South Pacific 2015 – Country Fair

A traditional Regent Pacific Crossing event is the Country Fair, where the various ship’s departments host sideshow / fair games, they really get into this, making it more fun. The idea is that the passengers participate in as many games as they can, collecting tickets for the lucky draw at the end of the fair where, if one of your tickets is drawn, you win a prize, Regent Merchandise.

The Country Fair was meant to be held on the pool deck, but because of the weather, it was transferred inside to deck 6.

One of the more popular games was trying to hit Willie Aames through a life buoy with a sponge. I am guessing that if we had been on the pool deck the sponge would have been wet, increasing the “fun” further. The dry sponges made it more difficult as they were too light to be able to throw accurately.

The galley department’s game was “Pick the Spice”.

Shoot that Ball was the restaurant department’s game, I won a few tickets with this one, it was pretty easy.

One of the more popular games was the Maria Went To Town, this was the housekeeping department’s game. Not really sure what the rules were, seemed that you had to were a hood made from a napkin and then take “buy” groceries, not really sure what else you had to do.

I was amazed at the number of people who participated in the various games and how competitive some of them were. Made for a more interesting and fun afternoon.

Martini Dash was the bar department’s contribution to the afternoon. The idea is to be the fastest to carry two Martinis to the finish line, but you also have to make sure you spill as little as possible. The bar staff also “dressed up” for the occasion, although a couple of the lads were a little lopsided.

Not sure what the name of the entertainer’s game, but the idea is to knock over the skittles with the bola that are hitched to your hips, no hands are allowed, just use your hips to the swing the bola to hit the skittle and knock it over. There were 4 skittles for each player to knock over, the winner is the person who knocks over all four first.

Bernie, the HR Director, was a fortune-teller.

High / Low was the Casino’s game. Pretty easy to work this one out, the croupier turns a card and you have to decide whether or not the next card will be higher or lower. Won a few tickets here as well.

The Spa’s game was to pick the scent.

Not sure what this is only a tradition on Pacific Crossings (hopefully it isn’t) because it was a lot of fun.

Another popular game was the “horse racing”. The idea here is that each “jockey” has to drag their horse to the finish line by winding the string tied to each horse on to a stick as fast as possible. It was harder than it looked.

Lucky Balls, interesting name, was the Destinations Team’s game. Another game with a simple premise, the player who gets the most balls into the wholes wins.

The hardest game, I did not see anyone actually win this, was the fishing for champagne, I think that boutique staff were responsible for this one. Getting an o-ring over the cork of the champagne, most people gave up after a few minutes because of frustration.

Engineering’s game was their version of “Don’t Touch The Wire”, ie get the spanner around to the other end without touching the wire.

At the end of the 45 mins allocated for the Country Fair, all of the tickets were placed into a barrel for the lucky draw. At first the GM, Massimo Arzani, was drawing out the tickets, but that did not last long as the Captain wanted in on the action. The Captain was not happy with a couple of the prizes, the casino vouchers were pretty lame, $5, and not sure why a bottle of champagne was a prize when we could get champagne at any time at no extra charge, so he started to combine the prizes to increase their “value”.

Only one of my friends won a prize, a Regent teddy bear, we still had fun in any case.

What amazed me, was the few people who complained that some people won more than one prize, not sure why people would complain about this sort of thing as it is not as if they were missing out on much, only a couple of t-shirts, bags and blankets with logos on them and teddy bears. The really amazing thing was that the people who complained the most were probably in their 70’s.

Even with the complaints, which actually made me laugh, I had a great time, hope to do this again sometime.