labonnevie

The hits keep coming… Our revised itinerary had 10 ports in 21 days. Port one, Dikili, Turkey scheduled for today, has been scrubbed. High winds is the designated reason, although they don’t seem that bad now. At any rate, we are now down to 9 ports in 21 days. 😕

Night one on board, received a letter under signature of ADM. To paraphrase: Understanding there might be some disappointment with the itinerary changes (no 3 days in Israel, no Petra, no Cairo, no Cypress or Crete, no 3 stops in Oman)…how could anyone be disappointed(?) we will provide $500 per cabin OBC and double your Regent nights for this cruise, 21 to 42. Whoppee! What a fabulous gesture of customer empathy! Net, net Regent does not value our business enough to try to make a bad situation somewhat better with a reasonable offer of FCC, 25%, 50%… Regent has shown my its true colors. Now it’s up to me to decide if I ever want to consider cruising with them again. Tonight I would say no.

Apparently, Lorraine has replaced Ray as CD. 😕

Just received the following: Dear Valued Guest and Travel Partner, We would like to inform you of a change to your scheduled itinerary. As the safety and security of our guests and crew are our top priorities, in an abundance of caution we are amending our 2023 voyages that were scheduled to sail to Jordan and Oman. To accommodate these changes on your upcoming sailing, Seven Seas Navigator’s scheduled calls to Santorini, Greece; Iraklion, Greece; Rhodes, Greece; Limassol, Cyprus; Aqaba, Jordan; Salalah, Oman; Muscat, Oman; and Khasab, Oman have been canceled. The ship will now sail to Athens (Piraeus), Greece; Gythion, Greece; Corfu, Greece; Kotor, Montenegro; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Argostoli, Greece; Luxor (Safaga), Egypt; and Dubai, UAE on November 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23 and 30 respectively. Please note that as part of the changes, the visit to Luxor (Safaga), Egypt is no longer an overnight call. Any guest with a “Renowned Relics: Luxor & Pyramids” or “The Jewels of Luxor” overland tour reservation will be automatically refunded within 30 days. The modified itinerary is below: Date Port Arrive Depart 10-Nov Istanbul, Turkey Embark 6:00PM 11-Nov Pergamum (Dikili), Turkey 10:00AM 7:00PM 12-Nov Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey 8:00AM 6:00PM 13-Nov Mykonos, Greece 8:00AM 6:00PM 14-Nov Piraeus (Athens), Greece 7:00AM 8:00PM 15-Nov Gythion, Greece 7:00AM 4:00PM 16-Nov Corfu, Greece 11:00AM 6:00PM 17-Nov Kotor, Montenegro 8:00AM 5:00PM 18-Nov Dubrovnik, Croatia 7:00AM 3:00PM 19-Nov Argostoli, Greece 11:30AM 5:30PM 20-Nov At Sea --- --- 21-Nov Port Said, Egypt (TECHNICAL CALL) --- --- 22-Nov Suez Canal --- --- 23-Nov Luxor (Safaga), Egypt 6:00AM 10:00PM 24-Nov At Sea --- --- 25-Nov At Sea --- --- 26-Nov At Sea --- --- 27-Nov At Sea --- --- 28-Nov At Sea --- --- 29-Nov At Sea --- --- 30-Nov Dubai, UAE 6:00PM --- 1-Dec Dubai, UAE --- Debark RSSC.com will be updated shortly to reflect the updated itinerary. Shore excursions in the new ports will be available to reserve through our Destination Desk onboard. We appreciate your understanding during this fluid situation. We will continue to closely monitor the situation being reported in Israel and specific areas in the wider region and have the flexibility to alter our itineraries to avoid areas of concern should the need occur. If you have any questions, please contact your Travel Advisor or Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Reservation Department at the phone numbers below. We look forward to welcoming you aboard Seven Seas Navigator. Sincerely OUCH!!! No Petra, no Pyramids, no Oman... We will see how Regent handles this. While I knew some of this could happen, I am in a state of shock right now.

Flossie, one last question. Have there been officer/staff hosted tables on your cruise? Thanks again and safe travels.

Flossie, always enjoy your posts. Any chance you could ask Luke/Ray what their assessment is of the likelihood of Navigator stopping at the scheduled ports in the Red Sea: Aqaba and Safaga in mid-November? Asking for a friend...

You’re not forced to go on the tours. You could easily stop in for breakfast and go your own way afterwards, or even skip the breakfast entirely. You would get transport from the airport to the hotel and transport to the ship which would include some touring.

In retrospect, I think we should have chosen the Tokyo and Hakone tour versus the Vibrant Tokyo tour that we took in April.

In April, both the Japanese and Chinese restaurants in the Hilton were very good. Not inexpensive,but very good. There are numerous smaller restaurants in the area, many beneath the tall office buildings. However, they can sometimes be difficult to find as we did not have Japanese cell service and couldn’t use Google maps underground.

We haven’t brought one home from the past several cruises. Our favorite one that we use every cruise is from AMA Waterways, with a nice zipper and an inside zip pocket. Not too large and it can even convert into a backpack.

Pleeease, no more tote bags!!! We’ll need a bigger house!

Update to my previous post, I am happy to report I was wrong. The cruise ship schedule for Santorini does NOT show another ship in port on November 14th! How nice would that be!

Is there a rollout schedule for the other ships that you can share?

How is she looking? Is Ray the cd? We get on November 10🤞

Actually, it appears there will be at least one other much larger ship with us in each of the Greek ports. 😒

The email states “The modified portion of the itinerary…”

Just received the following re: our Nov 10 Navigator cruise. Safaga, Egypt is still unchanged, for now. As a result of the tragic events currently taking place in Israel, we have made the decision to cancel Seven Sea Navigator’s scheduled calls to Jerusalem (Haifa) on November 15 and 16 and Jerusalem (Ashdod) on November 17. To accommodate this change, the ship will now sail to the beautiful Greek destinations of Mykonos, Santorini, Heraklion and Rhodes on November 13, 14, 15 and 16, before visiting Limassol, Cyprus on November 17. The modified portion of the itinerary is below: Date Port Arrive Depart 10-Nov Istanbul, Turkey Embark 6:00PM 11-Nov Pergamum (Dikili), Turkey 10:00AM 7:00PM 12-Nov Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey 7:30AM 5:00PM 13-Nov Mykonos, Greece 8:00AM 6:00PM 14-Nov Santorini, Greece 8:00AM 6:00PM 15-Nov Heraklion (Crete), Greece 8:00AM 6:00PM 16-Nov Rhodes, Greece 7:00AM 4:00PM 17-Nov Limassol, Cyprus 10:00AM 6:30PM 18-Nov Port Said, Egypt (TECHNICAL CALL) 9:30PM 11:59PM 19-Nov Suez Canal --- --- 20-Nov Aqaba, Jordan 7:00AM 8:00PM RSSC.com will be updated shortly to reflect the updated itinerary. Shore excursions in the new ports will be available to reserve online from October 24. The safety and security of our guests, crew and the communities we visit is always our top priority and we appreciate your understanding during this fluid situation. We will continue to closely monitor the situation being reported in Israel and specific areas in the wider region, and have the flexibility to alter our itineraries to avoid areas of concern should the need occur.

Glad you made it, enjoy every minute. One question please. We have heard that taxi drop off at the new Galataport is a looong way from the ship. As we have some mobility issues, is this true and how far/bad is it. Are there porters and/or wheelchairs available? Also, while in Istanbul, did you need to use Turkish lira everywhere? Could you tip in euros or usd? Thank you and again enjoy, you deserve it!

Regent had us at the Shangri La in Singapore in 2018 post cruise. A bit of a distance from the main sights, but a really excellent hotel.

We are on this November 10 cruise. Of course we can't go to Israel. We are watching the Voyager cruise closely to see what they do. If they successfully go to Egypt for two days as planned, I would like Regent to replace two of our three scheduled Israel days with two days in Port Said or Alexandria giving us an opportunity to have a really good visit to the Pyramids/Sphinx and the museums in that country. At this point, I am not afraid of going to Egypt, I was expecting armed guards to visit Luxor anyway. We also are on the overland to Luxor/Cairo, but they could cancel that and give us two days in Luxor instead and I would be fine with that (refunding the difference of the overland costs for the two trips). That would just leave one day to fill and a stop at Crete or another island in the Med would be ok with me. I understand YMMV.

We were told we couldn’t get off because the Lloyd’s of London divers could clear the ship at any time and they didn’t want to wait for any passengers to return before getting under way. Maybe because you were WC and we weren’t or maybe because you just went to the terminal or maybe we didn’t talk to the right people???

In 2018, we were on Navigator, Perth to Singapore (part of the WC). After skipping a port in Australia, we ran aground leaving Bali. Had to eventually return to port, stuck there for 36 hours, couldn’t get off the ship. As a result we missed Borobudur and were late to another port, canceling most excursions there. We were not happy. What did Regent do? They gave everyone a fcc for 25% of the fare we had paid. We were happy customers.

I think I will try to change my expectations for cruising in the future. I will cruise expecting to sit by the pool (weather permitting), play trivia daily, have a before dinner drink and (usually) good to excellent food. I will also expect to see the ocean most days. (I can do most of this in Laguna Beach.) If by some chance we happen to get into a few ports, regardless of where they are, my expectations will have been exceeded. I can only hope that the cruise fares I pay are somewhat less than those previously.

We have taken over 20 cruises, so we understand missed ports all too well. However, it is hard to say that we would have signed up for this cruise if it did not include Israel and Egypt. We have been to Istanbul, Ephesus and Rhodes. There are already 7 sea days of 21 and we have been to most of the Med ports. The ports are not the only reason for the cruise, of course, but if we just wanted to cruise we wouldn't have to travel to the middle east to do so. We generally pick our cruises based on where we want to go. We love Regent (although the Navigator not so much - yes, we know many love her). Hopefully we can still get to Petra, Luxor, etc. This is our fourth attempt at this cruise and we are just frustrated. And yes, we are very mindful these are all first world problems and that Israel is fighting for its very survival and their people have lost so much.