Wendy The Wanderer

2 hours ago, HotelSnob1 said:

I, too, hope you get a good turnout for your efforts.  We had good weather on the cruise, some nice ports, but everyone we spoke to mainly booked for Israel & Egypt. We are on the Nile in 2025 with Regent, fingers crossed as this is our 3rd attempt to do the Suez, etc.  Stay safe, fellow cruisers! 

By "on the Nile", what do you mean?  You mean a two-days stop in Safaga?

17 hours ago, Brutieboy said:

We are on the Mariner in suite 919.  I think the info says there is no walk in closet just a cabinet?

We were in a Mariner accessible cabin, 829 I think, and there certainly was no closet, just a wardrobe.  But there was a small closet as well as I remember, and some drawers.  I found I had plenty of room. There's a ramp out to the balcony, and one into the bathroom, but they don't get in your way generally.

And yes, the bathroom is larger.  The shower stall is a bit messy, since there's a system of curtains instead of a door.  The stewardess will spend some time each day mopping up water.  

All in all the room felt a bit roomier than I think the standard Mariner one would feel.

Lucky you guys!

I'm about the most casual person in the world.  For my first Radisson cruise I bought a couple of glitzy tops (in the thrift shop), and some black velvet pants (I lived in jeans at that point of my life).  That was 23 years ago, ha ha.  Since then I've branched out to nice tops, not necessarily glitzy, but nice-looking and comfortable to wear.  I have a selection of nice, stretchy pants, often black or beige.  Assorted fairly simple jewelery, and some evening sandals.  A shawl or two.

12 hours ago, wineoclock said:

...

We’ve booked our first regent cruise (concierge) next year and I’ve sold it to my husband as a wonderful experience from start to finish. If it isn’t great I’ll be miffed. 

My advice is to bow out of the included Air, take the credit and book your own air.  Since your cruise is next year you should have plenty of time for that. 

I've seen it confirmed on the "other" site that Starlink is in fact up and running on Mariner.  This was confirmed by Mike from Regent (can't remember his last name.)  He said that Grandeur would have Starlink running from its first cruise, the rest of the fleet sometime in 2024.

4 hours ago, Texasrocks said:

FYI there are bicycle races in Istanbul on Sunday the 15th so the roads into the old town are closed.  One day to tour there and can't see the sites.

is the tram open?  If so you can take it to the Sultanahmet and then just walk around to the sites.

17 hours ago, Tahitianbigkahuna said:

Though Regent has big cabins I don't consider the PG small ... actually larger than some other lines.

Agreed.  I also think that the PG cabins are perfect.  Very well planned and laid out. 

1 hour ago, Fairgarth said:

 

Regent is doing itself no favours.  Flying in on day of departure is a no-no.  How could they not know that?  ...

They've been doing it this way for over 20 years.  We have taken their air a few times, not many, but only with a deviation to fly in the day before.  For example, if we had been flying from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale (back in the day when Radisson sailed from there), I would look at the cost of flights, then look at the air credit, and factoring in the deviation fee ($75 then), we would decide what to do.  Or when we were flying one way home to Florida from Ecuador after debarking in Lima, we found that Regent got us good Biz seats that couldn't be beat privately, so we did that. Have also done a few points flights.

That being said, to the OP, live and learn, but how awful for you.  In retrospect, you could have just refused their flights and booked your own, and swallowed the air credits they wouldn't give you. Sorry it left a bad taste in your mouth--Regent is wonderful in many ways.

A local dive shop would be best, then you can try on the masks.  Years ago I got one that had two different lenses, a plain one and a different one for my single myopic eye--worked out great.

Just now, newlondon said:

Very disappointed in your foliage report. As I said we are on Grandeur next year with the same itinerary and were expecting good color. Unlucky for you, but we hope this is an aberration due to all the rain.

Glad to hear the rest went well.   

It's been a weird year.  Lots of very warm weather, and dry.  The wildfire smoke apparently has also affected the trees' cycle.

17 hours ago, Dolebludger said:

But after Ponant refused to refund for cruise it cancelled, i wouldn’t book it again,— unless and until Ponant is out of the picture.

Us to Richard.  Sad, but then not sure we'll cruise again anyway.

The first PG we did was a 7-day, but we did a 4-night pre-cruise to an island.  That's a compromise.  I do like the 10 and 11-day itineraries, however. Or you could do a b2b with 2 7-day cruises (something that we've done.)

The Society Islands as a whole are the most interesting and satisfying, and can be done twice easily (we've done 4 7-nights over the years).  The Tuamotus are good for snorkeling and diving.  The Marquesas are very remote and are beautiful and mysterious, but hard to get to.  

Almost all the cabins on the PG are small.  Most cabins are the C balconies, just marginally larger than the window or porthole cabins, so we tended to do the window cabin.  They are very well laid-out.  Bathrooms are small.  The A and B penthouses on the same deck as the pool deck (8?) are nice, a wee bit bigger, but otherwise probably not worth the price except for the location and the butler, and the few "named cabins" are bigger but probably underwhelming to anyone used to a named suite on Regent.  Frankly, we spent very little time in the cabins on the PG, because there's nice outdoor common areas on the ship.  

1 hour ago, Dolebludger said:

Yes, when I was on Windstar’s site, I couldn’t navigate to any rooms, except those with only windows — and not very large ones at that. Time to return to Regent, where all all suites have balconies — except a few window suites on the Navigator.

I think doing FP on Navigator would be pretty nice. I'd miss the Gauguines, of course.

3 hours ago, poolechick said:

And we were left with a very very bad opinion of Ponant, which still owns and operates the PG.

Alas, I followed all the threads of those who were "worked over" by Ponant when the pandemic was declared in 2020.  Very shabby business practices, and enough for us to say, reluctantly, "never again". 

Background: we've been on the PG four times while under Regent, 5 if you count a b2b as separate cruises.  Plus we were on her twice under the later ownership (Richard, uh, I forgot his name--owner of the Intercontinental in Papeete.)  So this ship had been our absolute favourite since the year 2000, and French Polynesia our top destination. So if you decided to go, do it, it'll be lovely, just make sure you look at the contract closely.  It's unlikely we'd make it there again at this point (75 & 80), but if we did, we'd have to choose Regent, since I don't think the Windstar sailing ships have elevators that extend to every deck. We still mourn the Paul Gauguin and cherish our time on her.

P.S. we almost always booked our own air. Oh, and their cabins are small.  Lovely little cabins, but small.  Worth it still.

We either missed the block party on our last Splendor trip, or there wasn't one.  I, frankly, have never really enjoyed them much, but try to participate.

Pretty low-keyed, most of the time.

I think you've lucked out with the weather so far, am I right?

Just to be clear on the subject of cocktails, no, there are no specific cocktails that are not included.  Only the ultra-premium brands of the spirits that go into them.  And the definitions are quite broad--it's not like going into a bar and getting a "well" drink at all, most of the top brands are covered.  

Funny, my husband prefers Jim Bean bourbon, not a particularly top brand.  He asked for it in the room set-up and was told they didn't have any (perhaps temporary supply-chain issue).  He was given Bulleit instead, which is quite a nice premium bourbon.

I can't answer since I did Egypt from another direction, but I will say that an ATM might not help much since what you need in Egypt is small currency, as small as you can get. For tipping, which is ubiquitous, and for bathrooms. But getting small bills in Egypt is difficult, and an ATM won't likely help. American dollar bills are overkill for such things, but a good backstop, and much appreciated, so I would take a bunch of those.

I had a decent experience with a couple of massages in January.  It was a luxury, I admit, but I used my credits and was quite happy.  She did try to upsell me and that is annoying.

Wine, yes.  Beer, somewhat.  I never asked for NA spirits.  The wine brand was "Pierre" I believe, and it wasn't bad.  They had red, white and rose.  Beer was limited.  I asked for some Athletic Brewing company beer for my cabin, but it didn't appear.

Although recovered somewhat from the post-pandemic chaos, I would avoid Pearson Airport in Toronto, YYZ.  There are still lots of staffing issues and horror stories. Especially with the U.S. pre-clearance you must do.

1 hour ago, bswartz said:

We are cruising on 9/28 to Canada and New England on the Regent Mariner which has stops in Quebec, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. Should we tip our tour directors in each port in Canadian or US currency? What is a suggestion amount to tip them? Thank you in advance for your response.

 

Bryan

 

Well they won't mind U.S. at all, although it would be nice, especially in small ports, to give them CDN.

Miami disembarkation is often delayed in even starting until 8 or 9.