Just returned from Voyager

[fancymeetingyouhere]

MY Thoughts:

 

Suite was wonderful - couldn't ask for more.

 

Food was just okay - not what you would expect from a luxury line. I would put the food equal to Carnival or RCCL - but the presentation was nicer.

 

Service was fantastic (except excursion desk).

 

Some shore excursions were good others were a total waste of time and extremely overpriced. One day they had us biking in the pouring rain and the tour guide lost half the group as she took off and didn't wait for half the people. We got a bit lost and completely drenched and had to continue for 2 more hours touring wet and cold - not service I'd expect from REGENT. I had asked to switch this tour as soon as I woke up and saw the POURING rain but they wouldn't budge ($260 for two!!!)When I complained about it to the tour desk they said they would call me but they never did - that was my only complaint about the service.

 

Fellow passengers were terrific.

 

Loved the small ship feel. No crowds, no line ups and it was easy to meet people as you saw them time and time again.

 

 

Loved that it was all inclusive - made it more relaxing.

 

I would cruise Regent again but they didn't meet my high expectations.

[BILLP1]

Surprised to hear that the food was the same as Carnival and RCCL.

We have been on all three of the criuse lines and just can not recall the food on Carnival and RCCL being equal to Regent. I just can not remember having fresh fish but only remember some soggy South African Lobster Tail on Carnival or RCCL. To us the food on Carnival and RCCL was cooked some time in the morning of the night that we sat down for dinner. The buffet was nothing but steam table muck on Carnival and RCCL.

[Travelcat2]

Thank you for posting your thoughts. I must say that your posting is a first that has compared Regent with a mainstream cruise line. Are you referring to all dining venues or just Compass Rose...... really curious as we will be on board next month.

 

In terms of the shore excursions. . . it is unfortunate that Regent contractors are so poor. We had similiar experiences with Regent excursions and now book on our own.

[TedC]

Never been on Carnival, but was on a family cruise to Baltics on RCI and the food was disappointing - the cookies were excellent, however.

 

Regent food has never disappointed, but food is a very subjective topic - perhaps I ordered the wrong items on RCI

[fancymeetingyouhere]

Surprised to hear that the food was the same as Carnival and RCCL.

We have been on all three of the criuse lines and just can not recall the food on Carnival and RCCL being equal to Regent. I just can not remember having fresh fish but only remember some soggy South African Lobster Tail on Carnival or RCCL. To us the food on Carnival and RCCL was cooked some time in the morning of the night that we sat down for dinner. The buffet was nothing but steam table muck on Carnival and RCCL.

 

 

Yes I was surprised too.

 

Latitudes was the biggest disappointment - the ping pong drink was nice and the soup was good and then it went downhill from there. Everything was just too greasy or smothered in salty sauces

 

Signatures was good but definately not fine french cuisine.

 

Compass rose was really hit and miss.

 

 

Now when we sailed on RCCL we did book the specialty restaurants 4 out of the 7 nights to avoid the masses of people and set dining so I guess it may not be a fair comparison. We did enjoy the specialty restuarants on RCCL. I guess if you like foods drowning in sauces then the regent specialty restaurants would be for you. I just think there are other ways to get nice flavors without having your food swimming in sauce.

 

JMHO

[JDRMYS]

We have dined at Signatures on the Mariner and the Voyager more than 50 times. We have never had a dish that was really "swimming" in sauce. If you want only a little sauce, or no sauce, you should ask your server to give it to you that way. Such requests are always accomodated. IMHO, Signatures is, by far, the best dining venue at sea.

[RachelG]

I have dined in all the Regent specialty restaurants on Voyager and PG multiple times as well as the main dining room. I have never had any dish swimming in sauce. The Latitudes menu is the same as what was offered on the Aug 2 cruise I suspect, and none of the dishes were overly sauced at all. Latitudes was not a great as I had remembered, but Signatures was excellent as were most meals in CR.

[DebbieH103]

I have not found anything swimming in sauce, but I did find the food at Signatures swimming in salt to where I could not eat the soup or my entree at all. Next time I will order it the way I want. I usually customize my food at any time when I need to or want to, and I was told to do so from then on. I have done this on Silversea and Regent, and though Regent did bring me a salad with no lettuce when I asked for just cheese, bacon and egg on my cobb salad, overall, I felt they did a great job in meeting indivual tastes when informed. Since the option is there, it is a real shame not to take advantage of getting what you like.

[Travelcat2]

Have to agree that I have not experienced anything on Regent swimming with sauce. Although we enjoy Latitudes very much, we have read comments regarding their specific type of Asian fusion cuisine (could be why they are changing it to a steak house). The only thing I don't care for at Latitudes is the "ping pong"? drink.

 

Perhaps the style of food is simply different on Regent than on main stream cruise lines. It is difficult to call Signatures simply a French restaurant -- the best chicken I've had in the world was fried chicken in Paris (does this make it "French" chicken?);)

 

Food is not only subjective, but, is also based on your experience with different flavors. When we moved from the "big city" to a small town, we searched endlessly for good Mexican food. . . every place we tried was barely tolerable. Yet, people really enjoyed dining at these places based on what they perceive to be Mexican food.

 

If you want to try something really strange -- try the sushi on the PG:eek: Seriously, if food on Carnival and RCCL suits your tastebuds more than Regent -- go for it!

[dvalentine823]

I will be on the Regent Mariner next week - Vancouver to Seward. I sincerely hope the food is much better than that found on Carnival. The only thing good I can say about the food on Carnival is that there is plenty. I had a steak one night that tasted like it had been cooked that morning, and simply warmed up to serve at night.

[cwc]

About "swimming in sauce", I actually had to ask for extra sauce on PG for my fish dish (yummy vanilla sauce), made me lick my plate:p.

[fancymeetingyouhere]

I'm a little surprised by the response on this board. The reason for this website is to express your thoughts about the cruise. I feel like people take it personally that I didn't love food. Perhaps I just expected more - we like fine dining and we frequent restaurants all over - it is a hobby - I personally felt this was not fine dining and for some reason I expected it to be - I don't believe I said RCCL was fine dining either. I would expect carnival, celebrity and RCCL to taste like ship food - that is what you pay for but I felt Regent ran short as this is not what they advertise.

 

We travelled with a group of people with whom we dine regularly and we have dinner parties in our homes once a month - sometimes we cook sometimes we have a well know chef come in to prepare the meal. We have a love of good food and all of us agreed that this was not what we expected - to us is tasted like "ship food"

 

If this is fine dining to regent guests then wonderful - i guess I am just harder to please. I'm sure there are other foodies out there that would agree.

 

SO unless you are the chef at Regent or own Regent then please don't take it personally.;)

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Yeh, well...people have egos invested in their purchases, be it their cars, their cellphones, or their cruises.

 

To be fair, I think you caught a bad cruise--my experience most of the time on Regent is that the food ranges from very nice to wonderful. So I think someone was out of sorts on your cruise--possibly the entire dining room staff. Some HR shakeup, or changeover, who knows?

 

On the other hand, it's not, or perhaps no longer is, consistently equivalent to a 5-star restaurant. Although it often comes close.

[Paint Horse]

I never find discussions of the quality or taste of food on a cruise ship to be a useful exercise as preferences differ so much. Further, the style of the executive chef makes a huge difference ship by ship. What you do not like one day may not be the same for the next cruise when a chef moves on. Food on a ship is what it is. This is not a useful way to select or differentiate one ship or cruise line from another.

[Island Cruiser]

I'm with Wendy on this. While I've been on Regent I have found the food to be excellent. But there have been exceptions. We had a very bad night once at Signatures. We had one weak night at Latitudes. Service all but disappeared one night in Compass Rose on Navigatgor last July. On our last Silversea cruise a new executive chef was on board and there were constant misfires from the gallley for fifteen days, atypical of Silversea.

 

I read the boards to learn of people's cruising experiences, good, bad, stange. If you were disappointed, tell us about it. If you were pleasantly surprised, tell us about that too. I want to read your take on your cruise experience. In the old days, if a cruise line was taking a nose dive in quality, we would have to learn about it the hard way, the expensive way. Now we can read the message boards and make a more informed (not perfect) decision when we purchase an expensive cruise.

 

I am perfectly able to differentiate between constructive criticism and crackpot grumbling. So, please, if you were disappointed, tell us why like this poster did. You won't be dumping on a cruise line. You'll help keep the cruise line honest and help out all of us in the process. And you will make the commentary on the message boards more interesting.

 

Pat

[Travelcat2]

Hope I wasn't sounding defensive -- we, too, have had food issues on all three ships (inconsistancy). The good - excellent food was the "norm".

 

This is the place to discuss the good/fair/bad of cruising on Regent. I prefer to get as many specifics as I can so I can learn if it was inconsistancy on Regent, food that may be just different from what a person is used to or ???

 

Many people also read CC to get an idea of which ship to cruise on. A comparison of Regent food to Carnival could not have been a much worse "hit" for Regent (JMO). I'm going to pay special attention to each dining venue on the Voyager next month and will report back (we have a group of approximately 15 CC members that will be meeting up on this cruise -- many are repeat Regent customers - some newbies. . . . there will be a variety of opinions to discuss):) When we get back.

[cwc]

BTW, we do find the food on RSSC food not as good as QE2 Caronia, strange but true. Consider the british is not known for their food ;).

 

Our conclusion is RSSC tried too hard to make thing fancy & uses expensive ingredient but execute/cook poorly. Caronia make simple dishes delicious like simply seared dover sole with fresh squeezy lemon done nice and neatly by our cute waiter.:D

[Nevian]

Just off Voyager Copenhagen to Southampton.

 

From our perspective for what it is worth:

 

Degustation menus in Compass Rose better than our previous 2006 Voyager cruise and on a couple of occasions were really wonderful, to the extent that we conveyed our compliments to the chef. They were wonderfully balanced and were not mainstream eg. one night spicy Indian/Asian well executed and not stinting in spice.

 

On the other hand, one night everything we ordered there (off regular menu) was rather mediocre to the say the least.

 

Signatures: (one night sample). Food of good quality and well executed but not very imaginative. We would have enjoyed it far more, however if the service was not so rushed (four courses in and out in ONE hour!) We should have tried to control the rate ourselves in hindsight but failed to do so and the experience was not good. There was a distinct feeling of boredom from our waiters and we did wonder if they had a card game arranged! Not a memorable, relaxing experience, more akin to a fast food experience!

 

Latitudes: (two nights including menu change) Service receptive and good. Food on first night rather mish mash and some of it very 'westernised', some of it interesting but rather bland. Second night and menu change was a plus, closer to authentic asian, consistant and richer in spice and flavours. We did what Tavelcat suggested and basically ordered pretty much the entire menu both times, only omitting anything we really dislike (pork). It was served in sequential fashion and shared by us both. Relaxed and pleasant experience and for the record restaurant well attended both nights.

 

Verandah: Evenings unbelievably boring, steak, chops etc night after night. First night appeared to be only Italian night as far as we could tell. That night food was reasonably good although not altogther 'Italian' perhaps Mediteranean was a better description. Lunches were very ordinary and nowhere near as good as our last cruise in 2006 on Voyager and not a patch on PG. Breakfasts were unexeptional and we gave up on the hot food offerings altogther, even managing not to burn the toast seemed a challenge. Perhaps it was us, but staff did not seem to be 'happy campers' in this venue for most of voyage, so we started avoiding.

 

We kept asking ourselves if we were being 'picky' but in all venues (though not as noticable in CR or Latitudes) service was to us percievably down compared to two years ago. It seemed across the board too from room servicing, bar staff, concierge, certainly reception. We will be very interested to read your thoughts Travelcat, as we were left wondering if somehow the Apollo purchase was to blame. We even experienced one or two hints that it would be a good idea if we tipped, nothing overt but there nonetheless and rather offputting.

 

Enough said but we were convinced enough to cancel any thoughts of a follow up booking we had in mind to set in place on board.

Nev

[poss]

Sigh. So sorry to read these things! We leave in a few hours for the airport-- and off to meet Voyager in Monte Carlo for a b2b. We've so enjoyed our two other Voyager cruises ('05 and '07) that we splurged for the double whammy. I'm desperately hoping that the wham isn't of another sort since our vacation budget was blown out for this. I hope you enjoyed your ports!

[poss]

p.s. Are even the formerly-wonderful banana/pecan pancakes not good? the creme brulee? sigh and sigh.

[Nevian]

Rest easy Poss the Creme Brulee was pretty damn good and it is one of my favourites too. I pass on pancakes sorry.

 

Please don't fret, after all our opinions are just that, opinions, and are naturally subjective. I am sure that many people on board were of quite different opinion and even had different staff experiences. In the interest of discussion, I thought it worthwhile to venture ours and perhaps see if it was shared at all or on the contrary, debunked.

 

The demographic I feel also influences the experience and I have to say ours was a bit top heavy in the seniors band for our liking, again a personal thing.

 

Ports were mixed as usual but we loved the Orkneys and the Irish ports best and found hiring a car for the day in Belfast and Cobh a most enjoyable alternative. Long tour to Stirling from Edinburgh not up to scratch for us at all.

 

Have a great time,

 

Nev

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Wow, not good. Poss, I hope you give us a good review of your upcoming trip. And I do hope the food is up to snuff!

 

I've been bored in La Veranda as well, and underwhelmed by Signatures. But not had that overall negative food experience. I do tend to like the Degustation menus, however.

[dreamliner]

Disappointed to read all the negative comments re food on the Voyager. We will be boarding the ship on Sept. 27 and am looking forward to great food, service...everything. Also disappointed to hear the service at the excursion desk is somewhat lacking? I know that wine is included at dinner in the restaurants, but can you get drinks at the bar before dinner or after dinner

[dfb]

but can you get drinks at the bar before dinner or after dinner

 

Yes, at anytime in any venue.. Champagne with breakfast, bloody mary... Wine, beer with lunch, etc.

[Travelcat2]

Nev, I really appreciated the time you took to write a review of the Voyager. You brought up some very interesting points.

 

It is great to hear that Compass Rose is well-balanced and has what seems to be new variety in their daily menu's.

 

Signatures continues to surprise me (not in a great way). Two years ago, Signatures on the Voyager was extremely good. Signatures on the Mariner -- mixed reviews (from trip 3 months ago). Being rushed through dinner. . . I'll watch for that and will politely slow them down if necessary.

 

I'm so glad to hear that you tried almost the whole menu at Latitudes. Hope that passengers of the Voyager and Mariner will take advantage of Latitudes in the next couple of months -- before it goes away. Remember that you can ask for a double portion of anything that you particularly like. We did ask for hot sauce (they have a sauce that blends well with Asian flavors). Just a little of it added the spice that some dishes needed.

 

La Verandah. . . don't even have much to say about this venue. It isn't that it's bad quality -- just needs to identify itself with some type of cuisine and do it well. Or, perhaps this should be the venue that serves regional food.

 

Were your lunches and breakfast's in Compass Rose or La Verandah? Just curious. La Verandah on the Mariner for lunch (and breakfast) was mediocre -- in Compass Rose, it was quite nice.

 

You are not the first person to say that they felt they were receiving hints about "tipping". I hope you let Regent know, via the survey, about this as well as the service and food issues.

 

The service at the front desk has never been as good as it should be. The area where Regent has excelled is in service for your suite and in the restaurant's.

 

It will be interesting for me to be on a cruise with a group of CC members. I do plan on doing some posting late at night from the Voyager as I enjoy that very much. This time, I'll be sending along specific information about the dining venues, specific dishes, service, etc. from several different perspectives.

 

Our upcoming cruise is short (only 7 days). . but, we will attempt to find an area in Compass Rose where we can repeatedly sit so we can have mostly the same servers. This has worked best for us in the past since they get to know you and can anticipate your needs.

 

Our cruise is 2 weeks away -- we tend to enjoy our vacations -- wherever in the world we are. So far, Regent has been a very positive experience for us (not perfect, but, what is?) ;)