Sailing over Christmas 2008

[Jan Sue]

We are booked on the Navigater Dec 18,2008. Anyone else going at that time and have you sailed over Christmas on a Regent ship before?

[Paint Horse]

We sailed last year on the Mariner during Christmas.

[Jan Sue]

Was it a good experience over the holidays? Do they celebrate the holidays during the cruise?

[KLG]

We did the Navigator holiday sailing in December 2006 and really enjoyed it. The ship was festive and fun, some people decorated doors and cabins, gingerbread houses on display, Santa visited the kids (maybe 25-30, mostly in extended family groups) on Christmas day. You'll find some other comments about cruising over the holidays if you search this forum.

Karen

[Paint Horse]

On our cruise it was very low key. There were decorations around the ship. I do not recall it being very extensive.

[Travelcat2]

On our cruise it was very low key. There were decorations around the ship. I do not recall it being very extensive.

 

Did not mean to post here - sorry.

[jhp]

I've only been on a Panama Canal cruise that was just after Christmas, and the decorations were beautifu, as they were still upl! So yes, they do celebrate the holidays! Sometime during the cruise, decor changed to NY Eve, and they put lots of balloons up in the atrium for the celebration removing the Christmas decor, appropriately!

[Jim B]

We were on the same Voyager cruise with Olivia when they still had

all the Christmas decorations up. They were beautiful.

When we went to bed one night everything was transformed

to New Years the next morning.

This past December we woke up to the Mariner being decorated for Christmas.

Looked like two women must have a contract or something to do the

work. They had diagrams for just about every public area showing what went where and all the decorations were numbered. Found it interesting and efficent.

Did not take them very long.

[DebbieH103]

We are booked on the Voyager for Christmas this year. It is our first Christmas cruise. We have done resorts at Christmas where people decorated their doors and such, and I know they do that on Regent. When I got off Navigator on December 14, we also woke up the departure day to a decorated ship.

 

I am excited about it.

[colleenmf]

I was on Voyager over Christmas and New Years 2004-2005. So bear in mind, this was 4 years ago.

 

There was a door decorating contest. And if you didn't bring anything, the arts and craft instructor had loads of stuff and ideas.

 

The ship was beautifully decorated and changed from Christmas to New Years about the 27th.

 

The kids club had programs for the kids involving sea traditions. I remember the kids interviewing willing adults about wishes and dreams. Then they were put on a Christmas tree and thrown overboard.

 

You could order a turkey or goose for your dinner on Christmas or Christmas Eve. They would bring the whole thing to your table and you could carve it. Just like home. I don't know anyone who actually did that. Also, one day (eve??) the menu had traditional British Christmas fare like plum pudding and one day it had traditional American Christmas fare. But that was just part of the menu not the only options.

 

Even with all this going on, I'd say it wasn't "in your face" since we had many Jewish guests on our ship. I ordered latkes one day.

 

Oh yes, we had a special performace of the staff detailing their home Christmas tradition. Some sang, some told stories, a few danced. This was not exclusively the entertainment crew but the bus boys and housekeepers, too. I was impressed with the Swedish tradition of the girls processing in with crowns of flaming candles. Yup, you read that right.

 

For the very traditional there was even a midnight Mass albeit at 11:00 pm (I guess it was midnight somewhere).