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Food and services on Regent charters


Catlover54
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Has anyone been on board for a Regent charter, e.g., by special large groups with common interest? I have a deposit on one next year, and thought that in addition to attending the group event it would allow me opportunity to resample Regent’s food and service. But then I started wondering if food and service are different on charters, e.g., if they are lower quality.

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While we have not been on a charter, we have heard many comments from crew members over the years about the "dreaded" charters.

 

Having "like minded" people is one thing but many times the charters consist of people that have "won" the cruise - know nothing about Regent and only care that they will have a free cruise. These passengers could not be more unlike typical Regent cruisers. They drink like fish, stay up to all hours of the night which makes the crew stay up too late and then have to get up too early.

 

Since the majority of passengers are not Regent regulars, and the crew are a bit stressed, In my opinion, you do not get the true Regent experience. And, if you cannot fill the ship with your "group", the other passengers are generally besides themselves because of the "large group" that is onboard. Speaking for myself, I would be extremely angry to have a large group onboard that typically take over at least one lounge every night and many times close a specialty restaurant for the "charter guests".

 

If you go through with this idea, kindly let us know when it will be (what ship and itinerary) so that we can avoid it.

 

Thanks so much!

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LOL! The charter is a fund-raising cruise for the National World War 2 Museum, and is 5/30/19-6/8/19 Amsterdam to Southampton and includes an educational focus on the war including an excursion to the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the DDay invasion. As the group has booked the whole ship, and I believe it is sold out, there is no danger regular pax will run into the charter cruisers, which will include a few surviving WW2 vets, and people who support the museum, unless they have booked the event. But if they want to get rowdy, I’m fine with it :).

I am pretty sure we are going, absent unexpected issues in our lives that would preclude it, but I do not want to unfairly judge Regent food and service on that charter if Regent will be bringing on different, lower quality menus and cutting personnel.

 

However, I hear what you are saying about the problem of large groups on board with regular pax, especially if it is a small ship. On a river cruise we did a couple years ago almost half the ship pax were travel agents, and of the remaining half there was a group of life-loving Puerto Ricans. We still had a good time, but the dynamic was not luxury.

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I have never been on Regent, our first cruise is this Nov., and I've never been on a charter. But I can't imagine any "cutting personnel," or downgrading quality of food. I've priced charters on other cruise lines, for example a specific music charter, and the prices are usually much higher than normal.

I could see maybe a menu change to cater more to a specific group, but not sacrificing quality, and I certainly don't see them reducing personal for one cruise. That would be logistical nightmare. Just some thoughts.

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The only time I've been on a Regent ship that was partly chartered was the Paul Gauguin when it was run by Regent. There was no drop in standards that I could see. The dynamic was a bit weird--the big group was a sales reward and that group comprised about 2/3 of the passenger load. A large portion of that group spent the cruise in various stages of inebriation. There was also a smaller group, academicians in some obscure subject, but they were quite unobtrusive. The really weird thing was that we were invited to dine with officers almost every evening. Twice with the captain. He finally admitted he was hiding from the sales group.

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Since the same crew, chefs and food will be on the ship, there should be no change in anything from that perspective. However, since this is a benefit cruise, there are likely to be a high percentage of people new to Regent which will create a different atmosphere but few will notice.

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