HanaleiSailor

Aloha all,

Long time since I've posted, read or sailed, so I have a little distance from the experience now. We may be a little different as we have only sailed Regent.

We sailed once a year for three years in a row: 2012-2014. We lived abroad for a good deal of our adult lives, and never thought that we would enjoy a cruise experience; however, I found a really great offer in the Amex Platinum Destinations Magazine for a Venice to Rome cruise on the Voyager, so we gave it a shot in 2012.

We had a great time, and I think that the price from HNL with Business/First Air all of the way to Venice, and a pre-cruise hotel night was less than 5k per person in a Concierge Suite. We found this to be a great value; thus, we booked aboard for the following year. With a few extra nights, the second trip was some 30% more expensive, but we gave it a shot, and again, the experience onboard the Voyager and on land was great.

Finally, we went to book a third trip for the following year while on board again, and the price creep continued with another 25-30% increase between our second and third cruises, but we bit the bullet and booked it.

Also, again, the onboard experience was good for the third trip , but we were treated miserably by the home office this time, and I had to write to the then President of Regent to coerce a Regent representative to honor the terms of the booking we made on board. This was time consuming and very frustrating.

Our business lives have changed a bit now, so we haven't entertained the thought of a long trip from Hawaii over the past few years; however, I must say that after our last trip, we thought about this a good deal, and we decided that with the huge year-on-year price increases, Regent no longer provided great value for us. Still a very nice on board experience, just too expensive for us when there are lots of other great ways to enjoy Europe. I just took a peek at current pricing on some itineraries, and I think that things are even more expensive now.

Given the right timing in our business, would I sail Regent again? Most likely. Would I do it at current pricing? Probably not.

Aren't you within the penalty phase of your October cruise? I ask because our deadline for cancelling our November cruise was this week. Obviously, in order to even see a decline, you need to have a few Regent cruises under your belt to make a comparison. As you can see, most Regent cruisers are quite satisfied with their cruises and do not see a decline. As newlondon and I were discussing, there is always the "odd" cruise that does not meet expectations (although, to be fair, he enjoys every cruise - even when there are some major bumps in the road).

As noted above, I have sailed Voyager in the Med in each of the last three years. I believe that we have a few more weeks before the penalty hits on our invoice. And perhaps I am just looking at a way to soften the blow of needing to cancel the cruise for personal and business reasons.

However, because we are in the Tourism and Hospitality business and own a business which is reviewed on Trip Advisor and Yelp several times or more per week, I am very familiar with how reviews work, and I basically discount both the gushing praise and the extremely disgruntled, but there is usually a good thread of truth running through the average ratings, and those CC ratings for Voyager have been really poor over the past few months. A pattern of one to two star cruise ratings on a luxury cruise would seem to indicate something is amiss. I made the posting specifically to hear from others who cruise but do not review. You can search the reviews for my review of our cruise last October. I rated the cruise very highly.

Also, I did not post my thoughts that because of the changes that Regent has made to their air program for those of us who live in Hawaii, in my view, a Regent cruise, for us, has greatly decreased in the value provided for the money we spend on the holiday. Over just a four year period, I think that we will pay between 30 to 40 percent more now for a similar experience to that of our first Regent experience (which we loved).

Finally, it has been widely reported that from the NCL buyout, there are some huge financial considerations for Regent management to find considerable cost savings in the first full year of operation under NCL, and from some of these reviews, I thought that there is a possibility that staffing, purchasing, and other areas have seen cutbacks which have affected the Regent experience.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Wow, I have read CC a bit over the past year or so, but have almost completely refrained from posting. Just looked at the CC member reviews for the Voyager for the first time in many months, and 8 of the last 12 reviewers rate their cruise aboard Voyager 2 stars or fewer.

After having sailed on the Voyager the past three years in the Med in October, for personal and business reasons, we are strongly considering canceling our Oct cruise this year, and seeing these extremely poor ratings makes me think that perhaps this would the best course right now.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

and it is my understanding that if you stay out of the country for 18 months then there is no US tax. Medical personnel went there all the time.

One must pass a physical presence test and live outside of the US for a given number of days in a single tax year to get the Foreign Earned Income Exemption. There is no such thing as "no US tax," one must file, but each year, the amount of foreign-earned income which one can exempt from US Federal Income Taxes rises slightly.

For 2014, it was 99,200, so if you earned less than 99,200 and lived and earned income abroad, you could exempt all of your income from Federal Taxes and have a Federal AGI of 0.00 for US Federal Income Tax purposes.

The IRS form and instructions are quite clear: http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion

This form explains exactly how one qualifies for exempting foreign-earned income and how much can be excluded. This is not a complicated tax law; one can easily figure out if one qualifies and how much the exclusion is for each year. My wife and I figured this out on our own and filed our taxes while working in Armenia, Palau and Japan.

Sun Prince,

I lived and worked abroad for much of my adult life. It is true that a US citizen who is working abroad must file US income tax forms; however, if one is a temporary resident of a foreign country and earns all of one's income in the foreign country, a US citizen is exempt from US income taxes up to a specific amount each year. When my wife and I were living in Japan, we could each earn something like $77,000 per year before incurring any US income taxes. However, each country varies concerning how much one will pay in income tax to the host country, But for many foreign nationals in many countries, they pay a much reduced rate.

Over our seven years spent in Japan, I think that our average rate of income tax was approximately 10% to the Japanese government. Thus, for US citizens, at least, working abroad does have significant tax advantages.

Aloha.

Aloha Octo,

I stand corrected. I remember when I was comparing Pax to space ratio, I was looking at ships carrying similar numbers of passengers. The SS and Seabourn ships listed carry significantly fewer pax and are significantly smaller ships, which we have had to avoid as I am worried that my wife would not be able to handle the motion of a ship much smaller than those in the Regent fleet. For me a 45' yacht with 6 pax works just fine!

My real comment was directed at the fact that Cruiseluv indicated a liking for a better space to pax ratio, to which you replied that you book larger suites. Booking a larger suite on Oceania does not affect to pax to space ratio. Regent's is better in that case, but having said this, I would still most likely sail O anytime for the right itinerary at the right price.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Just to clarify Cruiseluv's post:

And I rather have a pax/ space ratio of 72 than 53, as well as a much favorable crew/pax ratio…to each his own...

This figure is a ship-wide overall space-to-passenger ratio and is not related to one's individual cabin choice. Regent, I believe, has one of the best, if the not the best, space-to-passenger ratios in the industry.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Aloha Mudhen,

We had a butler for the first time last year, and we did not really think we would know why or how to use him. However, I will have to say having the Butler bring breakfast was brilliant in that we let him know that we prefer to eat early, so we received our breakfast at the very beginning of the range indicated every time we ate in the room. This was very helpful on excursion days as we pretty much knew exactly when we would be served.

Also, I mentioned to the Butler that we really love Indian food. He was from northern India, and he told us that we should allow him to arrange having a nice Indian meal served in our room. So one night after a long excursion day, we were served several Curries, nan and rice; it was great.

Also, one night my wife decided that she had simply eaten too much and could not face another night in the dining room, So I called and ordered a very small, simple room service dinner, And our butler had it to my door within about 10 minutes of having made the call. I was absolutely amazed that he got the food up to us so quickly.

So for us, the Butler made in-room dining just that little bit better, and it did have a positive effect on our cruise, especially the early morning breakfasts, leaving plenty of time to shower and to have that one last cup of coffee before meeting for the excursions!

Enjoy your cruise.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Three years ago, we were put in the airport Hilton by Regent as we could not make our flight connections, so we were given a free post cruise night. For an airport hotel, it was surprisingly okay. The rooms were large and clean, and despite the fact that it was beside the airport, we did not hear much noise. Also, the Hilton ran a free shuttle into the center of Rome, so we managed to get an entire day of sightseeing in post-cruise. We chose to stay in the city to eat dinner, and that was probably a good choice, as, of course, there were very limited options in the hotel. Of course, if one wants the full Rome experience, it would make more sense to say stay in Central Rome, and you can certainly get a much better price than that which Regent is offering. I've also heard that the site cabs in Rome do a very good job for airport transfers.

I never eat away from the ship - I trust the ship to be more sanitary than any eatery on shore - anywhere!

I cannot possibly imagine spending two weeks in the Mediterranean and not eating in Italy or France. Why on earth travel halfway across the world to eat only on the ship where one is served upscale US-based institutional food? I am not saying I do not enjoy the food on Regent because I rather like it; however, I would never pass up a wood-fired Sicilian pizza in order to make it back to the ship in time for lunch in Compass Rose.

Aloha JPR,

Having lived in Japan for a good number of years and now on Kauai for ten, I think that perhaps traditional French cuisine has become too rich for our tastes. We tend to like things simply prepared with little or no sauces of any kind (though we do love Indian curry). We pre-booked and then cancelled as we really did not see anything on the menu for Signatures on that particular night which excited us.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Aloha Wayne,

You ask:

Are dinners served course by course I assume from the compass rose menu at dinner? That would be elegant.

We ordered Room Service once from the Compass Rose menu, but we only ordered a salad, some side veggies and a small portion of the organic chicken. My wife had over eaten a bit and did not feel like going to dinner, so I ordered the light meal, and it was brought all at once, which was fine by me as I was ready for dinner and bed soon thereafter.

The second meal in our room was a special Indian meal arranged by the butler, who was from India. I commented that I had once lived in an Indian neighborhood in the UK and that I loved authentic Indian food, so he offered to check in the kitchen to see if he could arrange several curries, nan bread, etc. We had our special meal one night later in the room, and it was quite nice.

Indian is meant to be served family style, so we did not experience service by the course, but when we had dinner with our new Japanese friends in the Voyager suite, I know that the butler came back at least once or twice as he served desert and coffee/tea after the meal.

Never thought that I would enjoy room service as much, but we ended up eating in a suite three of ten nights.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Aloha Rachel,

Bummer about the luggage, but glad everything else was ok. Did you eventually get the luggage?

We decided about halfway through the cruise to have our luggage shipped back home to Hawaii. The concierge onboard advised us that trying to get the luggage to either of two small Greek Islands would be difficult at best; thus, we made the decision to have it just sent back home and not try to catch the ship.

Unfortunately even though Alitalia had arranged to have our bags shipped door-to-door, they were sent to Kauai on United, and United reps here refused to allow them to be delivered by the luggage service; thus, I had to make another 50 mile round trip to the airport to retrieve our bags. And UAL wonders why so many passengers would rather stay home than get on a United flight!

Thank you for taking the time to post a review -- especially since you were not initially inclined to do so. Chef Kelly was on our Mariner cruise earlier last month - but, only for a few days. Our food experience on the Mariner was also good to excellent.

 

Sorry to hear about your luggage. As you probably know, we were without luggage for 10 nights on our July cruise. Looking forward to reading about the extra service you received due to this issue. In our case, Regent did an amazing job.

 

What cruise did you book onboard?

We booked Venice to Istanbul, Mid/late October only eight nights, but we want to add an extra night or two at each end.

Aloha All,

I was not planning to write a review of our trip, but I thought that since there is recent review here for the Mariner in which the poster was quite disappointed with his experience, I thought that I would briefly share a few thoughts on our cruise (on the Voyager) which occurred at roughly the same time as the Mariner cruise reviewed here this week.

First, we learned that we could do a ten-night luxury cruise with only carry on luggage as we never received our checked luggage--just mention this as a general warning to all--take enough extra clothing in your carry on to make three or four outfits in case this happens to you. I will comment in a different thread later about how Regent Air (who often get a bad rap here) saved our cruise while we were traveling from Hawaii to Rome. I'll also comment later on how the onboard staff went out of their way to help us in every way possible! The travel-related problem, due to a Luftansa wildcat strike in Europe, resulted in our reaching the ship in time, but our luggage not being as fortunate. C'est la vie.

Disclaimer: This is our third Regent cruise in the past three years. We are neither cruise nor Regent loyalists, but international travel is not new to us as prior to moving to Hawaii, we lived and worked internationally for many years, much of the time spent in Asia. Also we are in the tourism industry (F&B) in Hawaii, so this may also skew our view of some things.

General impressions: We thought the ship looked great after the refurbishment last year. The lounges were very nice, and our suite was really well put together. This was the first time that we were in a Butler suite (PHB), and we only took the suite because we got a great deal on it; we take our two weeks each year to get away and spend time together, not overly social onboard, and we had thought that perhaps a butler would be too intrusive for us; however, we loved the decor and the layout of the B PH and our butler quickly discovered what we liked and provided exactly the right amount of non-intrusive service. He was great help in dealing with the fact that we did the 10 days with no baggage and limited clothing.

Fellow passengers: The median age on this cruise skewed much younger than on our two previous Med sailings (similar time of year 7-10 nights). We saw many couples, like ourselves, in their early to mid fifties. I noticed only one or two people with limited mobility. I would say that the average age most likely nearer to 55-60 than 65-70.

Shore Excursions: We missed Sorrento due to high seas and the inability to tender; we were not terribly disappointed as we had visited Sorrento in both of the past two years; some passengers, however, were quite disappointed. Also, due to the weather, the captain made a wise decision and took us to the leeward side of Sicily rather than Trapani (we saw Trapani last year, so for us again, not a problem). Destination Services did a great one-day job of arranging tours in the new port of Syracusa. We had a GREAT excursion to the Roman ruins there.

Overall, the quality of the guides this year surpassed those of our first two cruises. Every guide was good to excellent with a very impressive command of both the English language and their subject matter. Two of the Regent Choice (extra cost) excursions we had paid for were cancelled, so all seven of our excursions were of the included variety, and I would do every one of them again, I think that every tour we took this year was of the archaeological/historical variety.

Two tours had groups which were too large; one of these was manageable as the guide had headsets for the group, but in Malta, the guide was fantastic, but with a group of 40 and no headsets, only about 30% of the group could hear him at any given time.

Food: Because we are in the F&B industry, we always take a galley tour, and this year we met with Chef Kelly (sp?) again. He has been with Regent for ten years, and both this year and last, the food has been good to excellent overall. This year, we actually never ate in Compass Rose, believe it or not, as we had dinner in our suite twice (once a special Indian dinner--off the menu arranged by our butler. And once we had dinner in a Voyager suite with a Japanese couple we met onboard--great people, and a chance to practice our Japanese). We ate once in Prime Seven and both the fish and steak were very good. The service in P7 was almost perfect. We dined four times in Sette Mari, and the service was excellent; I would steal the Maitre D, Antonio, from Regent in a heartbeat if I could. I would turn over the management of my business to him and travel. He is THAT good. The best front of the house person I've ever seen; he is MUCH better than I could ever hope to be.

Chef Kelley put on two Mediteranean buffets on the Pool deck, and while we generally eat only breakfast and dinner on board, we did sample the buffets as a "snack," and the food was really good--hummus, kebabs, etc.

Breakfast is probably Regent's weakest point in the food dept., but I attribute this as much to trying to feed 600-700 in the same hour 6.30 to 7.30 am in order to accommodate included excursions. This has to be a nightmare for the kitchens. Having a Butler improved timing on room service breakfast as we got our food promptly at 7 am and hot every morning. This was better than our last two cruises as we did not have to hurry through breakfast. Service in La Veranda for breakfast was also good; they were busy but handled it well.

Went to tea twice and the baked goods were good.

Coffee as discussed on another thread was uniformly bad in the restaurants and just drinkable from the machines on decks 5 and 11. We do not drink alcohol, so the wine list/wine service has no effect on our dining experience.

Crew Overall: Great service overall; this was a very well managed crew, and they absolutely went out of their way to ensure that we had a good experience despite the fact that we were without luggage.

Last impression: We liked this experience well enough to book another trip while on board; Michael, the cruise consultant, commented that some 50 couples booked while on board. He said that this was a very high number for a reasonably short itinerary; thus, on this sailing, at least, Regent must have satisfied a good number of passengers.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

But you can get water out of the machines on decks 5 and 11 which is used to make tea, and while it is most likely just under boiling, it would probably work in a melita in a pinch. Also, if you order hot water from room service, it will be similar to that from the machines. Again, I could drink the coffee out of the machines, but the room service coffee and the coffee in the restaurants was pretty rough.

Aloha,

Mark

Aloha all,

I roast 1000's of pounds of coffee per month and serve some 6-800 drinks every day of the year, and I can tell you from experience that it is absolutely possible to make lousy coffee with even the best beans on earth if there are problems with the equipment or a really bad water source.

Having just returned from our third Regent cruise, this time 10 nights on the Voyager, I believe that there may be a combination of factors contributing to Regent's coffee problems.

First, I will agree with what many have posted here. I do not much care for the coffee itself. Partially, because I generally drink 100% Kona coffee about two days out of the roaster, I am rather spoiled with very freshly-roasted, high quality beans. However, as I have posted before, I am critical of coffee, but I will generally drink just about anything, but on this year's cruise, the restaurant coffees on the ship in the mornings were barely drinkable. This year, because the coffee was so bad, I had a good look at the beans, and they look fairly stale by the time they are put into the machines on the ship. This may not be the case, but the coffee looks pretty old and dried out to me. Also, the beans do not have a good aroma. The coffee smells like large Institutional production coffees with lots of robusta, like a Folgers or Maxwell House. I can not imagine that this is high-end coffee. It is most likely inexpensive commercial coffee meant to be used in institutional kitchens.

A major part of the problem is simply the logistics of getting coffee to between 600-700 people in an hour prior to the morning excursions. To do this, they need to use the giant brewers, which again might produce something drinkable with really good beans, but will never produce a great cup of coffee.

Finally, I do not contend that Regent's poor coffee quality is completely due to the water quality on the ship; however, I do believe that it would be nearly impossible to make coffee as well as one can do on land with the water produced by a cruise ship. Again, Regent should be able to drastically improve upon what they are currently serving, but I do not think that they will ever be able to produce really "great" coffee.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Aloha All,

We just got off of Voyager in Istanbul and made the 28 hour journey back to Kauai--still recovering.

I have written on this topic before. We own and operate both a cafe and a coffee roasting business in Hawaii, so I have a little knowledge on the coffee topic.

In the past, I have written that it is almost impossible to make great coffee on a ship because coffee is comprised of over 99+% water, and the water on a ship will never be "great;" however, a ship should be able to make a drinkable cup of regular coffee, and while I am critical of coffee, I am usually able to drink just about anything.

Having said this, the regular coffee in the restaurants/room service on the Voyager this year were just this side of drinkable to me. Perhaps my perception has changed, but it seemed even worse than on our first two Regent cruises. I was able to get a bit better coffee out of the machines on decks 5 and 11, but these were just OK. We had an Illy espresso maker in the suite, and these make fairly good coffee. My wife enjoyed two shots every morning.

I guess that I got my coffee fix on land during our first two cruises and did not have as many opportunities this time, so I felt the disappointment in the ship's coffee a bit more. I ended up drinking as much or more tea than coffee as the Twinnings bags are pretty good.

I think that a change in beans may be in order for Regent as well as possibly rethinking the huge commercial coffee brewers in the kitchens, at least for some service times. Serving 700 people between 630 and 730 am on excursion days must be a nightmare for the kitchens, so I don't know how realistic it would be to refit these brewers, but having a french press available during the afternoons or in the evenings, when there is far less coffee drinking going on, would improve the quality greatly.

All for now. Time for some more sleep--then back to work.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

TC writes: We do not sail on Regent to meet other passengers. However, from what I have seen, passengers on Regent, Oceania and Silversea are all well traveled, intelligent and nice to be around. Yes -- I am different that other Regent cruisers -- we prefer the company of Regent crew and officers to other passengers. Not sure why you took my post so negatively as it was not meant that way.

Aloha TC,

You have written something like your comment above in a good number of posts here on CC, and I probably would not think anything of it if we were not in the tourism and hospitality business.

We have a good many customers who are seasonal regulars; they come to the North Shore of Kauai every year, and sometimes some of these regulars want to become close holiday-home "friends" with some of our staff. I find this occasionally to be a somewhat difficult situation. The fact of the matter is our staff are paid fairly well to treat all of our customers with respect and to be friendly to our customers. I have to remind our staff to be very careful in that these frequent guests will always be customers first and friends second.

The issue is that the guest really has all of the power in these relationships, as almost all of the interaction between the guest and the employee takes place at our place of business. A customer could complain about one of our employees if something happens with a friendship, or a customer might stop patronizing our shop if there is an issue in which a member of our staff turns down offers of outside activities with the customer. From what you have said in the past on CC, you seem to be able to deftly navigate this minefield; however, I felt compelled to write something here to remind us all that there is a power relationship in play between a guest and any member of staff.

Of course, because I live on the North Shore and many local residents are also customers in our cafe, I must be careful as well to make sure that I treat these local friends as customers first when they are in my place of business. We even tell our staff that when they have family visiting, we should always treat them as customers while they are in our café. We want to show aloha and to make sure that everyone has a good experience, so we have to be very careful about playing favorites, and also keep up at least a thin veil of professionalism between the staff and our guests.

I think the Regent staff overall is excellent; I too like to chat with the staff when they have time, but I suppose since I am in the business, I am always hyper aware of taking time away from the duties of the staff, or even if a staff member has a breather for a few minutes, to just let them enjoy a few moments of peace.

We have a hurricane spinning around us near the Hawaiian island chain this weekend, and we are scheduled to fly to Honolulu tomorrow in order to catch a flight to LAX to begin our next Voyager cruise on Sunday morning. Please send your good thoughts our way to keep the bad weather away so we are able to catch the Voyager in Rome on time!

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

TC, I am trying to understand your reasoning--that is one reason that I have posted here far more often than I have ever posted on CC.

You write:

Thanks Mark..... sorry that we do not seem to understand each other's reasoning. I suspect that if we were discussing this in person, it would be different.

Perhaps I am really missing something, but could you please explain to me any potential downside for Regent or any reason why they would not want to contact all passengers to inform them of how their itinerary will or will not be affected by the government-issued travel restrictions for Cape Verde. This is a government-issued travel restriction which directly affects the passengers on this cruise. Again, even if they have a waiver or know that the ban will be lifted, what is the potential downside of direct communication with every one of the affected passengers?

Again, I am trying to understand your reasoning, but unless you can suggest some possible downside to Regent informing these passengers directly about how they plan to circumvent the restriction, I will never be able to understand your position that Regent has no responsibility to do this. I simply do not see any valid reason for either your or Regent's position here.

My goodness, TC, I've written before that I believe you to be the most loyal customer that a company could ever ask for; however, I concur with others that you are now hurting the company that you love.

In regards to Regent not announcing a change to their itinerary and making the port call at Cape Verde despite an official government travel restriction, you write: They (Regent) no doubt know more about this than has been reported in the media. If this is the case, they have a responsibility to communicate this information with passengers on this cruise. Do they not?

Potential, past and current Regent customers on this thread are now posting that they will not book Regent because of the way that the company has handled this situation. Hundreds of posts ago, I wrote a plea for anyone who had contacts with Regent management to ask them to please communicate directly with passengers on this cruise. Had that occurred, this thread would have ended hundreds of posts ago and CC readers would not have been exposed to 30,000 thread views of negative comments about Regent. This is such a shame because it was absolutely unnecessary.

I am no big-league businessman. I am probably not as bright as anyone on Regent's management team, but I saw this one coming weeks ago, and I wish Regent management would have handled this as gracefully as their crew handle the on board experience.

Hope you have a good cruise TC.

Mark

TC, It is my understanding that there is a travel restriction in place in Cape Verde, put in place by the government there. This official travel restriction places entry restrictions on those who have visited Senegal. This restriction was put in place and reported in the media some time ago, so if Regent is going to sail the original itinerary, they are either planning to ignore/violate this travel restriction, or they have some type of waiver, or the restriction has been lifted. In any case, Regent has the responsibility to directly contact every one on that is on this sailing and inform them exactly what will happen in reference to this official travel restriction. If you were sailing into a port with a government ordered travel restriction, would you not want to know how this was going to occur?

Regent manages to email invoices to passengers in all 350 cabins before the due dates for every sailing, so I imagine it would take about three minutes to replicate this process to inform passengers what they are doing in relation to an official government travel restriction. I do not understand how you can not see Regent's responsibility to passengers in this case.

Aloha all,

TC writes: Regent has stated to some passengers and TA's that they plan to continue the itinerary as scheduled.

Why has Regent stated to SOME passengers and TAs that they plan to continue the itinerary as scheduled?

This is the question: Why hasn't the company communicated clearly to ALL passengers on this cruise exactly what their plans are for this itinerary? Clearly, Regent has received a good number of phone calls from passengers and TAs who are concerned.

I am in the Tourism & Hospitality business (almost everyone in Hawaii is in it in one form or another), and we serve some 6-800 guests every day, and many of these guests are in Regent's demographic. Knowing a little bit about this customer base, I have been wracking my brain to try to figure out why Regent management has not communicated directly with their customers. Even if the itinerary is exactly the same as booked, Regent owes the passengers on this cruise an explanation of how they are getting around the reported travel limitations put in place by Cape Verde.

I apologize to those who have read this entire thread as I have repeated my criticism of Regent's non-communication with these passengers any number of times, but every time I think about this situation, I am simply flabbergasted. I can see absolutely no upside for Regent in NOT sending the same accurate, updated information to everyone on this cruise.

The down side of this lack of communication is obvious to me as a person who deals with similar guests from all over the world every day. Regent markets to a very narrow niche of people who have the time, money and an interest in cruising. A site like Cruise Critic is not viewed by a lot of people, but the Regent threads are most likely viewed by ONLY people in Regent's target demographic, and to have nearly 30,000 thread views of a thread in which about 99 percent of the posters have very negative things to say about the company is a public relations disaster. Just imagine the number of TAs who might have read this thread but because of their position do not post. How are they feeling about Regent right now?

I do not know if Regent should cancel the port call in Senegal. From a public relations standpoint, they probably should. However, if I were on the cruise, I would most likely get off the ship in Dakar if there were no new warnings about the spread of the disease between now and then. But if I were on this cruise, I would sure have expected to hear directly from Regent way before now. I would probably be really upset to not know at least what was going to happen with the Cape Verde port and how Regent was getting around the travel restrictions put in place there.

I would love for this thread to end and for every passenger on this itinerary to feel safe and appreciated by Regent. At this point it may be too late for Regent to regain the trust of some passengers, but still I think that a direct message from Regent to every passenger detailing the current plans and explaining the situation with Cape Verde would go an extremely long way in alleviating the concerns of many passengers, and it might have the additional positive effect of bringing this thread to a merciful conclusion.

Aloha from Hanalei,

Mark

Aloha All,

Most of you have far more cruise experience than I do; I lived a good deal of my adult life abroad before moving to Hawaii, and I just took my first cruise a few years ago. However, even with very little cruise experience, I notice that Regent always gives both a mid-cruise and post-cruise survey, and from both what I heard on board and also from some postings I have read here on CC, I believe that Regent certainly reads these surveys (especially the mid-cruise ones), and they do often respond.

I think perhaps a simple one question pre-cruise survey for the Senegal itinerary cruise might be appropriate here.

Here is the question:

1. How would you rate your pre-cruise booking experience and the pre-cruise information provided to you by Regent for this cruise?

Excellent

Very Good

Good

Fair

Poor

Extremely Poor

I think it would be interesting to see the answers to this question from both those who are currently booked on this cruise and from those of us who have been following this thread and are with you in virtual pre-cruise mode here on CC.

I am not on this sailing, but from what I read here through something like 400 posts now, I would have to answer this question: Extremely Poor.

I am getting ready to go on my third Regent cruise in less than a month, and here is how I would answer this pre-cruise survey question for my previous/upcoming cruises:

2012 cruise: Excellent

2013 cruise: Good

2014 cruise: Very Good (to date docs to arrive soon)

How would those of you following this thread answer this pre-cruise survey?

Aloha Wheeldon,

We were in Barcelona on a Regent cruise last year, Rome to to Monte Carlo, and one of my favorite memories from the entire cruise was touring a townhouse in Barcelona which Gaudi built and designed for a private businessman. It is a four or five story townhouse and the entire interior was designed by Gaudi; he even designed the roof garden and the chimneys on the roof, which were spectacular. I don't have the name of this house in front of me now but it was right in central Barcelona and should be easy to find out about. We walked through the house with a recorded tour, and it was busy, but the 90 minute tour was about the perfect amount of time to see this beautiful home.

We had bad weather on our day in Barcelona (the only rainy day of our entire trip). I hope you guys have nice, sunny weather there!