Dolebludger

Just a guess, but Regent may use the Anchorage Hilton for this package and bus the guests to Whittier. In the past, Regent used this hotel as long ago as 2002 and as recently as last year. However, this may not be the end of the problem. Guest ratings of this hotel on TripAdvisor and here on CC have been pretty dismal. And there really aren’t sufficient hotel rooms in Anchorage to accommodate guests who do not have this package. And Whittier is a tiny town with a population of 272 in warm months and 220 in the winter. Not many (if any) hotel rooms there. I hope the OP will report here on how this mess turns out. My casual observation is that the entire hospitality industry has not fully recovered from the pandemic — and this includes Regent and others with whom it contracts. We are lucky in that our two post-pandemic Regent cruises were free of problems that we felt were major. But others haven’t been lucky, and luck can run out. We are locked in to 0 cruises at the moment, and will stay that way until Regent (and similar lines) return to the seamless experiences of the past.

Flying with a small dog for a fairly short time In an approved carrier poses far fewer problems than having such a dog on a ship for a longer period. If you take your dog on a Cunard crossing (allowed), you’ll find that it is locked in a kennel most of the time. No fun for the human — and especially the dog. Also, I train my dogs to go outside and “do their business”. On a cruise ship, there is no outside.

Typo! And I don’t think any service crew was added. They were a bit disjointed at the start, but improved quickly. Also, the toilet is still working. I was told it was a vacuum system problem.

Yes, we are on the 8/12 to 8/20 London to London cruise right now. The CD is Natalie, and seems to be doing a great job.

As this is a cruise of WWII sites, the TV on the Splendor does offer a good selection of WWII movies.

The service staffing matter has greatly improved. But another matter has emerged. Our suite’s toilet refused to flush this morning. We reported it, and it was fixed — for a while — and then refused to flush again. Several hours later, it’s still working, so fingers crossed. Our CD is Natalie (haven’t found the last name). I also can’t find out how long she will be on this ship. Everything under the CD direction has been great.

My “training cruise” statement was made in humor. I may have missed the mark!

John. We flew with only one connection in Denver, we go back the same way. We booked through Regent with deviation. Hotel was fine, and Diet Coke was delivered.

Well, we boarded the Splendor on 08/12 2024. There was no problem with protesters. But onboard there have been some. It is now night, and we have yet to have our mini fridge set up as we requested. Dining in the Compass Rose, we weren’t shown the dessert menu. I have spoken to several members of the service crew. For many it is their first cruise. Is that what I paid for?

We have just boarded this cruise. There were problems apparent from lack of staffing,— not with the service personnel here, just because it seems they have two few service personnel. First evening in the Compass rose, nobody was around to show us the desert menus. Also, upon boarding, we asked our room steward to bringing us some beer and Diet Coke. Now in the evening, the fridge has not been refreshed and serviced. Many of the service personnel have told us thar this is their first time. Shouldn’t we get a discount for taking a training cruise?

We are in London right now and will board the Splendor tomorrow. We’ve here since yesterday. And apparently no violent protests have reached here. Hope it stays that way.

Never heard of a problem like this before, with Regent. I wouldn’t “deal with it” absent pre-information about the charge and the chance to back out.

Thanks all, I’ll check these places out!

We are going on this one, and spending two nights at JW Marriott Governsor (sp?) hotel pre boarding. My question is about restaurants/pubs in the area. We are not into fancy dining. We are interested in pub food where locals go. We will have all the up scale dining we want while onboard the Splendor (we hope). So we are asking here about restaurant/pubs in walking distance from this hotel where the locals go. Any advice?

Yes, to see if I was becoming senile (a possibility at my age) I looked up the stats for Voyager and Splendor. I found that the Splendor IS significantly larger than Voyager. Gross tonnage (a measure of interior space) is 42K for Voyager and 56K for the Splendor. The Splendor’s guest capacity is about 50 more than Voyager. It would be more than that, except for suites on Splendor that are the size of a large house. And the Voyager is somewhat smaller than the Mariner too, even though suite categories H through concierge are larger on the Voyager..

I just noticed this thread. The last and only time we have cruised on Voyager was 20 years when she was very new. We found it to be much like the Mariner, without the step - up bathtubs and under-sized lower level suites. So if you have an H GTY and get an H, all will be well. We had an H GTY but got bumped up to a D Horizon Suite overlooking the aft on deck 7. Sound good? It would have been except for one thing. That suite shook when the ship approached 20 knots. Not vibration but shaking. The only part of the ship with this problem was the stern area behind the laundry room location. Now that was 20 years ago. That problem probably has (I hope) been corrected. Other than that, we really liked the Voyager. We have recently been on the Explorer and Splendor. They are great too, but they just feel a bit too big for our tastes. I know the statistics on Regent ships indicate that they are about the same size as the Voyager. They just feel bigger.

I just must have missed the past info on Reykjavik cruise departures. Sorry.

Isn't Reykjavik a fairly new embarkation port for cruise lines? I don’t remember cruises from/to there except in the recent past. Back six or seven years ago we spent two nights in a boutique hotel there, taking advantage of Iceland Air’s free stopover policy, on the way to a river cruise out of Amsterdam. The hotel was small but nice, and a bit quirky. But it wouldn’t hold all of Regents guests. Too small. Our TA set us up with a guide for a one day tour, and with a nice Icelandic couple who prepared a nice dinner for us in the local style. I don’t recall seeing any hotels in Reykjavik large enough to hold all of Regent’s guests concierge and above. The main problem I see with Regent backing out on the hotel and transfer deal is that they may not be offering enough money/credit to guests affected.

It seems that Regent wants to put all their guests in the same hotel so it can use busses to transport guests in and out. Perhaps it cannot find a hotel large enough to make this possible. But if this is the case, it should have checked the situation before advertising hotel and transfers included.

From our experience a year ago, I wouldn’t book a flight out of Vancouver before noon, and later id]f possible. Not the fault of Regent, but- the fault of airlines that don’t employ enough reps there to handle delays and cancelations.

Also, AmEx platinum card holders receive a checked luggage refund from them when you book the flight on this card. The number of checked bag fees pp depends on the class of seating booked. We always book business, and we get two checked bags pp. As it is an AmEx refund, any airline will do. Also Amex has established nice lounges in many airports that card members can use. These are handy, since the airlines have refused to admit business/first flyers who are no going international ‘’there is no reason to be concerned about deviation now, as Regent has stopped including flights in the cruise fare. Just pick out the flight plan you want and check Regent’s price for it compared with what you or your TA can get. Another thing AnEx platinum provides is some degree of travel insurance. As I don’t know the extent of coverage completely we always but more inclusive travel insurance too on longer, more expensive trips.but last year, our domestic flight was cancelled at the first connection, forcing a hotel stay. Amex covered it. Back before Regent stopped including air, we always deviated. Regent had a habit of booking too many connections with layovers too long and too short. When an intercontinental leg was involved, it would fly us around the U.S. with an unneeded number of connections, making the intercontinental business class leg as short and inexpensive as possible. We always deviated our air out of that situation. But now, as I said, just pick out your route and flights and shop for the best price. Was the price of this ever too high for us? Yes. Since we did this before the penalty period, we’d just cancel the cruise.

Hi, Jim and Ian. You may remember me from the Celebrity forum suggesting Regent as a cost effective alternative to Celebrity Retreat. While RSSC does give a great cruise, I can’t comment on cost since it unbundled the air and land transfers for bookings after July 1, and since air fares have gone through the roof this summer. So I can’t necessarily stand be my earlier economic analysis. But I can say that RSSC is a classy, casual, uncrowded experience — more so than Celebrity Retreat. The included laundry is a great feature that allows travel to and from the port with carry on luggage. And on RSSC, room stewards have more duties and fewer rooms assigned, so butlers are really unnecessary.

We have recently done two different things, at least before the July 1 changes. If the flights involve only North American legs (and thus are basic economy) we take the credit and book our own business class. If the flight involves intercontinental legs, we deviate to insure the fewest connections, connections that are not too short or too long, and the maximum air time in business class. That being said, I have no idea what to do after July 1, and how deviation works now.

Just a question about this, to ensure we are talking “apples to apples” Did the ‘25 cruise booked after the air became separate have BC air added on to get your pp/pd cost on it?

Bill, I am in total agreement. Those who don’t have this kind of money to spend on vacation can’t book those cruises. And those who do remember how they got their money! But again, it looks like that most of the increase is the fault of the airlines.