Scout16

I would say that in most cases tips are proper for non-Regent employees, the people who meet you at the airport and get you to the hotel are in a gray area. I wish that there would be suggestions in the ort information in the daily passages as to what is expected as to tipping in the country you are visiting, such as percentage and if there is a preferred or forbidden currency. I lack much experience with pre and post cruise tours. I will be on a pre cruise tour in Japan this April, what is customary for the guide and driver for a three day tour?

I am not a wine person and due to a limited sense of smell, I miss many finer points of taste. The problem i see with requesting a wine list is that it may or may not be accurate as some of the less called for bottles are used up and the assortment of odds and ends remain on the shelf. My wife's taste in wine was a little above that of Boones Farm, but they would work with her and find something she liked which then would be offered each night. I found it best to simply ask what they thought would go best with what I planned to order for dinner.

I can understand your point, but most of these problems exist throughout the industry both on ships and on land. I would list the following; the need to step up into the bathroom (I guess this is due to the need for space for the pipes, but it is easy to miss the step in the middle of the night), the seating is too low except for the dining areas (I find it difficult to get u from a seat where my knees at an angle greater that ninety degrees).

From my experience in June, I believe the wrist band is used to allow people to skip the need for any further Covid processing especially if you are on from a prior leg of the cruise. I do not remember any gold stickers but that may be used to direct those people to visit their muster station. When I arrived in Barcelona to board the Voyager, I was the only passenger in the terminal due to problems with the airline and my luggage so I cannot comment on how long the processing took.

I have never had any problems yet even though I now make up separate bags for each day AM and PM due to the number and size of the medicine bottles. The only problem we ever had was over ten years ago when my wife found that her pain medicine bottle was open with most of the pills gone after going through a security check point where they hand checked her purse and we did not discover this until hours after the checkpoint.

You need to check with the representative at the hotel, many times we were required to confirm that our bags were present before boarding the bus. One time the bag had not been collected yet and the had to send someone to go get it. I am not sure if I have ever been where the bags were shipped separately from the bus, but once the ba was identified it went to the ship and our room with no further contact from us.

Tipping on the ship is one thing, but in most orts remember to tip the tour guides and the drivers.

You should warn whoever you are calling since the caller id comes up with a totally unidentifiable phone number. When I tried it to call my children they let it roll over rather than answering until I worked out a time to call by email.

IF you like to dress up you will not be alone. I would say that most nights on the Voyager in June there were five to ten percent of the men wearing jackets. I really am not up to what the woman are wearing, but there were only a few times that something outrageous appeared.

I have never used it but the hair dryer is placed in the top drawer of the closet drawers. I believe most people use it while seated at the vanity in the main cabin area.

I downloaded the app and only had one time on my June cruise on the Voyager that it was used. On that occasion only a few of us were set up to use it and most of them did not want to use it since they were sing their phones as cameras. The system was dropped after about five minutes. I am not sure if it would have helped since we were going through a French World War Two museum where there were few English signs but it was just a general history of the entire period. I doubt the guide could have added much to what you could see.

My past BTB were just treated as the same cruise but I have one in 2024 which is under two different numbers. I have signed up for the same cabin for both cruises. I rust that they can move all of my stuff, but I am not sure I would remember to go to the correct cabin. The one question I have is will I have to use the OBC up from the first cruise or will they carry over to the second.

I was on the Voyager in June this year when one leg ended in Southampton. The only thing i can add is that since this was the first stop in the UK everyone had to meet with UK Customs people. It was nicely handled on board with an announcement broadcast though the ship after most of the departing passengers left. Due to Covid you had to put on a green wrist band to return to the ship without going through the check in procedures for Covid when returning.

I was on the Voyager in June and there was no shortage of pens. I wonder if this may be some short term supply problem.

The Enrichment lectures are the luck of the draw. The lectures on my last two cruises in 2019 and 2022 were quite good and related to the area we were cruising, the ones in either 2017 or 2018 were terrible. It is important to comment on your cruise survey about the Enrichment leatures so that Regent can bring back the good and drop the bad.

My luggage arrived the next day as we were leaving the first stop following Barcelona. This is the adventure of travel but in the long run I trust Regent to see that it works out.

Entertainment There were three production shows on these legs of the cruise, The Hollywood Musical, Rockin' Soul, and Dance To The Beat. All the shows were well done and well performed but there were few songs which really were my type of music. I am the Simon and Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary type and I understand that there is little chance that these will ever make complete song and dance shows. The special performers were Duo Esencials (a violin player and a Flamenco dancer did two wonderful shows), Ruben Vilagrand (a magician who did the first show as a mime and spoke during the second show), Dave Kristian (he did two comedy shows), Lisa Lawton (she did two concerts with opera to popular music, this is more to my preference), A celebration of Song and Dance (this was not a full production show but had the singers, dancers and lounger performers, again this was more to my preference), Broadway in Concert (this was a very good presentation by the singers of Broadway songs which were mostly familiar to me), and finally Jonathan Jacobs ( a cast singer who did a mostly solo show). The lecturers were rather good and mostly on target with the ports and areas we were visiting. The lounge performers were Austin Ray in the Observation Lounge, he did music from the late forties to the eighties with some comments on the histor of the songs and original performers. His audience was mostly well behaved and some even got up and danced while he played the piano and sang. The Glitter Duo Veroa &Talo did what I would call disco and their audience was talking loudly which hurt the performance for me. I only was in the Voyager Lounge the night when it was too rough to have any performances above deck five so I do not know if there was normally and passenger dancing. The Regent Signature Orchestra did not exist, it either was a duo or a trio and appeared to mainly do jazz unless they were with a singer. I do not recall ever seeing them on the pool deck but this may be due to most of the days being port days and the rest being rough weather.

Service and Dinning On the whole the service was up to Regent standards. There were some minor misses such as not bring the fork before the salad, not offering to remove the lobster from the shell, and having to call over another waiter to remove the bones from the Dover Sole. After a day or two I was known and what I normally ordered was known by the crew in the restaurants and lounges I normally visited. I will not get into the discussion about the quality of the meats which has been covered under other topics on the Regent boards. I tried some of the cuts suggested and found that I still preferred the cuts which were said to be too tough and dry. The one item I suggest is the tuna burger at the pool grill, it is not a burger but a tuna steak with a wonderful sauce (nd if you ask they will cook it well done rather than rare).

Covid The most obvious impact of Covid was that the crew all had to wear masks all the time except for performers when they were performing. The Social Hostess was thrilled that she was just recently allowed to sit and talk with the passengers, this limitation still existed for most of the entertainers but it appeared to be easing by the end of the cruise. The crew still could not eat or drink with the passengers. Masks were suggested on board but there were only a handful of passengers who wore them all the time. I only really wore the mask when going to events where you had to come in close contact with crew members such as the Captain's Reception and society gatherings. Masks were required in Spain on the buses and in terminals, most of the passengers followed these rules. The mask requirements did not exist in France, the UK or Ireland. I am not sure if the mask would have helped me or not but I believe I have a sensitivity to the disinfectant they commonly use on the buses. I thought it was a reaction to perfume at first but I soon found that I had a runny nose every time I got on the bus and it was worse when they turned up the fans. I developed a minor sinus /ear infection which kept me on cough drops to keep socially presentable. The Spanish government did not want to see the health documents since I was in transit. I believe that only when boarding the ship was the only time that I had to show my Covid test result and vaccine card. I needed to get my vaccine card replaced since I carried it with me every day as suggested in ninety plus degree temperatures, it got amp and the people who entered the data on the card used felt tip markers, all that remains is a blob of color.

To there and back again I used Regent Air since I felt more comfortable having someone who could deal with cancelations and changes in the current times. Both going and returning were not through flights. I was scheduled to fly from Washington Dulles to Paris to Barcelona with a night in a hotel to recover from the flight and to adjust to the time change. Air France cancelled the flight after several delays. I called Regent Air as soon as they cancelled the flight and was told to wait a bit and see what the airline would do. Air France rescheduled me for the next day for the same flights and gave me vouchers for taxi rides to and from their hotel and a hotel voucher for the night. When I got to the hotel, they said they had a problem with the airline vouchers and had us pay on our own, the charge did not appear on my credit card bill so I guess the voucher was accepted after all. The flight to Paris and then on to Barcelona had several delays and they left my luggage in Paris. I arrived at the ship at about four PM. Paris airport lacks the internal transportation system I am used to, no buses or trains to get from one end to the other, so I walked a long way along various hallways in eighty plus degree heat and found limited seating at the gate for the next flight. The return flights were on Icelandic Air from Dublin to Iceland to Washington Dulles. The fights were acceptable but delayed by over four hours. Dublin airport lacks the normally signage to lead you to the proper check in for the airline, I was sent to two different parts of the airport on different floors before I got to the check in, the gate had very limited seating , and you had to walk outside and climb the steps to board the plane. In Iceland there was a connecting bridge to the airplane but it lead to tower with a staircase which lead to a door where you had to get on a bus with no seats to get to the terminal. They do not list the gate for connecting flights until about an hour before they are going to leave, again there is very limited seating at the gate so I spent about five hours sitting on hard wooden benches which are in the main hallway.

I arrived in Barcelona on June 6 and due to delays I was going directly to the ship and they did not want to see anything including my passport, as far as they were concerned I was just in transit. This was a good thing since my travel health document was dated for the day before when the flight was cancelled.

I believe that Regent still wants you to report if you come down with a stomach bug so that they can keep it from spreading.

I just returned from the Voyager trip from Barcelona to Belfast. The Social Hostess was thrilled since she had recently been given permission to sit with the passengers, before she had to stand. She and all the crew still had to wear masks and until the last leg of the cruise off of the UK and Ireland I do not remember any entertainers being able to sit and talk. None of the crew could eat or drink with the passengers, but I did hear from a smoker on the last leg that she was able to sit and smoke with the officers. The evening gathering was at most three plus the social hostess and often just her and me for the first two legs of the cruise. The final leg was more normal with three to eight of us along with the Social Hostess, with this group she would call ahead for a table for us (she still was not able to eat with us).

when you originally book your excursions there should be and e-mail sent confirming those excursions, but if you add another excursion later the confirmation e-mail will only have the new excursion and will list no excursions booked for the prior bookings.

I am to board the Voyager on June 6 in Barcelona. I am coming from the US so I need to fill out the heath form on the SpTH portal. I filled out the first part of the for on May 1 and received notification that the first part was accepted but I could only answer the health questions two days prior to my arrival in Spain. Regent Air changed my flight to Spain so I went into the site to change the flight information. In order to return to the form I was requested to enter my passport number, the Form Code (hich they sent me), and a Security Code which I have no idea where that comes from. I may be that the system will not allow me in until June 3, but I am concerned about filling out the form if there is an extra code which I do not have. Does anyone who has gone through Spain to board a ship have any suggestions or word on their experience with this form