As a frequent cruise enthusiast I was happy to travel for the first time with Regent, which had been touted as one of the best. The initial online experience with booking specialty restaurants and excursions was good but I was unable to book the spa for the days at sea when the facility tends to be more crowded. The advice given was to arrive early at the ship and head right for the spa for booking. We were given a 4 pm boarding time but on arrival in Barcelona the day before we found out that the bus for the port would leave at 11:45 am the next morning, which gave us no time to do a little Barcelona touring that day. And the 11:45 bus was already full. We managed to get on the second bus at 12:15 by just going to it and finding there were 5 empty seats though we were told it was also full. On arrival at the ship we went right to the spa only to find the preferred days were all booked ahead of time. We were told that guests had contacted the spa services provider directly and that this is what we should have done but we had not been advised that this was an alternative by Regent.

That was just for starters.

The excursions were poorly organized and very little information was given on what to expect. At the beach in Ibiza we were dropped off to fend for ourselves without any info on services, restrooms, restaurants, chaise lounge rental, etc. There were 2 buses for pick up and only 1 showed up. Some people had to find a taxi back to the ship. Read more