Boatmans Lady

After a long 21 months of waiting our first cruise with Regent has been and gone.

I promised a few thoughts, so here goes.

Our cruise was the first leg of Navigators current Round the World tour and was 20 nights onboard from LA to Tahiti.

Regent arranged our flights and we live in the UK.

Flights.  Our flights to and from LA were with United. Economy Plus outbound and Polaris on return.

                Both flights were ontime and we had a decent amount of legroom in economy plus. 

                Food offerings were good, but it was strange being offered breakfast before landing at 16.30??

                Soft drinks, beer and wine were included, but spirits were chargeable. This only became apparent on being given the requested drinks and many drinks were handed

                back when asked for x amount dollars. What a waste.

                One thing we did find very strange was that after the meal had been served, the cabin crew manually over rode the window shading, set them to blackout and 

                turned the cabin lighting to night mode? This meant that if you wanted to read or do anything other than watch the screen or sleep, you needed your light on.

                Our flights home in Polaris were very good and despite some reviews I had read saying the champagne was in short supply, there appeared to be a never ending supply.

                The brand new Polaris lounge at LAX is lovely, especially when you have a long layover. 

                 It is bright and airy with a well stocked bar. Extensive hot and cold buffet with a separate restaurant if you want something more substantial.

                 The showers are well appointed with Saks towels and there is a list of other things you may need and having travelled on an overnight flight from Tahiti being able to shower 

                 and change into fresh clothes was most refreshing.

                There are also sleeping pods, but we didn't use these.

                 Plenty of varied seating and even a couple of small meeting rooms.

                 Our 6 hours passed quickly and it only just started getting busy as we left for our flight at 17.30.

               Air Tahiti was the airline from Tahiti to LAX. Not much to say about this flight other than we were fed well and had a hot breakfast.

Coming from the UK, we are forced to arrive the day before and Regent include a hotel. On arrival we found the Regent agent, only to be told, "You aren't on our list!!"

 It transpired, the other UK people on our flight were going to the Ritz Carlton, but we had been put in The Westin at LAX.

The hotel was fine in itself, but we would have liked to be able to take a walk, but owing to the location, there was nowhere to walk and unfortunately we could hear the planes landing all night, so not much sleep.

Also, it is a fairly new hotel for Regent, so there were a few niggling issues, like settling our bill for our meal and drinks, arranging for our luggage to be picked up. 

There was only a smallish bar/restaurant to eat in at night, but the offerings were of a good quality.

Our transfers to the ship run late as the coach broke down, so we were put into two minibuses instead, but other than that, the transfer was swift and hassle free.

We arrived at the ship after check in had opened and there was only a small queue which moved quickly, so we were soon being welcomed on board.

For us the day was warm, so we sat enjoying the sun round the pool and grabbed some picky bits from the pool buffet.

First impressions were good and fellow cruiser and staff were smiley and greeted you.

Once the suites were opened we made our way down to unpack and our cases were in our suite.

Our suite was bright and airy and made a favourable impression.

Plenty of storage space and things were quickly stowed away and we made our acquaintance with our stewardess and learnt that she would only be with us till our first port.

Muster Drill was up next. This was well organised and efficient. Not having to take your life jacket with you makes a big difference.

Once dismissed we made our way to Galileo's and watched as we slipped quietly away from the port, before finding people from our roll call for a pre dinner drink.

Ship.  We had picked up that people either love or hate The Navigator. We are firmly in the love bracket. 

            The smallness suited us and never felt overcrowded or cramped

            The ambience was positive and the staff happy to be there. In a short space of time, the staff learnt your name and favourite drinks.

            On the whole the ship was looking good, but the hull was badly marked. The captain said they were hoping to get the necessary permits to start painting the hull from Tahiti

             onwards.

             Yes there is a vibration, but we never found it worrisome. Yes we felt the seas, but then we like that.

             My take on it, is that it was like coming home after being in high heels all day and slipping into a comfy pair of slippers or sneakers. We felt at home.

             Everywhere was beautifully clean and well appointed with enough seating for everyone, even though we had the upper decks closed for 7 or 8 days.

Food.   Yes we were impressed and only had one iffy meal, in fact that whole experience was disappointing and happened to be the night of the mid cruise comments.

              I jotted down my thoughts on the evening and these were addressed very quietly without a fuss from the next day. Well done Regent for taking notice.

              I was worried about food temperatures, but needn't have as all was acceptable except for some coffees. But politely asking for a hot coffee, quickly saw the cold coffee removed 

              and a new hot cup fetched.

              We had two very good meals in Prime 7 and would recommend the bone in prime rib. Was perfectly cooked and melted in your mouth.

Entertainment.  The production cast were very talented and put some good shows on. 

                             We enjoyed the enrichment lectures and craft lessons. June is a gem and so very patient and encouraging.

                             The deck games and quizzes were great fun and very competitive, but in a friendly good way.

                              We quickly settled into a routine and enjoyed taking part with a great bunch of people and we were very sad to have to leave those that were continuing round the

                              world. Keep winning those Regent points!!

                              There was enough variety of evening entertainment to suit all tastes and adding things in like the football playoffs with tailgate snacks worked well.

Tours.  All our tours except one, were included tours. Apart from the trip to Pearl Harbour and a sunset cruise, these were all small groups of 8 to 14 people. The other two tours were 

              40 people. 

               We took 12 tours and all but two were good, and the other two were ok, but we wouldn't repeat them.

               If anyone wants anymore info on the tours, just ask away.

Just to sum up, we thoroughly enjoyed our first cruise with Regent and will look to do another cruise with them.

Do they live up to their hype, yes we think they do. 

Are they perfect, no, but they deliver a very good product, listen to what their customers tell them and rectify if possible, making you feel that you are valued as a person and individual.

Happy to elaborate on any points or answer questions and I would like to thank all those that were very patient in answering my many questions leading up to this cruise and those answers helped greatly with our enjoyment of our cruise.

10 hours ago, Gilly said:

Happy New Year to you too, @WesW!  Thank you for great suggestions - on dreary days it's good to enjoy a little escapism.

 

@Boatmans Lady wishing you Bon Voyage and hoping you're feeling great and ready for adventure!  I thought about you this morning and wondered if you are on your way or in LA already? (lucky duck)    I shall follow your journey with pleasure.  Thank you.

Thank you, and we leave in the morning. There is much excitement in our house and I don't think there will be much sleeping, but then we have eleven and a quarter hours on a plane to sleep 

We are on the first leg and with it being our first Regent Cruise, I'm hoping to do a semi live report on here of our travels.

1 hour ago, DaveFr said:

We are on the Mariner now. My wife drinks Caffeine Free Diet Coke and has had no trouble getting it on the cruise. It should be readily available on your cruise. Hope this helps. 

 

Dave

Happy New Year to you and thank you for such a speedy reply.

That is good to know as I do like to try to do as the doctor advises.

Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

Sans

Hi. Does anyone know if Regent stock decaffeinated diet coke.

I have recently been advised to cut my caffeine intake due to health reasons.

This is fairly easy as I don't drink tea or coffee, but I do drink diet coke/pepsi and whilst this is an easy switch at home, I'm discovering that obtaining caffeine free whilst out is a problem and wondered if you could get decaffeinated drinks aboard.

Thanks in advance if anyone knows.

We are on the Navigator to Tahiti from LA in January and have our seat assignment and on seat guru it says the flight number isn't found, but offers two different types of aircraft they operate. This lists the types and number of seats in each class. If the link works, you can view it here https://www.seatguru.com/findseatmap/findseatmap.php?airlinetext=Air+Tahiti+Nui&carrier=TN&date=01%2F03%2F2019&departing=12%2F29%2F2018&flightno=&from=Papeete%2C+French+Polynesia+and+Tahiti+-+Tahiti+-+Faa´a+Airport+(PPT)&from_loc=PPT&to=Los+Angeles%2C+CA+-+Los+Angeles+International+Airport+(LAX)&to_loc=LAX&search_type=route

On 12/13/2018 at 11:53 PM, jcruikshank said:

How far in advance are you notified of Regent’s hotel selection?

We have a forced overnight stop in LA and our hotel appeared on our booking about 4 weeks before.

We too are staying in Westin at LAX, so hope the soundproofing is good!!

I booked the wrong tour by mistake and also tried to deselect the tour and book the right one, but couldn't.

So rang and got everything changed quickly and a new confirmation was received before I had aid thank you and goodbye.

Don't know if Regent UK is different, but they have always answered quickly.

5 hours ago, vegasdriven said:

Yippee! Just got an email from my ta, she's got the tickets- I'll pick them up on Wed😀

Still nothing for us and we embark before you, so here is hoping ours come soon.

So very sorry to be late to your wonderful blog.

Your daughter has a captivating smile and radiates happiness.

Thank you for your wonderful photos, I'm reliving our cruise last Christmas to the Caribbean, such happy memories,

12 hours ago, Bigdogwon said:

We received a very nice six category upgrade from Regent today!  Sailing on the Dec. 06 of the Voyager, we appreciate the gesture that GOLD status must bring.

Very nice and if it was free and unexpected, all the better.

Enjoy, I'm always pleased to hear of unexpected bonuses.

Eagerly awaiting our post every day at the moment as we are four and a half weeks out from embarkation, so expecting ours 🤗

Have a great trip and looking forward to reading along. 

Thank you for posting the photos of the Country Fair.

We attended a small town fair in Vermont recently and loved it, so really hope we get a Country Fair on our cruise as the games just look such fun.

I will be sad when your cruise is over and your lovely blog finishes.

Thank you for the sparkling wine and champagne tasting.

So glad you took one for the good of us people on here 

So pleased to see a that a good Italian sparkling rose was a winner as I do like a good sparkling rose.

Jackie, I see that there is a model boat building competition.

Is this offered on most cruises and have you got any other info on this, please.

Thanks

As there have been a number of threads over the last few months [including one of my own] I thought I'd post about my experience of booking them [as we are new to Regent] being waitlisted and 'missing' excursions from the lists,

We had eagerly perused the example excursions and made a list of excursions that we were interested in, so come booking day, I was sharp on the button as the required time came round, only to be greeted with 'there is no reservation of the reservation number or name!!'

A hour and half later, I was still getting the same message and with it being a Sunday, I was unable to ring Regent.

A few hours later, I decided to have another try and lo and behold everything was there, but some of the ports only had  few 'included' tours.

Booked with no trouble the ones that weren't full and rang Regent the next morning to be waitlisted for 4 full excursions.

I also had a conversation about there being no excursions to Pearly Harbour and the very pleasant lady said that if I emailed them with what we wanted to do, they would price a private tour up and get back to me with no obligation.

We decided not to go down this route, as it seemed quite easy to pick a taxi up and do it independently and we thought we might find there were other cruisers interested in making a group up once we were on board.

Fast forward a few weeks and I noticed that one of our waitlisted tours had been confirmed, then another, and another. So we were only waiting to clear one waitlist.

Then whilst checking on something else last week, I noticed that extra excursions had been added, with one being Pearl Harbour, so I signed us up for that and added another onto another day that we had an early morning tour. I must admit to double checking the second tour as it is a 5 hour tour leaving at 2pm and we sail at 7pm, but presume these timings are fine.

The moral of this tale is to confirm to other 'newbies' not to panic if your preferred tour is sold out, tryst what others tell you on here. Get yourself waitlisted and most of the times you will clear the waitlist.

We never received an email to say we had cleared the waitlist, so keep and eye on your excursion listing and you may be pleasantly surprised as we were.

So a big thank you to all those members who take the time to reassure newbies and well done Regent for a system that obviously works.

Only another 45 days to embarkation!!

Just catching up on your blog and thank you for the daily schedules.

From a soon to be new on Regent cruiser it is good to have an idea of what is offered on sea days as we have two sets of 5 sea days.

Hope your swells stay manageable.

7 hours ago, StarFlyr said:

HA, HA!   Sorry they don't.  There were a few times when the room got on the hot side.  It would have been nice to cool it down quickly with some sea air.   That said, if you don't try to crank the heat up, the room temperature was very comfortable. 

 

Re my comment about about longer voyages on the Navigator, I only added that comment because I thought there might be a few more "out of the cabin activities" for those sea days.

 

Duly noted about not cranking the heat up 😉

Thank you Sharle and Peggy. 

Great review of cabins that aren't often mentioned. 

Just one question if I may, do any of the windows open please.

I too have read you embarkation post with a smile on my face and I have to admit that this is why we are thinking of boarding a little later as we go straight into four sea days, so plenty of time to relax and get sorted.

Will have to remember to ask to sit in Mario's section for dinner. Thanks for the recommendation.

Looking forward to travelling along with you on your travels and enjoyed your first few posts.

I'm another one who is on a first cruise on Navigator in the new year, so eagerly lapping it all up!!

We returned from New England the second week in October and the colours were only just starting and in New Hampshire they were saying Fall was about two weeks behind, so fingers crossed as what we got to see was stunning.

22 minutes ago, flossie009 said:

Very unfortunate that previously uploaded photos (via TapaTalk etc) are no longer available, plus previously referenced URLs no longer work.

This makes CC as a reference very limited 

Note that maximum size for photos is now just under 50MB so most photos will need re-sizing before posting.

No longer see a facility to preview a post before submitting - this was a useful check before posting

However, I will reserve judgement until trying the new experience over the coming weeks

 

PS I have tried altering the size of font in this post to "18" - any better for reading?

Your font size and darkness are much better than most posts.

But I can't see anyway of making the next line of text appearing under the previous line without the triple space!!

So sorry to read this, but happy to hear Regent are trying their hardest to sort things out so you can get back on track with enjoying yourself.

Fingers crossed that you get to see a dentist today.