EASTER SUNDAY, APR 4TH--AT SEA

Happy Easter! We attended a Easter church service at 9am this morning to start our day. Following that I went up on deck for the shuffleboard tournament, which JR & I won. We had a nice lunch in the Compass Rose dining room with Paula & Charles. They are going on safari with us so wanted to talk about what clothes to pack for the 4 days. Long range weather forecast for the Leopard Hills Game Reserve (www.leopardhills.com) is looking good now with highs in mid 70’s and lows mid 50’s. Rest of the day we have been rebooking excursions for our new next two ports. Yes, new! As we sailed from Seychelles yesterday evening Captain Dag came on the PA, and said that for our safety, the decision had been made to change our itinerary. So we will not be going through the part of the ocean where there has been a big increase in pirate activity recently. We are not heading west towards Mombasa in Kenya and will also not be going to Zanzibar on Tanzania. Instead we are heading down to Mauritius and then Reunion Island both located east of the island of Madagascar. We will be calling those ports on Tues and Wed. We will rejoin our original itinerary at Richards Bay, South Africa on the 11th. Richards Bay is where we will be leaving the ship for our 4 day safari so glad that is not affected. So far! I have waited almost 24 hours to mention this on blog so we would be pretty much out of the pirate’s range and getting more distance from them as every minute passes. I think it is also safe to now tell you we have a 5 man Israeli security team with us on the ship to help protect us as we sailed toward Mombassa. We’re not going anywhere near there now. So the ship’s tour department has quickly (over night) came up with tours we can take in the two new ports. We hear from passengers that have visited Mauritius previously that it is a lovely place. Some passengers had safari’s scheduled out of Mombasa that are now cancelled so I am getting calls asking about the one we are doing out of Richard’s Bay. It’s a shame to come all this way to Africa and not be able to do a safari so I feel for them. Regent delivered a nice chocolate Easter bunny and some other candies to our suites last night while we were at dinner. Nice touch!! Even the crew received some candy. Even nicer touch!!! We had a wonderful time dining with the Hotel Director (Michael) and Stephanie last night. I have to correct a statement I made in yesterday’s posting. Michael is not Captain Dag’s boss. Thanks Larry for straightening me out. Well, it is about gym time. The after dinner show is by headline entertainer Brandi Chapman who had a show in Branson, MO, for years and now does cruise ships. We have seen her shows on other cruise ships so are happy she is here to entertain us. Hope you enjoyed the 166 pictures I added yesterday. There was a technical problem at first so if you tried and nothing--try again now.