JohnM65

On our last cruise, Bangkok to Vennis, we noticed a number of Europeans German & Italians with jean type pants. I asked the travel consultant and she mentioned something about the type of seam. unfortunately, neither my wife or I can remember. it could have been the double seam on the outside of the leg like some US jeans or a single seam down the leg which was OK. I believe it was the single seam

After spending most of my life in Los Angeles, I also agree about the traffic. Not sure what city you are staying in (Long Beach?) because San Pedro is a rather miserable area.

Now, now Jackie I was raised in San Pedro although I left in 1966 never to move back. If you were referring to California, 'miserable' would work! Just joking It was a great place while I lived there. :cool: Every time I visit the traffic gets worse Just like the DC area.:rolleyes:

100

Thanks, I should have read the second link on the #2 post

How many shares does one need to own?

Hi back at you:D. Hope that you enjoyed your Bangkok to Venice cruise!

Jackie, we really enjoyed our Bangkok to Venice cruise. it was almost 60 days, now that was different. The only issue was that we did not know that we had free laundry because of the B2B booking. There were some other issues but since I procrastinated in writing to Regent I won't go into them here. All in all, it was a great trip we have now circumnavigated the globe by ship. I think from now on we will book shorter Regent cruises but more than once a year:). Hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

John

Have never sailed with Regent...mostly been on Royal Caribbean

We're like you, never cruised Regent before

My DW and I have cruised a lot since we retired in 2005. We did short trips 1 to 2 weeks before we retired. We managed to achieve Diamond on RCCl and Elite on Princess. We happened to find a Regent cruise Lisbon to Cape Town/ Cape Town to Cape Town. A nice long cruise which was fantastic. We were in a very nice aft suite with a butler. My first impressions were; card key used for the suite and getting on and off the ship; beverages included along with stocked bar; tours that are included and; cruise days awarded when we got on the ship:D:D. The crew was very nice and attentive. The dining was excellent. We met the Vivacious and sharing TravelCat2 (Jackie) and she provided considerable valuable information about Regent. Regent has become our cruise line of choice. Earlier this year we booked and traveled from Bangkok to Venice. What a great cruise, both of us like the smaller ships and the venues offered by Regent. As far as we are concerned unless one of the other lines offer an itinerary we cannot refuse, Regent is stuck with us. O BTW Jackie Hi.

Funny how reading internet forums is like panning for gold...you need to sift out a lot of worthless dirt before you find that nugget you were looking for. :cool:

That is a great quote Bill. No truer words were stated about internet forums.:D I will seal your comment for use at a later time.

Success, today we received our Brazilian visas, :D so far so good!

The biggest issue is other passengers.

A quick story. On our last cruise with Princess (Regent convert), my DW and I were in line for the buffet there was a crew member at the entrance line asking everyone to use the sanitizer. The couple in front of us ignored the crew member and just walked in. Both my wife and, without being asked, used the sanitizer. we did not enter. The crew member asked us to go in. I said in a sort of loud voice "I want to see what side of the buffet they go down" some of the passengers followed us even though the line on the other side was shorter. The crew member had a good laugh. We always try to follow the rules and the crew direction. Sorry, one more story. I have an internal fit when men, after doing their business and just walk out of the restroom without washing!:( O BTW I am an OF.

Actually quite a few more consulates than those you listed but, really doesn't matter as you are required to use the one having jurisdiction over your state and that is Chicago. Just don't want others to think they can choose their consulate. have to use the one having jurisdiction over your state.And, as far as Argentina, all you used to have to do is apply for a permit on line so really easy and for almost a year now, US citizens don't need anything to enter Argentina except their US Passport.

I forgot about the jurisdiction issue, our visa is processed in Chicago. When we went to Argentina, 4 years ago, it was indeed a process and our visa (not a permit) was checked at all points of entry including leaving the US. Glad to hear the process has improved. Well, we have six years to travel back to Argentina.

I'd avoid the voting booth excursion!!!

Good Idea LOL:D

I am cruising Rio to Barcelona and was told by my travel agent that he can take care of getting the visas for my husband and I. I'm not sure how that works as we usually have had to mail away our passports to the embassy or a visa service. Has anyone had any experience with obtaining a visa for travel to Brazil. Many thanks for any input regarding this matter.

We are on the same cruise and also the Amazon in November. For the Amazon cruise, Regent is charging $400 per passenger for the Brazilian visa (not):eek:. We are using visacentral to obtain our visas. The charge is $300. per. It would be $35 less if we had done the "pre-check" for the visa; we decide to let them do the whole thing. The visa is scheduled to be returned by Oct 20.

I saw a suggestion to visit the Brazilian Consulate but since we live in South Dakota and the Consulates are in Chicago, New York, Los Angles, DC it is a bit unrealistic!:rolleyes:

When we went to China, Russia, and South Africa the process was much easier. Argentina is another country that is a pain. :(

Our passports were about to expire so we now have new passports.

I know most travelers probably know this but when you have unexpired visas remember to bring your old passport with you to prove you have a valid visa.

Partygirl3 if you have not signed up for the meet & greet check it out soon.

John

Hi We've used HDMI connected to a laptop but if we put some movies on a USB, we'd have been able to access that too, although it would have been dificult plugging in the flash drive in the back of the to. You can set a universal remote to any major brand so that might overcome your problem. I find it hard to believe they can "block" the HDMI connection. Probably more a case that their remotes only access the internal tv system, like in hotels and other cruise ships. Good luck. Tony

I agree with you Tony and I don't see how they can block HDMI since it is not going anywhere but into the TV. I probably asked the wrong person (butler) to find out. I will try again in February. I just remembered I don't think we could access the input selection drop-down (whatever) not sure. We were using the TV remote.

Thanks Tony more to ponder.

Is there a way to watch our own movies in our Penthouse suite on Explorer.

We were on the Voyager earlier this year in one of the seven seas suites. I brought my surface laptop with DVD RW, a power USB hub, and a USB to HDMI cable. I tried many times to play DVDs but the TV would not see the player. I asked the butler to find out what the problem was. He asked the techs and they told him they block the HDMI input on the TV as the techs wanted to secure their network?????:confused: Now I am not sure how a hacker would comprise the network (ships') through the use of an HDMI interface but. :rolleyes: I tried numerous times but could not get the TV to see either the movies on the laptop or the DVD player.

Now I realize the ship has a number of movies available but I always have some newer releases.

Thank you for starting this thread. Regent cruisers are tough and have hearts of gold. I will never give up hoping and praying that one day there will be peace in the world!

Victoria and I share the same feeling. We will be there in March 2018.

Here is a quick guide to the suites on Regent Seven Seas Cruises fleet of ships. It is populated with user's commentsRegent Seven Seas Explorer

Regent and impressions of the suites they've sailed in. Similar to the site "SeatGuru", it lets people know benefits and potential drawbacks to cabins on Regent's current fleet of ships.

Let's see if this works.

CC Rating Template.xls

Thanks all I got everything straighten out and we have our seats. We are flying JAL from Tokyo to BKK

John

Hi Dave & Jackie, sorry it took so long to reply. All is well now.:) It seems that Regent did not inform our TA as of 10:30 PT 1/30, The Regent Air staff said they had sent everything out, (we have been using our TA for a long time so I don't believe it was him) I had sent him an e-mail on 1/29 explaining what had happened. I figured out how to deciphered AA's terminology for the flight. I changed our seats for MSP and DFW to move forward from row 10 to row 2. I could not change the Tokyo to BKK. All I could get from AA was a voice recording which would not let me change seats. :( I called Regent and they quickly changed our seat assignments.

Now I need to reserve our dinner reservations. We have 6 selections, I made 2 and now it won't let me make any more. We have time I will let Regent figured it out in a couple of days.

Thanks for the help

John

We are booked on the Bangkok to Athens Greece leaving 4/28. By chance, I went to the Regent site to review our dinner reservations, I had only made 1 of the 6. I happened to notice that our air reservations had been made. I thought it was odd that I did not receive notice from Regent and only by happenstance that I discovered they had been made.:confused: We are flying from MSP to DFW then to BKK ( we stop in Japan). Although the reservations are made there are no seat assignments. We are booked in a concierge suite so If I am correct in my assumptions we will be traveling business class and as international travelers, we will have access to AA's lounge. At least on Delta we have access. Just trying to see how far off base I am.

thanks for your replies.

John

I was wondering what i really liked on our Regent cruises regarding the "inclusive everything".Has anyone had any really special freebies or perks?Pam.

First, I will say the people we have met and some we are still in contact with. Second, the only time we use are cruise card is to get on/off the ship and enter our suite.:) Not to forget we receive our cruise points when we board the ship.:D

Regent is now our cruise line of choice.

Not knowing how many people will frequent the casino or how late they will gamble we decided to be cautious and moved a few spaces aft so we would be I've another suite. Better safe than sorry I hope.

We were on the Mariner 10/31/2015 to 12/13/2015. The casino was the least used room on the ship. I like to play craps but not by myself. Normally after dinner(21:00) I pass by the casino and only one time did I see someone at the crap table. As I walked up he left... O well. The slot machines could be programmed to payout after a hundred plays and they would still make money (the ship).

Now to be fair it is possible that I just passed by at the wrong time. Passengers could be attending one of the very nice entertainment venues.

John

We cruised on Regent for the first time in 2015. Lisbon to Cape Town/ Cape Town to Cape Town. We had a beautiful suite on the stern and enjoyed the fact that we only used our room key for getting on and off the ship and access to our room. We also enjoyed the free excursions as sometimes the cost can be excessive with other cruise lines. We have been fortunate to be included in private tours through the meet and greet cruisers (other cruise lines) and we were not disappointed with the Regent tours.

We have used the drink packages offered by Princess and have been chastise by some people about drinking so much. What some do not realize is that this includes all beverages, with the exception of wine (40% off on bottles under $100.00) and drinks over $10.00. The cost of coffee, tea, sparkling water, soft drinks can easily put you over the daily charge for the drink package. For specialty coffees you would think you were at Starbucks!

A quick story about one of our visits to a regent bar. My DW had ordered our cocktails. The gentleman to my left must have been a first time Regent cruiser as when his drink was served the commented about the glass not being filled up, DUH…:eek: just order another you do not need to finish it. I had to contain myself from making a comment. Something about “going placidly amid the noise and haste” :)

We do have a few cruises under our belt and Regent had become our cruise line of choice. We will be on the Voyager next year sailing from Bangkok to Venice and possibility on to Barcelona.

We also like the policy of receiving our cruise points at the beginning of the cruise and not needing to wait until you disembark. More on that in some other forum.

Well that is our story and we are sticking to it.

John

Sometime back, I cannot remember the Princess Cruise we tipped our cabin attendant $20 when we first got into our room and did not make a big deal out of it. We did not notice any special attention. She did not even put little towel animals on our bed when she turned it down and that's when they did it regularly. So now we wait until the end of the cruise before committing anything extra.

John

Hi John,

 

Really interesting. Would you mind describing how you can download emails? I am not that computer savvy but it sounds like a good idea.

Have a great 2016!Jackie

Jackie, I would have responded sooner but the warden (AKA DW) and DD had other priorities.

Your email provider is the key if you can use other email clients i.e. Outlook which is a Microsoft product and is included with Microsoft Office (I think can be downloaded separately) or "Email" which is use by the android operating system on Asus tablets, and various smart phones. There are a number of Email clients available through the Internet but, you must find the one which is compatible with with your email provider.

Some email providers will only allow email access when you are connected online. For instance my daughter still uses AOL and cannot review her email unless she is connected to AOL. I did a brief look at the configuration options and did not see any parameters which would allow her to store her AOL email on her laptop.

You may be able to find an email client on the Internet which will support your email provider and allow you to store your e-mail on your device. BUT it must be able to synchronize your email stored on your device with the email providers email store. i.e. if you delete a message on your device it will also be deleted on the provider's email store.

We are on the road for Christmas visits and will be back home mid week. If you can let me know who your email provider is maybe I can find an email compatible with your device.

From what I have observed on CC there are a number of contributors which can supply the information you need to change your email characteristics.

HappY New Year

John & Victoria

We are currently on the Mariner where the speed slows down dramatically during the day. please do not log people off after 15 or 20 minutes. I am in the computer room and am watching people slowing typing their emails -- it is definitely taking longer than 15 or 20 minutes. The former 1 hour limit worked fairly well as long as a warning flashed on the screen. IMO, it would not be fair to penalize those of us who do log out when we are done because of the few that do not.

Hi Jackie, while we were on the Mariner a few weeks ago. I had reasonable connectivity. What I do is to logon to my e-mail service download my current messages then logoff. I respond to my e-mails as necessary and send. They are put into the send queue. When I am finished responding I log back into my e-mail service which sends all the queued responses. Sometimes they need a little encouragement but they are all transmitted. With that task accomplished I may check facebook, which is a resource hog, and can be problematic. I may check our security system.

There are ways to alleviate the bandwidth issue, but all should be aware of the alternatives to make the most of the resources available. Then again some people really don't care.

Just some thoughts.

Happy New Year.

John