Dolebludger

For those who haven’t cruised Regent in Alaska recently, Regent - provided hotel and land transfers are far from great. Even before the embarkation port change, Regent’s hotel (Anchorage Hilton) is to be avoided. And the transportation to Seward (when that was the port) is by crowded and cramped bus which may or may not run on time. Most people who would cruise Regent would prefer to book at a small boutique hotel and arrange transport by train, which is a comfortable and scenic ride. So most people just take the credit for the hotel and transport, and I’m sure it knows that. It also knows that changing the embarkation port three weeks before sailing would cost its guests money and inconvenience. Very sad.

We are only well into the gold SSS level, but even that means we have cruised Regent a lot. I am glad that you brought fare increases into the discussion, as well as service unreliability post pandemic. Surely, at current RSSC fares, it should be able to provide pre-pandemic service and reliability. But the case in this thread is a bit more severe than the Iceland and Barbados messes that preceded it. In those earlier cases, Regent was (arguably) protected by its self serving TC. But in this case, Regent is in blatant violation of its own TC (see post#8 above). Now, Regent is protected only by the part of the TC that limits suits against it to Florida courts — and most of us don’t live there! But this case remains the most unforgivable of all similar situations. So unless Regent does some corrections, we’ve had our last Regent cruise.

Actually, problems (contract breaches?) by cruise lines (and all in the hospitality industry) are not confined to Regent. We live in a tourist town (Durango Colorado) and services for these tourists have not recovered from the pandemic. It is hard to find a restaurant open regular hours. Hotel services are still limited. I doubt that we will have the tourist influx next summer (good in a way, because we are not dependent on tourist revenue). So Regent’s shortcomings are merely a part of an industry wide problem. Thus, my travel will be confined to a one day driving range from where I live until the whole tourist industry “shapes up”. Fortunately for us, that includes many great areas.

I don’t think anybody posting here wants to lose confidence in Regent. But, at some point, it becomes impossible to ignore the events others post here. Do I believe the posts? Yes, because several people post about the same problem, and many posters have posted here for a long time. And, you just can’t make this stuff up!

I did a bit of research, and learned that HAL uses Whittier, AK as an embarkation and final destination port on some of their AK cruises. I don’t know how it handles the logistics. But it even offers shore excursions there. I can’t fully describe how disappointed I am when I read stories like this about Regent. I have recommended it to so many, and wish it were possible to contact them all and retract. We just returned from the Splendor’s London to London. No major problem, but not quite the experience it once was. When we booked it, there was an extra cost bus tour to and from Paris, which was cancelled last minute. Many were very disappointed, understandably. The cost was refunded and the reason was given. I checked it out and the reason was valid, but it did indicate poor planning by Regent. We are not upset, for the sole reason that in reviewing that excursion’s details more completely than when we booked it, we realized that it involved too many hours on a crowded bus, and we shouldn’t have booked it in the first place. Paris was not a prime reason we booked the cruise, but it was for others. But now, Regent is changing embarkation port with no given reason, and neglecting to live up to its contractural duty to provide transport to the new port. If there is no report of its handling of this situation properly, it will be a cold day in you-know-where when we cruise it again.

Read post #8 above. Regent’s right to change ports with no responsibility does not apply to embarkation and final destination ports.

Just a guess, but Regent may use the Anchorage Hilton for this package and bus the guests to Whittier. In the past, Regent used this hotel as long ago as 2002 and as recently as last year. However, this may not be the end of the problem. Guest ratings of this hotel on TripAdvisor and here on CC have been pretty dismal. And there really aren’t sufficient hotel rooms in Anchorage to accommodate guests who do not have this package. And Whittier is a tiny town with a population of 272 in warm months and 220 in the winter. Not many (if any) hotel rooms there. I hope the OP will report here on how this mess turns out. My casual observation is that the entire hospitality industry has not fully recovered from the pandemic — and this includes Regent and others with whom it contracts. We are lucky in that our two post-pandemic Regent cruises were free of problems that we felt were major. But others haven’t been lucky, and luck can run out. We are locked in to 0 cruises at the moment, and will stay that way until Regent (and similar lines) return to the seamless experiences of the past.

Flying with a small dog for a fairly short time In an approved carrier poses far fewer problems than having such a dog on a ship for a longer period. If you take your dog on a Cunard crossing (allowed), you’ll find that it is locked in a kennel most of the time. No fun for the human — and especially the dog. Also, I train my dogs to go outside and “do their business”. On a cruise ship, there is no outside.

Typo! And I don’t think any service crew was added. They were a bit disjointed at the start, but improved quickly. Also, the toilet is still working. I was told it was a vacuum system problem.

Yes, we are on the 8/12 to 8/20 London to London cruise right now. The CD is Natalie, and seems to be doing a great job.

As this is a cruise of WWII sites, the TV on the Splendor does offer a good selection of WWII movies.

The service staffing matter has greatly improved. But another matter has emerged. Our suite’s toilet refused to flush this morning. We reported it, and it was fixed — for a while — and then refused to flush again. Several hours later, it’s still working, so fingers crossed. Our CD is Natalie (haven’t found the last name). I also can’t find out how long she will be on this ship. Everything under the CD direction has been great.

My “training cruise” statement was made in humor. I may have missed the mark!

John. We flew with only one connection in Denver, we go back the same way. We booked through Regent with deviation. Hotel was fine, and Diet Coke was delivered.

Well, we boarded the Splendor on 08/12 2024. There was no problem with protesters. But onboard there have been some. It is now night, and we have yet to have our mini fridge set up as we requested. Dining in the Compass Rose, we weren’t shown the dessert menu. I have spoken to several members of the service crew. For many it is their first cruise. Is that what I paid for?

We have just boarded this cruise. There were problems apparent from lack of staffing,— not with the service personnel here, just because it seems they have two few service personnel. First evening in the Compass rose, nobody was around to show us the desert menus. Also, upon boarding, we asked our room steward to bringing us some beer and Diet Coke. Now in the evening, the fridge has not been refreshed and serviced. Many of the service personnel have told us thar this is their first time. Shouldn’t we get a discount for taking a training cruise?

We are in London right now and will board the Splendor tomorrow. We’ve here since yesterday. And apparently no violent protests have reached here. Hope it stays that way.

Never heard of a problem like this before, with Regent. I wouldn’t “deal with it” absent pre-information about the charge and the chance to back out.

Thanks all, I’ll check these places out!

We are going on this one, and spending two nights at JW Marriott Governsor (sp?) hotel pre boarding. My question is about restaurants/pubs in the area. We are not into fancy dining. We are interested in pub food where locals go. We will have all the up scale dining we want while onboard the Splendor (we hope). So we are asking here about restaurant/pubs in walking distance from this hotel where the locals go. Any advice?

Yes, to see if I was becoming senile (a possibility at my age) I looked up the stats for Voyager and Splendor. I found that the Splendor IS significantly larger than Voyager. Gross tonnage (a measure of interior space) is 42K for Voyager and 56K for the Splendor. The Splendor’s guest capacity is about 50 more than Voyager. It would be more than that, except for suites on Splendor that are the size of a large house. And the Voyager is somewhat smaller than the Mariner too, even though suite categories H through concierge are larger on the Voyager..

I just noticed this thread. The last and only time we have cruised on Voyager was 20 years when she was very new. We found it to be much like the Mariner, without the step - up bathtubs and under-sized lower level suites. So if you have an H GTY and get an H, all will be well. We had an H GTY but got bumped up to a D Horizon Suite overlooking the aft on deck 7. Sound good? It would have been except for one thing. That suite shook when the ship approached 20 knots. Not vibration but shaking. The only part of the ship with this problem was the stern area behind the laundry room location. Now that was 20 years ago. That problem probably has (I hope) been corrected. Other than that, we really liked the Voyager. We have recently been on the Explorer and Splendor. They are great too, but they just feel a bit too big for our tastes. I know the statistics on Regent ships indicate that they are about the same size as the Voyager. They just feel bigger.

I just must have missed the past info on Reykjavik cruise departures. Sorry.

Isn't Reykjavik a fairly new embarkation port for cruise lines? I don’t remember cruises from/to there except in the recent past. Back six or seven years ago we spent two nights in a boutique hotel there, taking advantage of Iceland Air’s free stopover policy, on the way to a river cruise out of Amsterdam. The hotel was small but nice, and a bit quirky. But it wouldn’t hold all of Regents guests. Too small. Our TA set us up with a guide for a one day tour, and with a nice Icelandic couple who prepared a nice dinner for us in the local style. I don’t recall seeing any hotels in Reykjavik large enough to hold all of Regent’s guests concierge and above. The main problem I see with Regent backing out on the hotel and transfer deal is that they may not be offering enough money/credit to guests affected.

It seems that Regent wants to put all their guests in the same hotel so it can use busses to transport guests in and out. Perhaps it cannot find a hotel large enough to make this possible. But if this is the case, it should have checked the situation before advertising hotel and transfers included.