Christmas New Year on Voyager

We are contemplating cruising from Cape Town to Singapore over Christmas New Year and wonder if any CC's have experienced formalities at this time.

We are traditional Christmas lovers and would like to know if Christmas has special events, meals etc. We are currently on Voyager and You would not have known it was Easter. Should we be comfortable knowing that it is a special time on the ship or do we stay at home and enjoy as normal. Any comments would be appreciated.

There is not much for Xmas but the ship is decorated and one special meal choice in CR. i have attended a dance party on the pool deck for NYE

We are currently on Voyager and You would not have known it was Easter.

Should we be comfortable knowing that it is a special time on the ship or do we stay at home and enjoy as normal. Any comments would be appreciated.

We too are on Voyager, and I am confused by your comment.

For Easter, we observed the following:

All restaurants had an Easter display, with chocolate bunnies and decorations

A Catholic Bishop was brought onboard, even while in a Muslim country

Ray had a church service, as well as wishing everyone "happy Easter" throughout the day and on his morning show

Regent provided each cabin with a small gift box of chocolates

The dinner menu in CR included ham (a traditional American Easter meal)

Do you have other traditions which should have been considered?

We are on the Mariner -- nothing much special for Easter except a couple of displays and two special menu items at dinner. Passengers given directions to two local churches. Regular Sunday service on board.

We have sailed at Christmas. It is very festive and a lot of fun in terms of the holiday. However, we would not do a Christmas cruise again due to the passengers on board. In addition to a load of children, there are people that did not necessarily want to cruise on Regent but were given the cruise as part of a Christmas gift or family get together. According to crew on both Oceania and Regent, Christmas cruises are not their favorite either. Very demanding guests, etc.

We are contemplating cruising from Cape Town to Singapore over Christmas New Year and wonder if any CC's have experienced formalities at this time.

We are traditional Christmas lovers and would like to know if Christmas has special events, meals etc. We are currently on Voyager and You would not have known it was Easter. Should we be comfortable knowing that it is a special time on the ship or do we stay at home and enjoy as normal. Any comments would be appreciated.

Glorygaf, there will be something very special going on !! We will be on that cruise !!!

Anchorbuoy, your reply expresses the very same thoughts as I had...I felt Regent marked the Easter weekend rather well, actually (and Passover, too...though I can only take friends' word for that). A member of staff shook my hand on Sunday morning and wished me (sincerely) a very Happy Easter, which I appreciated. My niggle was that all the chocolate decorations etc appeared on Good Friday, which I considered a little previous, but maybe that was me being pernickety. The little chocolate box was cute, too.

As for Ray tracking down a priest in Muslim country, well, that man is nothing if not determined!

Are you enjoying/have you enjoyed your cruise?

We are on the Voyager Christmas/New Year cruise as well. We have sailed Regent over the holidays in the past and found it very festive onboard the ship. Does anyone know if there is a roll call for that cruise? I did not see one.

Thank you all so much for your comments they are a great help. I used a bad choice of words to describe Easter as a non event, there certainly were chocolate displays, and for those who wished, church services and of course the chocolate box. We are enjoying this current cruise immensely after having sailed on Seabourn for the past couple of years. There is not a lot of difference really, of course there a some good and better points for both and it really is up to each individual to make sure they have a good time.

I was on the voyager over last Christmas / NY on the Cape town to Singapore cruise, the following were my experiences:

Festive theme: The ship was decorated from the time of embarkation to the nines – massive xmas tree in the atrium, smaller trees in all of the bars / lounges, majority of indoor railings decorated with garlands / holly etc and the entrance(s) to La Veranda each had gingerbread houses. On Xmas Day the cruise director and a few staff members dressed up as santa claus / santas elves and went around the ship playing music / greeting guests etc, it added to the atmosphere. Passages / Daily Video updates etc were xmas themed for a few days as well. Was it particularly festive – not to my mind but I am not sure what more they could have done, and I think this says more about me than regent

Xmas Eve / Xmas Day – A special festive menu was available in Compass Rose for dinner on both nights. From memory there was roast goose and ‘traditional’ offerings, although what each of us defines as traditional will of course vary! There was not a special festive menu for the lunch time in either CR or LV, rather the standard selections were there, this was disappointing for me personally but not a deal breaker – my family celebrates xmas day with a long seafood lunch – we simply found the areas on the ship where this was being served and went there. A pleasant surprise was a special gift that was left in each of our rooms in the evening – a lovely watercolour print commemorating the voyage. I am not overly religious so cannot comment if there were any church services/mass etc.

New Years Eve - Decorations were altered slightly to include the new years theme. Dress up accessories (silly hats, glasses, fans, noisemakers, streamers etc) were available in the atrium from 6pm, and I seem to recall a gathering of guests before the 9pm show to informally celebrate impending new year with champagne etc. I am an early to bed type so I did not hang around to see midnight!

Children: The presence of children was a concern for me when booking this cruise – our TA correctly speculated that the likelihood of children was very small. Her thinking was that as the cruise is minimum 28 days (ie not sold in shorter segments) families with children would be less likely to remove their children from school for 5 weeks. This turned out to be true – there were two children (both under 5yrs age) on the ship, both impeccably behaved, and managed very well by their parents. The same could not be said for all of the guests, two of whom were asked to leave the ship in Columbo due to their repeated drunken misbehaviour! There were another two or three who I wished were removed for the same reasons!

Overrall impression: I wouldn’t ever go on a cruise again over xmas as it just wasn’t ’right’ for me to not be at home with family and friends. This says more about my way of celebrating xmas rather than any deficiencies on regents part. I can however totally recommend the trip for the itinerary – fantastic way to see these parts of the world. I made some notes on the excursions on an earlier post here which you may find helpful:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2157148

Amis, thank you for the link to your wonderful post about the shore excursions on your cruise. It is very helpful. We are just now reviewing the excursions as we just booked this voyage. We greatly appreciate your effort!