Paul Gauguin Review
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Regent's website, brochures and videos represent the Paul Gauguin as a "luxury" cruise ship where passengers can expect to be pampered with high crew to passenger ratios, exquisite dining and upscale accommodations and amenities. Unfortunately, none of these describe the Paul Gauguin.
I have itemized some of the issues we experienced on our recent New Year's cruise. Given our expectations from the promotional material mentioned above, it was extremely disappointing that we encountered these issues.
Air Reservations • The first seat assignments had our family of five scattered throughout the aircraft on each of the flights from our departure city to Papeete. Only through my own persistence were we finally seated together indicating that little or no thought was put into the first seat assignments by the Regent's air reservations personnel. • Also, be prepared for a grueling schedule of connecting flights and lost luggage, despite the availability of numerous direct flights on several carriers, when booking an "air inclusive" package through Regent. • Lastly, the service provided by Regent for emergency air reservations was of little or no use when needed. An attempt to book alternate arrangements through this service, when faced with delays, was futile. Simply put, the emergency service provider had no idea who we were, what our itinerary was, or how we might eventually get to Los Angeles the next day. Their advice was to stand in line to rebook our flights, on our own, which we did despite the long line up of people doing the same. Their farewell response that night was "Oh, and by the way, let us know if you can't make it to LA so we can let the ship know you won't be coming". The Ship • The cabins are cramped, and not close to 5 star standards, with worn, chipped and dented furniture. • The public areas have worn and stained carpets with dated dEcor. • The gym equipment is in disrepair and needs replacing. Only one of two elliptical trainers was available during our cruise with the second machine being "out of order" for the entire seven days. The gym flooring and facilities were worn and need updating. There was never a crew member present in the gym, either for equipment advice or cleaning the equipment, during the four days that I worked out on the cruise.