The Emperor tries on Regents New er third hand "New" Clothes - Yes an Explorer review

The ex post facto excuse? While a passenger can ask for things they shouldn't be required to do so based on a service failure. Especially on the most luxurious ship ever built.

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Its not an excuse, just a conjecture of causal factors. I'm not a Regent apologist or cheerleader. I'm not always happy with the way things go, including on Regent. In fact, I stated in the post that it wasn't always perfect. Regent isn't always perfect. Nor am I. Nor are most things in the world. So, no, it should not happen. But when it does, you can either be unhappy about it or get it corrected with minimal effort and be less unhappy.

Its not an excuse, just a conjecture of causal factors. I'm not a Regent apologist or cheerleader. I'm not always happy with the way things go, including on Regent. In fact, I stated in the post that it wasn't always perfect. Regent isn't always perfect. Nor am I. Nor are most things in the world. So, no, it should not happen. But when it does, you can either be unhappy about it or get it corrected with minimal effort and be less unhappy.

You're my kind of guy, "John the sailor"! Some glitches can be so easily fixed. Yup, it shouldn't have happened but it did, so if it's really THAT important, speak up and get it fixed!

I so agree John and Mudhen...I've found that a positive attitude always makes for a positive adventure!

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Could not agree more. Johnthesailor, you could not have said it better.

It turned out the cooling system for the pool wasn't up to the task that day so they brought out a big ice cube in an effort to cool things down.

It seems they changed their minds and thought that a lot of smaller ice cubes would be more efficient.

You can see the smaller cubes flying through the air

Even staff wanted to watch the big ice cube become a mess of smaller cubes.

For some reason though they weren't actually putting the smaller cubes in the pool.

For some reason he made a swan out of the cube instead of cooling down the pool. Apparently this activity doesn't get a lot of positive feedback as he was very eager to have those that thanked him/made positive remarks tell his boss what they thought.

Later it would come up in discussion that there wasn't an ice carving at the Gold/Titanium night and to some that was too much of a cutback.

*no there was no heating issue with the pool.

Well, I'm always a sucker for a nice ice sculpture, and you don't see too many of them these days. Looks beautiful.

Our next stop was a port that was likely to make an offer that you couldn't refuse - Taomarina, Sicily.

Much like Windstar I have to wonder what sees more use, the sails or the engines.

You can see the busses lined up by the tender port.

One of the tenders

I'm not quite sure why they pointed the projector in that direction.

Emperor Norton:

You are killing me with your comments. Loving your posts. Did you take any tours in Taormina? Would live to go back.

Z and TB

Stunning photographs!

Well, I'm always a sucker for a nice ice sculpture, and you don't see too many of them these days. Looks beautiful.

That was something I would've liked to have seen more of.

Stunning photographs!

Easy when the subject looks good:cool:

So as you may or may not know American Express offers their Platinum card members perks on different lines so long as you pay for the cruise with the AmEx card. Generally theres some OBC and a little something else. On SilverSea you were given:

A pair of humming birds.

Not really, but they did provide a nice bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne.

On Oceania I can't Remember (ditto Crystal/Disney). On Seabourn you were given an after dinner treat of strawberries, cream and Grand Marnier.

On this cruise things were done a little differently than I was used to. Instead of an individual/suite perk it was a group event. The event was billed as a wine cellar and galley tour.

The tour started off in the galley right outside the "wine cellar". We were given Bellinis and the tour was off. It was explained that the ship didn't stock expensive wines and therefore didn't really have many measures to help protect the wine (eg: anti vibration storage).

I guess when running at full bore the staff might appreciate standing under one of these things and letting the cool condensation splash on them.

We were handed off to the executive chef

Grills and salamander in the background

I believe room service picked up orders in the morning from around here.

After the tour we were served a little anti pasti on the deck outside La Veranda. This was a bit confusing as about the same time other passengers were starting to show up for lunch.

This was the only port I recall seeing active seaplanes in. This guy I guess was bored as he appeared to be doing a touch and go.

There was some event going on tonight

Wish those crew members would clean some of the kitchens in the restaurants we frequent. Regent's kitchens are always immaculate! Hope you had some wine on your tour. We've done galley tours several times but only a wine cellar tour once. I definitely want to see the kitchen of the Explorer in person and am pleased to learn that we will see the wine cellar as well. I do like the Amex perks (especially the $300 OBC).

For safety reasons I think it was they only let you see the service cellar attached to the galley. The $300 credit + perk isn't too bad for a card that costs near that. It gets better with each additional cruise that year:D

The forest fire they were fighting is almost in your first photo. There were three bombers putting on quite a show as they dodged boat traffic and filled their holds and headed off into the mountain. We watched them for hours and only one had to abort their run due to oblivious boaters.

We are in the fire industry so this was great entertainment!

I wish I'd the longer lens on then. It would've been interesting to capture the scoop mechanism they use.

This was the only port I recall seeing active seaplanes in. This guy I guess was bored as he appeared to be doing a touch and go.

The seaplanes were picking up water to tackle a forest fire.

Has anyone out there found a single review or trip report from someone who has been on the Explorer subsequent to its christening and maiden voyages?

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The downside of carrying less passengers will be less trip reports. It seems that even taking the lower passenger rates into account people on luxury lines seem less interested in blogging/posting about it (or those that do often head into cotton candy land). IMO/E.