Celebrity couple tries Regent - a review

[Kitekat]

This is a rather long review - so I have split it into two parts. This first section is our background and some information about Regent and the shop we sailed on - Seven Seas Voyager. The next post is our observations.

 

I think we should declare a number of interests up front. We are Elite on Celebrity and have cruised trans Atlantic many years back on Oriana (P&O). We have never taken a suite on Celebrity. We have been very happy with a veranda cabin on S class (and concierge on M class).

 

In recent years, we had contemplated trying another line but had never expected it to be Regent. However, earlier this year, we were sent an offer for this cruise at a price which made us take notice. The three ‘basic’ cabins were sold out but the next up and nearly all the suites were still available. We selected the bottom grade of suite which gave us club class flights and a pre-cruise overnight stay in a hotel.

 

The itinerary was interesting with only two repeat ports for us. We reasoned the price reduction was due to nervousness about the itinerary which included a Suez canal transit and the Middle East ports to Dubai.

 

A bit about Regent

An all inclusive line:

- All tips and gratuities are included. Passengers are not required to tip further and are refused. Those wishing to tip are requested they placed them in a central fund for staff parties and staff emergencies.

- A wide range of tours are included in the price, some do require further payment – usually where there is a high entrance fee. If your preferred tour is fully booked you can ask to be wait listed.

- All drinks – cocktails, champagne (the real thing), prosecco, a range of premium spirits are included, plus a core of wines is available by the glass. Soft drinks, mocktails, tea and coffee. Higher quality bottles of wine can be purchased. (Opus 1, Chateau d’Yquem…)

- Speciality restaurants are free but limited to one reservation in each. Further reservations can be made if space is available.

Loyalty club scheme tier kicks in at the beginning of the cruise.

A high staff to passenger ratio.

In the evening, dress is elegant, smart casual (no jeans, no shorts etc) after six o’clock and is enforced. There are formal night(s) during the cruise, one or two depending on length, but it is optional.

And a great IT system for reviewing your cruise itinerary, booking excursions and restaurants. A wee bit quirky but it works well.

 

A bit about Seven Seas Voyager:

- A much smaller ship than any of X’s carrying only 700 passengers. It does not matter if you forget anything, it is hardly any time or distance to retrieve it from your cabin.

- Two speciality restaurants: Prime 7 – similar to the Tuscan Grill – but including a number of Alaskan crab and lobster speciality; Chartreuse – similar to Murano – serving classic French cuisine. All passengers automatically have two reservations which they can select within 90 days of sailing

- The main dining room, Compass Rose, is anytime dining. You can join others or just have a table for two.

- The buffet restaurant becomes an Italian restaurant in the evening with anytime dining, again join others or dine alone. Availability is limited and we gave up on one evening as the wait was too long.

- There are the usual shops, spa, casino, internet area, library and games.

- A reasonable sized pool and two hottubs.

 

A few things to note:

Voyager was out of a 26 day ship-wide refurbishment.

There was a complete new menu in Compass Rose.

[Kitekat]

Here are our observations. It is fair to say that most of this is subjective. But this is how we found things.

 

Similarities:

- Welcome on board drink – champagne on Regent versus sparkling wine on Celebrity – but it is equally warm!

- Dinner has a core of items which are always available plus the daily specials. Wines are paired with the day’s menu.

- The restrooms/loos have small flannels to dry your hands rather than paper towels.

- Smoking policy – Regent has one small smoking room where they allow cigars and one small outside area on the pool deck similar to X’s. No smoking elsewhere.

- Chocolates on the pillow each night – raspberry, orange or mint creams on Regent.

 

Where Regent wins:

These are comments based on the price we paid for this cruise and not for the original price.

- The food is mostly excellent all over the ship. Our favourite dining venue was Compass Rose. All restaurant menus were available via the interactive TV. It is a premium line and this is evident in the ingredients where truffle makes a regular appearance, foie gras is in the core of regular items and caviar features occasionally. The standard list of always available iems was very extensive on Regent, with a large variety of appetisers and salads, pasta dishes, a range of fish and shellfish including lobster and scallops and a selection of meat dishes including several steaks plus a variety of sauces, not to mention several potato and vegetable side dishes.

- The quality and flavour of the themed lunch buffets at the pool grill was generally very good. We experienced Thai, Mediterranean, Tex-mex, Greek and Middle Eastern often relating to the port (except Tex-mex), among others. Hot dogs and burgers were available every day.

- The range of excursions offered in each port catered to a variety of tastes included walking tours, wine tasting and ruins. The tours were well organised with clever organisation to ensure equal numbers on each coach, usually between 20-30. Local guides were generally very good.

- The all inclusive wines were generally excellent with something for all tastes. Each day a white and a red were offered to pair with that day’s menu and if not to your taste can happily be changed for others within the ‘by the glass’ offering. A wine tasting is held, usually early on in the cruise, where passengers can taste all these wines. The speciality restaurants (Prime 7 & Chartreuse) have exclusive wines which are not available in the rest of the ship but are still within the all inclusive.

- Cheese! Really great French, Italian and British cheeses. The best we have eaten on any ship.

- The IT system has a few quirks but it works. All aspects of the cruise can be viewed online prior to departure; excursions can be booked on line as can the restaurants. A summary list is available to review what you have chosen.

- Staff were excellent, friendly providing really good service for the most part.

- Toiletries were gorgeous.

- Enrichment lectures – our second speaker Dr David Price Williams was informative and very amusing.

- No constant upsell, no photographers, no art auctions.

- We had some OBC as part of the cruise which we enjoyed spending. However, if we had none, we would have easily walked off the cruise without spending a cent.

 

Where Celebrity wins:

- The variety available at breakfast, particularly on the S class ships is really good. The English, American and Canadian bacon are all excellent. The range of egg dishes is exciting and are perfectly cooked. Asian offerings too.

- The variety of the buffet at lunch time is great and the curries are generally well prepared.

- The solarium – okay Voyager is not big enough to have this kind of thing - but we like it on very hot and cold sea days. And the thalassotherapy pool on M class ships

- The Martini bar was missed and the Molecular bar (we have yet to experience the World Class bar).

- Ocean view and Sunset bars were also missed on warm evenings in port and at sailaway.

- Cold drinks and towels or hot soup on return from tours. However, there were hardly any queues to board Voyager.

 

Downsides to Regent

- Food wise, some individual courses were not up to the usual standards and some fell well short of the mark. While we have chosen wrongly on X we have never had anything be well below the standard of cooking for that course. Of course, replacements can be made if something is not to your liking.

- Dinner particularly, while constituted of high quality ingredients, was a bit ‘bland and safe’.

- There is no place to dine in the evening if you do not want to follow the dress code, except room service in your cabin. The code is enforced.

- The range of food items in the indoor buffet is limited at lunch time. That said, the salads are changed daily although there is a core of items that are always available such as tomatoes, lettuce and grated carrot.

- The tour you want may just be booked out. You will just have to select from one of the others.

- The lighting in Sette Mare (evening buffet becomes Italian venue) is very bright. Compass Rose is more gentle but a mix of soft yellow and a very harsh blue that can feel like it tires the eyes after a while. (And is not very flattering to the complexion).

- Full price – it is expensive. However, a fully loaded Celebrity cruise – suite with butler, premium drinks package, Celebrity tours in each port and business class flights might well equate. We have never done the calculations on full price but on this cruise, it was definitely competitive and might even have worked out cheaper.

 

So would we sail Regent again? Oh yes. At the right price and the right itinerary. We would definitely do it. And Celebrity? Oh yes, we were already booked on three B2B cruises next year prior to this cruise. Sailing Regent has shown us just how well Celebrity do in their field and the quality of their product.

[jagoffee]

Great job! Very informative. Thank you.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Thank you for the very interesting review.

[Bo1953]

KK - Thank you for your review of the two (2) lines.. very nice.

 

I do have questions, about which you may not have an answer, but here goes:

 

1) how did you find the CC postings/comments before sailing, and

 

2) how did you find fellow passengers conduct while aboard and on tours?

 

Thank you again,

 

bon voyage

[Kitekat]

KK - Thank you for your review of the two (2) lines.. very nice.

 

I do have questions, about which you may not have an answer, but here goes:

 

1) how did you find the CC postings/comments before sailing, and

 

2) how did you find fellow passengers conduct while aboard and on tours?

 

Thank you again,

 

bon voyage

 

In answer to 1 - Sparse. There are far fewer CCers posting on the Regent Board compared with here on Celebrity. That said, we found most of the info we wanted about the line and the ship within the postings or on Regent's website, which is very good.

 

And 2 - Much the same as Celebrity. There were a few loud folks, some frequent complainers but the remainder were lovely people and generally chatty. Most with lots more in the bank than us as many were taking several Regent cruises per year.

 

Hope this answers your questions!

[CYNSport]

Thank you for taking the time to post this helpful comparison. Cheers!

[north29]

I have always though that some of the boutique lines would end up being less expensive than the Main stream lines like x. However, dress code is may not be for us. We never wear shorts, and always dress appropriately, and on trips in the Caribbean take a jacket and dress pants. On longer travel/sight seeing adventurous cruises NO Jacket or Dress clothes, but still look nice with, god forbid our modern ways, designer jeans for my wife, she also can be uses off the ship. Regents dress code(never looked it up) might keep us from trying it.

[Kitekat]

north29, if you never wear shorts, the only issue for you would be jeans - even designer jeans are not acceptable. Dress pants are fine for both of you. There is no need for men to wear a jacket unless you want to or find the aircon a bit too fierce, which happened from time to time.

[TeaBag]

Great review. Thank you. It's good to know that Celebrity compares favorably with Regent.

[travlr21]

Thanks for your comments. Very timely for us, appreciate your observations.

 

We are Elite+ on Celebrity and we are booked on the Voyager next fall. The last big thing on our list was Asia, and the Celebrity itineraries did not do it for us. Friends have highly recommended Regent so we are taking gamble with 63 nights booked, on 4 different legs that have been combined into a B2B by Regent, Rome to Beijing.

 

We did the math, and even though Regent is more expensive, we are liking the idea of everything being included, and the itinerary wins by a long shot. We get overseas business class and 3 days post cruise extension in Beijing included. The only thing we will miss is the free laundry we get on Celebrity, but there is self service laundry on Regent. That will be nicer than hand washing the things I do not send to the laundry.

 

Because there is little need to spend on board, our TA will be sending us a cheque instead of the usual OBC they give.

 

One question on dress code, do men wear golf type shirts in the evening, or is it more common to see button-up dress shirts? DH does wear the golf type shirts on Celebrity, not sure if we need to invest in a few dressier shirts for him.

[loeb]

Thanks, we have been considering Regent and your review sure helps.

[Kitekat]

We are Elite+ on Celebrity and we are booked on the Voyager next fall... The only thing we will miss is the free laundry we get on Celebrity, but there is self service laundry on Regent. That will be nicer than hand washing the things I do not send to the laundry.

 

One question on dress code, do men wear golf type shirts in the evening, or is it more common to see button-up dress shirts? DH does wear the golf type shirts on Celebrity, not sure if we need to invest in a few dressier shirts for him.

 

There is a laundry room on each deck with cabins so it should make life really easy. Two washers and separate tumble driers plus two irons and boards. I do like silk underwear for easy hand washing on cruises.

 

Dress code showed a mix of polo shirts, short sleeved shirts and button up dress shirts, all smart but not outlandish. More jackets, suits, and tuxes visible on 'formal, optional' nights but not necessary at all.

 

There is no signing for anything unless charging back to your cabin and there is no pressure to spend. All drinks including the minibar are included plus your choice of drinks for the cabin.

 

We thought the included tours were good quality.

 

I'm sure you will not regret making the change

[conquesodor]

Thanking for sharing this. Very informative and interesting.

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Forums mobile app

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[easyboy]

Thanks for the feedback.

[rdler]

Are the laundry rooms the only available laundry service? I would hate to miss an excursion or port of call to be doing laundry in a communal setting. Do the machines take U.S. coins?

 

(Clean clothes are a big deal for my wife and me.)

[Kitekat]

You can send out your laundry, too - the bags and lists are in the closets of all the cabins.

 

The laundry machines appeared to be free to use, although we took rather a lot of clothes and ended up taking some home without wearing them, so never needed to try. (And silk undies save a lot of hassle). The ironing boards, on the other hand, were much more useful.

[Northern Aurora]

I also found the comparison interesting. We have found the amount of upsell to be increasing on Celebrity recently, and it would be refreshing to be on a cruise ship with no art auctions and thus no "special invitations" to their events.

[1982CruzStart]

Thanks you for your honest and thoughtful review.

 

Our cruise line of choice is Regent but have recently tried Celebrity because our $ against the USD declined and Regent could only be booked in USD.

 

We got a couple of really good deals for cruises on Celebrity for itineraries we wanted so made it worth giving it a try. We booked suites because we like larger cabins and the access to Luminae and Michael's Club that helped make the ship seem smaller.

 

Our first cruise on Millie was not as successful as i hoped and almost ended our experiment with Celebrity but the 2nd one was on an itinerary we wanted at a great price so we gave Celebrity another try. We were on Equinox with a much better experience.

 

Our next cruise is back with Regent as they are now booking cruises in CAD at a reduced exchange rate.

 

We booked another cruise with Celebrity while on the Equinox and we will see whether we take it or not as prices have gone up so much on Celebrity. By the time we add in air fare and excursions and in our case our preference for a smaller ship Regent is back being more attractive to us.

 

If you like all the options that you get on a larger ship then probably Regent or any smaller ship is not for you.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I also found the comparison interesting. We have found the amount of upsell to be increasing on Celebrity recently, and it would be refreshing to be on a cruise ship with no art auctions and thus no "special invitations" to their events.

 

You might consider Celebrity's upscale sister line Azamara too. We didn't experience any upsell on our Azamara cruise, and since then they have severed their arrangement with Park West for art auctions -- which was the only "downscale" part of our cruise...

[jan-n-john]

You might consider Celebrity's upscale sister line Azamara too. We didn't experience any upsell on our Azamara cruise, and since then they have severed their arrangement with Park West for art auctions -- which was the only "downscale" part of our cruise...

 

We have done many Celebrity cruises, did one Regent a couple of years ago, and did our first Az a few months ago. We are booked on one Az trip next year, and had another which we have now cancelled and switched to Regent.

 

Bottom line for us, based on what we've seen so far: Az is Ok, but it's no Regent. Regent is just more luxurious, rooms are bigger, entertainment is better, and food is way better and more varied. The all-is-included aspect is nice, and if one is price conscious one needs to figure the full cost on Az to make a valid comparison. Also, Regent's quoted prices generally include business-class air; if you can avoid flying (e.g. Miami) or are content to arrange your own economy class, they will knock quite a bit off the price, so you need to take that into account as well.

Edited December 16, 2016 by jan-n-john

[dabear]

While the majority of our cruises have been on Celebrity, we have also cruised on Regent , Oceania and Az. By far the latter lines exceed X on quality of food, and service but X has more amenities and better entertainment. We also liked the included tours and all inclusive premium drinks and tips. At the right price I would go again with Regent in a flash.

Edited December 16, 2016 by dabear

[4774Papa]

What is the relative difference in cost?

[dabear]

What is the relative difference in cost?

 

Unfortunately you have to run the numbers to compare the differences between costs of each cruise of X vs R. as you well know cruise lines are always running promotions so costs will vary from cruise to cruise. Regent is all inclusive, including air (sometimes business class or can be waived for a fare reduction), , larger cabins(R's lowest category was larger than X's small suite), tours, tips, transfers, hotels, specialty restaurants (you can use them more than the guaranteed reservation by asking if there are openings as we did many times) & premium liquor. While many R cruisers were wealthy & very experienced , they were not ostentatious & did not discuss such matters unless prompted. We also did not experience chair hogs. While costly, we felt R was top notch without being approached for upsells, etc.

 

On he other hand, X is still a very good product, but IMHO has gone down a touch over the years.

 

One other big difference is the size of the ships.We prefer smaller ones as we don't like waiting in lines' or overcrowding in ports that tend to occur when on mega ships. Of course the amenities are toned down on smaller ships but service is better.

Edited December 17, 2016 by dabear