Navigator Review - Athens to Rome

Hi Folks...I always post a review of the cruise on Regent we take, not to brag, but to help newbies and maybe those who have never sailed either that ship or that particular leg before. Again these are my opinions, based on personal experience and reflect only that as honestly as I can.

Ship condition...beyond excellent. We have sailed the Navigator before so had a basis of comparison. The recent refurbish on this ship has certainly helped her. She no longer looks long in the tooth but quite fresh. Some of the exterior points need a fresh dose of white paint, but sea water is merciless. The new carpeting in most areas is not garish and for the most part tasteful. The rearrangement of the coffee connection, library and a couple other areas helps to make this smaller ship seem more spacious. The show lounge is the same layout but looks a bit less crowded - not sure what they did there. She still rattles a bit in the butt end, and has some brown water, but no where near as bad ( brown water) as it was. The vibration is like a vibrating chair, not like the back and forth sway vibration of the Voyager. It seems better controlled and we were in the same basic location (aft) as before.

Crew...What can I say, we have sailed 3 other lines and without a doubt the crew is beyond reproach. WITH ONE notable exception which I will talk about later with full details as neutrally as I can. We got a last minute upsell so we ended up with a butler, who on the first day took over 45 minutes of his nutty first day schedule to help with a broken zipper on a critical piece of luggage ( a hard sider - the only one we take now due to luggage weight). For this extraordinary service we did do the unthinkable in this cruise and gave him a very small tip at then end...but only because he went way way out of his normal routine to help us ..Oh yes, he also got take from ship stores and gave it to us then took another hour of his time at the debarkation day to tape the luggage close to make sure it stayed closed. The room was kept immaculate. The rest of the ship same. They had to do a bit of sanding on the interior rails and actually escorted people up and down the staircase to make sure they did not touch the fresh varnish. Lets see other cruise lines do that. I will say out front because most of the crew is only in their first or second rotation ( because experienced crew went to the new ship - rumour) and as such there were some rough spots here and there. For example we did wait close to 20 minutes to even get bread served on the Captains welcome night. Wine was flowing though. The deck and lunch crew were a little confused on the Italian buffet day. Tables got slow to be cleaned off.

Suite condition.... before I get going we got an incredible upsell to a navigator suite and despite some drawbacks, we decided to go for it. So this will be a bit biased, sorry. The suite was beyond what we expected. We had a penthouse on the Navigator before ( another upsell) and it was nice, this was spectacular. It is only a few square feet larger then a penthouse on the other ships but felt much bigger. The full size table was great to have breakfast on!. I cant say for the rest of the cabins, but we had plenty of storage room. I carry a lot of camera equipment and my only complaint was that I usually stuff all the lenses and such above the desk. Now the stupid TV is there..The new wall coverings, carpet, furniture etc was much improved. I usually hate modern black and white colours but this was ok. The closet had the old brown tall boy drawer set..kinda funny they did not replace that?

Ports, Ports of call -Well, I know this is a sore spot with past Regent customers. The included excursions never bothered me, expecially if I have to pay tons of money on another cruise line, end up on a bus with 50 people going to the same place with 10 other buses following. I would much rather be on a bus with Regent not have to pay for a bus with only 20 people, Unless you are willing to pay for an expensive private guide ALL ports now offer the same thing. When you have 2 mega ships and 3 other smaller ones on an island smaller then say Toronto is then nothing can change logistics..

. Regent at least tries to get there first or last...

Food quality - In Seti Mari, the young lady Theresa was beynd excellent - we went there 4 times, not just for her but also for the wonderful lasagna. Compas rose was a bit hit or miss and some of the menu items I personally did not like. However, others did, it was always full. Wine Selection this time were very good. Prime 7 - never my favorite was to me stuffy as usual. Yes, the food is great, crab great, just not my personal favoruite. I preferred the old Signatures better, but Navigator does not have that restaurant.

Pre and Post excusions - We did both. The Greece pre was incredible. If you ever get to do it Dephi is the highlight, just make sure you are in good shape. One young lady on the tour who had a "workout" bracelet on said it registered 45 stair stories to the top. I am in decent shape and my legs were like rubber to get the top.Oh yea, hope for the days the new Acropolis museum is closed, then they take you to the Acropolis instead. The museum is a waste of time. The Post was Rome. The usual the Vaticam etc, but this time because the new pope does not use the summer residence it was open to the public..incredible is all I can say. My wife who is a garden girl..fjust could not belive the grounds.

So that was the good - overall up to Regent standards..some will argue not 5 star but to a simple country boy like me, as good as I will ever get.

Now for the bad again this is my view of what happened but facts are facts. On the third night of the cruise my wife ordered her usual Ceasar salad. I also get one but that night as good fortune would say, I found another one more appealing. So the salad came and my wife was joyfully munching away and then noticed on her next fork full a strange shape. The only reason she just did not eat it, was I interrupted her taking a phot of a sunset out the window. She looked down and there stiin gon her fork as was a HORNET - (yes it was dead but that does not matter). I was in the salad from the kitchen because it was covered in Caesar dressing..We immediately called over the waiter who literally freaked and called over the head waiter, then the Maitre'd. The salad went back with a curt, sorry, and a new one arrived. So, being a 5 star cruise line I expected at least an apology from some one in charge. would you not??? We waited for THREE days and nothing. Two days later, the head waiter came over to us and said perhaps we should just let it go and "get over it". Yes , English is not his first language, but seriously...Finally, I got really annoyed so went down to Reception, who after hearing my story, all of it including the get over it. Sent several emails to the Food and Bev manager and I guess the Dining Room Restaurant manager. I asked them if any of the officers had heard of this and no one had. They though it was ridiculous that after 3 days not even a word. We got back to our suite and the phone was literally ringing off the wall. It was the Food and Bev manager who of course now apologized, but then had the nerve to say he already did...I mean we are getting older but in my former line of work remembering faces was a critical part of my job..I had never seen him before. He then came to our dinner table and apologized again. I guess we should now forget about it. But here is the crux of the matter, I am deathly allergic to stings. I carry an epi pen wherever I go, but not to a controlled dinner environment. If I had got the salad and then hit the stinger, well the reprocussions would be much worse. And just for information, venom does not become ineffective upon an insect death only heating congeals the protein to make it harmeless..

Okay so much for that. All in all a great cruise, so much so we put a hold on another on board. I will not let the actions or rather inactions of one or two people mess up my holiday. And, yes, I put that both on my mid cruise comments and my final comments.

Thank you for taking the time to post a review of your Navigator cruise. It does sound like the public areas are considerably better than they were in the past. The lessening aft vibration is also a good thing but wonder why something cannot be done to correct the brown water situation? My DH (an engineer) seems to think that the boilers (or whatever type of vessel holds the water) gets rusty. While the rust settles at the bottom, it sometimes gets churned up and gets into to pipes going to the suites. The logical solution would be to have the water stored in a vessel that doesn't rust (note: as an aside, American auto dealers had/has "heater core" issues due to rust. Japanese cars never have this problem because their heater cores don't rust - easy solution and sounds similar to the Navigator's rusty water issues).

Sorry to hear about the lack of response regarding the hornet. The Restaurant Manager and/or F&B Director should have made an apology the same night or next morning. I'm glad that you spoke with F&B since the information should have been communicated to the Restaurant Mgr. and then F&B.

I have two questions about your Navigator suite. First, were you bothered by noise from the pool deck above you And, did you smell chlorine at any time in the hallways. The last time we were on the ship, the chlorine smell on your deck was pronounced at certain times. As I recall, pool maintenance is done in the middle of the deck where the Navigator suites are.

Agree with you about P7 and Signatures. However, we found the Signatures replacement restaurant, Chartreuse (on the Explorer and soon to be on the Voyager) better than either of these restaurants.

Do you have any plans on sailing on the Explorer? I think you would find the dining quite good (to excellent).

Hi Travelcat2....In response to the noise. I posted a question about a month or so about that issue when we first got an invitation to upsell (glad we held off - much much better deal 2 weeks out). At that time folks were kind enough to give us a heads up on the issue. So, when the upsell came up we had a choice of 4 cabins ( seriously..there was that much movement). We choose 938 which was directly under the Pool Grill work area. We knew that at 5 am in the morning they would be getting ready, and yes we did hear at bit. Only once was bad when a crew member must have dropped a tray of food OMG. Other then that the crew are very considerate and walk softly and the noise was acceptable. Then most of the day the crew don't move much as they are waiting on folks and heard nothing. Then around 4pm when they clean up, it gets noisy again. The then rest of the night is silent...

Now, I asked another couple who were directly under the entrance to Prime7 and also has tables above them and they heard major noise right until Prime 7 closed. It started again at 6 am as the early eaters started wandering around...

Other couples in those suites that I asked had similar reports..especially on the smoking side..some major noise at 2 in the morning on the one day at sea.

Nothing on the chlorine...but maybe since they have moved from heavy chlorine to that salty tasting stuff( whatever that is) that issue is gone..

Would I recommend paying full price for a Navigator suite...for full price no...if you get a really really good upsell yes, but bring earplugs..

Oh yes, read your question again ..because our suite was under the pool grill no noise from pool maintenance....

To answer the question on the Explorer..yes, actually we were booked on the leg from Athens to Istanbul (almost the same time this year)

until they changed it (because of the Istanbul problems). Since the itinerary was not to our liking, Regent changed it for us with no penalty because they instituted the change...So, yes we still plan on going on her..we are now booked on the Voyager for the Singapore to Australia leg in 2018, perhaps then we will book on board for the new ship..who knows

Oh..one thing I forgot, even though the service was a bit uneven in the Compass Rose, the décor has gone from ho hum to spectacular. The new carpet, wall treatment, chairs and coverings, lighting ( really cool they can vary the LED colour) and down to the plates made this area look especially nice...And for those who are workout freaks, the new equipment in the gym is especially nice. They are multi machine variations of course, but now each machine can do various body parts. The treadmills and ellipticals look new and the old creaky weight benches are gone...

Thank you for your review.