Joanandjoe

Note, underlining added: Also, I suspect the contest excludes the many UK and Australian residents who post here because of their propensity to stick an extra "u" somewhere before everything that ends in "r." Bad form, really.

LOL. Actually, British spelling is one of my favourite things, and is much more colourful than US spelling. We're the odd ducks on spelling, not the Brits. Doesn't "jewellery" look better than the boring "jewelry"?

Most of our recent cruises have been with your former cruise line. Two of our 3 booked cruises are on that line (2017 and 2019), while the one in the middle is on the Silver Spirit (7/24/18). A lot of what's good on the other line is as a result of your efforts.

How is Silversea different from the prior line, other than that (for better or worse) excursions are included on your prior cruise line.

Don't understand this comment. Kindly explain. Thanks much.:D

 

Note: U.S. and Canada represent about 80% of Regent passengers. Perhaps there are some tax or other liabilities involved with other countries. If the winner is from the U.S., they will owe tax on the prize.

Jackie, it's supposed to be a joke about Regent's constant price increases, Obviously, I wouldn't be on this board if I couldn't afford Regent.

As for why only people from the US and Canada are eligible, I suspect it has to do with lottery laws, not with meanness on the part of Regent. It's probably quite tricky to run a contest in multiple countries. Notice that, even in Canada, Quebec residents aren't eligible because of Quebec's nearly impossible lottery laws.

How about the Regent Can't Afford Her?

Keep up the reporting - it has been quite interesting. Also interesting is how your itinerary tracks prior and future cruises for us. Montreal, Quebec City, Saguenay, Charlottetown (which you missed), Corner Brook, & St. John's have all been visited on our past cruises. Reykjavik (where we spent a week in 1996), Nuuk, Paamiut, and St. John's (again) will all be on our 2019 Navigator cruise from Amsterdam to NYC. Only the other 2 Greenland ports are on your cruise but not on any of ours.

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

Interesting, we will be going on Royal Carribean's Navigator of the Seas.

I've read the same vibration complaints.

Wonder if the built around the same time!!

Good joke. In case you're serious, Navigator was officially built in 1999, Navigator of the Seas in 2002. One of the reasons why the Regent Navigator has such bad vibration problem is that the hull was started as a Russian ship (either a spy ship or an icebreaker), than was bought by Regent's predecessor, Radisson, for conversion into a cruise ship. (Regent/Radisson old hands could probably expand on this, but hopefully in a separate thread.) The hull apparently was too stiff for a cruise ship, and Regent has never been able to overcome the vibration problem.

Our cabin is on deck 5 forward, so no problem there.

We, too, are enjoying the diary of the trip, since we were in Corner Brook & St. Pierre on Oceania a few years ago. Miserable weather? Check. St. Pierre disappointing? Check, made worse in our case because it was a major Catholic feast day, and nearly everything was closed. Corner Brook disappointing? No! We had a local guide who took us to a place where lobsters were landed, and we "helped" the fisherman haul them onto the dock. We also saw a small marine exhibit (which they opened especially for us, since it was not yet open for the season), and a lot of beautiful scenery. Quite a nice port for us, and the town gave a party for everyone on the dock that included music and samples of blueberry pie and maple syrup!

On our next Navigator cruise (from Amsterdam to NYC via Iceland and Greenland), we've booked 527. Is that a good location, or is it too close to where the stewards congregate? We could choose 612 instead, but maybe that's too far forward. Any thoughts on cabin selection, and on vibration in G cabins?

Why does it matter? Yes, ships usually go in bow first; but what's important is the lovely view going up the Hudson River, and the amazing skill of the tugboats as the maneuver the ship past the Intrepid and into the dock. You'll probably want to be on an upper deck, not on your balcony, to watch the whole process.

For us, docking in NYC is extra special because we'll be less than 10 miles from home when we leave the ship.

Like Lady M, we've mostly been Regent cruisers, so I asked this same question in a previous Lady M thread, http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2532616. about a week ago. That thread got similar responses. Despite the lack of knowledge about tour prices, we decided to book our 7/24/18 Gulf of Bothnia cruise on the Silver Spirit.

Some of our ports are so obscure that we don't even know if there ARE private tours. How does one find a private guide in Bornholm. Denmark; Borgholm, Lulea or Sundsvall, Sweden; or Turku, Vaasa or Kemi, Finland? Even trying to find such tours will be a challenge, especially if there's no active Cruise Critic roll call that we can use to find people with whom to share the costs. Any thoughts?

Except for one cruise on Oceania, all of our recent cruises have been on Regent. We've now booked a cruise on the Spirit for 7/24/18, We looked for a roll call, and didn't find one. That was not surprising-we're nearly a year away from the cruise. What was surprising was that there are only 8 Spirit roll calls; and one is for the cruise next week, 8/25/17. Other than that, there are 7 roll calls with a total of only 12 participants. What's happening?

We would expect Regent roll calls to be quiet, considering that most excursions are included in the fare. The Oceania roll call was very active, mostly for posters to arrange private shore excursions. Joan did a walking excursion in Nova Scotia that arranged through the roll call and cost $2 per person, so she and her five companions ( I was on a different private excursion) saved a bundle over the ship's price of $110..

One would have expected similar excursion postings for Silversea; but that's not the case, even for the 8/25/17 cruise,

Can anyone explain why the Silver Spirit roll call board is so inactive?

Being able to choose your room, instead of taking pot luck as to whether you'll be assigned a bad location (too far forward or aft, over or under a noisy area) certainly should be worth $175 pp. Many of the concierge suites are in the middle of the ship. Is it worth paying for concierge suites with your initial booking? In my opinion, no. But getting a E for the price of an H, plus $175, is probably a bargain. Location, location, location.

We usually get an email with a link to an online brochure, but have not yet received such an email. We find that it can be easier looking at a brochure and then going to the web site, rather than paging through the web site. Does anyone have such a link?.

I wonder if these general rules on timing apply to a unique itinerary. We are considering taking the 7/24/18 Silver Whisper cruise from Copenhagen to Stockholm, which is unique because it sails into the Gulf of Bothnia (Sweden & Finland) rather than the Gulf of Finland (St. Petersburg). The web site lists no tour prices, and lists excursions for only 3 of the 8 ports between Copenhagen and Srockholm: Ronne, Visby, and Turku. No tours (much less prices) are listed for 3 ports in Sweden (Borgholm, Lulea and Sundsvall) or two ports in Finland (Vaasa and Kemi). How are we supposed to decide on whether the cruise is worth the price, when we havbe no idea as to whether there will be excursions or how much they will cost?

Thanks for any info. J & J

When is the renovation scheduled? We're new to this board, since we've been Regent cruisers for several year, and have over 100 nights on Regent. We've never cruised on Silversea. We're considering a unique Gulf of Finland cruise next July 24th on the Silver Spirit, and would like to know whether that will be before or after the renovation. Thanks.

BTW, if anyone can post a link to a thread on the Silversea board comparing Silversea and Regent (and I'm sure such a thread exists), that would be helpful. We have a current thread on the Regent board on this subject, but we suspect that Silversea cruisers may have a different view on this subject that Regent cruisers.

Bill, I recommend the Silver Whisper (and the Silver Shadow - not sure if it is still on lease in Asia). I have sailed on the Spirit and was very disappointed in many things. When we toured the smaller ships we knew that they were not for us. The Muse looks good but the dining situation needs to be straightened out (not only my opinion but the opinion of several that have cruised on the ship). Food is comparable to Regent (we feel that the equivalent of La Veranda is better but the main dining room did not meet our expectations. Service is equal to Regent - Silversea has some former Regent crew members and Regent has some of theirs.

 

While I would not select Silversea over Regent for a relatively small difference in price, I might selective Regent over Silversea for itinerary (after we become Titanium on Regent and have time to enjoy our benefits:-). As Wes has mentioned, their excursions are quite pricey.

Jackie (and anyone else), we're considering a Silversea cruise next July, 7/24/18 on the Silver Spirit. The itinerary is Copenhagen to Stockholm, with stops in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland -- but not Russia. Regent does not offer a similar itinerary, and all of the ports other than Copenhagen would be new to us.

Please explain why you don't like the Silver Spirit. Also, given Silversea's uninformative web site, how can we get a handle on the cost of things that Regent includes (particularly for gold and up) and Silversea doesn't? That seems to be transfers, excursions, internet, laundry (or are there laundromats not shown on the deck plans?), telephone use, and other things that we haven't thought of.

Silversea seems to be a good deal; but when you add up what isn't included, maybe it isn't. Joe

In terms of when new 2019 itineraries will be out, if anyone is that anxious, all you have to do is contact your TA. They are almost always on top of it.

Our TA says that the rest of 2019 should be out in late October or early November. That may or may not be in time for us to book onboard our 10/8 to 10/27 Venice to Athens to Rome cruise on the Voyager. Joe

This timing applies to restaurant reservations as well as excursions: 5 am UK time most of the year; but the time difference may be slightly different when one country is on summer time and the other country is not. If in doubt as to the time difference, check a world time web site such as https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ .

Everyone, whether in the UK or elsewhere, should be aware that reservations may start a few minutes late. If all excursions or meal reservations seem to be taken a few minutes after midnight, try again a few minutes later. In one case, reservations for my excursions didn't open until about 0020 (12:20 am) - a difficult time for an earlybird like me..

Is this just for the Explorer? I certainly don't see this feature for our next Regent ship, the Voyager.

As for it anyway. They have lots of newspapers that are not on the list.

Jason,

 

The excursions for some ports are still not listed for our November 17th cruise (reservations opened a while ago). The Navigator is doing the same itinerary this month so I have an idea of what will be offered. Are the missing excursions related to the rumored upgrade to the Regent website that may be going on?

 

Thanks much!

 

TC2

Call Regent. First of all, they may be able to send you a PDF that has all excursions for all ports. Whether or not the "unlisted" ports are on the PDF, Regent reps may be able to book your excursions. For our October, 2017 cruise on the Voyager, we booked excursions for Katakolon on the days excursions opened; but the excursions are still not on the web site.

Yup, looks like they opened up and just the website had only partially loaded - showed the excursions but couldn't login.

 

~Jar

If you have your list of excursions & can't log in, call Regent, and they'll book the excursions for you.

e were able to book excursions for all ports except Athens and a port (Katakolon) for which excursions are not yet available.

TC, maybe Regent has some cruises where you can book the excursions for the end/start port in a B2B; but Regent told us that for this cruise, Athens excursions can only be booked on board the Voyager.

Golfer, we, Jarconthemighty (see shore excursions thread), and you seem to be booked on the Voyager cruise leaving Venice on 10/8. Maybe it's time for one of us to start a roll call. We would do so; but first we have to resolve a conflict that might prevent us from being on this cruise.

Joe

The reservations just opened up for me for Voyager trip in October and it is saying every single excursion is booked up. Hopefully they do add some or else it is something with the website.

 

~Jar

Hi, Jar. If excursions just opened up for you, you're on the Voyager with us, Venice to either Athens or Rome, 7 or 19 days. One of us should start a roll call.

Your post was at 12:12 am Eastern time. Our experience is that the excursions start to be available at around 12:20; so we've given up on making our reservations at midnight. At 7 am this morning we booked some excursions, which were then wiped out. Somewhat daunted, we tried again at 7:20 am, and were able to book excursions for every port except Katakolon, which was still unavailable.

Try again now. You should be able to book your excursions.

When did the cheese trolley disappear from Signatures on either Voyager or Mariner :confused:

 

We have always enjoyed cheese from the trolley in our favourite restaurant; hope that Chartreuse is as good :)

The cheese trolley was there on our 9/3 to 0/21/16 cruise on the Mariner, and was one of the reasons why we commented that we will miss Signatures.