labonnevie

I was referring to a tour we took from Warnemunde/Rostock to Berlin from the Navigator way back in 2006. It was our only visit to Berlin and made for a very long day, bus ride was about 3 hours each way. But the tour was excellent, saw a lot; Brandenburg gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag, pieces of the Berlin Wall, several war memorials and many other sights. Also had a fun lunch. Would do it again.

Still worth it, IMHO.

Keep in mind that when you download each ports tours from the website, these are tours that have been previously offered for that port. For our cruise (see above post) when the final tours were posted, there were some additions and some deletions.

For our Navigator cruise next November (Istanbul to Dubai), the link to download all excursions wasn’t available until two days before we could reserve tours, one year out. Then suddenly it appeared. So if your cruise is a bit more than a year out, you may or may not be able to find the link.

I too dressed mostly in suits throughout my work life. That is now 18 years ago. We live in Southern California and most of the restaurants we go to are casual. While other customers may wear jeans, T shirts and hats on backwards, I still don’t wear jeans to them. Dockers or other casual slacks with a nice short sleeve shirt just look better, imho. And I feel better as well. When we cruise, I frankly look forward to the slightly more formal dress for dinner, especially “formal optional “ nights. I really enjoy trying to compliment my wife, who always dresses well and looks great, by looking my best as well. It’s just part of making a luxury cruise really special for us.

Now that jeans are allowed, it presents a whole other set of dressing for dinner problems. Which of my treasure trove of T shirts best match which of my jeans…

If you can get a ferry to Watson’s Bay, highly recommend getting off for lunch at Doyle’s which is right on the beach looking all the way back to the bridge. Fun trip and we enjoyed the food as well. Restaurant is right next to the ferry pier.

Upon further review, this was one of the old locks...sorry for the misinformation.

Mostly true, although this catamaran was entering the new locks at Miraflores.

Don't know how much it varies but the Explorer (sister ship) used the old locks in January.

We are actually on the cruise prior to yours, but the website shows the same hotel(s), Keio Plaza for pre-cruise stays (quite pricey) and Tokyo Hilton for the Vibrant Tokyo pre-cruise tour package. I was surprised to see availablity for several categories on both cruises, we did not clear the waitlist until mid-August. Also, the flight credit for your cruise is $5500 while ours has increased from $5500 to $6000 - Regent fares have increased more than that for our cruise. As for your last comment, I hope you are correct, but I wonder. I thought that in the past passengers making their own flight arrangements had to arrange their own tranfers, although, to be honest, I don't think we have ever used a Regent pre-cruise program before. We have supplied our flight information to Regent.

Just wondering what it would be like to be on a cruise with two service dogs, or three or five or…. Each just sitting on only one chair in Seabourn Square and each just defecating once in a public area…

For our April Explorer Tokyo to Tokyo cruise the pre-cruise program hotel is shown as the Tokyo Hilton.

Can also suggest that in ports where Regent offers them, the small group tours work well. Max of 16 people, the slight extra charge is worth it IMHO

If you stop in Akaroa, NZ, highly recommend the Scenic Mail Run (not a Regent tour). So much fun, it was a real highlight for us. https://akaroamailrun.com/

Our November 10, 2023 Navigator cruise Istanbul to Dubai did not have the excursions pdf file available until two days before the tours opened for booking, 365 days out. The tours listed by port prior to the pdf being available were pretty close but not exactly what wound up being offered.

FWIW, on warm weather cruises, I often wear short sleeve higher end silk shirts or short sleeve high end Hawaiian shirts (subdued, not garish) for dinner. Although I have a couple, I find it hard to find long sleeve resort wear shirts with a warm weather look/feel. I would not wear a polo or golf shirt to dinner.

On the Explorer this January, we had a shrimp tempura appetizer that was really fantastic. Also had a duck entrée that was so tough it was literally inedible, I had to send it back and order another main. We will be interested to see if PR ups their game for our Explorer cruise in Japan this April.

@Mike Moore Mike, another issue you may be able to help solve. Navigator, November 10, 2023 Istanbul to Dubai is supposed to open for shore excursions reservations this Thursday at 8 PM EST. However, the shore excursions pdf file is not available on the website for download. Could you please look into this? Thank you for all of your support to CC posters.

Would love to hear from anyone on board the Explorer currently sailing from Istanbul to Dubai. We are on this cruise next November. Would appreciate anything about ports, pre cruise, tours etc. Not so much the ship itself as we have been on Explorer and will be on Navigator for this cruise. Thanks

Presume SC means South Carolina. I would think your TA would be able to answer any of these questions, but I would be interested in the answers as we do Istanbul to Dubai in November 2023 on Regent. Also Regent Explorer left Istanbul on 10/31 for Dubai, so maybe someone on board now can answer.

Awesome! Now I can finally get my favorite punk rock and rap onboard!!!😜

Even worse, we were on a cruise once that had no limes!!! And even worse than that, it was true, we tried every bar on board...repeatedly!

FWIW, we have learned (and I totally agree this should not be necessary) on both Regent and Seabourn (have been on both this year as well as many times in the past) to ask for a printed included wines list to be sent to our cabin shortly after boarding. We usually seek out a head sommelier in one of the restaurants for this purpose. Usually we get it before the first dinner. If not we will ask for a specific region/wine such as Marlborough Sauvignon blanc or Napa Cabernet, etc. We typically find three or four wines we like and stick with them. We also find the sommeliers in the specialty restaurants are very helpful and often go to one of them early in the cruise and seek out their ideas on included wines. Doesn’t always work perfectly as on our most recent Seabourn cruise several of the included wines were unavailable and there were included wines not on the printed list.

I would be interested in what the senior F & B staff or Hotel Director had to say about this. Can jeans and t shirts be far off?