Live from Explorer March 28-April 11, 2023–Yokohama to Tokyo

[RachelG]

Beautiful flowers

[makai 7]

On board, have many things to say about this cruise- but abysmal internet service prevents me from commenting.

 I will post details regarding how poorly this cruise compares to previous Regent experiences after I return home.

 

[Stickman1990]

49 minutes ago, makai 7 said:

On board, have many things to say about this cruise- but abysmal internet service prevents me from commenting.

 

Interesting

 

Have you raised it with the Internet Manager onboard? What did they say?

 

It seems strange that Rachel is posting regularly with pictures - so how can one guest be having such a different experience over another?

[flossie009]

3 hours ago, makai 7 said:

On board, have many things to say about this cruise- but abysmal internet service prevents me from commenting.

Hope you have been able to resolve some of your issues by raising with relevant Regent staff members on-board including the GM.

Did you fill in the mid-cruise comments cards? What was the feedback?

 

3 hours ago, makai 7 said:

I will post details regarding how poorly this cruise compares to previous Regent experiences after I return home.

Look forward to your review and hope you will also share your experience with the Regent Miami office, either via the end of cruise survey or by email.

 

[mrlevin]

If the cruise is truly "lacking" whilst ADM was onboard it will sure be a black eye for the GM and the senior staff.  I have a number of friends onboard so I will be waiting for the post-cruise reports.

[mrstanley]

My friend onboard said that the Passover Seder was fabulous!

Good to hear that.

[irishwitchy]

5 hours ago, Stickman1990 said:

 

Interesting

 

Have you raised it with the Internet Manager onboard? What did they say?

 

It seems strange that Rachel is posting regularly with pictures - so how can one guest be having such a different experience over another?

I totally believe there could be a very different experience between two quests with the internet.    I’m a night owl and when I was on the Explorer in January/Feb this year, it worked great at midnight,  everyone else was sleeping!  During the day, it was sketchy or down or slow, etc.  Perhaps,  Rachel is typing her notes on word and when she is out and about in port she uses the free wi-fi to load up to cruise critic.  

[1982CruzStart]

Rachel, what beautiful pictures. Thank you so much.  As always I am enjoying your reports. 

[RachelG]

April 6, 2023-Oshima Island, Japan

 

The seas rocked and rolled all night.  We slept pretty well, though every once in a while, there would be a big bump and vibration.  When we woke up, we were still sailing, and the sea was really moving.  Very overcast and forecast was for rain, but it was warmer, in the low 70s.

 

Since the ship was not due to arrive in port until 10:30, I went to Pilates.  As we finished up, we were sailing Into a large well protected harbor with tree covered hills on 3 sides.  No cruise terminal here, just a couple of tents and a whole squad of friendly locals to answer questions and provide directions.  

 

Our tour had been cancelled.  It was supposed to have been a food tour.  We couldn’t get a substitute, but there were 2 shuttle buses on offer, one to town and the other to a beach that is supposed to be really beautiful.  But since it looked like a downpour at any minute, we took the one to town to do our own food tour.

 

We explored the shopping street which is conveniently covered and pedestrian only.  There were some beautiful shops.  Textiles are produced on this island and are of very high quality.  We found a restaurant specializing in Keikan which is a rice and chicken soup dish.  It was quite delicious.  George had to also order mystery meat on skewers.

 

After lunch, George and I hiked up the mountain behind town.  There was a nice paved trail, though very steep, though lush forest and ferns.  We made it to the top, took photo, and scurried back down quickly as it was starting to rain.  About 20 ft before we got to the shuttle bus, the heavens opened, and it began to pour, so we timed it just right.

 

Trivia was better today, and we placed 2nd.  There was a debut of a new show at 5:30–Bond Voyage which is a tribute to James Bond movies and their music.  It was really good.  I highly recommend.

 

Dinner in Compass Rose was very good.  I have a pork medallion dish which was perfect.  George had spaghetti and meatballs.  He had to ask for extra sauce, but with that he was happy.

 

George went and made contributions in the casino. The show tonight was a singer/pianist Dean Stansby.  He was entertaining.  Not wow, but I would go again.

[RachelG]

8 hours ago, irishwitchy said:

I totally believe there could be a very different experience between two quests with the internet.    I’m a night owl and when I was on the Explorer in January/Feb this year, it worked great at midnight,  everyone else was sleeping!  During the day, it was sketchy or down or slow, etc.  Perhaps,  Rachel is typing her notes on word and when she is out and about in port she uses the free wi-fi to load up to cruise critic.  

I do indeed type my notes on word then copy and paste to post.  The reason is that I have lost many long posts in the past before I started doing that.  But I post mostly using the ship’s wifi.

Pictures I post while in port.  Using ship’s wifi for those is impossible.  The wifi is really slow onboard, but no different than I have experienced previously on Regent as well as Silversea and Oceania.  And it is very dependent on time of day and how many others are trying to use it.

[PaulMCO]

You really cannot fault Regent, it is the contracted provider which is the same for most cruise lines (our three cruises last year on Regent, Oceania and Seabourn all had issues) .  With so many users not only is the ship at capacity but the satellites are at capacity in many parts of the world.  I really hope the switch to Starlink will help.

[RachelG]

Korean BBQ and flower tea

[RachelG]

Keihan for lunch on Oshima Island

[labonnevie]

Thank you for all your reports and pictures.

It has really helped us prepare for our trip following yours.

Sounds like very few, if any, tours at Naze.

We only have waitlist tours there ioncluding the culinary experience. Guess we should not expect to get on one.

[RachelG]

57 minutes ago, labonnevie said:

Thank you for all your reports and pictures.

It has really helped us prepare for our trip following yours.

Sounds like very few, if any, tours at Naze.

We only have waitlist tours there ioncluding the culinary experience. Guess we should not expect to get on one.

They didn’t do the culinary one at all.  I recommend going on the shuttle downtown and finding a place for lunch if you don’t get on a tour.  If the weather is nice, the beach would probably be good too.  But in rain, not so much.

[Gilly]

I am in 100% agreement regarding the challenges of uploading regular updates and photos whilst on board with slow/intermittent connections, but offer a couple of suggestions which I find helpful.  Firstly, the one Rachel offers above - compose and save ahead of uploading to avoid the frustration of losing the lot when there's a blip in service.  Secondly - and I don't know if Rachel does this or not - is to resize/edit photos before attmpting to upload them.  The difference in the time taken to upload a photo of less than 1mB compared with the time needed for a 5mB or larger (the file size of most phone pics) is considerable, yet the difference in appearance of the photo when viewed on a screen is negligible.  I use the free app Snapseed, it's quick and easy to use and takes no time at all to edit and save a bunch of photos before sharing them here or elsewhere.

[RachelG]

April 7, 2023–Naha, Japan

 

Very smooth night’s sailing.  When we awoke, we were already in port in Naha, a very busy modern looking area.  It was warm and humid, quite overcast and felt as if rain would pour at any minute, which is forecast for later today.

 

The Easter bunny has apparently made a visit to the ship because there are elaborate chocolate displays at the entrance to La Veranda and down by Compass Rose.

 

Our excursion for the morning was the Battle of Okinawa.  George was really looking forward to this one as he is very interested in WWII history particularly the Marines in the Pacific.  We drove out of the city through agricultural areas with sugar cane fields and lots of green houses.  No big mountains here.  We arrived at the Peace Park which is expansive and built on the site of the cliffs where so many Okinawan people jumped off to commit suicide being told by the Japanese government that they needed to kill themselves because if the Americans took them prisoner they would be tortured and raped.  The names of all the Okinawan civilians as well as both Japanese and American military (and a few British) who died in the battle are inscribed in a huge memorial.  The park is huge, and we only saw a small part.  I would like to go back again and see in-depth.

 

We then went to a museum which is about the Okinawan high school girls who were conscripted into serving as nurses for the Japanese.  They had no medical training at all and lived in terrible conditions.  Toward the end of the battle, they were only given a ping pong ball sized lump of rice per day to live on.  Of course, very many died, but it had video of some of the survivors telling their stories and was really interesting.  Again I would like to see more in depth with not such a big crowd of people.  When we came out, it had started pouring rain, and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees.

 

The final stop was to the underground headquarters of the Japanese Navy.  This was a huge system of tunnels, completely man made and constructed with just pick axes and shovels, no mechanized equipment.  This is where the Japanese commander and his men killed themselves when they recognized defeat was imminent.  Again very interesting.  They also had a lot of photos of the American Marines— some in battle but also feeding little children, rescuing older people, liberating people from a prison camp.

 

Back at the ship, we took a shuttle into town for lunch.  It was 2:30 by this time, but we were hungry.  We found a restaurant that looked good.  The waitress didn’t speak English and the menu was totally Japanese, so we just pointed at some things.  We had good gyoza, noodles with pork, rice, a tofu and green veg salad, sea grapes (like seaweed—we had to look those up with google translate).  We then went to a big fancy department store where we bought cookies for dessert, again using the pointing method to order.

 

We returned to the ship.  Still very overcast and raining hard. Trivia was again 3rd place.  We had cocktails then dinner with friends in Sette Mare.  Delicious food and great company.  Then George actually went with me to the show which was a comedian.  He thought it was pretty funny, as did I, but the casino is not open, so he is unhappy about that.

[2012_Alaska_bound]

17 hours ago, RachelG said:

I do indeed type my notes on word then copy and paste to post.  The reason is that I have lost many long posts in the past before I started doing that.

 

I am now doing that even at home for long posts like the ones I've been doing for my review of the Ama River Cruise of Bordeaux I just finished. Much easier!

Edited April 7, 2023 by 2012_Alaska_bound
updated info

[sabrams161]

Nice!

[makai 7]

From a Wi-Fi perspective, I cannot get email to load or send….

[RachelG]

April 8, 2023–at sea

 

It was another night of rocking and rolling, but we slept well as the whistling had stopped, and George had devised a way to prevent the door to the closet from sliding open and shut.  He pushed one of the big sofa pillows against it so it couldn’t move.

 

When we awoke, the sun was peaking through some haze, and the temperature outside was in the 60s, but it was extremely windy.  The sea  was churning and looked like an agitator in a washing machine was working.  They had the walking track and top deck roped off and the furniture up there tied down.  The swimming pool was closed, but the water in it was making a mini tsunami.

 

Since nothing was really scheduled until later, we had a leisurely breakfast in La Veranda.  The only fresh berries onboard on this voyage have been strawberries, but they are extremely flavorful.  I think they just can’t get other types of berries this time of year in this part of the world.  They are out of the yogurt which I really liked, so I tried some Korean yogurt.  It had a sort of weird flavor, just ok, would not try again.  The Bloody Mary bar was open for those who desired.

 

Apparently there are some covid cases onboard, 3 that I knew of, as the quarantine area at the back of deck 6 has been reactivated for the past 3 days.  It is roped off, and you can’t get to the gym that way.  You have to go down to deck 5 through the spa then up the stairs to the gym.  At about 10:15, the captain came on the speaker inside the suites and stated that we had crossed the 1% threshold for covid cases, so definitely over 3, and that those people were in quarantine.  The crew would start wearing masks all the time, and they recommended but didn’t require guests to wear masks.  

 

By 11am, the sun had burned off the haze, and the ocean was spectacularly beautiful, a deep blue with whitecaps.  George went out on our balcony, where the wind was blowing a gale, but came inside quickly.

 

For lunch, there was a “Seafood Extravaganza” outside at the pool grill, but the wind was so strong, it was really difficult to even get the food.  Part of my salad blew off the plate.  So we got food and took it into La Veranda to eat.  They had shrimp and mussels, a seafood stew, a couple of seafood pasta dishes, paella, sushi and sashimi.  No crab or lobster.

 

We watched movies in the afternoon, an Indiana Jones extravaganza, then trivia where we did terrible.

 

The seas calmed fortunately, but I got my steps indoors as out on the deck was too risky.  Dinner in Compass Rose was good.  George had mahi mahi which he said was great.  I had porcini risotto and asparagus which was very nice.  Then a molten chocolate lava cake with coffee ice cream.

 

The show was My Revolution which is a 60’s show.  They did a great job.  It isn’t my favorite, but it was very well done, and I must say that the dancers are among the best I have seen on Regent.

[MarcyLondon]

On 4/6/2023 at 8:47 AM, makai 7 said:

On board, have many things to say about this cruise- but abysmal internet service prevents me from commenting.

 I will post details regarding how poorly this cruise compares to previous Regent experiences after I return home.

 

So very sorry to hear this and worrying as we are doing it in October and I was full of optimism. Will look out for your review when you are home

[Zqueeze1]

Rachel:  I just marathon read your wonderful posts.  Thank you for sharing your trip with us and for the great info and pics.  Hope the rest of your cruise is just as great.

Z and TB

[RachelG]

Okinawa lunch

[labonnevie]

Rachel, sorry to hear the Covid news.
Can you describe what the 1% threshold triggers onboard the ship? Is it more than the crew wearing masks? Does the crew serve buffet style food? etc. 
What happens Tuesday when the passengers turnover? Just curious as we board then. 
Thanks as always for the posts and pics!