Traveling is my passion, but my dream vacation with Regent Cruses turned into a nightmare. If you are thinking about cruising with Regent you need to read about the series of unfortunate events that happened to me on my trip aboard the S.S. Mariner that began with our not having heat in our cabin, suite 735, for the first four days of the cruise, and culminated with my sister and I developing severely chapped skin, and me developing bronchitis and a fractured ankle. The trip was Regent Seven Seas Cruises headquartered at 7665 Corporate Center Drive, Miami, Florida 33126. Our cruise was from Montreal to Miami from October 21, 2016 through November 4, 2016.

We boarded the S.S. Mariner in Montreal in the afternoon of October 21, 2016. It was a sunny day in the 50s. Although it was a bit cool in our cabin, we did not think much of it and dressed warmly for dinner. The next morning we were quite cold when we awoke. It was October 22nd and it was in the 40s where we were in Quebec City. We turned up the control on the suite heating system. When it remained cold during the day we thought possibly we were not operating the system properly. We asked our Steward to come show us how to increase the heat in our room. He did, and we had all the red lights lit for maximum heat that night. We went to bed convinced that it would be better by morning. By the next day, October 23rd we were at sea all day, and our room clearly had no heat whatsoever. It was a very dry cold. I went to the boutique and bought a $3 tube of Chap Stick for my chapping lips. We notified the Steward that we had “no heat”. The Steward said he would report it. After no one came we phoned Reception. Then after no one came we reported to the Concierge. Meanwhile we re-reported to our Steward and our housekeeper. By late in the day we were phoning Reception, the Concierge, the Steward, our housekeeper, and a waiter more times than we could count. That night we slept in our clothes. I wore a silk long sleeved turtle neck thermos top with a fleece jacket, stretch pants, and socks. By morning I woke up with a very sore throat, cough and a cold. We both had chapped skin as well. I went to the salon to try to get a gentle moisturizer. Even eye cream, the gentlest cream we had, would make our skin sting. The skin expert was not available, but the man at the counter suggested something. Because it cost $186 (a lot of money to me) I decided to wait and talk to the skin expert.

The next day we repeated our efforts to try to get someone to the room. By then it was October 24th, and we were in Sydney, Nova Scotia where the temperature was in the low 40s. I was in bed with my cold all day. Still, I frequently called Reception, Concierge, and 8888 (the number for room service and the Steward). It was always difficult to know if whoever we were talking to understood because their English was not very good. I happen to speak English, Spanish, Italian and Russian so I could communicate with those crew members, but most were from other places. I tried to keep the message simple “no heat in our cabin”, but still no one came. In the afternoon, a nice man from Bulgaria showed up to fix our balcony door. Obviously we were misunderstood by someone we reported our problem to. Somehow someone we called thought that cold air was coming in our room because of a broken balcony door. The door was fine. The man’s English was quite good so we again explained to him our dilemma. He understood. He was quite tall, and he put his hand up to the vent on the ceiling, and said “yes there is not any heat in this cabin.” He also said he would try to get help from an appropriate repair person. A young boy came who after tinkering with the control got in the ceiling in the closet to make repairs. His English was quite poor. When he left we weren’t sure if it was repaired or not. But we gave it some time to get warmer. Thankfully, very gradually it began to become warmer in our room. On October 25th we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia where the temperature was in the upper 30s. Our room was still chilled, but some heat was coming through. It was never actually warm during the next week. It wasn’t truly warm until we were in South Florida, but at least it was not near freezing anymore. Read more