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Totally agree with you about Anchorage and more compensation for Iceland. That was my point in my earlier post. You can’t make a silk purse from a sows ear, just sone kind of purse. We have been to Anchorage on 6 cruises, but after the first two we do around trips. Also people really miss the mark when they pick a big bus transfer with Regent over the wonderful train ride. We have done it both ways! Just because the high end cruise line or travel company plan it, it isn’t always the best that you can do on your own, at least in our experience.

No need to feel that way. You solved the pre cruise problem, go and have a good time cruising around Iceland. Itis beautiful! Dealing with an issue with Regent can be a pain but it can pay off. We had a big problem on a long cruise and the ship personal could not solve it. But after we returned home with the help of our TA, Regent gave us satisfaction. Our next cruises were as good as the crust had been and we are still cruising with them. My advise is to save all receipts from the extra cost to you pre cruise. Once home have your TA send the copies to Regent asking to be reimbursed for the cost to for Regents inability to give you what you paid them for. You may have to write them also, we did. It is a process….and it use to work. Hope you have a good cruise despite this mess.

I feel you have unrealistic expectations of what Regent can realistic provide in hotels at ports around the world. They are providing the customer with a connivence of one stop travel shopping. However to expect Regent to be able to provide a hotel like the Beverly Wiltshire in Beverly Hills in Anchorage Alaska is unrealistic. Regent tires to use the best available in the port city. At least that has been our experience. We usually don’t use the hotel because we are combining the cruise with a longer land trip and need more than one night in the port precruise . If the hotel is really something really special we may use Regents hotel otherwise the extra nights are too costly even booking them ourself.

Thankyou Thankyou for your great reports. Glad to hear the Haven doesn’t feel crowded even on a full ship. The reports are the ship is sold out for our cruise. Did you have to stand in line for either show…how long? Sounds like you all had a great first day.

In the past as I recall $300 is the amount we have received credit for when we have not taken the hotel and transfers. My guess is that this is where the amount comes from. I am sure Regent makes a deal with hotels for a better price than the hotels sell their rooms to us. That is just business. Whether this a profit maker for Regent we have no way of knowing but I know we couldn’t get a room at the Beverly Wiltshire for $300 a night plus transfers and that was the credit if we took it. So in that case we took Regents deal. i also know to sue a cruise line is mostly a no win situation in the US. Living near Gulf Coast ports there have been some big claims against Carnival that went no where basically because of the contract we sign in the US when we book and pay for the cruise. The glossy ads say fine hotels, tour and ports….. the contract says we will provide this if we can. Not sure the contracts in the ‘80s and ‘90s spelled this out, in truth I don’t think I read them. But for the last 20 or so years they have spelled this out. I read the T and C now. We are hearing from a very small number of people on this cruise and the other recent one and they are mostly from UK. The UK has more consumer protection laws than the US. Maybe they will have luck when all is finally done getting extra cost refunded. This group of people are just a drop in the bucket considering over 3000 passengers times the number of Regent cruises a year. But I do hope the problems of the travel industry and the supply lines improve and soon! We aren’t traveling as much. Even grocery shopping is most annoying!

Sounds like a great relaxing itinerary! Looking forward to r reports. Are your traveling companions aboard also? Ours send greetings from Texas. Carolyn

Or possibly Regent did have a block of rooms held at a hotel and the hotel did not honor the contract…..maybe the hotel over booked the rooms or had another problem. As I see it, there are several possible reasons for this bad situation. Agree that Regent could/should have handled this better….but seems like all cruise lines have an innate ability to handle these situations poorly. Post Covid this disconnect between passengers and home office when things go side ways is worse than in the past. Hope you are able to work the hotel and transfers and you have a good cruise. We always love our time on Regent ships.

Just wondering, how do you that that is true?

The dinner looks very good…i am getting excited. Did you have to stand in line for the comedy show or were you tasked in by Haven staff? i would like o got to a few of the nightly shows…HD not so much and definitely if not if we have to stand in a long line. I have my walker with a seat but he just wouldn’t wait in long lines. Loving your reports. Thanks again!

I know your reply is to another’s post. I do agree with you that Regent choices for hotels in a city like SF, Miami or other major cities are usually usually very nice and a free one night stay is great….but if you travel to the port several days ahead as we do, the extra cost of extra nights those Regent hotels is much more than some of the nice smaller properties that we can get ourselves and then use our pp credit to pay for more one night. The large group transfers on a big bus are not our cup of tea so that is no problem either…we just take a hotel taxi and arrive when we please. Hope you do get the Beverly Wilshire for your Splendor cruise. Regent used that Hotel for the ‘18WC. We did go early and stayed an extra night at the hotel and also the free night, But we took the 1st class air credit and did 1st class air with points then used the credit to pay for the extra night and taxis. You could get first class state side for reasonable amount of points then. Things…they have changed!

Ask around on your next cruise. We have gone through three in the last 25 years since we left a local family brick and mortar. Newest one is post covid because the previous one cut some perks and became hard to get on the phone. Exactly! We book our own hotels and airfare (though we have not flown since covid)and take the credit. We are only doing cruises that are round trip US now. We are too old for the long haul flights now. Some ports (in big cities) have really nice hotels and lots of rooms but some don’t (Alaska) I would rather pick my own and use a private car or taxi than have a bad surprise. Fortunately as long as Regent has its wonderful crew and comfortable accommodating ships we will cruise with them.

Thanks for the great review and pictures!! We are boarding the Prima in the Haven for Easter. First time on NCL in 25 years. Looking forward to the trip. Any information about your cruise…food, things to do on the ship and shore would be wonderful. I use a walker so any comments that might apply to me would be wonderful. We generally like the ship within a ship on the big ships. So your Mom is missing the trip. Hope she gets better soon.

Having had a couple of very unfortunate situations with cruises and land trips over the last 50 years of travel, I use a good TA and turn to my TA to deal with the provider cruise line or land travel company. That is part of their job for the commission the providing company pays to them for my business, and I pay indirectly for the trip. The TA company (a good one) carries much more weight than the individual these situations. Yes, it would be nice if Regent would explain more, but cruise lines never do at least in my experience.

Sounds like that may be the case. Being in the UK you seem to have better consumer protections that may work out in your favor in the end. But it seems to be a process. I am not defending Regent for their handling of the hotel and transfer mix up. They could have offered just to pick your tab for the hotel and transfer that you could arrange. Maybe they will in the end. But having spent the night in Reykjavik several years ago, it is not a tourist hub like some embarkation ports are. There are no ritzy hotels or really nice eating places. You would have had a bus transfer wherever Regent put you and you may not have been in town with Regent. As I remember they were using several hotels and recall there were many complains about the hotel quality last year…Hot, no A/C and windows that only opened 2 inches, no place to have a nice meal etc. I would make my own arrangements if planning to not cancel or turn my arrangements over to myTA. Providing you help in unforeseen situations is part of their job. The prices will on go up and choices go down.

As Rels says if you are there as they open you can sit out side weather permitting. That is really nice especially during a sail away. We love the little bits of the three antipasti but cancel the bruschetta! The first course choices are on display on the buffet set up are all good. Sometimes we make a meal from those and a soup.

We love SM. We eat there at least twice a week when on a regent criuse. We go between 6:30 and 7 latest and never have a problem being seated. There may be a couple or two ahead of us but plenty of tables open. Later can be a problem as you need to hit the change over period.to be seated with a wait. Been on a GV on Mariner. WC and Holiday cruise on Navigator and a shorter cruise on the Splendor so a variety of types of cruises pre and post covid and we always frequent †he SM….we love Italian food and do have good non chain food places near our home that we frequent.. The service is a combination of buffet for first courses and desserts and table service for main. Or you can be seated and order all courses from the waiter as we do. Just tell them! At first we would always check out the buffet before we went to the table then tell the waiter what we wanted, but we don’t bother now because we know what we like. Sometimes may I stop and look just to see if anything else appeals. We just do not like buffet service period. We like the roasted garlic for the bread, the soups, veal and pastas well most everything.

Last year we dropped the rental car…Enterprise…at a hotel drop very close to the pier and took a regular taxi from hotel to pier for less than $20. Very easy and plan to do it again picking up a car at the hotel office after an April cruise.

Having sailed on the Splendor and the Navigator I think you get a lot more personal attention on the smaller ships especially like dinner invites from the upper level staff. Makes sense there are only so many of the officers to go around. Your chances become better with a lower passenger load. We ate with officers twice on our last Navigator cruise and no times on the Splendor with about the same number of days. We were in G suites, Also the length of the cruise and number of high level SSS members on board may affect the scheduling as many are personal friends with some of the officers. We have found over the years that some officer tables are great fun and some are a terrible bore. Since a member of your party is in the Grand Suit you should have no problem with eating together where you want, with a little planning. I would call Regent when the Dinning opens and have all families reservation numbers and book the nights for your group on the phone. You will probably be able to only book one night in each venue on the phone but you will know those nights you all will be together. The Butler should be able to take care of the other nights you might want. But don’t forget Compass Rose and Setti Mare, no reservations needed and the food is great.

Agree with you both. In 250+ nights on Regent we have very few less than wonderful meals on Regent. It is usually my fault as I have tired some new dishes that haven’t been my cup of tea. The staff has noticed every time and tried to get me something else. Sometimes my eyes are just bigger than my stomach and I can’t eat it all resulting in the same concern about the food from the staff..The streaks have always been good and cooked to my satisfaction or close enough not to justify sending it back. Little frozen lobster tails are never as good as fresh so I don’t order them. I will say again that Regent has good food….comparable with the high end restaurants in Houston or Dallas that we enjoy most often. And the high end restaurants are not providing meals for 450-750 people there times a day. There are bound to be misses but Regent will fix it given a chance.

We almost missed the ship in Korea, maybe 15years ago……our passports were waiting for us at the port security checkpoint. We were cleared, given our passports back and told to dashed to the ship….the crew were pulling the service (loading) gangway from to pier into the ship when they saw us. They let us on, but the officer was not pleased with us. Fortunately for us the ship was late loading supplies by about 15 minutes or they would have packed our stuff up and left it at the next port (China) if we hadn’t made ship. We had independently ridden the train from the port to the city…straight shot going from the port but we didn’t realize we had a change coming back to the port and missed the connection so had to backtrack on several trains and that took a lot of time. We still did our own tours after that but always used a private guide if we didn’t speak the language. Just allow plenty of time…more than you think you will need. The ship will sail without you!🫢

Kind of the same question….We are on Prima also in the Haven….booked just a couple of months ago for April and all open times were only for four people. Called NCL to see if I could book one of those times for two and was told I had to wait to book on board. Do I check with the Haven desk or somewhere else?

Of course not! Cooking for 450 to 750 a day times three depending on the ship is a whole different ball game than a land side speciality steak house. Regent food is over all really good, but it still mass produced and not always perfect. It is all about really setting reasonable expectations

. Well for better or worst Regent’s parent company is the NCL holding company. Regent no longer stands alone. Main office personal to help with tour descriptions/questions would be a waste of personal, time and effort. Regent has existing avenues to help passengers having special needs of any sort. Before one boards the cruise, the PDF of tours for that tour, travel agents or a google search should be able to answer questions, Really common sense on the part of the passenger, after reading the pre cruise material should tell them if they can do the tour. Lack of English or computer skills or even some sort of disability in today’s world for world travelers is no excuse for not being able to figure out if a tour is right for them. Finally they should check their tickets and updated tour description for any changes when they arrive on board. Then check with DD about any question they might still have. Of course this is just my opinion as an older disabled cruiser.

Well the last time we sailed with NCL was a Holly Land cruise in 1996…it was a wonderful cruise. We are doing a btob on the Prima soon because the new ship sounds so nice and convenient for us. Other people must think so also because the ship is sailing full. We have sailed on mostly smaller ships and done land vacations since our last NCL cruise,. I don’t expect small Regent or large Cunard’s Queen’s Grill service and food for the price on Prima but more in line with CarnIval.and RCL service and food. We sail on those mass market lines because they sail from our home port, our grands like the shipsi and it is such an easy holiday for a reasonable price. We will soon see….if I want an extra lobster tail I will just pay for it …nothing stays the same.

Thank goodness some on CC live in the real world and know nothing stays the same. When I was much younger milk cost $.25 a half gallon. Anybody been to the store recently. If you live in the real world what is happening on cruise ships is happening to businesses you interact with everyday…..cut quality and/or service, raise prices some….try to strike a happy medium as not to inflame you customer too much!