Manaus, Brazil

December 24th and 25th (2023) – Manaus AM, Brazil

Here’s our Blog entries for the two days we spent in Manaus, Brazil:

Day 14 – December 24 – Manaus (AM)- Brazil

Today (Christmas Eve!) we docked in Manaus, Brazil. It’s a large city and we are scheduled to be here for two days, but since it’s Christmas Eve, and Christmas – most of our tours were cancelled. This is probably our biggest complaint about this cruise – the person(s) who scheduled the stops didn’t take into consideration that most tours/places will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas. There were many other stops in the Amazon that could have been switched around so that when we arrived in Manaus – the largest city on the Amazon – where many of the more interesting tours were scheduled, we’d be able to enjoy them.

Today our tour was another “Meeting of the Waters” cruise. This was also supposed to include a visit to a lake where we would see giant water lilies, however the water levels are too low for the lake, so instead we were taken to a fishing village/landing. They had giant fish (The arapaima, also known as the pirarucu or paiche, is a giant fish that lives in the Amazon River basin. It’s the world’s largest freshwater fish, weighing up to 440 pounds!) in large tanks that we could feed with raw fish tied to ropes on poles – it was kind of fun to feed them. There were also tables set up with lots of local arts and crafts and we got a wall hanging for our ‘travel wall’ by Adam’s desk. One of these days we need to get a curio cabinet for our travel treasures! We also received a beautiful paper-weight/globe from Regent Cruises as a thank you gift for spending our holiday with them. We also got a nice present from Bella’s trainers – four beautiful holiday photos of our Bella girl! The entertainment tonight was a repeat performance from Colleen Williams with some holiday music. Susan skipped it but Adam, Dave and Cindy went and enjoyed it.

Day 15 – December 25 – Manaus (AM) – Brazil

Today is Christmas day and our tours were cancelled due to the holiday. It’s rainy and yukky outside so we are opting for a relaxing day onboard. We set sail at 4 pm today for our next stop on the Amazon river. We don’t have a tour, but will explore another two ports here in the Amazon before heading back out into the Caribbean for more adventures ahead! We attended the show “A very Mariner Holiday!” where they sang holiday songs with the singers and dancers. It was very nice!

Adam on our balcony as we are approaching Manaus
The hallway outside our cabin – we would often wait here for David and Cindy – and text them a photo to tell them we were waiting for them in the hallway – it was funny but I guess you had to be there!
Arriving in Manaus – look at all the tour boats!
Lots and lots of tour boats!
A look at the skyline of Manaus
The dock we were approaching to dock at. We were told we were the first ship to dock there in months – due to the fact that it was the driest year on record and the river was so low.
The Gangway sign
On board our tour boat. The speakers were better on this boat than our previous boat – and we could hear our guide much better – except for when his microphone stopped working, which was often! It almost was funny after a while – he’d always exclaim “OY!” when it stopped working!
Leaving our ship behind to head out on our tour (which wasn’t very far from the previous day’s tour!)
One of several floating building groups we passed.
We took this photo because Adam’s mom’s favorite restaurant is Sabor at home – I think this one is a bit different!
The meeting of the waters (again!)
It almost looked like coffee!
This is the landing we are going to visit. There is already another tour boat there.
They had these huge tanks with arapaima fish in them – you can see several of them swimming in this photo
The view of the fish tanks from our tour boat
Here someone is feeding the fish – they were huge! They looked like sea-monsters!
Feeding the fish!
More fishing for arapaima. We had a few more cool videos but they were a bit too large to upload.
On the same landing as the fish tanks was this area with many hand-crafted items for sale. It was fun to browse through them
A cool looking foot bridge off the back of the landing
Adam and Susan on the tour boat
The tour boat was very casual – you could just walk around and take photos if you wanted
David and Cindy with the Brazil flag on our tour boat
Adam and Susan with the Brazil flag – it was really humid!
Back to the ship – View of the dock from our balcony. The water rises up to the high area of the platform across the way
One of the lovely holiday photos we got from our trainer of our beautiful Bella! It was a nice gift from them – we missed our girl!
Adam took a nice photo from our balcony with our zoom lens.

The next day was Christmas day – no tours so we relaxed around the ship and enjoyed a Christmas dinner and holiday show that night.

Christmas dinner!
Christmas dinner ‘yule log’ dessert – Adam was disappointed that it wasn’t really cake.
Holiday decorations
Getting ready for the holiday show

Next day we went to Parintins (AM), Brazil.