Scout16

I am a bit surprised that there is a problem on the Navigator. I believe that "social pressure" is greater on the smaller ships than on the larger ships. Whatever you do or how you act toward the crew or fellow passengers, good or bad, is noted by your fellow passengers and will impact their reaction to you. This is one of the main reasons that I prefer the Navigator. It is a bit like being in a small town.

I have traveled solo on Regent four times and it is one of the reasons I stay with Regent. In 2019 I was on the Navigator for the last two segments of the world cruise and many of the solos were world cruise people, this was shortly after my wife died and they made me feel comfortable and welcome. The next cruise was on the Voyager in 2022 where for the first segment there were two to three solos and due to Covid restrictions the Social Hostess was required to wear a mask and could not eat or drink with us. We still had good conversations, but it was not until the later segments when we got more solos that we normally ae together. The Japan to Vancouver cruise on the Explorer in 2023 was close to perfect with six to ten in the solo group and no health restrictions. This past winter the cruise on the Voyager had a very large number of solos, but most of the segments were restricted by concerns over stomach flu which again kept the Social Hostess from being able to eat with us. The advantages of the solo program are that it is a comfortable way to meet people and that the Social Hostess has contacts which allow you to meet some of the speakers and the performers, along with being able to call and sometimes get you space in a specialty restaurant at the last minute. The disadvantages, for me, have been that when you are at a table for six or eight the meal takes much longer to be served, if someone makes a special request for wine or change to how the menu item is cooked the entire table has to wait, it can get a bit load with a large group (which ends my hearing aid into overload), and that some of the solos at times lose track of other people in the group (such as stopping eating to check a picture while everyone else is waiting for them to finish so the next course can be served).

I was on the Voyager this past January and February and the elevator music in the various public rooms was not always on. I think it may depend upon who the current CD was or even who was on duty in which part of the ship.

I noticed in the press release that the two ships are going to Oceania. I believe that both the size and the passenger size are within their standard sizes.

I was last on the Voyager and several were parked outside their doors. I have no idea how they were charged and I can see that on the Explorer class ships this would create a problem due to the hallways being narrower. Prior to 2019 I had enough problems getting my wife with a walker or a transport chair through the suite door and past the end of the bed to image how difficult it would be to get a scooter into the suite.

Being from West Virginia I have thought about wearing the "national costume", blue denim overalls (no holes, no stains, and unfaded) and a bright plaid collared shirt. I have not done this yet, but it would be in recognition of my heritage.

I tend to be warm blooded, but the only time I felt the need for extra layers was when I was on a small boat four or five hour wildlife tour off Seward in early May during the Tokyo to Vancouver cruise. For me it was the length of time in the chill. If you will be on the water or near ice you may want to bring extra layers.

The key problem is the concept of entitlement, I want what I want and I do not care about what anyone else wants. Yes you can pick up a virus, but the number of people who refused to follow the requested safety procedures of washing their hands is unbelievable. People refused to either wash their hands or use the sanitizer even when directly asked to do so by crew members. When a health emergency is declared I would think that everyone would realized that they should be doing what was requested both for their own good and that of everyone else on the ship. I tend to follow safe health practices all the time when I travel, but that is how I was trained. The entitlement goes beyond health problems to the chair hogs and the assignment of bus numbers for tours. In the past you could turn in your tour ticket for a bus number as soon as you got to the theater, but now you have to wait until the tour is ready to go before you can exchange the ticket for a bus number. In the past most people would follow the directions and stay in the theater until the tour number was called, but there were enough entitled people who went out and blocked the gangway and dock so that they could be first forcing this change in procedure.

On my last cruise there was a family with several teen aged children, they did a good thing of playing board or card games with them during the dull parts of the day.

I was on the Voyager from Cape Town to Santiago. The major problem was when the ship was under Code Red due to intestinal illness. This led to the following: 1. There was nothing on the tables until needed, no plates, silverware, glasses, fancy plates, salt and pepper (salt and pepper were in paper packets), or even placemats at the pool grill. 2. The restaurants were somewhat short staffed due to having to have them do other tasks such as serving at the buffet and having to tell everyone to stop and wash their hands. Yes, even with the problems some passengers still refused. 3. The crew were not allowed to dine with the passengers and there were other minor changes to reduce contact with the crew and passengers. 4. The block party was cancelled, the library and self laundry rooms were closed and there was no puzzle. The problem of missed ports and reduced time in Antarticia was officially blamed upon weather, but I believe that there may have been some other considerations. Health, there was the problem of the intestinal illness and a few cases of Covid which may have led some of the smaller ports to refuse us landing. Politics, I am not sure if the problems between Argentina and the Falklands may have made it more difficult for us to stop. Fuel, both weather (we had to fight head winds and rough seas) and possibly politics (did we get a full load of fuel in Argentina since we were going to the Falklands?) may be the reason we had to return from Antarticia early at a slower speed.

I finally got my visa on the evening of January 5, but it was dated as being generated on December 28. I will need it for March 2025 to go up the Amazon on the Navagator, but it is obvious that even though the system is done on line that the entire system is still set up for physical documents. You need to print the evisa and carry copies with you.

I have been on the Explorer three time (Caribbean, Iceland/Greenland, and Japan to Alaska). This is the only ship of this class that I have been on, I have been on the Voyager and the Navagator. One of the major factors I have found is the impact of size of the ships, the smaller the ship the more "small town" is the atmosphere on the ship. It is hard to believe that there is a difference between the feeling between the Voyager and the Explorer, I can feel a difference with only fifty passengers more. I personally prefer the Navagator, but i am more of a suburban/ country person than a city person. The one problem that I found with the Explorer on the Japan to Alaska cruise was that the weather restricted the outdoor dinning which caused the indoor and covered dinning areas to be crowded. They even moved some of the seating areas out to allow them to move the seating for the pool deck in from the open area.

I may have missed the point of this discussion but Fusina and Trieste are a great distance from each other. In the old days the ship would dock in downtown Venice, this has been prohibited by the city. Fusina is near the city in the industrial port area. Trieste is another city several hours away by bus or car. When downtown Venice was not permitted the cruise ships went to several other ports which required transportation to get you to Venice. I believe that the problems listed with boarding at Fusina were originally worse and that was the reason for the cruise ships to go to Trieste.

In April/May of this year I used the ATM in the hotel lobby when I got to Japan and then I saw ATMs at almost all the ports we stopped at either in the terminal or built into a van where there was no terminal. My one complaint is that you tend to get mainly high value currency so you have to buy something to get the bills broken to more usable bills.

In May 2022 my Regent flight from DC to Paris to Barcelona was cancelled. I called the Regent number from the information packet and was told to check with the airline. The airline rebooked me for the next day and must have sent information to Regent since I received a message from them confirming the change and the pickup at the airport was changed to meet the new flight. There have been a few times when I could not find the contact at the airport, this mostly happened when the airlines did not provide wheelchair help for my wife and we had to wait a bit before we made it through the terminal. In this case we found someone with customer services for the airport and had them call the Regent contact number that was on the cruise paperwork. We only had a short wait until someone would show up and drive us to either the hotel or the ship.