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SWFLAOK

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About Me

  • Location
    Florida
  • Interests
    Traveling, Cooking
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Paul Gauguin, Regent
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    South Pacific

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Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. We always book a Commodor Suite so that we each have our own bathroom. They might be small, but that 's fine with me since we don't need to be in one at the same time. It's especially convenient when we have both need to shower and get ready for dinner. We've had large bathrooms on other ships (Viking Ocean, explorer suite, most recently), but when you're both in there at once, it's still not ideal.
  2. When we boarded Navigator back on April 5th, our butler told us to leave the laundry bag on the bed when we were out of the room, and it would be back within 48 hours. Sometimes, it's back in 24 hours, but never less than that. We've left it in both the morning and the evening, and it's still not back in less than 24 hours. Last April, we were on Navigator for 2 weeks in a concierge suite, which has no butler. We left our laundry in the hall by our door when we went to breakfast. Sometimes it was gone by the time we returned from breakfast, and then it would usually be returned clean while we were at dinner. Sometimes it was still there after breakfast, and taken sometime during the day. It was not returned until the next night during dinner in that case. One of our traveling companions ob our last cruise waited more than 48 hours for her laundry. It was returned quite promptly when she asked her room attendant about it. I would never expect to turn in my laundry in the morning and get it back before dinner. I can't remember that happening on any of our 8 Regent cruises. I guess some people are luckier than us.
  3. It really matters where your cruise is. I had no trouble getting Coke Zero on our Caribbean cruise out of Miami last April. It was in the fridge when we boarded, replaced when I drank it. On our current cruise, on the same ship, I have 3 types of sugar free Coca Cola. One was made in Austrailia and is called Coca Cola Diet, and indicates on the can that it contains caffeine. It's in a short fat can. The other 2 are in tall slim cans. One says Coca Cola light on the front and Coke light on the back. It was made in Malaysia and distributed in Singapore. It has 0 for "energy" which I assume are calories. There are ingredients listed in both Engligh and another language, and there's no caffeine added, but it doesn't say there's no caffeine. The third can has nothing but Thai writing except "Coca Cola" on the front with a short word in Thai letters under it, and on the back it has the trademarked Coke light. I assume it came from Thailand where we started this cruise. They all taste the same to me. I usually have one in the afternoon, and skip the late afternoon coffee or tea that I might have had otherwise, if the Coke was caffeine free.
  4. We have an American Airlines Advantage membership number and have miles from several International flights on American but the lounge in Doha wanted to see an AA Advantage credit card which we don't have. But we were allowed into the Qatar Airways business class lounge with a supervisor's approval and 273 dollars. They said that they were having a problem with travel agency's booking business lite and not informing their clients. Our TA told is to keep the receipt and she will talk to Regent about The 273 only includes 6 hours of access, and Regent booked our flights with over 6 hours originally, and it grew to 9.5 hours over the months since we booked. We found out that there was a Bangkok flight at 8:10 that they could have booked us on but didn't. We would have been willing to pay for an extra night through Regent for that. At least the terminal here is beautiful compared to the one at MIA. We were told we had access to the lounge included on our return flights which has First class tickets from Abu Dhabi to Doha and business lite from Doha to Miami, but we only have 2 hours in between. We will be looking out for business lite and business restricted fares in the future since we now know it might cost a lot more.
  5. We are at MIA for the "business class" flight that Regent booked for us on Qatar Airways. Even though we made the deviation fee to book early and had to pay Qatar Airways extra to reserve seats we found out we don't have real business class seats. They're "business lite" and have no access to a lounge. When we checked in we were told we could access the Turkish airlines lounge, but they showed us we had no lounge access. We just paid over a hundred dollars for sandwiches and drinks at a noisy counter. Even worse, we have a very long layover in Doha, and have no longer access there either. AT The gate here in Miami we were told to go to the transfer desk in Doha to see what we can buy. I could have paid 148 o line yesterday if I knew I needed to but it's too late for that offer. I guess I know why we were only offered the worst seats in business. I wonder what other amenities we don't get onboard.
  6. We booked for 90K each for the WC in a Veranda cabin on Silver Dawn back in August 22. We have cruised on Silver Whisper before, and enjoyed it for a 20 day cruise. We found they had better restaurants than Mariner, which we cruised to Alaska just before our Silversea cruise. Silver Dawn is still small for a cruise ship, but has a much larger choice of restaurants than Mariner. We were concerned about the size of the Veranda cabin on Silver Dawn, but it seemed like a better choice than a similar cabin on Mariner at a similar price. And, the itinerary on the Silversea WC took us to many places that we haven't been before, with very few places we have already been, and those were places we didn't mind going to again. The included airfare for the Silversea world cruise seemed more likely to not have any extra fees required, as we always end up needing to pay on Regent. But since we hadn't even been offered flights in March for January, we don't know the reality of that. On our previous Silversea cruise, we did our own air, and our own pre and post hotel. We have used Regent for air, and pre and post stays with no complaints. We did back to backs in September 2022 on Splendor, and enjoyed the ship more then the 3 older ships, because the cabins were larger, and there were more choices for restaurants. So that's why a WC on Splendor seemed to me to be much more desirable than previous Regent WCs, and I would have expected it to be more than the Silversea WC we had signed up for. Silversea did announce the updated itinerary this week, after we cancelled, and it's not what we wanted to pay 200k for (when their expensive excursions were included). I checked their website this morning, and they showed availability starting at just over 192k per person. Wow!!
  7. Are you just going through Regent or did you have a TA assigned when you booked the cruise? It's always better to have a TA than to deal directly with Regent when you do a booking. They will followup and take care of things between you and Regent. The price will be most likely be the same, but with the TA you can get cruise credits, and they can make excursion and dinner reservations when they become available so you don't have to. We have stayed with our original TA from our first cruise, and she does all of our bookings on all cruises. We even met her in the UK since she happened to be there when we were there pre-cruise, and we had a great time when we met.
  8. The 2025 and 2026 World Cruises were over 100K for a low level cabin on Mariner. I was definitely expecting at least 125K on Splendor, with a much nicer low level cabin, and a much nicer ship than Mariner. We just cancelled 2025 WC on Silver Dawn, since we were entering the penalty period with no idea what the second 2 thirds of our cruise would be since it's unlikely we would go through the Suez Canal. They returned the 25 percent deposit that they've had since 2022 very quickly, so we were happy with that and ready to book other cruises. We still no not feel comfortable booking any cruise that is scheduled to go through the Suez Canal. The alternatives diversions currently being taken might have been interesting if there weren't already too many cruises headed to the same tiny ports that aren't ready to handle one small cruise boat now and then. 2
  9. Your cabin looks great. That's a great concierge cabin, and we have more than a hundred nights onboard Regent with 20 nights more coming up next week. We did 30 nights on Splendor in 2022 and really enjoyed it. We loved having 3 specialty restaurants to choose from. We previously enjoyed 32 nights on Voyager in a Penthouse B, which had a great layout for its square footage. But our last 14 night cruise in April 23, and our upcoming cruise next week are on Navigator. We booked them based on itinerary, its small passenger capacity, and our previous Regent experience. Navigator is OK for us since we like small ships, but we really liked Pacific Rim on Splendor, Based on your review, we will be taking a look at Grandeur cruises to book for a future cruise while onboard Navigator a week from now. Thanks for your review.
  10. I'd like to hear more about the gastrointestinal distress on Regent. After tasting the caviar onboard Regent once, we didn't want to try it again since it was rather fishy, and I don't like fishy at breakfast. But if they aren't serving it due to gastrointestinal distress, that makes me worry about having a more widespread problem onboard. Is there a Regent ship other than Voyager who has had norovirus/covid protocol onboard this year?
  11. At our first dinner at SM, the 2 of us were served the antipasti course that would easily have filled 4 for dinner. I am not a big eater and did not enjoy anything served to me after that. We tried it again on another cruise on a different Regent ship, and asked that they not bring us the antipasti. They ignored our request, and brought it anyway. I don't like to waste food, but I wanted to try an entree so I didn't eat any of the antipasti. Our waiter asked us what was wrong, and I reminded him that we asked not to have the antipasti course. I don't remember what I had for the entree, but it wasn't very good. We are not Italian, but I do make Italian food at home. My Osso Bucco is much better than we've ever had on a cruise ship, as well as the restaurants in SW Florida where they use pork instead of veal.
  12. We could not get reception to recognize that we became gold members on the day we boarded. We have stayed in a Penthouse suite a few times and no paper was offered. We have a cruise next month as gold in penthouse and I doubt that a newspaper will be offered. I would rather have good internet to read the nrws rather than waste paper. But Regent supposedly is putting off Starlink until their current contracts for poor internet service run out.
  13. If a dinner with senior staff is listed as an amenity then something should be offered. Personally, we dread that, and would turn it down if offered. We have had dinner with the Captain on a small ship cruise line and we're happy when he left before dessert. The other 5 of us, 2 couples and a single, who had met on the ship had a great time after the Captain left. We have had dinner with lower level crew at a small table a few times and enjoyed it.
  14. I totally agree. We have rarely eaten there because of the line and we got in line at least 15 minutes early. We no longer bother to try. A reservation would make me try it again.
  15. My mistake. I found the invoice we received when our final payment was due and we each had $140 subtracted as a hotel credit.
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