First time Regent passenger on the infamous Dec 2nd cruise. We really enjoyed the cruise and the ship despite the issue with the toilets. The toilet issue was annoying and unexpected. We've been on older ships before and never had this one happen. But Regent gave us a 20% refund as a future cruise credit, so no complaints from us on how the company responded to the issue and did right by us.
I think that people need to understand that this is a very old ship and be realistic about what to expect from roughly 21 year old vessel. Old ships have issues and usually lots of little signs of wear and tear. If you want perfect, go on Grandeur now before it's too late.
We ran into two designers working for Regent who are part of the refurbishment that will happen when the ship goes into dry dock in 2026. They were part of the design team for Splendor, Granduer and other cruise ships such as the Oasis of the seas for Royal. They told us to take lots of pictures as the interior was getting a complete redo. So if you love the look of the ship, make sure you get on her before the end of 2025. Then book another sailing in 2026 to see the before and after. We also learned from the head chef that all of the galleys will be completely gutted and redone with all new equipment and a new layout. It sounds like this refresh will be extensive and not superficial.
I have some other observations about the ship and the staff:
The ship looks great on the inside. If you had told me it was only 6 or 7 years old I would have believed you. The outside is where the ship really shows its age. They really need to dip the whole ship in paint stripper and then sand, fill and repaint the outside. But everything seemed to work fine, so no complaints.
Our concierge suite was quite small, and it stretches credulity a bit to call it a suite. It's smaller than a JR suite on a mainstream cruise line. But it was very comfortable, looked nice and everything (toilet excluded) worked fine.
We were struck by how the ship never felt crowded. There were only two times we found ourselves in a long line, boarding and disembarking. Otherwise it was amazingly relaxed and uncrowded. The ship easily absorbed the 650 people on this particular cruise. This alone was worth the price of the cruise.
The crew on the ship were very nice, but not unusually special. They were the same as crews on mainstream cruise ships from NCL and Royal or Carnival. Mostly super friendly people from the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Eastern Europe. I learned that quite a few came over from other mainstream NCL ships, and are just doing what they did on the big NCL ships with little additional training that was Regent specific. We found that some of the crew didn't really know what to do at times and this led to mistakes being made. Hopefully that improves over time as these crew members learn the ship and the in's and out's of their job.
The food was fantastic at times, and less than great a few times. Almost all of our meals were excellent. The lone exception was at Seti Mari. The appetizers were fantastic, but the entrees were actually bad. All of the other restaurants had good to excellent food. Compass Rose was the most consistently great food for us.
Service at the restaurants was always very good. We were never left waiting for anything very long. In fact service everywhere on the ship was generally very good. At the pool, in the lounges or in the theater, we never had to wait long to be served and asked if we wanted another drink.
Entertainment on the ship was good given the size of the ship. We really enjoyed the singing duo Kashia and Boogie. They have limitless energy.
In summary, we had a great time and have booked two more cruises on Splendor and Grandeur next year.