Hyacinth Bucket

THANK YOU for the info on your RAV4, I plan to inform Mgr when I go in tomorrow.

Regent, I have read many of the flaws people find with Regent.I think I agree with them 100%. Yet we conti ue to sail with Regent even though for the cost of the cruise, the food, shore excursions did not live up to our expectations. Shore Excursions we have found the information given not accurate. On one excursion it stated 4X4, reality, was a hay wagon where people sat opposite each other. View was the person opposite you, could see the front and back views IF nobody's head was in the way. Many people could not get into the vehicle as the first step was at leaSt 2 plus feet off the ground. They did not have a step stool.Go to places that are not accessible for someone who has limited ability.

What keeps us returning to Regent is not there shore excursion or the physical problems that could be addressed.

Now that I stated all of this you are probably wondering why we are still sailing on Regent. It is because of the staff, willingness to go out of their way for you, remember you if you sailed with them previously, we have always felt that we were coming home when we boarded the ship.

I will give you one example of what I am referring room - a close friend died unexpectedly and we wanted to call them on a regular basis. Regent did not charge us for the calls, created a space where we could talk and facilitated getting connected to our friend when we were unable to do this.

It is incidents like this that keeps us coming back.

Hyacinth,

 

I feel your pain. Our fully loaded 2011 RAV 4 with AWD and a V6 and 29000 miles of use has had an excessive number of problems. First, original tires went bald at 18,000 miles, and uniformly so. An alignment check showed perfect alignment. Then the front bumper cover and driver's side front wheel well cover came off/loose with no sign of any impact, Then the glass in the sunroof exploded for no reason at all. Then the car wouldn't start due to electrical problems, and neither my jump starter or that of AAA would start it. After a week in the shop, a new alternator, a new battery, and a bunch of other stuff, it is running again. For how long, I do not know. I bought it because it offered sufficient power, hauling capacity, and back seat comfort that other smaller SUVs didn't have. Given the low mileage to have all these problems, the chance of our buying another Toyota SUV (or Toyota anything) is close to zero. And I am starting to look for a replacement SUV.

 

Now, I'll bring this subject back to cruises. Unless a cruise line offers value for the money, comfort, convenience, reliability, and concern for necessities, I won't take it. (Just like I won't buy a vehicle that doesn't offer these things.) Regent, this comes from one of your former "cheerleaders". Are you listening?

Hi we have a new RaV 4 with all the bells and whistles. They have already replaced one battery because the car would not start. Subsequently, after that battery was replaced, the car would not start. My husband had to use our starter to get it started.

The car has been at the dealership this past week, they are unable to find out why we are having problems. Tomorrow we go back to the dealer to see hpw we can resolve this problem.

I like all the safety features.quote=Dolebludger;54341399]Travelcat2,

It may come as a shock, but I have a Toyota also (RAV 4 SUV) and a Honda (S 2000 roadster) . I wanted an SUV and a roadster, and found these had the most bang for the buck. But when I needed a sedan with AWD and enough power to get up the mountains around here Mercedes had the most bang for the buck. In cruises, Regent (fka Radisson) used to have the best bang for the buck for what I wanted. Now, I'm not sure about that.

Hello,

UU I do a comparison with other cruise lines. I take the total cost of the cruise I am paying and start subtracting. By this I mean I take the number of days cruising and multiply this number by average daily cost of liquor package, same with gratuities. I do this for I each free included item. subtract these amounts from cost of cruise. In the end I get the final cost of cruise per night by dividing final figure and number of days sailing and compare that cost with a Princess or other ships at that level and up.If this sounds c on fusing once you start doingit, it becomes easier.

I'm not trying to stir the pot (really, I'm not!) but I have another question about the 'included' excursions...I think we're all in agreement that some are better than others, and the Regent Choice excursions are 'usually' better than the included ones - but reading this thread got me thinking - what is the "real, actual, no-kiddin', bottom line" price difference between having included excursions and not having excursions?

 

I read a lot about people comparing Regent's pricing against other cruise lines and they're usually pretty close. Sometimes Regent is the better deal, sometimes not - but when people are doing these price comparisons, are they factoring in X number of excursions on a given cruise? The usual fare comparisons I see mention the cruise fare plus air - but that's not really a fair comparison unless you also factor in the cost of excursions.

 

Has anyone really looked into that to see how much additional the 'included' excursions run? What would be a fair credit if Regent offered an 'opt-out' of the excursions?

 

Just curious.

 

PS - Total disclosure: I'm a fan of the included excursions - although we've had some bad ones, most we've taken have been pretty good and some were excellent. To me, it just takes away some of the extra effort and worry about setting up something in every port. Seems more vacation-like to me.

Flora and fauna are nice to learn about, but what about the history of the people, the living conditions, political situatipn?.

.Michael only knew about two subjects, unable to respond to numerous questions that did not deal with those two subjects. Fellow passengers spoke with him about their areas of interest, and he c old not answer there questions. He was asked about the government, and once again as in knew absolutely nothing. He is definitely not a "well rounded"lecturer.

Jennifer, on board the Voyager for New Zealand and Australia, we have rarely heard as good as lecturers as Terry Bishop and Michael Scott (Michale knows his wildlife especially birds, he took over 6000 photos and shared his fav's with guests during each lecture). Terry's Smithsonian lectures are rich in context mixed with his wonderful sense of humor--our view is they are stellar Smithsonian lecturers. Michael even gave us the history and origination of how the Smithsonian came about. Terry added to his lecture skill set by portraying King Neptune is a exceptionally regal manner during our equator crossing ceremony. Lew Simons and his wife Carol are now on board from Singapore to Hong Kong--Lew is good but reads his lecture to guests--still he is a font of information and a Pulitzer Prize winner to boot for his journalist skills uncovering Philippine corruption back in the 90s. We also enjoyed our time with the Artful Travelers a few years ago, Charlie Cook was very good just prior to 2012 US election but Gil is right, the Artful Traveler program during our program was very US centric.

 

 

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We have not been happy with our lecturer. This was d ue to his COMPLETE LACK of knowledge on areas we visited and what seemed like HE WAS READING VERBATIM FROM LONELY PLANET as he quoted what they wrote.

He we I'll be the lecturer on our next cruise, does anyone know who I can share my thoughts with?

I'm curious if I am the only one who is not too impressed with the Smithsonian Lecturers. On previous cruises, we have had lecturers hired by Regent who were very, very good speakers. On our Middle East cruise in May, we had "Artful Travelers" speakers who were fantastic - the Smithsonian destination lecturers not so much. On the second segment of the World Cruise, we had 3 Smithsonian lecturers, one (Diana Preston) was great - a natural storyteller. The other two were snores. They know their subjects, but I had a hard time staying awake and I have a pretty high level for boredom!

 

What say you, fellow cruisers?