makai 7

Deck 8. It was hard not to notice all the repairs. 

Is the Voyager going into drydock for an overhaul soon?

I ask because she is looking rather ragged as far as hard and soft furnishings are concerned, not to mention the big dent on the stern.

The captain was in the Horizon lounge today pointing out furniture that needed repair.

Right now we are in a penthouse suite and all of the furniture has been "enhanced" with squares of plywood to hold the legs on. I was initially afraid to sit on the bench- I thought it would collapse. 

One of the lamps is held together with large gobs of silicone. 

Yes you can still get San Pellegrino and Perrier if you wish.  And yes, as someone else said, the water for going ashore is still the inventory of disposable single use bottles.  I don't know what they plan to do once they are depleted.

Sparkling water is fine.  It does not have the flavor profile of San Pellegrino or others, but I am told it is good.  They are still handing out plastic water bottles for shore excursions on voyager.  The glass bottles do not fit in the refrigerators in the suites.

Of course it is a profit deal.  The corporation answers to the shareholders, not to the customer.  The goal is increased profitability to improve share value and dividends.  If anyone believes otherwise, they are fooling themselves. 

Well. Interesting to see all the various arguments play out.

Yes. Regent posted price increases across the board on April 1. And yes, they then added some special offers of 2 category upgrades and ob  credits to the bookings, so in effect, it is a discount.

TC- I  don't appreciate being scolded because I do not like the new itinerary.   You certainly have a right to your opinion of what you like - but so do I!  And my opinion does not have to be the same as yours.  We have our own particular reasons for not wanting to cruise mostly in Japan, and for wanting to end in Shanghai.  When I have close to $60,000.00 in spending planned towards a 2 month trip from Bali to Shanghai with extra time planned in Shanghai with friends,  do not expect me to happily embrace this change.  You have no right to judge me, or anyone else on these boards.

Yes, there was nothing addressed about other expenses (such as trip insurance,  etc.) that may have been paid for and cannot be recouped if the reservation was cancelled.

I understand that there are circumstances beyond the control of cruise lines.  Again my issue was the poor corporate, impersonal communication and the use of "enhancement " with no real acknowledgement that this may not be to my liking.  Jason already responded well and I expect nothing more.

The positive results of this change are (1) we learned that our travel agent had never disclosed horrendous cancellation fees (she is no longer our agent) and (2) we were  able to book another cruise that is to our liking on board,  with the added benefit of reduced deposit and price protection guarantee. 

CruiseTheCs- to answer your question...We recieved an email forwarded to us from our TA. 

Below is a portion of the email.  It went on to discuss changes to pre and post cruise extensions, and options for cancellation.  There was no further explanation. 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR CRUISE ITINERARY  SEVEN SEAS VOYAGER® DEPARTING FEBRUARY 12, 2020   Dear Valued Guest and Travel Partner,    We would like to inform you of an exciting itinerary enhancement to your voyage aboard Seven Seas Voyager’s February 12, 2020, 30-night Asia itinerary, Temples & Towers, sailing Bali (Benoa), Indonesia to Shanghai, China.   The last segment of your voyage has been modified and will now conclude in Tokyo, Japan. The original disembarkation port of Shanghai, China has been updated and the sailing will now disembark from Tokyo, Japan. In addition, port calls to Kagoshima, Japan and Osaka, Japan have been added and calls to Kyoto and Nagasaki, Japan were subsequently removed.

Jason:  thank you very much for your response.  We do appreciate that circumstances can cause a need for itinerary changes.  It was the lack of explanation that, after long careers in the corporate world, just seem like more corporate "speak" with no substance behind it.

The new Hong Kong to Tokyo itinerary truly was not to our liking, and we cancelled the cruise as there were no alternative options offered.  We still are considering the first leg, Bali to Hong Kong, and will discuss it with the on board cruise consultant (currently on the Voyager).

It is nice to have a human representative to work with, vs. reading an anonymous corporate memo.

We were just informed that our 2020 Bali to Shanghai cruise has been "enhanced" by changing it to a Bali to Tokyo cruise.   We don't consider this an enhancement. 

It would have been appreciated to receive an explanation for such a major change.  Regent just lost a booking,  and possibly future bookings too.

It is one thing to be unable to stop in a port due to weather.   It is another to completely change an itinerary including the final stop.

Thanks for the clarification.   I have the date on my calendar to work with my TA.

Travelcat... We have traveled for both business and pleasure for many, many years.  We never accept a connection less than 1.5 hours, if at all possible.  Too many "O.J. Simpson" runs through the terminals.  It is not the way we want to travel.

This may have been answered earlier but I couldn't find the information... to which date does the 270 days prior apply?  We are doing the 2020 Bali to Shanghai and want to do a deviation home from Shanghai, staying a few extra days at a hotel not booked through Regent.  Since the cruise ends about 35 days after we fly to Bali, is it still 270 days from embarcation in Bali?

And do you pay the same fee if you only want to deviate on one vs both flights?

Thanks!

We will politely asked for any tepid/lukewarm meals to be changed to hot meals.

If the replacements are still tepid/lukewarm we will politely refuse them again, whilst requesting to speak to the appropriate person to get this rectified.

To our minds, food that isn't hot, has either been hanging around cooling too long, or worse, hasn't been cooked properly to reach the correct temperature and this is a big no no, as nasty bugs just love this situation and will breed rapidly and these can make you very ill indeed.

Since posting, all meals have been perfect. I did submit the mid cruise comments and received several calls to discuss our constructive criticism. I also did praise several crew members and Sette Mara. First world problems....

To echo travelcat... I had the miso glazed sea bass last night, and it was excellent ! Setti mare has been consistently excellent as well. If you don't try the gnocchi with pesto, as an appetizer portion, you are missing something wonderful.

We agree, Captain Serena is wonderful. Unlike many cruise ship Masters, she is always around, speaking with passengers.

Hi Jackie- We are here on the mariner with you. I think you are getting special treatment in the dining room because of your status; we are only silver. Many of the dishes we have been served, including soup, have been tepid at best, never hot. It doesn't matter where we are seated in the dining room. Our table had problems in Prime 7 as well.

Funny, our overall opinion is that they are very short staffed in the dining rooms, and that the food and service was better on the Oceania Nautica.

Thanks so much for this post. We are seriously considering the November 2017 itinerary. Our major gripe is the "proof of funds" for the Brazilian visa. Unfortunately, our old visas were only good for 5 years, or we could have used them.

Have been on board since Hong Kong. It does seem like this was picked up in Mumbai; and in my opinion we picked up quite a few people with poor manners and poor behavior too.

On the first half of this cruise, before Noro, I did not observe people trying to touch things they shouldn't on the buffet, or touch multiple items (bread, fruit) before selecting one. After Mumbai, before we went into 'code red' I saw many people do exactly that; touch many items before picking the one they wanted. I avoided these types of items that were still self serve after that. These are the people who have helped spread this throughout the ship. Many people coughing and sneezing openly throughout this second half of the trip too, spreading colds around.

We also observed a few people refuse to use the hand sanitizer before going into the DR or the buffet - one repeat offender is the bridge instructor.

It is a shame as the second half of our cruise has been tainted by this ongoing plague... It's the little things like not being able to get bar snacks... or having bleach stains on your clothes... that make the overall experience less than it could be (and was on the first half).

Do I blame "O"? absolutely not. The crew is working overtime trying to get this under control. We are having a good time in spite of this. I blame selfish guests who don't follow quarantine, won't wash their hands, and think that they do not have to follow common sense rules. Unfortunately, you get these entitled people on every cruise line.

Sorry, had to vent.

"Our cruise begins on the 24 March and we have not been officially notified yet nor has our TA. This is the only compensation being offered if you are in the penalty phase and would like to cancel (at least for our cruise)"

Wow - this seems really strange as our TA received an email Thursday, January 21, 2016 3:47 PM (that is the date/time on her email, and she is on the West Coast) - and then she forwarded it to us - we received it 7:21pm our time (east coast).

I would assume that all TAs would have received the email on the same date/time. Ours is a partner of some sort with Oceania, but I wouldn't think they would get exclusively notified about something this significant.

We just saw that flights are now booked from Athens so we assume we will get our actual details in the next 24 hours or so. They also are in process of refunding Turkish visas, tours, and post-cruise packages. I am sure it is a total mess in their offices right now.

We also just got back from the Barcelona-Ft. Lauderdale portion of this cruise.

Due to catching the resident "cold" plague that was on this ship, we missed almost all meals in the MDR (just couldn't eat at 8pm when sick!).

Also were disgusted to have to pay $17.99 for an $8 bottle of Dayquil - but if you are sick and need it you just bite the bullet.

The food was OK but not great. Everything was very salty- but that is a general issue for us on all cruises.

We found the salad bar in the Lido to be an excellent option - they always had seared Ahi Tuna available. The NY Pizza was also good.

Sushi started out good but then went to the vegetarian options later on during the week. Much of the Asian options had very little flavor, but occasionally you would get lucky.

The pasta station had good days and bad days - a bad day was when they just added what I wanted to the pasta After they sauce.

We like the DiveInn but it took 45 minutes to get a Portobello burger - and my DH had to wait and watch many other orders get taken and served while he waited (and fumed).

It seems that the Lido had the best food options on board. We were disappointed that Tamarind was closed for lunch- this was where we were planning to eat often after reading about it on the boards.

I, like RuthC, am a chocoholic and there were few options to be found. Ice cream became the dessert of choice for us. A few days they had cream puffs at the lido.

No-one has mentioned the fire on board... fortunately it was contained and resolved quickly.

We were in the group of "lucky 7" who were abandoned at a hotel (Melia?) with no rooms after the bus left on November 2. Standing around with our luggage for over an hour waiting... until we insisted that HAL get two taxis to take us over to the Hilton. Finally got to the hotel around 8:30pm after sitting in the terminal all day. Not a very good start to this trip.

Sorry HAL; this was the 'last chance' cruise for you and we just don't feel like we are getting the type of product you advertise.

We are trying Oceania next!

Thanks for the great description of the incident.

However... if you and your husband were able to notice the squall line moving towards the ship, why didn't any of the bridge officers notice it coming?

This seems like some basic seamanship - why wasn't anyone paying attention?

There is always more than one "captain" on board in addition to the master of the ship, and there should be people paying attention to the weather at sea.

Makes me wonder about our crossing - will there be such a lack of attention on the bridge during 5-6 sea days???

Thank you for your review!

We are cruising on the Niew Amsterdam in November, after several cruises on the Noordam and on other HAL ships. We have found the quality of food, service, etc. to decrease with each cruise on HAL.

Based on the ever increasing disappointment we experienced from one cruise to the next, we have extremely LOW expectations for our next cruise.

This way, anything we like and enjoy will be a positive experience, instead of "not having our expectations met".

How do you get a booking? Is it only through a vacation exchange program, or are there other ways?

Thanks!

Most of the "7 day stayers" on our particular cruise were probably 45-75. This is a guess. The 4 and 3 day groups tended to be younger, 20's to 40's.

We are 54 and 58...

Everyone was very active - there are no elevators on this ship, and all access to the islands is by Tender.

We were there at the tail end of the typhoon that devastated Vanuatu, so the open seas were a bit rough and they adjusted some of the island stops to avoid the wind/waves (anchoring on the lee sides of the islands).

We are owners of a small (34') boat, were sailors previously, and are very experienced cruisers. The catamaran has a very different 'feel' and motion than other ships and took some getting used to, but I wouldn't consider it rough by any means.

Because we had the upgraded cabin, there is a mini-bar with beer, wine, bottled water, and soft drinks (and a nespresso machine we never used) that is complimentary and restocked daily. They ask that you don't take the drinks out of the cabin but they do not enforce this.

Our honeymoon package included a $350 Fijian bar credit that we did NOT use up...(they kept telling us to drink MORE) so we don't know what the actual cost of soft drinks and alcohol was. There is a 1/2 price Happy Hour every evening - announced happily .. (and people were very active drinkers!).

We also had a bottle of wine at dinner included in the package, so we had more alcohol than we could possible drink.

Just an FYI it was not our honeymoon... and they didn't care... we booked the package because it was an exceptional value.

In March we traveled from Boston to Fiji, and took a 7 day cruise on Blue Lagoon Fiji Princess.

At the time we booked they offered 2 nights at the Sofitel included in the price of booking, so we took advantage.

We also booked the Honeymoon package to take advantage of the included wine with dinner and the cabin upgrade. At the time the package price was less than the increased cost to book the larger cabins.

Our trip was all booked thru a company in Australia, so there were some issues with time differences for communication, but it all worked out in the end.

We arrived at the Sofitel very early (7:30am) - they were gracious and welcoming and our room was ready, so they allowed us to check in immediately. We enjoyed our two days here to recover from the jet lag.

One very important thing to keep in mind... You are in Fiji. Everything is in Fiji time. If you are able to relax and go with the flow, you will enjoy yourself. If you expect things to work like they do in the US, you will probably work yourself up into a frenzy...

We arrived at the port at the designated check-in time. They told us to drop off our bags and come back in an hour - they weren't ready...

So we did, and got some lunch at a little restaurant, and were back in about 40 minutes - with Check In already in progress. No worries.

We were handed a laminated card with a room number, a room key, - and some luggage tags. We put the tags on our bags and waited about 20 minutes under cover (it was raining) for boarding. The rain cleared, we handed our card over, and were on board.

I won't go into the daily details... but here are the key points:

The crew is amazing. They are what make this a special experience. They laugh ALL the time - at each other, with each other, with us, and probably at us. No worries at all.

The captain did everything! He drove the tenders, led the shark feeding, cleaned the hull, made Kava, sang and played guitar...

Your fellow guests can make or break the trip. We had an absolutely wonderful mix of "7 day stayers" and we had a fantastic week. We truly enjoyed their company, and laughed constantly. We were the only people from the USA on board - they don't get too many I guess due to the distance - and the crew made it a point to call us "The Americans". Hopefully we helped improve their opinion, since they told us a few stories about previous American guests that were not very flattering! Most of the guests are from Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. There were some women from China, people from Canada too.

The ship is not very luxurious, but it has the necessities, and they keep it clean. Toiletries provided are good (Pure Fiji).

The food is not gourmet, but it is fresh, plentiful and there is variety. The Indian (Bollywood night) was excellent. Fish is the best prepared item on menu. Most nights are buffet, except the two 'first nights' on board.

Pack very light! The cabins have a small hanging closet. No drawers or shelves to store clothing. You will have to be somewhat creative to find ways to organize, or live out of your suitcase- which needs to be stored under the bed. This ship is so casual you can go barefoot and live in your swimsuit and a cover-up. People usually changed to 'fresh' clothes for the evening, but still extremely casual.

The bathrooms are tiny. The shower is tiny - and there is no shower curtain. In boating terms this is a "Wet Head". You will be standing partially over the toilet while you shampoo your hair. Everything gets wet so you can store some items inside the medicine cabinet, but no-where else.

We had a fantastic time. It was quite a departure from traditional cruising, and we preferred the more casual nature of the experience.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them.:)

Many years ago did this thru Princess - and it was well worth the extra money for the peace of mind. A few things to be aware of...

Cuzco elevation is incredibly high (13,000 feet; higher than MP)- and you won't know beforehand if you will suffer from Altitude sickness. I was OK but DH had worst headache of his life.

Our tour stayed at the Monestario and we had a room where they could pipe in Oxygen and it was well worth it - we actually were able to sleep and others without the O2 could not.

This shouldn't stop you from going- just to be aware and prepared.

By the time you get to MP, it is a lower elevation and you feel better!

Other issue is that the Cuzco airport often gets fogged in - on our trip our return flight departure to Lima was delayed about 5-6 hours. If we were not on the ship's tour I am not sure they would have waited for us before they left Lima.

The trip was well worth the pain and suffering - and we would definitely do it if we hadn't already!

Yes, We are back!

I will write a review when I have a chance - there are many positive things to say about this cruise - and there are important considerations to make sure that you know exactly what you will be getting...

If you have any specific questions I would be happy to answer them!

We had a fantastic time - the crew were amazing, and we had a wonderful mix of "7 day stayers" on board that all clicked - and we laughed for 7 days straight... The first 3 days there were no more than 20 passengers on board and it was like having a private yacht. The second 4 days there were a new bunch of people - and we had lots more fun, but it was a bit more crowded. Still nothing like a typical 'big boat'.