM) departs at 2:55 PM
and arrives ATL at 5:48 PM. When I
checked in for this flight yesterday, the information indicated that we would
depart from in Terminal 5 International Terminal. To make sure we would have enough time to
check bags and get through TSA, I requested an American Taxi at 12:15 PM. The taxi arrived right on time – the driver
didn’t speak much English and he took a different route to ORD. We arrived at Terminal 5 just before 1
PM. I found an open kiosk but one of the
Delta folks told me that international flights had to check their bags at the
counter. There was no wait for the
counter and our bags were check through to GIG.
TSA
Precheck was right
around the corner from the desk and we went through that pretty fast – I did
get the full body scan because my convertible pants has a lot of metal (maybe
the zipper than connects the top and bottom half of the pants) and that set off
the metal detector. Of course, the scan
was clean but at least TSA is thorough (and still on the job and not
DOGED).
We found the
gate, watched our plane come in, and then boarded in Zone 6 (out of 8) pretty
much on time. I had booked 30C/30D
(aisle across for 1250 Sky Miles – all seats except for middle seats cost
something) on this 737-900ER but we were actually put into 36C/36D (no heads-up
but similar seats a little further back).
Ellen lucked out and had no one next to her in the middle seat (we were
told that the plane was completely full – a no show I guess). I had no idea what was going on in the flight
because the little kid in charge of the window had it down the whole flight –
even on the landing (against FAA regulations). At least, he was quiet and his
mom never violated my seat space.
The flight was short (maybe a little less than two hours). We landed on time and we took the train for short ride to Terminal E – International Flights. We were greeted by an interesting ceiling installation - a flying ear of corn.
When we got to our gate, E18, it was pretty empty – the layover was approximately three hours. Our plane, an A330-300,
was already there having landed on a domestic flight earlier in the day. As the gate area filled up, we moved over to
E17 away from the crowds. We were hungry
and ate some of the bagels we had brought along for the flight.
DL61/LA6347 departs ATL at 8:55 PM and arrives at GIG
7:15 AM next day. We started boarding at
8:15 PM (again in Zone 6). The plane is
a 2-4-2 configuration and we are in 39A/39B on the port side (this is allegedly
an extra legroom – 8000 SkyMiles per seat).
It wasn’t super roomy but it was on the two side. I did have an older woman behind me that was
fixated on my leaning back in my seat – she actually asked a flight attendant to
ask me to straighten my seat at one point – that seat belongs to me and not to
her – she can only control her own seat.
Besides, she kicked the back of my seat all flight long even when she
was snoozing with her head on the tray table.
Passengers continue to be the biggest annoyance on flights.
March 12,
2025 – In the Air over the Gulf of Mexico and then South America
The flight was
long – 9 hrs 20 minutes – but it only crossed one time zone from ATL, which may
have helped with the jet lag. Dinner was
served around 9:00 PM. I had ordered Kosher Meals for this leg and they had them
but they were awful – dried out salmon with some kind of potato. I asked the flight attendant if there were
any standard meals left (pasta was one of the two choices) and he said he would
check after they made the meal run.
There was one chicken and one pasta – Ellen said I could have the pasta
– it was manicotti and it was pretty good.
I am going to try and cancel the Kosher Meals on the return flight.
We were able to see the Sun rise over South America.
With about an
hour to go, the lights came on (the sun had already risen) and we got our
breakfast, an omelet with ratatouille and fruit. Again, they had left over yoghurt which was
pretty good.
Overall, the flight was smooth – after flying over all of the Caribbean islands we usually cruise to, the plane flew diagonally over South American to Rio. I captured the progress on the planes NAV system.
The flight was pretty smooth even though the pilot did turn on the seat belt sign a few times. We landed pretty much on time. We were tired but functional. Again, the crossing of fewer time zones reduced the jet lag a big.
We survived the long haul to Rio de Janeiro.
We walked a ways to Immigration, where facial recognition didn’t recognize me (I looked horrid after the flight) so I had to see a Brazilian Immigration Officer. I had downloaded our passport information as part of the reservation process and I think that shortened the process. Soon, we were on our way to the longest walk ever to get our bags – at least four movable sidewalks and then some – about 4000 steps. Both our bags came off (yay) and we exited where all the pickups were waiting, There were several from Regent ready to take passengers on our ship to the Hilton. Ellen went searching and found our ride, Mr. Robson. He spoke absolutely no English but he did lead us to his car for the ride to the port of Rio.
The traffic was horrendous and thousands of motorcycles were white lining along side the cars, which were barely moving. It took a while but we made it to the port. Mr. Robson would not drive to the security entrance (we could see the ship) because, as he told us through Google Translate, he would get fined. We used his phone to convince him it was OK and finally we stopped alongside a security guide who took us through security and to check in. We tipped Mr. Robson $5 USD (don’t know if USD are welcome in Brazil but he seemed happy to take it.)
We boarded the ship and were amazed – the most posh ship we have every been on. We checked in with Reception (Deck 5 Midships)
and were told that our room was not ready and we should have breakfast while we were waiting. We left our bags with Reception and went to La Veranda (Deck 11 Aft) and I had some pancakes and scrambled egg (both very good).
We were told our suite was ready and went to Suite 636, and our bags were already there.
It’s a beautiful suite with a big bathroom, walk in closet, queen sized bed, and wonderful veranda with very comfortable chairs. We didn’t unpack because we are moving to our real suite (670) tomorrow when the ship turns over its passengers.
Ellen spoke to the Destination Desk and was able to sign us up for an excursion tomorrow (the ship is staying here overnight) – “Sugar Loaf and Copacabana” – It is a morning excursion and the meeting time on the pier is 8:45 AM. I, for one, will still be jet lagged so we will have to see how that works out.
There are beers in the fridge and a huge bottle of “Viro” Water (purified water using a proprietary system and is ubiquitous on this ship – it comes in large reusable bottles with distinctive blue caps) in the room. We were quite tired from the long plane ride so we basically vegged out in the room until dinner time.
There are three Specialty Restaurants on board – “Pacific Rim”, “Prime 7”, and “Chartreuse”. These are off limits to Guest Entertainers. The other two eateries, “Compass Rose” (the huge main dining room – Deck 4 Aft) and “Sette Mari Veranda” (Veranda becomes an Italian Restaurant at night – Deck 11 Aft) are “no reservation needed, open seating” restaurants. The entrance to Pacific Rim features an amazing dragon - never seen anything like this before.
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Tonight, we went to Sette Mari La Veranda. I remember this place from our cruise on Mariner and it hasn’t changed much, except that this version is larger. The server brings a bunch of antipasto type items to the table, you then go and made your own salad from the salad bar, and you also order an entrée and sides from the menu. Tonight I had the Spaghetti Putanesca (a tomato sauce plus olives and other stuff) and Ellen had the Mushroom Crepe. My pasta was very good – spicy but not to much of an olive contribution. Not sure Ellen liked her crepe. We got some chocolate items from the dessert bar along with some tea and coffee (I am going to trust these folks with my coffee). It was all really good.
Tonight’s Farewell Show is “Brazilian Roots” and showcased the music and dancing that just ended when Carnival closed up. We were told by CD Andy that the performers actually performed during Carnival . The show started off with five guys beating drums and marching back and forth on stage. Then out came the girls dressed in Carnival type outfits – headdresses and not much tushy covering. Three sets of two girls danced around the stage while the guys banged on the drums. We had seen a similar show when we were here during Carnival a few years ago. We left a little early and headed to the room for some quiet.
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