Cruiseswithfamilyornot

Sorry I didn't see this and I don't recall but didn't remember it being green.

Sorry as I put in my post of 9/8 I did not take pics of the room. No one slept on the sofa bed so can't advise about mattress or how comfortable the bed was.

I was not on another MSC ship, but I can tell you @Georgia_Peaches that you did need to have the concierge call down for a reservation for you. They would handle that for you, but you did need a reservation. Unless it was a day when many were in a port(or so they told my companions), you weren't able to just walk down unfortunately. I did hear another passenger complain that's not how it was on another MSC ship. So I guess it's just a function of the timing as if the spa is busy they won't just let you in. One in my party found that out the hard way unfortunately.

PS You have to make a reservation to use the Thermal Spa area even if you're in the yacht club. They try to monitor the number of people there for overcrowding reasons which is very smart

The ship is beautiful. IMHO it's the nicest looking ship of all of the main stream cruise lines, which is something MSC is apparently known for. The casino isn't as pretty as the rest of the areas, again IMHO. Also, it's not as busy, no poker except on seadays(with the exception of the texas hold em table game which I like, but others in my party did not). So not as pretty of an area, and not as much action going on. I just walked through the Thermal Suite to see it on the first day. Some others did spend time one day and they felt it was a little overcrowded, smaller space, but they enjoyed it. Aesthetically, it's very nice though as I think someone else said here the waterfall is a little overpowering.

Having been on many Royal ships, World Europa was built by the same company that builds Royal's ships and there are many parts of the ships that clearly were taken right from Royal's ships. The back of the ship is 100% like the Oasis ships, except it doesn't have anything in the rear of the ship and the "boardwalk" they have on Royal is replaced with a walkway with the Coffee Emporium, some restaurants, a bar, shops and Sweet Sensations off of it(ice cream, yogurt, and waffles/crepes). They also have a light show there every night. The inside of the ship their Panorama Lounge is identical to 270 on the Quantum Ships. There were other similarities, and some differences. La Brasserie was great, we are all still talking about it, but not necessarily the healthiest food. Some of the desserts were amazing.

I'm sorry that I didn't take pictures of the cabin . There is a round lounge chair on the balcony

La Brasserie was excellent, but if you've seen the menu it's a lot of fried and rich food but I was surprised how it was. The Maitre D' there, I forget her name, is excellent as was the wait staff. On non sea days, no crowding of course on the sun deck. On the one sea day we had, it was packed. Not like the main pool area, but pretty full with one pool and one hot tub. The top sail lounge was never crowded and the restaurant was packed around 8 30 at night, and in the morning from 8 am to 9 am. Service suffered at these times, you could get seated. The drinks in the speak easy are not included, they make that very clear. But very worthwhile and again want to leave some things a secret lol. For Speak easy tickets, if you are in the yacht club, just go to the concierge and they will help you get tickets right away. If you wait for an "invitation" you won't get one. Sorry that my kids are all 21+ so can't help with anything related to the kids club, though I will tell you kids seemed to be having a fantastic time on board and there was a ton for them to do. I'll leave for someone else to advise. I did not take pics of my room, I should have, but honestly didn't want to remember the people sitting outside seeing most of our veranda and the small shower was also not a memory I wanted to keep. Prefer to focus on the spaciousness of the room(we had all 16 in the living/dining area without an issue). I hope you do have our butler, but I know he is moving to another MSC ship shortly but I don't know exactly when. Enjoy your cruises! Any other questions I'd be happy to try to answer

I was on the MSC World Europa cruise for one week roundtrip from Barcelona on 9/1 through 9/8. We travelled in the Yacht Club(all) and were a group of 16 people spread out over 9 rooms including singles. I have been on well over 50 cruises, but this was my first time on MSC. I found alot of the other reviews on MSC World Europa to be spot on. While there has been some time to refine/improve in some areas, some things are what they are. Overall, I would say we enjoyed our cruise and the itinerary and found the Yacht Club to be very much worth it, despite some snafus. Would be go on MSC again? Really that depends on who you ask and what's more important to them as my more detailed review will show below. In a nut shell, if you prefer the American way of cruising including more trivias, game shows and the like, then this is not the cruise for you. But if being able to have that ship within a ship experience at reasonable price is the most important thing to you, this is the ship for you. I'm going to be blunt and honest here, but as I've said above, overall it was a very enjoyable experience but there were some things that were not. Embarkation in Barcelona. 10/10. We were in Yacht Club so separate line, we were on the ship in no time and received an overview and off to our room Pre-boarding items: In a word, poor. You can book a massage and specialty restaurants, but you cannot set dates and times until you are on the ship. That was crazy. Likewise, cannot book shows in advance. They also send you a questionnaire a few days before sailing with your choice of pillows, what you want the minibar stocked with, and which daily newspaper you want. Then you get the EXACT SAME questionnaire when you board. Then none of it is in your room anyway and you speak to your butler(which is fine btw) and things get done. The newspaper never came till the last 2 days(which is fine honestly). Major area of improvement. Yacht Club amenities. Some GREAT ones honestly. #1 on the list for me, is each person in a room has two free internet sign ins on different devices. My last 3 cruises were all luxury cruise lines and premium +(Oceania) and none of them gave you that. I work full time as did some others so this was big. Drinks covered up to 14 euros each, very nice. There was a separate location to disembark the ship for yacht club guests and we never had a line one day, our butler insisted on walking us out. Great lounge with entertainment every night, never crowded. They opened a place called La Brasserie as a second venue for the yacht club located in the buffet on deck 19. The buffet is closed for just yacht club guests, and you require a reservation. Food there was shockingly very good, though not the healthiest of fare. The desserts, especially the warm chocolate chip cookie, were insanely good. One of the biggies is the ability to use your card to have the elevator come privately for you(ones used exclusively by you). There are many others honestly. Yacht Club was as advertised to me. Biggest Positives: Ship is BEAUTIFUL(except for the casino). Really much nicer than other main stream cruise lines. Most servers have a smile. The chocolate shop and the gelato in particular was great. Panorama Lounge, although a rip off of 270 on Royal, was a great room with great shows. Great use of elevators where you push a button for your floor and they tell you which elevator to go to. Elevators much more efficient. Our butler, Sandor, was fantastic. Shows were really better than expected, and some of the best on mainstream lines. The speak easy room was a HUGE hit, and I can't recommend it enough. Won't spoil all the details here. The other big positives were all a part of the yacht club as itemized above. Biggest Negatives: MASSIVE crowds sometimes on the ship. Not in Yacht Club but main part of ship. It was shocking though you learned what times to stay away. Inconsistency of food and service. The first night 7 people in our party said they had the worst dinner in the yacht club restaurant they've ever had on a cruise ship. Most nights it was very good. Just very inconsistent, sometimes the same dish from one day to the next. Service also suffered often, especially when busy. Usually, it was good. But sometimes they just forget anything asked for and took a long a time to serve. The third big one was the lack of trivias/game shows and what they had, was terribly overcrowded to the point you couldn't get in. They need a large room for these activites---and they have the rooms on the ship already in existence. The ship also had some funky designs that you never got fully used to. Teppanyaki was the only specialty we went to as we usually love it, it was good, but better on both Royal and Norwegian. I was in Room 18001, which is one of the Owner Suites. Great room. Comfortable bed, plenty of storage, walk in closet, and our butler Sandor deserves medals he was that good. Negatives were shower was shockingly small and tight(smaller and tighter than a regular yacht club deluxe suite), and the 2/3 of the balcony was in easy viewing distance from the outside area of the Top Sail Lounge, which was not great. Due to weather we had to miss our last stop in Malta, but they rescheduled us to Palermo immediately. Very good communication and well handled. So overall, nice itinerary, beautiful ship, but if you are at all crowd adverse you won't be happy if not in yacht club and somethings to get used to as a european line vs america.

As I've seen a few posts about certain areas feeling more crowded I was curious how full the ship was? As some of the inaugural voyages and I've read that they are not sold out, what that will mean for crowding when they are more full. Thank you for taking the time to post your review, much appreciated.

Thank you, Keith. Very happy to hear this and would appreciate any updates/insights you get as you are on board now. Hope you continue to have a great cruise.

I had a very similar experience as @Dr. Cocktailon a very recent Regent cruise. In fact, based on feedback I received from crew and some fellow passengers, I booked an Explora cruise while I was still on the Regent cruise. My butler on Regent had been with them for 15 years and said he couldn't wait to go to Explora. There is a general feeling among the crew that there is more financial stability with Explora based on their owners, and there are some changes that are new exciting. Personally, there are a few things I question how it will work, but am very willing to give them a try. I like how they try to spend more time in ports and will be glued to read initial reviews, while recognizing there will be some kinks to work out.

I have been on two Oceania cruises and I have to agree with others here that their entertainment is not as good as others. I found it to be subpar as well. That said, I am going on Oceania Vista in a few months and they have made a big deal about their improved entertainment for that ship and curious to see if that is the case. Back to OP question, with old Crystal's demise I have been trying other lines out again. Regent would be my favorite one thus far. I was shocked that I liked the service as much as I did on old Crystal and the food was very good, entertainment and most things relatively comparable. The only big negative for me on Regent was the included excursions were sub par(some, not most) and based on pricing that should not be. I am excited to try Explora Journeys based on all I read.

Regent, Silversea, Seabourn and most luxury ships have smaller casinos like this one on their ship. As always, if you don't want to partake you can steer away. But for those that enjoy that as a part of their nightly entertainment, it's nice to have that option.

Crystal was my favorite luxury cruise line. When the news of no casinos was announced, I cancelled my pre bookings and am taking a more wait and see attitude as I like some others I really enjoy gambling as a night time activity. There is no doubt I am not in the majority not just from this poll, but anyone that has taken a luxury cruise can tell you their casinos are not crowded. I get the decision, and I don't like it, but combined with itineraries I didn't find very exciting I decided to back out and instead try out Explora and others. That said, I am positive that as long as reviews are good I will give Crystal a try at some point, but the removal of a casino all together is a negative for me.

I'm surprised nothing still. I'm trying to hold off on booking a cruise to wait and see what Explora has available,

I received this floor plan for the casino from my TA for the casino I thought it would share. Pretty small casino, but better than nothing. One table for Roulette, one for black jack, one for Poker/Baccarat and 19 slot machines:

Perhaps Alaska wasn't selling enough as they had the ship there for a significant amount of time? I hope not for Explora 2 since I'm booked on her in the fall, but we shall see. Very curious to see the itineraries for the summer, I don't see them on the website right now.

Sadly, I cancelled my pre booking deposits and sacrificed my on board credits. Viking has done very well as someone else mentioned without a casino, and I am sure Crystal can as well. I've been on almost every cruise line, but never booked Viking as I do like a casino as a part of my nightly entertainment. So as was said this will sacrifice some customers, but not most. Old Crystal was my favorite line, and while I was willing to try new Crystal out of the gates, this has put me in the wait and see category. Hopefully they will come up with somethings that will intrigue/interest me. I have two Explora cruises booked and the line isn't out, so I'm willing to take a chance as they will have a casino and their concepts on entertainment(which might not work at all) are intriguing to me. I will be following these boards and look forward to hearing about the new Crystal and hope it's what so many of us want it to be and more.

Very sorry to hear this. I knew everything wouldn't be exactly the same, but for some reason I didn't think there would be a complete elimination of the casino, perhaps a smaller one.

Totally get what you are saying @papaflamingoand I agree many people like the ability to have excursions chosen and they just pick, it's definitely less hassle and work and makes alot of things easier. I wasn't suggesting to get rid of that, just offer an option to not have the excursions included as they do with the airfare today. But I hear your point about an all inclusive being an all inclusive and when you start going a la carte it's a slippery slope and it's a good point,

I do wonder hearing everyone's responses and the same issues across the board, if Regent is better off offering an option to have the cruise without the excursions at a lower price? Something tells me it wouldn't be much of a reduction and it may end up upsetting people at how low it is, but you do have the option to opt out of air and get some sort of a credit why not the same for excursions? Just a thought. I feel bad that people get so upset(myself included) about the excursions when there was so much positive about the cruise and the cruise line that it tends to overshadow somewhat

I didn't pay for the upgrade as we had met some people and they didn't want to, I had a feeling we might have missed something! The views from the train were amazing, I agree. One of the highlights. I liked the skyrail too. You are high above the forest and you make some stops along the way that were interesting. I love seeing animals like that, we did the Australian Zoo too. I quite enjoyed that one but one tip I will give for that---you can actually book animal encounters there directly with the zoo where you have a chance to get up close and personal with an animal of your choice and feed them. We did that with a Binturong(I never heard of it either before this trip) and it was a lot of fun as we had already done that with Koala's and some others on previous trips. I thought it was well worth it, but by the time I booked it(3 months in advance) many of the encounters were either sold out totally or partially so do that in advance if you want to do it. One other thing I will mention is that in Darwin(I had heard from others similar comments not to do the Zoo tour which we were shut out of anyway for a change....sometimes things for a reason) we went into town ourselves after the two hour "harbor boat tour" which was crap. Not much there, but we did go to one place called Crocosaurus essentially a crocodile exhibit place. But one thing they had there is civilians are able to pay money to go into an acrylic cylinder cage and get lowered into the water with live crocodiles. Then they put pieces of meat on long hooks right next to the cylinder and you see the crocodiles smashing against it to get to the meat while the person inside the cylinder is making it look like they are kissing them and having a blast. It was hilarious. I have a video which I tried to upload but haven't been able to. You can book yourself, again only in advance. That was really the highlight, though there were a tremendous amount of crocodiles and some other animals too. Not much in Darwin town otherwise. We overnighted there too but due to cancellations of other ports.

Thank you all for you kind comments. It's all just opinions, though I will say many people were vocal about their disdain for the excursions. I actually could have said a lot more which @gabelletouched on a lot of. But I think we got the point across. @clelbonvCairns was actually one port we did two tour excursions from the ship and they were both good(for cruise ship excursions). I will say for both we were waiting about 30 minutes in the theater to be called for the bus after we were told to report, but outside of that they were solid. The tours I am mentioning below I did pay a premium for both of them, so not sure if that's why but they were the Skyrail, Kuranda and Cairns and the Jungle Train and Amphibious Duck Tours. After seeing people getting on the ship after their tours and what they had to say in Papua New Guinea, while we did technically did get off the boat we turned around and went right back on. We spent the day at the infinity pool at the spa which was really nice and I will tell you we saw extreme poverty looking out over the bow of the ship. It was heartbreaking, reminded me of the extreme poverty you see in some of the Caribbean Islands. I'll leave for others that were on the same cruise and commented to say what they did there and what their thoughts are since I did not really go into town or anything like that. I do have to say, while literally 30 people told me how much they hated and every staff member said they'd never get off at that port, I was sitting at the casino with someone who told me they loved their excursion in Papua New Guinea as it was very eye opening, etc,, and it was one of their favorite ones of all cruises they've done in years! So different strokes for different folks always.... I'm sure they will change the pontoon they went to for the Great Barrier Reef as when we mentioned it casually(not complaining) to the excursions desk they cut us off and let us know they had already received an earful from many other passengers. I have been to Australia before, and I will say that while I prefer to cruise over a land trip most of the time, the Great Barrier Reef is one of those places I think is better seen by being at one of the beautiful resorts and really being able to enjoy the location. Crystal used to do a few day excursions where you got off the ship and went to a resort somewhere and then could get back on which was very cool. Obviously you pay a premium for that The descriptions for some of the excursions were not accurate so I'd have to review each one and what we did to comment on that, though I remember the cruise in Darwin was totally mislabeled, and they took us to places to describe events that happened during World War 2 that the real history buffs enjoyed, but there is no way 99% of the people remember what was said cause it just wasn't that meaningful. We've all had those experiences so I know you can relate. I recall there was practically a mutiny on a bus I was on as they decided we need to more of the city we were in and literally just drove around for an hour and a half after spending hours out on a tour and everyone but literally one person wanted to go back to the ship. I'm going to stop there, as I feel like I'm being way too negative about the excursions which I have been perfectly clear on. I could and should have booked on my own as the crew on the ship, food and the ship itself were fantastic and overshadowed so much of this Enjoy your cruise!

I recently returned from a Regent Explorer Sydney to Bali cruise and I thought it would be good to post my review. For means of background, I have been on well over 50 cruises, mostly cruises on mainstream cruise lines when my kids were younger, but always sailing on luxury cruise lines as well more now as our kids are older. I have always been more of a lurker on Cruise Critic and have received some great info on cruise lines and itineraries. I was never a big poster historically as I always hated all of the drama and how people got crucified for expressing their opinions. Having cruised as much as I do, I really believe that what each of us likes and don't like is very personal to us and does not necessarily apply to others. Which is why I could care less about caviar or specific alcohols on board, two things that I know are very important to other people, but conversely I like to spend a little time in the casinos something I know many could care less about. Personal opinions. I've also seen differing reviews on the exact same cruise, and of course that is entirely possible as different people interact with other people, etc,,. My favorite luxury line was the old Crystal previously. I think since their ships were much larger than others and had more activities, coupled with exceptional service and very good food, and i must add people I really enjoyed meeting and cruising with, it was a no brainer. I had tried out all of the other cruise lines and my first cruise with Crystal wasn't until 2008 but I was hooked. With Crystal's demise, I have been going on all the other luxury cruise lines, and will be trying out the new Crystal of course, as well as Explora Journeys. This was a tough cruise to start with as the ship had just come off of two very problematic cruises due to cancelled ports due to a problem with cleaning the hull in New Zealand waters and I had ready on line in numerous places that tempers had flared and some people were very upset. I was concerned we might have had some backlash from that, but while there was some upset passengers, the crew was largely unimpacted despite being yelled out fairly often by upset passengers in the week before. About 150 passengers were on a Grand Voyage from Auckland to Tokyo for 77 days. Overall, we enjoyed our cruise. I would definitely try Regent again, though I would do one or two things differently as you will see below. We had about 630 people on our cruise the ship handles 750. That number went down to 600 on the week we left. I'd like to give a run down of what I will call four categories----The fantastic, the good, the bad and the ugly. There are actually three things I'd call fantastic about the cruise. In no particular order: 1) The Ship. It is a beautiful ship. Hands down probably the nicest ship I've been on to date in terms of furnishings. Some complaints about the ship being too dark in places, some columns in theaters that were fixed on Splendor, or what have you, but none of that impacted me. Though I will say constantly announcing over the PA that it's the most luxurious ship on the ocean every day got a bit obnoxious lol...but it just made me laugh. 2) The Food. Was it always fantastic? Of course not. The first day on the ship I had some terrible food on the buffet, and if I'm to be honest there was a mix of poor things here and there. They ran out of some things as well. Pizza and Ice Cream weren't that hot but that might have been a blessing in disguise. But I must say that I was extremely happy about the food overall. Pacific Rim was incredible. I loved Crystal's asian restaurant, I think I'd give Pacific Rim the edge. Prime 7 was great too. But the biggest surprise to me? In the main dining room, they have an every day menu that consists of 12 different items with like 15 different sauces you can mix and match and tons of side options. This includes Filet Mignon as well as other types of steak, Lobster Tail, the list goes on. As a pickier eater, I REALLY appreciated this and more so....this dishes were fantastic. Not the normal boring every day issues you often see. I usually find people are desperate to try to get into the specialty restaurants as much as possible as the main dining room is nowhere near as good. I did not find that on Regent at all, and in fact Compass Rose was packed every night. Have to say their Chocolate Croissants and some of the cookies were fantastic. Yes, I have a sweet tooth. 3) The Service. I never imagined I would find service as good as on old Crystal. I was wrong. We kept using the word impeccable. It really was. Were there a handful of snafus? Of course, we were on the ship for almost 3 weeks. But overall we couldn't have been happier. I swear the service in Pacific Rim was the best I've ever had in my life and the Maitre D' there was a sweetheart. I was told if you just show up after 8 pm even without a reservation they would try their hardest to find you a table and we did that one night and sure enough, couldn't have been nicer. Prime 7 was great too, don't misunderstand me, but Pacific Rim was close to perfect service I've ever had in my life. Every meal wasn't 2 hours, you could dine quickly if you wanted service was that great, something I have found to be an issue on some other luxury lines. They take their queues from you. Also have to add the ship was very clean. For me, the above three are the most important things on a cruise. While there are more "bad" items, they are all much more minor than the three listed above. So while it may seem numerically there is more in the bad category, I would weight these much higher. The Good 1) Rooms. We were in an Explorer Suite. The room was very nice. Can't say fantastic as a list of things that could be improved upon, including a glass door between the bedroom and the living room which is silly but they give you a velcro cover if asked. One of the biggest reasons I splurge for a suite as I sleep a lot less than my spouse and want a separate room to go to so having the light coming through just wasn't thought out well(I was told they are fixing this on the next dry dock later this year). A few other issues with the shower, I was surprised the veranda wasn't a little larger, but overall a very good room and I was very happy. Our butler(Amey) and stewardess(Andrea) were both excellent and very, very kind. 2) Some of the Entertainment. While it was a bit disappointing that there was definitely less in the form of entertainment on the ship(more on that in the bad category), I do have to give props to the two ship entertainers G Clef and the piano player Alex. The female singer of G CLef was nothing short of amazing in her voice, and was a lot of fun to watch. Her guitar playing male counterpart was very talented on the guitar. And the pianist was just very good. While there was a lack of entertainment on sea days, I will give them credit for doing a few unique fun things like a county fair one day. 3) Floor 12 has a great track that goes around most of the ship, and also includes a paddle and pickle ball court, 18 holes of a short/mini golf game, ping pong, bocce ball and shuffle board. My room was on deck 12, but I loved the track and used it every day and loved the views in this part of the world. We also used everything on that floor minimally once, wasn't used much in fairness. There are deck chairs on 12 too, but mostly in the sun. 4) The Spa. Yes their massages were expensive. And yes, maybe we just got lucky. But we had two amazing masseuses and had multiple treatments and it was awesome(some of the best ever). Also, there is an infinity pool on the back of the boat you have to go to. 5) Culinary Kitchen. There are only 12 stations, and it's on sea days for the most part, but it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. Chef Stefano had a great personality and was very knowledgeable. 6) TV. Don't laugh. No I don't sit in the room excessively. But when you're on a cruise for almost 3 weeks, most cruises the programming gets old and repetitive. There are those of us who have it on as background noise, or like to watch before bedtime or fall asleep to something. Regent had a good number of varied selections. All included. The Bad 1) The Entertainment. A bit disappointing that they just had two entertainers in lounges and other places. They did use individual musicians from the Regent Orchestra to help bridge that gap. Also, every guest entertainer performed twice. Some you were happy to see twice, others not so much. I had to stop going to the lecturers as they seemed best at putting me to sleep. In fairness, the topics may not have been the most interesting but for one of them they were just a bad speaker and I dont think could hold people's attention. Compared to old Crystal, this didn't stack up well. Also on sea days I found a definite lack of activities and was wishing there were more things later on in the cruise, but again I may be spoiled from Crystal and mainstream lines which obviously have a lot more options. There was only one trivia per day, even on sea days. I was happy to have a casino but it was smaller with limited games. The staff in the casino were, of course, very friendly and nice as was the case on the whole ship for the most part. 2) The shows were at 9 30 every night and dinners start later(I believe 6 30 in specialties and 7 pm in main dining room). I am not an early person so I was fine, but many passengers were put off by this and the shows were never crowded due to this. 3) Regent Air. I would put this in the neutral category as for me this was ok. I live in NY so never an issue with direct flights but they sent us the long way through Dubai to get to Sydney. That said I was on Emirates Business class, so a few more hours in Emirates isn't exactly something to complain about though the flight was long. Others complained of excessive connections and fees, which I experienced when I tried to change flights deviations as well so I didn't do. 4) Sea day pool chair in the shade hogs. Can't believe I'm writing this about a luxury line, but it's true. 5) Gym was too small and constantly over crowded on sea days. 6) The tenders. This is most cruise lines, but I have to say, yuck. Stuffed in like sardines, really not a pleasant experience. I expected more from a luxury line. 7) Internet. I still work full time, though it's my own business. I paid for the upgraded plan. Needn't have bothered. It stunk. Very basic things were ok(email and the like) most of the time, but that was it. In fairness, there is no luxury cruise line that has this down, but the mainstream ones have gotten much better. Thank god I was able to figure out how to do some of the things I had to do in ports but it was a pain. I get that most people on luxury lines are retired, but even retirees want good internet! The Ugly. There is only one thing here but man was it ugly. Excursions. For full disclosure, I have made it a habit to book private excursions for the most part for years. Price point wise, they are not more expensive and there are a list of things I don't like about group tours(hurry up and wait, lines, someone taking longer at a certain stop, etc,,). But excursions were included in the Regent fare and my TA said try it as they heard mostly good things so I did. I will say, in fairness, Regent loyalists on this cruise had commented that this cruise was below average in this category. But it's not just this cruise. I had booked a cruise on the Splendor for June of 2023 and cancelled it because all the excursions I wanted were sold out! This cruise, it was a lot of the same, and some really bad stuff. It would be remiss of me not to say most of the excursions we took(probably 2/3) were fine. Sure, we sat in the theater waiting for our number to be called, sat on a bus waiting alot even on those, but it was fine. There were many that were not though. Starting with some ports with no excursions available. If you are offering free unlimited excursions how does this happen? Also, because of the age breakdown on the ship, there are a fair number of short excursions with very little activity mostly just on a bus. Those are always the last to go and you can get stuck on some. Some of the excursions were just terrible. We paid $150 to go to a pontoon at the Great Barrier Reef surcharge. Went on a boat where, again, crammed in. I had been the reef before, and this pontoon was disgusting. I think the only people who liked this were those that had never been before. If you had, there were 12 loungers for 95 people. The deck was covered in bird poop. And the lunch they served was very bad cafeteria food. There were people sitting on the boat waiting to go back an hour before we were supposed to leave. Alot of people complained about this one. We also went to Papua New Guinea. Why? We were fortunate in that the morning excursions were all fully booked within 48 hours of becoming available(another thing that stunk about the excursions) so when we went to get off the ship for our late morning/early afternoon one we saw the people coming back from the morning excursions and they literally looked like they went through a war. Small buses with zero leg room and no air(very hot and humid) and nothing to see. People said they felt unsafe. One person said to us, and I quote "I feel like if I get Malaria, which I probably did, that was the highlight of the tour". One excursion people paid a premium for couldn't go off. The second day in Papua New Guinea was cancelled due to "safety" reasons an hour after we left the first port. The staff let slip the ship has been there before and they will never get off there again, they felt unsafe. How does the ship take us there? This one was mind numbing. I could on about a few other excursions that weren't great, but you get the drift. If we did Regent again I would need to book on our own excursions, which just increases the price of an already higher priced cruise. Hands down, this was my biggest issue. The people on the cruise were very nice, though I did find they skewed older than Crystal and there were some more mobility issues than I used to see(which was reflected in many of the excursions I felt), but I really enjoyed meeting such a great group of people. So I would cruise Regent again, but I'd have to factor in the cost of excursions as well and I wouldn't do too many sea days. This is all very subjective of course. Any questions, feel free to ask.