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Well, that's interesting. World cruisers on the Mariner reported that Starlink was out of commission the entire time they were moving along Africa's west coast. I thought I was putting two and two together, but I guess not.

His videos are like 90% of them eating. They really go after it!

Regardless of Regent's use of the service, you should be aware that Starlink itself has no coverage in west and south Africa. It is projected to come on line in Q4 of this year. https://www.starlink.com/map

A recent Splendor passenger said that the ship didn't get their expected bourbon shipment in Athens. He talked to the F&B manager, who then went bourbon shopping in Izmir when they stopped there. That evening a brand new bottle of Blanton's was waiting for the passenger in his cabin.

The first post on this thread has a spreadsheet of reviews for each ship. There's no review for 717 in Explorer's sheet. But Splendor is a sister ship of the Explorer with a nearly identical layout and there IS a review for 717 there (spoiler... they loved it).

When I said Curacao's times were correct, I just meant that the evening tour actually shows it takes place in the evening. I'm dead certain that the other 9 tours don't all start at 07:30, but when do they? It'd be nice to be able to plan the rest of the day. We're spending long days in these ports,12 hours or more in some of them. And from past experience some of the tours will have multiple starting times. So if you booked, say, a sub tour, which of the many starting times will you be assigned? It'd be nice to know that! I expect this will all be sorted out in the end, but it's so avoidable.

There's plenty of excursions to choose from all 9 islands for our cruise. It's just that the times are clearly messed up. It doesn't indicate credit problems at all.

I take it back... One port (Curacao), has accurate times for tours, and we're now able to book a morning and an evening tour. The other 8 ports are still messed up.

Our Caribbean cruise on Grandeur in March has the same issue. Every shorex is scheduled for 30 minutes after the arrival in port. So a sunset cruise in Antigua is supposed to leave at 8:30 AM. There's some stops where we should be able to book 2 excursions in a day, but can't because because it thinks there's time conflicts. We don't understand, but we're not sweating it,

Regent has us flying Air Canada from Lisbon to Toronto In June, and ITA shows it as fare class C. There was no upcharge. The flight from Toronto to Lisbon, on the other hand, is fare class Z and did have an upcharge.

To-may-to, to-mah-to

Cruise Critic lets you review a cruise via https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/collect/. These get associated with the specific ship so that all the reviews for a ship are aggregated. That sounds useful, but the form is pretty clunky and so it doesn't get used nearly as much as do threads within this forum.

Here's a link to the current services' menu. No prices though! https://brochures.rssc.com/view/945731954/

That's pretty normal in my experience. The two times I used the included hotel I was notified between 6 and 4 weeks. Both times we were just looking for a place to shake off our jet lag, and the hotels were fine for that.

And also, if 100 people posted complaints about their meal I'd be worried. If someone posts 100 times about s single incident I'm willing to consider it might be a one-off.

All I can say is the rib-eye I had in Prime 7 last March on Splendor was about the best steak I've ever had. This was on a cruise that began in Miami, so most likely the same supplier they are using now. It was massive, and I could only finish half of it. When I gave out the other three people in our group were on it like wolves. We're on Grandeur next March with the same group and I expect everybody to order rib-eyes in P7.

They usually have them at 2:00 on sea days.

By the way... since passengers "reserve" sunbeds around the pool with their hats and books, can seats at the pool bar be reserved too? Asking for a friend.

We are! Our daughter and son-in-law will be with us. Look for us at the pool bar.

We book on Tuesday and De Palm was on my list. I think I'll reconsider.

Well, at least you gave them a chance.🙄

We always ask for extra lobster with the bisque. They'll bring a dish of lobster meat and it makes a big difference.

We did a one night pre-cruise at the Intercontinental. The location is not great for a tourist, but Regent did have a shuttle to the city center. We used it, saw a couple sights, and went back to the hotel. Note that we were VERY jet lagged. Our primary goal was to get a good night's sleep, and the hotel provided that. It didn't hurt that we were put into an absolutely stunning suite for some reason. I wouldn't consider the Intercontinental for a longer stay, but it met our needs.

1211 is directly above the Culinary Arts Kitchen. Guests staying in that suite on Explorer, or maybe it was Splendor, had issues because the Kitchen has ceiling speakers. During classes guests above it could clearly hear everything that was said. Regent acknowledged that it was a problem, so they may have fixed it in the new ship.