John G

No, you can't circumnavigate on Deck 5. The Voyager has the best outdoor walking on Deck 5, and that's only about a 75% circumnavigation (you can't access the bow area, although on the deck plan that looks like it might be possible). Next in terms of desirability (to me, at least) are the Mariner and Navigator. The Explorer and Splendor (presumably; haven't sailed on that yet, and won't until next year, although its deck plan is very similar to the Explorer) have the worst.

We often walk on Deck 5 on sea days when it's too windy on the top deck.

On 5/12/2021 at 8:37 PM, Pcardad said:

I vote for Debtor...

Just as long as they don't have to call her Bankruptor . . .  😀

3 hours ago, SusieQft said:

I am thinking about booking flights for Navigator, Miami to New York in May 2021.  I am guessing maybe there is a 50% or less chance it will sail, but the current booking terms allow no penalty cancellations.  I am not in a Gateway City, so the cost of doing it through Regent is much more than I can do on my own, especially since I plan to use miles.  But I have a question about what airports to choose.

 

I assume that when my itinerary says Miami, that means Miami and not Port Everglades.  Is that a safe assumption?

 

We end up in New York, but I have no idea where the port would be or which airport would be the closest or easiest.  Right now the flight options out of EWR look slightly better than JFK or LGA, but I could go with any of those.  I am looking at flights leaving just after 2 pm from any of the three, connecting through ORD.  I could instead get a nonstop flight out of JFK at 11 am, but that sounds like it would be cutting things a bit too close.  Any advice?

 

I assume that Regent offers disembarkation transfers for a price for those not booked on Regent Air.  Do they stage you at a hotel somewhere with snacks and beverages available, or just take you straight to the airport?

I’ve cruised into NYC twice. Both times RSSC used the Manhattan Cruise Terminal on the west side of Manhattan, at about 53rd Street.

Although La Guardia is the closest airport in terms of distance, if you’re arriving on a weekday morning, Newark is what I would recommend (and in fact is the airport I used). Traffic can really get tied up going to La Guardia, whereas it’s usually not too bad going to Jersey in the mornings.  I’d especially use Newark if you’re connecting through ORD – in the past Newark used to have hourly flights to ORD, so if you do miss a flight it’d be easier to get another (don’t know what the schedules are like now, though).

You can usually just get a cab right outside the terminal (that’s what I’ve done). Or call for a Lyft or Uber. Or order a car service. Regent usually offers transfers that you can purchase, but typically those are just a bus. BTW, Regent’s transfers tend to be pricey; if there are two of you, it would probably be cheaper to book a car service.

35 minutes ago, UUNetBill said:

Not me.  Here's my 20/21 cruise wear:

 

Bet Regent will provide these for "free." We'll probably find them in our cabins, hanging in the closet right next to our bath robes and slippers.

41 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

The whole water thing on Hurtigruten is ridiculous.  When I was seriously contemplating doing one in 2018, I was following the discussions about the water thing.  Did you get a carafe of free water on your dining table or not?   . . .

I think advertising for most of the cruise lines borders on the ridiculous. Regent, not to be outdone – after all, they’re the most inclusive line! – joins in the fun and also touts free water in the cabins:

" . . . in your suite, your mini-bar is replenished daily with soft drinks, beer and bottled water — all complimentary."

(Source: https://www.rssc.com/experience/all-included# under the "Free Open Bars and Lounges" tab)

Yeah yeah yeah, not quite the same deal as with Hurtigruten, but awfully close.

1 hour ago, Travelcat2 said:

 

. . . some of us believe that the U.K. is doing better than anyone else in terms of development of a vaccine. They are quite far ahead of the U.S.  It is possible that you are correct but Oxford was in human trials before the U.S. even began animal testing.  

 

Many of the vaccines being developed have international teams working on them. Including the Oxford effort. In fact, the animal testing for this was done in the US. Alas, with mixed results as  detailed in this newspaper article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/doubts-oxford-vaccine-fails-stop-coronavirus-animal-trials/ 

BTW, there are human trials going on in the US, including this one in Seattle: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-investigational-vaccine-covid-19-begins

28 minutes ago, greykitty said:

I'd have to listen again, but did you mean when he talked about load factors?

 

“We’ve got the youngest fleet in the marketplace. Customers are still booking,” he explained. “It’s hard to believe ... but today we are only slightly below in load factors compared to where we were at this time last year for ... 2021 sailings. So our loyal guests are still behind us, pricing remains strong and it’s a question of how soon we can get back to doing what we do best.”

 

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/norwegian-cruise-line-ceo-we-expect-to-sail-sometime-in-2020.html

Thanks for the link to the interview!

Actually, I believed he said they led the industry in ticket yield and onboard revenue yield. In other words, they extract more cash from passengers than other cruise lines.

I found it interest that he said NCLH did have cases of Covid-19 onboard some of their ships (very few, but still some). I thought I had read on these boards they didn’t have any, but maybe that was just that Regent didn’t have any.

The Voyager is now sailing to Mumbai.

On 11/14/2019 at 2:54 PM, JerryAM said:

1.  Is there a particular evening that the pool deck BBQ is held?  It looks like fun, so I don't want to schedule a specialty restaurant that night.

 

I'm pretty sure that on nights when they have a deck party that all of the specialty restaurants are closed (La Veranda, too).  Compass Rose is open, but they close the other restaurants to allow those servers to help out on the pool deck.

This has been such a fun trip report. Thanks for taking the time. We were actually booked on this cruise, but about two weeks before we were to leave home, Regent got in touch with our travel agent and offered us a really attractive incentive (they substituted a more expensive cruise for the same price, plus offered us some cash) not to take this trip (apparently they were oversold on this cruise). We'll definitely be booking this at a future date — in particular we want to see Luxor and Petra.

Loved all the pictures and detail you provided! Felt as if I was there.

Sorry about some of the confusion with my post.

To clarify, if your trip does not begin or end in one of the Regent gateway cities, they charge you $124.50 each way ($249 round trip) for Regent air. The rationale is that flights tend to be more complicated/expensive from these cities. St. Louis isn't a Regent gateway city, so in order to access their air program — the "free" air — we have to pay this fee.

In addition to that, we were charged the $175 deviation fee (which covered both the outbound and return flights).

In addition to that, we were charged $350 each air differential fee on our outbound flight. This is because Regent didn't have contracts with the airline to fly the routes we wanted to fly. We could have avoided this fee if we selected different flights, but we would have had two plane changes, which we didn't want to endure.

We did look at booking our own flights, but even with the additional fees, Regent's flight were cheaper.

Hope that helps!

This has been a great thread – I’ve learned a lot from reading it. I’d like to provide details of our air deviation on our upcoming Barcelona to Dubai cruise in case the info is helpful to others.

We fly out of St. Louis, which means we’re always flying through another city to fly overseas – international flights from St. Louis just don’t exist. And because we’re not a Regent air gateway city, we always pay the $124.50 per person fee to access Regent’s air program (that charge is each way; so a for round trip air the charge is $249).

Our criteria in selecting flights is convenience, then comfort. We want to minimize the number of flight legs and plane changes. And we want to minimize the total time the trip takes. In terms of comfort, we’d like to fly first class on the domestic leg of the trip if possible (and at no extra charge).

Flying to Barcelona we are flying Delta through Atlanta. There is a $350/person air differential fee in order to select this routing. We submitted other routes through other cities (flying on American), and Regent’s air deviation desk told us the air differential fee would be even more. In order to avoid an air differential fee, we’d have to accept a route with at least two plane changes. We didn’t ask what that route was, but we’re guessing that would have been St. Louis to an east coast city; change planes and fly to London or Frankfurt; change again and fly to Barcelona. But this is a guess – the idea of this was so unappealing we didn’t even ask what the routing would be.

Returning from Dubai, we’re flying Air Canada. Air Canada has flights from Dubai to Toronto three times a week. Our ship docks in Dubai on a Friday, and we are scheduled to disembark on Saturday. The Air Canada flight leaves Dubai shortly before midnight on Friday (they don't have a Saturday flight). So we’re going to leave the ship after dinner on Friday to take that flight. This flight is about 14 hours, which is long. But once we land in Toronto, we can catch a nonstop flight to St. Louis. So again, only one change of planes. BTW, because we’re leaving earlier than the official disembarkment time (even if only by a few hours), we’re responsible for arranging our own transportation from the ship to the airport – even though Regent is handling the air for us. Not a big deal as far as we’re concerned, but something to be aware of.

Our experience flying with Regent-arranged air is that when we fly on Delta or American, we often are given first class on the domestic portion of flights with international destinations. It’s largely an equipment issue – those two airlines have a lot of planes with first class cabins that fly through St. Louis, whereas some of the other airlines that Regent uses (United, for example) typically use smaller, regional jets. In the case of this trip, we were given first class seat assignments flying to Atlanta; but flying from Toronto to St. Louis on Air Canada we’re flying coach (it’s a smaller plane, and has only coach seats).

To sum up, we’re pretty happy with most of our flights and the equipment we’re flying on. And very glad we deviated – we would not have been happy having two plane changes flying to Barcelona, and suspect we’d have had at least two planes changes returning from Dubai had we let Regent select our flights (again, flying to/from our home airport can be a challenge). This is the first time we’ve deviated, and it’s a very easy process. I suspect in the future we’ll always  deviate.

On 9/23/2019 at 4:23 PM, mrstanley said:

Has anyone had Regent charge them an extra fee for flying Delta through Atlanta? I was told by my TA that it could be

a $1,000 charge. 

We'll be flying through Atlanta in about a month (St. Louis to Barcelona). We are paying the deviation fee to select our flights. In our case we're flying Delta — and we are required to pay a $350/per person air differential fee.

When we requested deviation we submitted additional air routing choices through other cities (flying on American), and in those cases the air differential fee would have been quite a bit more.

We don't know what airlines and which city we would have flown through if Regent had arranged the flights on their own, but the air deviation people told our travel agent that we would have had to accept at least two plane changes if we wanted to avoid an air differential fee. We're guessing we would have flown from St. Louis to an east coast city; changed planes and flown to London or Frankfurt; and then changed planes again and on to Barcelona. But of course we don't know that.

A couple of years ago we took a cruise out of Southampton and did not deviate. Regent selected a Delta flight to Atlanta; then Virgin Atlantic to London Heathrow. BTW, the domestic portion of the flight (Delta) for that trip and our upcoming trip were both booked in first class without an additional charge to us.

Hope this info is useful.

No idea what her status is, but the MarineTraffic.com site shows she's in the water at the yard where she's being built: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:13.502/centery:43.625/zoom:15

Here's a screenshot:

Here's a link to classes that may be offered: https://www.rssc.com/ships/seven_seas_explorer/culinaryartskitchen

I believe classes are only on the Explorer at the moment. Your travel agent should be able to help you book (or just call Regent).

Scroll down to post #9 to see a picture of the "pole": https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/1701919-pictures-rssc-navigator-stateroom-601/?tab=comments#comment-35556600 

Don't know if this is the overnight tour to Bangkok that you're thinking of, but they are offering one: https://www.rssc.com/cruises/VOY191206/land-hotel/ashore#tabs

Edited to add: You should book all Regent overland tours through your travel agent (pre- and post-cruise tours, too).

We’ve sailed on all four ships: Mariner and Navigator multiple times, Voyager and Explorer once each. We haven’t been on the three older ships since they’ve undergone fairly extensive dry docks in the past 2 or so years, but we’ll be on the Mariner later this year and are looking forward to seeing the updates.

Our preference, in order, is Mariner first by a fairly wide margin. Voyager and Explorer are very close together, with Voyager getting the nod as second. Navigator is a slightly distant fourth, although it has a quirky charm of its own and we wouldn’t hesitate to sail on her if the itinerary was right.

We are happy sailing in basic suites (the categories below penthouse level). The best basic suites are on the Voyager and Navigator, although in both ships—Navigator in particular—you have to be careful of where your suite is located (mainly because of vibration issues). But the layout is excellent, and we wish those suites were on the Mariner and Explorer.

Many people complain about the size of the Mariner’s suites, and we do wish they were about one foot wider. The sitting area is fine, and the general layout is quite good; but the space between the foot of the bed and the wall opposite it is rather narrow, and a bit difficult to navigate. In the scheme of things that’s a pretty minor niggle. But it’s because of that niggle that we prefer the suites on the Voyager and Navigator.

On our single Explorer sailing we were in a G-level suite, which has a similar layout to the Mariner’s basic suites. We liked the suite. Our only issue was the TV was mounted on the wall opposite the bed. Because these suites, like those on the Mariner, have a narrow space between the foot of the bed and the opposite wall, adding the TV to the mix makes a narrow space still narrower. Because we don’t watch TV in bed we also found the placement strange. But all of this is minor stuff. If we ever sail the Explorer again we may select an itinerary where (for us) a Concierge-level suite makes sense, to see if we like that layout (we know many people do, although we have reservations about it—locating the desk in the bedroom area seems an odd choice).

The Mariner has by far the best public spaces in the fleet. The Navigator has the worst. Although some of the public space in the Explorer is very good—we particularly like deck 5—we rate the Voyager higher than the Explorer. The lack of an outside viewing area facing forward on the Explorer (deck 12) is a deficiency (but there are itineraries where this wouldn’t be much of an issue). The lack of a Horizon lounge on the Explorer is also a negative to us.

But we’re itinerary driven when it comes to selecting cruises, and would be happy to sail on any of the four (soon to be five) ships.

I usually save the big yearly Regent catalogs that list all the voyages for each ship for the period of a year or more. It’s a handy reference. I looked up this voyage, and originally business air was included for all suite categories from Tahiti to the US (regular coach air from the US to Hawaii; or you could forgo air altogether and get a $3000 credit).

The last time Regent did their quarterly fare adjustment, they actually lowered the price of the cruise a bit. And added a 3 category upgrade. But dropped the included business air, and made all air coach only (and because of this, reduced the air credit to $2000).

So although you pay less now than if you booked this cruise when it was first offered, you’re getting less value (much less value IMO because I wouldn’t fly coach from Tahiti to the US). Basically a stealth fare increase. I have no problem with fare increases (I wish they wouldn’t do it, but I understand the business reasons why they do), but wish they wouldn’t play these games.

I also just wondered - I'm sure they'll have a huge 'look-at-me' suite (Regent suite) on Splendor (ugh, I still can't type that name and be happy about it) - will they call it the Regent suite? Or Regent 2 suite? Or the Splendor Splendid suite? There are suite names that span the line (Master, Seven Seas, Grand, etc.), and some that are ship specific (Explorer, Mariner, etc.) - wonder what they'll do with the Regent suite? Hmmmm...

I'm guessing they'll call it the Splendor Spender Suite. :rolleyes:

My favorite is the Mariner. Best public spaces of any of the Regent ships (by quite a lot, IMO). Has the smoothest sailing motion in the fleet (although Explorer is rather nice, too). Good cabins, although the base cabins could use another half foot or even a foot in width (the space between the base of the bed and the wall is a squeeze). Biggest weakness is the gym – just too small (the Navigator also shares this problem).

I’d be happy on any of the Regent ships and we select a cruise because of the itinerary and not the ship. But given my druthers, I’d choose the Mariner all the time.

Just about every cruise we go on my wife gets a cold which turns into bronchitis and lasts from 4 to 10 weeks, I rarely catch anything and if I do it only lasts a few days at most, it’s a real problem but we love cruising maybe I’ll get her a hazmat suit to wear during the cruises LOL

 

 

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Rumor has it that starting in 2018 hazmat suits and masks will be a new benefit for those booked in suites that are concierge-level and above. :D

Although I think some sort of goodwill gesture by RSSC would be appropriate for those who booked suites 1407 and 1408, their brochure does specifically say things in the brochure are subject to change. I just pulled out the white brochure announcing the Explorer, and on the terms and conditions page the first sentence reads “Information contained in this brochure is not an offer or a contract.” Later in the terms and conditions there’s a section titled ”Notice” that says “While Regent Seven Seas Cruises makes every effort to adhere to the specifics shown in this brochure, circumstances may require otherwise. All information contained herein is subject to change without notice at the discretion of Regent Seven Seas Cruises.”

I’d be disappointed too if I had booked one of those cabins. Probably not enough to cancel a cruise, but that’s me.

Link to an interview with Frank Del Rio discussing Cuba as a cruising destination: http://miami.cbslocal.com/video/11107159-new-cruise-ceo-awaits-dream-cruise-to-cuba/

Says he has "itineraries in my upper right-hand drawer ready to go. People want to go to Cuba."

Certainly a place I'd love to visit!

Carlson changed the name from Radisson to Regent in 2006, I believe. As I recall their reasoning was that Regent hotels were better identified as a luxury brand than the Radisson chain.