Bright and early on a forbidding morning on 31st March, the Seven Seas Navigator made its way up the Waitemata to dock at Queens Wharf. Laid down in Leningrad as the "Akedemilk Nikolay Pilyugin" in early 1988, she was originally destined to become a "Satellite Tracking Vessel" for the USSR (read Spy Ship).
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 put paid to that and her construction was halted until 1999 when she was purchased by the now rebranded "Regent Seven Seas" and was finished and fitted out in Italy as a “6 Star” floating palace for a company that is billed as “The World's Most Luxurious Line”.
Being the smallest in a fleet of 6 and with a capacity of 490 passengers and 340 crew, at 28,500 tonnes she is definitely a different type of ship to my beloved Cunard ‘Queens’ and an opportunity to compare the two lines and at the same time have a ten day “bonding” holiday with my newly widowed Mother.
Now you probably don’t remember, but Mother has accompanied me on a number of other cruises and to say my parents were not sea going is no slight exaggeration. My father would get sea sick at the sight of a glass of water and Mother had only crossed the Tasman by ship because she was assured by her wayward offspring that it would be as calm as a millpond.
None of those subsequent crossings had been anything other than what could be described as “a washing machine” but once again I assured her that because the previous trips were rough “what were the odds of it happening again?” Besides, the trip would give us an opportunity to return Dad's ashes to our spiritual home in the Bay of Islands, that is, should the weather permit us to anchor there.
At the hull door on embarking, we were offered a glass of the ship's finest champagne, maybe to distract us from the first thing that caught our eye on exploring the ship which was an already emptied swimming pool suggesting preparation for some “rough weather”. Not a great start for uneasy minds and so it wasn’t hard to suggest another glass of champagne before Mother could turn on her heels and high-tail it back off down the gangplank.
It didn’t take us long to explore the Navigator. Four dining rooms - including one completely serviced with Versace china, a number of bars and lounges with Grand Pianos and jazz bands and a spa that would have made Ponsonby Road jealous.
Unlike other lines, Regent has nothing as common as an “Inside” room, all accommodations on board are “Suites” with most of them coming with their very own butler. The emphasis is on quiet service, relaxation and luxury.
But I keep asking myself “What to do with a butler?”.
So before we departed Auckland, Mother and I visited the Compass Rose (the Versace restaurant) While I was smoodging the concierge (they don't have anything as common as a waiter on board) the MD slipped up to me and reminded me that this restaurant has a dress code.
"But this is Versace" I objected, smoothing down my genuine, but I admit, garish red, gold and black classic shirt from Donatello's 2019 collection...I knew I should have bought the receipt with me. But anyway the point is not my extravagant taste in casual ship wear, but that night at dinner we were seated next to not one, but two people dressed in Raincoats.
So much for refined luxury.
At dinner we were introduced to the Cruise Director. He has been at sea for 53 years and is at least 77 in the shade, Ray is a bit of a star on the Regent line... in coming days we were to find out the reasons why.
Still awaiting departure and in anticipation of the threatened coming seas, Mother and I returned to our suite after dinner and there was Ray on TV warning us of the coming maelstrom and pontificating about our stop in the Bay of Islands tomorrow and that we must not miss seeing NZs version of the "Sea Manatees". These are bottom grazing sea cows that I last saw in Florida, but apparently and according to Ray, they are particular to this part of NZ and are a must to view - “they are everywhere” he claimed. I called Mother to the TV, declaring in the 45 years we lived there, we have NEVER heard of or sighted these creatures.
It's a mystery but will it be solved when we arrive tomorrow?
To be continued.
