mj_holiday

Our TA found an AA flight nonstop Dallas to Narita.  It was very good.

"Guests who go ashore do so with the understanding that they will be mixing with members of the general public”

I also have seen this notice for certain excursions.  To me it looked like the excursion would be something that included other people.  IMO we seem to get in a cocoon on a RSSC cruise. 

On 5/31/2024 at 5:37 PM, chuckw said:

I tried to post a review but can't find it.  

I find the reviews difficult to find and hard to find what I am looking for.

Please post your review here in the forum area.  It will be read by many people.

We did this cruise (30 days) in April 2024.  There is an "Almost Live - Explorer Tokyo to Vancouver" in this forum.

DG had some mobility issues so some of the excursions were too much for him, but he stayed on the bus with some other people in his situation.

We both found Japan very interesting, every place you turn you will see something different.

The Hilton is nice hotel.   It is connected to the subway (I figured this out the last afternoon we were there) and has some services in the underground walkways. We took the first and last days excursion pre cruise.  We were not happy that we didn't get to the ship until around 3pm.

Everything on the ship was great Just pay attention to the excursion descriptions.

30 minutes ago, BobAnne said:

Welcome, you will enjoy

 

As the countdown begins ticks louder and I prepare to board my first Regent cruise in a few weeks I had a few questions that I’m hoping you lovely people can help with.

 

1. 1. I am doing a pre cruise tour in Greece. I am assuming they are not going to want everyone on that trip to move around with our stacks of overpacked luggage. What does Regent usually do with the non-necessary luggage during the 3 day pre-cruise tours?      This depends on the local company and logistics etc.  They will have it figured out and you will not be alone.  Be sure to read info you receive and have all your luggage tagged with whatever they give you.
2.  
3. 2. I will be in a Concierge suite. Should I call Customer Service ahead of time to specify what I would like in my minibar and ask for decaf coffee pods? Or since I am not Penthouse or above do I need to wait until I am aboard ask ask our Steward to assist?       It may be too late to do this.  When you get into your suite your steward will visit you and ask what you want. You will get it shortly.  You can also ask for a list of what is available for in room.  What ever you get will be replenished when necessary.
4.  

3. Do extra spots ever open up for sea day cooking classes? That was the one day that was sold out and I thought it would be an enjoyable way to spend part of that day.      Not sure where to check on this. Hopefully someone else will help.

 

4. Is the Compass Rose open for early breakfasts on port days? We’re not certain where we would get breakfast or grab a snack prior to our booked excursions. Check Passages for daily opening times, this can change based on port.        You can request an inroom breakfast with door tag and that starts coming at 6am.  This is the easiest.  Calling for room service unless you only get coffee may take longer. Compass Rose is not for a fast breakfast.  From one days Passages I have--- There is Fitness Breakfast starting at 6:30, Coffee Connection starting at 6am and LaVeranda starting at 7am.  (Times CAN Change)

 

I am certain i will have more questions but these are the ones I woke up with this morning.

Thank you very much for sharing the dailies.

I want to book a cruise for the Colombia and Snake Rivers in Sept 2025.  I do not see a lot of info on this forum so I have some questions to ask.  We are very experienced Ocean cruisers with one European River Cruise.

I saw on cabin reviews that each cabin has a refrigerator stocked with water and beverage of your choice - does that include beer?

Is there a laundry on board or laundry service?

Does anyone have pictures and sq footage descriptions of the various cabins?

Does anyone have examples of dinner menus?

What did you like the most about the cruise and what did you like the least?

Is there room service?

If starting in Clarkson, any recommendations for hotel and additional things to do?

Are descriptions of excursion detailed enough to determine how active the excursion is?

Is there anything onboard that is not included?

Thank you ahead of time for your information

On a cruise on Navigator 2019 an issue of Passages was distributed the evening before we were to port at St. John's NL, but the Passages was for St John's, Bay of Fundy NB.  I would volunteer to proof their publications if they need help.

One last picture

The days we were went to see Mt Fuji were very hazy and you could hardly see the mountain. But now that I am home and sorting my pictures I realized I have a good picture of Mt Fuji.

IMO the excursions are easiest to read in the "Find a Cruise" for your itinerary.

Under RSSC My account (need to log on if you haven't already) you will find the times of the excursions and if any are full.  Just go through one port at a time.  Someplace I read (I think) you can sign up on line about 2 days before the cruise.  Otherwise you will need to sign up after you get on board.

I recommend picking the excursions you want and reserving them.  Any issues with them being full, you can then talk with destination services.

I started about 2 months after I could have done them, but had other priorities.

DH and I sat at next to each other at a table.  He reviewed the excursions on his lap top on the web looking at the itinerary under "Find a Cruise"  I had my I-phone to reserve them.  (I do not like printing everything out)

We could each read them for the port and then agree which one to reserve and I would make the reservation.  We only encountered one excursion we wanted that was full.  I then verified the emails I got for the reservations.

We have always thoroughly enjoyed the Navigator.  The lack of a second sink in the bathroom, for me isn't a big deal.  (We just got off the Explorer and we had two sinks in the bathroom, there isn't enough room in there for two people to be doing more than looking in the mirror)

No matter where you are on the ship, you can quickly get to your suite if you need to.

The Theater is great, with good viewing.

For us Prime 7 is the best specialty restaurant so we don't miss the other two that are on the Explorer class.

The Compass Rose is always welcoming with great food and service.

You get to know the staff quickly.

And you know you are on a ship rather than a large glitzy hotel.

The Navigator is small enough that you can leave your suite and not be confused about which way to go.

We did Cape Town to Cape Town Dec 2022, right after things opened from pandemic

If you do Victoria Falls precruise (I highly recommend it) you will fly into Johannesburg, and then fly to Cape Town the night before embarking.  All things having to do with Victoria Falls was pretty well organized.

Everything having to do with Cape Town (before and after cruise) was not very organized except the excursions to wine tasting.

• Getting to the hotel from airport from Johannesburg (flight delayed 3 hours) got us to the hotel as the employees were getting ready to leave.  Bar/restaurant closed.  Had to ask many questions to see if we could get room service, which we did get. We were told to meet our bus at 7am (we just started ignoring them after that)
• After a nice breakfast we took our time getting down to see about taking the bus to port.  It was chaos, no one to help with luggage. Just stood in the chaos until a bus was ready to load. You had to point to your luggage to get it loaded.

What I am trying to say is, while we enjoyed out pre and post trips, I am not sure how to avoid some of this chaos, unless the agencies providing this gets more organized.

We are going in March

On 5/14/2024 at 5:24 PM, teagues said:

Your story reminds me of a question that you, or perhaps another commenter, might know how to answer.  Is laundry service available on embarkation day, or do you need to wait until later in the cruise?  We have a full week on land before our Alaska cruise next month, and are trying to figure out how to handle that week of laundry, which could be either before or after transferring to the ship.  If turning it over to Regent's laundry crew would be acceptable, that would be an interesting and helpful option.

As soon as we get our luggage and meet with our steward we get our laundry ready.  Let your steward that you will have something that first night.  After that I put the laundry out and call to let him know I put some out.  And you can stuff the bags really full.

Can someone tell me the hotel used by Regent in Papeete for concierge suite?

We were also on the recent 31 day cruise from Tokyo to Vancouver.  I have a blog on this board, (and there are a couple others)

It was a great cruise with excellent service, excellent food.  Our food was always hot, but I also did some things to help in that area.  In LaVeranda I made sure I picked up a warm plate if I was serving my self, or when I special ordered eggs the food was nicely warm when served. Food in CR was always hot.

The excursions were the only area I had some complaining.  Since DH has a mobility issue we were limited in the excursions that would work for us, several of them changed levels of activity after I booked them, the change showed up when we got on board.  And a couple canceled after I had booked, and this showed up on board.  Yes, Regent is contracting with the tour agencies and the agencies were having trouble getting guides.  We did have some very good tours with good guides, but not 100%  Hopefully this will continue to get better.

We had a couple special instructions that were followed.  All of our laundry came back in wonderful shape.

If you don't like buffet, there are many ways to avoid the buffets

For breakfast order specially made eggs at the center of the buffet and the plate with  be cooked separate and brought to you.  

Check to see if compass rose or prime 7 are open for lunch.

Order from the menu at the Pool Grill.

I am amazed at how quickly they change table clothes in La Veranda, and this is more often than not.

Don't like the large portions, we have been successful in ordering smaller portions, even of the Prime 7 popcorn caramel sundae.

April 30, Tuesday, Victoria, British Columbia

Our excursion today was wine tasting at three local wineries, well we had to drive about an hour to get to them, but I guess that’s local.

The drive was pretty and the wineries were also very pretty. 

The three wineries had different styles of wine and different ways for tasting. We learned a lot about each of the wineries and the various wines. The first winery had a Pinot gris with a little carbonation, which we really enjoyed.

The second winery we went to, the tasting was conducted by the owner’s wife. She gave us very good information about the different varietals that we were tasting.

The last winery had tables set up for us outside as they brought the various wines for us to taste. 
It was an interesting and fun tasting excursion but as I looked at one of the wineries on the web, I see that they cannot ship outside of Canada.

May 1, Vancouver, British Columbia
Time to be dragged off of the Explorer.

6 AM came very early, but we were ready to vacate our suite by 8 AM. The disembarkation was delayed by 40 minutes waiting to get a clearance from some government official.

We were heading to a taxi to go to a hotel in Vancouver for the afternoon and the evening. While the driver was taking us to our hotel, he arranged for taxi to pick us up the next morning. Our original airline reservations were for noon, but they change the flight to 6 AM. 

We  got to the hotel blue, got all our luggage in and the cab left and I went to check in. They did not have our reservation. I pull out my phone with my information show it to the lady and she inform me we are at the wrong hotel.  I had told the taxi driver we were staying at the hotel blue. That is where he took us. The lady at the reception desk read my information and said I was at the wrong hotel. We were reserved with Blue Horizon Hotel.😱

We got another taxi cab and then got to the correct hotel, the Blue Horizon. Thank goodness it was not a dump.  The hotel was very nice a little millennial, but very nice

I had to call the taxi driver we had a reservation with and let him know I had been at the wrong hotel and the address of our new hotel. Have you ever had a taxi driver laugh at you on the phone?
The room was nice and comfortable. We had a late breakfast at their restaurant which was very very good. Took a nap in the late afternoon. Walked around the neighborhood and found a restaurant and bar to go in for a couple drinks and a snack. 
Our taxi driver showed up the next morning at 4 AM. We made it to the airport and had an uneventful trip back to Texas. Our car was not damaged by any hail and we drove home to Oklahoma City.  
It really was a great cruise with great crew, great food,  a great ship and great ports, We really enjoyed ourselves   

Ketchikan, April 28
We stayed on board this day, DH had a cold/allergies/something that was bothering him and we just had a relaxing day. 

We did start planning for what to put in which suitcase as we will soon be leaving the explorer.
Didn’t do any good trivia.
We went to dinner and DH got a coughing fit and couldn’t stop, so I took our two glasses of wine and we left the main dining room. Both maitre ds understood what was happening and asked what they could send  to our room to eat.

April 29 – Sea Day – Inside Passage

We slept in this morning, and DH is feeling much better
I won a game at bingo, the prize money isn’t very shabby at all. 
Through the inside passage was very relaxing the view was obstructed by some fog, but it was still very pretty with the shapes of the mountains and the trees. 

Today was the last trivia game of the cruise, the Cruise Director had been keeping track of team points on all the sea days. We were very surprised to learn that we were in the running for a winning total.  The questions were tough and we missed several but I guess not as many as other teams. We got an all around third place and weren’t we surprised. 

On our previous cruises we have asked for a bottle of wine and a bottle of calvados by email Guest Services and they were there when we arrived.  This last cruise we did the same thing and nothing was in our cabin when we got there.  We asked our steward and then next day he said he could not get the calvados, so we selected another one.

We attended an event with the head bartender during the cruise and asked him about calvados, and he said they couldn't get it any more. No further explanation.

On our way home and bring this up to date then. It was a great cruise. 

Saturday, April 27, Sitka
Great sun sunshine started off the day. The port had a couple of golf carts at seat six to take those with some mobility issues parent DH parent from the dock to the shuttle buses, a great idea.

The shuttle buses took us to a central parking lot in town. That would be easy to find when it’s time to head back to the ship.

several of us needed to go to the pharmacy, which was maybe three blocks down the sidewalk. After those errands, DH and I stopped in “. Ernie’s Saloon”, and found a table to sit at.  

Before we had a chance to order a beer, a very senior gentleman walked up to us and invited us to join him at his table, which we did. He has lived in Alaska since he got back from Korea and was a wealth of information about the area. He showed us the cut out from the local newspaper which had announced our ship in Port that day. The bar also had a very nice bar dog named George. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping for souvenirs and looking around town. There was a fantastic Russian orthodox church. We had a late lunch in a local establishment, we had fish and chips made with local freshly caught halibut. We split a lunch and still couldn’t finish it all. Just a great lunch. 

Back to the ship for trivia, not good. Ordered a small snack for our suite since  we had such a big lunch. 

Friday, April 26, Cruising Hubbard Glacier.

The pictures tell most of the story. 

It was a sunny day getting to the bay, was a very pretty sail in. The main glacier and a couple smaller ones were really interesting to see. The narrative was very informative. Apparently, later in the season you have a better chance of seeing the glacier calf. 

The ship did a 360 turn, so all definitely had a chance to see the glacier