I wanted to try Regent's new ship Explorer and the transatlantic crossing gave me lots of sea days to explore the ship. We also had some interesting ports of call in Madeira and Spain.

We flew into Miami on our own and used a hotel shuttle to get to the cruise port. Very easy and economical.

First time I've been on a ship that joined in a search and rescue for a passenger overboard.The captain and cruise director kept us informed of what was going on as several cruise ships joined in searching the grid along with Coast Guard out of Spain. Fortunately it was not one of our ship passengers or crew. The search was not successful and was called off after about 12 hours as odds of surviving that long in the cold water were not feasible. Read more