We are long time cruisers with over 20 cruises on several different cruise lines. Now that we are in our early to mid 60’s and retired, we decided to try Regent Seven Seas to see if it might be a fit for us (money being no object). We were excited to go on a ‘luxury all inclusive cruise’ that touts itself as ‘6 Stars’.

Our flight arrived in LAX and after collecting our luggage we waited for over 1 1/2 hours for the bus to take us to the port. The Mariner was docked at a somewhat ‘remote’ port with a tent for a cruise terminal. We entered the tent and were presented with a piece of paper with a number 3 on it and told it was our embarkation group #. We proceeded to sit in a rather crowed area (not sure why it had to be so crowded when over 1/2 the tent was vacant). During the hour and a half we waited to board, numerous staff shouted out instructions on what needed to be done prior to boarding. It was often difficult to hear over the din of the noise in the tent as more and more people arrived, and still no boarding process had begun. Much confusion abounded! We were given paper to manually enter our COVID vaccination information (all of which had been entered online prior to cruise) and given a ‘wristband’. Apparently they were having WIFI issues in the tent and so embarkation was delayed. Once they were ready to start, they called the suites and long time Regent cruisers first. This went on for quite some time and then eventually they made an announcement and virtually everyone left sitting, stood up and proceeded to rush to the lineup for embarkation. It was absolute confusion and we all clambered to get in the line. At that point it was clear the number ‘3’ was utterly meaningless as several people in front of us had numbers well above. When we finally got to the checkin desk the rep asked my husband where his bracelet was. He had removed it as we didn’t see a purpose. She indignantly stated we needed it to board - never mind that several other passengers did not have one. So she put another one on my husband and I can tell you NO ONE ever looked at them when we finally embarked the ship! This was absolutely the worst embarkation experience we have every had - pre and post COVID!

Once on the ship we made our way to our cabin. It was lovely and the largest cabin we have ever had. First impressions were good and we headed up to the pool deck for lunch as we had not eaten all day and by now it was close to 3 pm. We enjoyed our burgers and beer. Read more