Saturday Jan 12, 2026
Hi Gang! Those of you that follow this blog regularly know how much we love our sea days. Sleep in a little, get educated, eat great food and with trying not to gain 154 pounds on this 154 day cruise, hitting the gym and taking the stairs!
We slept in a little but I got up and went to the gym first thing and did the treadmill. That and a shower will really get you going in the morning! Then off to the first of many Enrichment Lectures Regent will offer on this World Cruise. The first one was by Dr Sherry Hutt and called
“Cartegena – City of Gold and Flowers”.
She described it as the most beautiful Spanish Colonial City
which was built to transport gold and emeralds back to Spain. The huge fort there, Fort San Felipe de Barajas, wasn’t built to protect the city but to protect the gold and emeralds. The City Gate is beautiful and the e
ntire city is enclosed by a wall. It has both a major Jesuit Church (Claver Church) built to honor
St Peter Claver, Patron Saint of African Slaves, as well as a large
Catholic Cathedral. It is also designated as a World Heritage City. While Kathy and I have both been there before, we’re excited to see it with this additional info!After the lecture we went to a fun game challenge between the officers and guests called Baggo (Corn Hole) where the guests beat the officers! YAY! After that we had lunch and then went back to our room. When we got there we had all these nice gifts from Regent! Being full world cruisers we got a beautiful journal, a jacket, a golf shirt, a hat and a back pack all engraved with the Regent 2026 World Cruise logo. Very cool!
We chilled for a little and then went to the 2nd lecture of the day by Dr Tom Jones called “Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Journey”. His dream of being an astronaut started by reading the book “Space Flight”, given to him by his Grandmother when he was 5. As he grew up, his goal was to be an astronaut on the NASA Space Shuttle team.
He got hired by NASA and flew on four space shuttle missions and spent 53 days living in space. He also led three spacewalks to install the American Destiny lab at the International Space Station. The videos and pictures he showed of being in space were amazing!
We then got ready early for dinner because the Captain’s Welcome Reception was at 6 PM. I’ll do another update after dinner tonight. Happy Monday to all!
The Wandering Italian 