Voyager Mini-Review: Rome-Istanbul October 21-31

[HanaleiSailor]

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

[Travelcat2]

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?

[HanaleiSailor]

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.

Edited November 6, 2014 by HanaleiSailor

[RachelG]

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

[HanaleiSailor]

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!

[Travelcat2]

We avoid United (as well as other U.S. based carriers) whenever we can. So sorry that you went through this.

[macbest]

Thanks for taking the time to prepare the review. We are going to be on the Voyager in several months, with the services of a butler for our first time. What was great about your review was some of the ideas of use of the butler. The breakfast and dinner options in your suite sound like a great way to go as we too hate rushing at breakfast.

 

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

[HanaleiSailor]

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

[JPR]

No dinner in Signatures?

[HanaleiSailor]

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

[DeepFreeze63]

Thanks- you left us a well maintained ship. By our third day, both the cc office and the new boutiques were finished. The boutiques are gorgeous! We also took the great offer and up sold to a B Penthouse and we love it. Don't know what to do with the butler though. We reserved a 2016 cruise on-board.

Best wishes

[forevertravel]

Thank you for a good review. It's nice to hear good comments after reading some others. Our experience with all three ships has always been very good. I think Kelly is an excellent chef. We met him September 2013 on Mediterranean cruise. Every night he made the rounds of all restaurants to make sure everything was fine and passengers were happy. We'll be on the Voyager May 2015 and Mariner this December.