Having been on 2 Chrystal Cruises we had high expectations. We paid a lot and we’re Bored! Our cruise was 12 days, England to Copenhagen. Weather mostly in the 60’s. Ship was beautiful and kept very clean. Night entertainment was minimal and except for 2 nights... the rest were subpar. As for on board activities... when you have 2 days in a row at sea we expect more than one lecturer, and all 3 of his lectures were on International Politics. Other than that, I don’t consider napkin folding and bingo activities. There’s a tiny casino too. As for dining options, they were okay. But we expect more than that. Twice I sent my food back, once for undercooked chicken, one for burnt salmon. Totally unacceptable. The service was good. As for the excursions, most were very disappointing At the end, the transferred 200 passengers by buses to the Marriott Copenhagen. We could barely get in the lobby and then we waited on line for almost an hour. Read Less

We are on a cruise from New York to Iceland and we picked the cruise for its destinations. The ship is old and is poorly maintained; lots of rust,scuff marks,stained carpets,faded wood on the decks.The vibration in the cabins is constant and unbelievable like sleeping on top of a freight train. The food is on par with Hometown buffet.Ar breakfast the hot foods were covered in grease.No fresh yogurt or berries.There are few choices for food on the ship with restrictive hours.The room service took forever and was poor quality. For dinner you are forced to dress up and go the main dining room so you don’t starve and you see fed like warm mediocre food. Most of the senior patrons don’t seem to mind or notice.We have been on about 29 cruises and this is by far the worst. There was bad weather last night and many cabins and hallways leaked and were inundated with water.Ernember this is an old ship. There is virtually no entertainment or enrichment programs and at the moment the pool and jacuzzi ms are drained with a full day at sea.The days entertainment choice a movie in the theater? The staff are very nice and well trained for the most part but they have very little to work with. I would stick with Silversea,Viking and Seabourn if you wish to experience a luxury cruise. Give these guys a miss unless you like bad food and old ships and a vibrating cabin where you can’t sleep. Read Less

Went on this cruise for the itinerary with our granddaughter, we cruised before with Regent so we love and know the service but this time they even surprised us. My granddaughter (16), was on the sofa bed, the mattress was quite thin and you could feel the springs, the second day of the cruise , I mentioned to our steward if there was anything they could do, OMG that night and every night after that, they brought in a mattress! Another example of going beyond what is expected, we came for lunch at the Veranda, outside , there was a table but not enough chairs, we were and the wait staff looking for some, the cruise director, Paul, who was dining nearby with two others staff, immediately got up and was ready to make them move inside so we could have their tables, they found chairs and everyone was able to stay, but really, they were in the middle of their meal, and he was willing to make them pick up their plates and go in, to my , of course refusal, that people is why we love Regent, they really try to make up happy. The restaurants were great, food is fabulous, the excursions is where they could have some improvements, but traveling in Italy in the summer is always a challenge with the crowd. They had a letter addressed to our granddaughter on arrival, every day they had a sheet detailing activities for the young one, she never took advantage of it . We love Regent, I am always a tad depressed when I leave, but looking forward to our next cruise to the amazon ruiner in November Read Less

Itinerary. We’ve cruised with Regent 3 Times before and enjoy the all inclusive pricing. The food, specialty beverages, wines, cabin spaciousness and shore excursions were top notch. Our butler was outstanding and offered excellent tips and info each morning with room service breakfast and in the evening when we brought us canapés. The ship has been in dry dock recently and every area of the ship was in excellent condition. The Compass Rose renovation was needed and the result is gorgeous. We enjoyed the new dining options Chartreuse and Prime 7 several times during our cruise. Terrific food and excellent service. The only downside was an outbreak of norobirus which impacted about 30 of the 700 cruisers and 450 crew. When the outbreak was reported the crew immediately implemented an extremely rigorous cleaning protocol all over the ship. We were affected by the virus but did notice how diligent the crew was. Their efforts restricted the outbreak to only a small # of passengers and crew. Read Less

I have taken 2 other Regent cruises they were perfect Regent has to take a serious look at their WiFi offered for free. Most times it was either so slow or not available definitely not a good experience The crew excellent the food especially the new Compass Rose menu was perfect The complimentary laundry was another disappointment why not extend the hours? The big negative was our disembarking in New York The process was smooth until you left the terminal # 88 not a Regent representative in sight Carnival reps directed us to our bus area Then the fun began I was group grey 3 The buses for grey 1 & 2 were there (for 40 minuets) finally our bus to JFK arrived loaded and left my flight was departing at 1: 00 pm the driver enters the airport at 11:35 am dros off some at Delta then drives out of the airport and come back in. He stopped the bus at a traffic signal leaves to get directions! 4 of us got out opened the luggage compartment retrieved our 8 bags and walked to our terminal we got there at 12:16 I think Regent should look at Academy Bus Co and maybe don’t use a low bidder shameful for my wife and I to unload our bags and run to the terminal I did write a note to Regent with no response I guess now that Norwegian owns them it will go down hill from here! The 4 of us will look at Crystal or Seaborne next trip Read Less

I wanted a daylight transit of the canal.That was great! The ship skipped 2 ports... Nicaragua and Guatamala...no compensation for that. I was disappointed that coming back to New York we passed the Statue of liberty at 4AM so I missed that and I was so much looking forward to it. The officers were invisible. I saw the captain only once the whole trip. Ray was a great cruise director. Some of the entertainment was very good. The bridge lessons were very helpful...Judy was terrific. Despite the long voyage and good food I managed to lose weight! That was a shock! I ate a lot of fruit. Maybe that is the secret. I will probably try another ship for my next cruise. The Navigator is getting tired. Meeting people from all over the world is the best part of any cruise. I have many new friends from Europe and Australia. Read Less

I should start by saying that this is my first cruise experience. We booked using a travel agent. We had the following requirements: great food, not a lot of kids, and not a "party" boat. This cruise definitely checked all the boxes for us! Cabin:We upgraded to a concierge Suite on the 10th floor. It was so spacious. We had a king size bed, walk in closet and even a sitting area. We had a bathtub with wonderful Loccitane products as well and even a balcony with enough room to have two chairs and a small table. Dining: The food was fabulous! We ate at all the options that they had! The pool bar had burgers, etc. Prime 7 has steaks and seafood. Compass Rose is open Breakfast lunch and dinner and has a great variety. And Sierra Mar ( My favorite) is italian and Chartreuse is French. I HIGHLY recommend making dinner reservations at Prime 7 and Chartreuse. These did book up on our 7 day cruise and the others are first come first served. ALL THE FOOD AND DRINKS were included. Not just the beer and wine but everything! Service: This was unlike anything I have experienced. Everyone that works for this ship is very nice and so accommodating. Pretty much anything that I asked for, they would make happen. For instance, we had a steward named Gregory that we met on the first day. He asked if there was anything that we needed for our room or mini bar. I asked for wine for the mini bar and he even asked what kind that I preferred and made sure that the mini bar was stocked with my favorite wine the whole trip. This was a nice touch. Ship: Was very clean, and very well appointed. It had a luxurious feel without feeling stuffy. Shore excursions: We did the Bering Sea- Crab Fishermans Tour in Ketchikan. I would HIGHLY recommend this! It was one of my favorite excursions that we did!!! Very informative and it was interesting to see what the day and the life of a crab fisherman would be like. We also got to see A LOT of bald eagles! Mendenhall Glacier and whale Quest in Juneau. Very fun! We got some great pics of the glacier and it was a beautiful day so it was nice to be on the water. We didn't get to see a lot of whales though. Venture to Glacer Point was amazing but I wouldn't not recommend to someone who doesn't like to walk a lot. It is a pretty far walk to the Glacier after the canoe ride but for myself who likes this, it was great! It was really cool to be soo close to the glacier. The Sea otters, Raptors and Bears, in Sitka was a little disappointing. We thought it was a little more like seeing Bears and Eagles in the natural habitat but it was more like visiting a zoo. We did see Sea Otters but couldn't get close enough to get good pictures. I do have to make clear that ALL the excursions were NOT free. There are a lot that are but those ones didn't really appeal to us. We were given a discounted rate but still, that was a little misleading. Overall, this was a great experience! It was an expensive cruise, but we felt that it was worth every penny! We are already looking forward to booking another cruise with Regent! Read Less

Chose Regents Seven Seas Mariner because we wanted to tour Alaska and the time of year and schedule were perfect. Recently we had sailed on Oceania so wanted to give Regents a try. Alaska is great if you want beautiful and amazing scenery and seeing landscapes you cannot see anywhere else in the world. It is pretty cool to see moose, bear, bald eagles, porpoises and whale living in the wild. We did the pre-Denali tour and our guide, Lane, did a great job pointing everything out and making sure we stuck to the schedule. He also gave great recommendations for restaurants and he does a nice job figuring out your likes and dislikes. A common theme to this review will be that I wish many of the tours were more active. I expected the hikes to be more challenging and that we would be outside of a bus a little more than we were. I wanted to spend more time in Girdwood which a great little town and the Hotel Alyska has a lot to offer. We didn’t have enough time there. We arrived at the Mariner on sailing day at about 3:30. The lifeboat drill was at 4:00 so there was very little time to explore. The Mariner is beautiful ship with great flow. It did not look old at all and I think it recently had been refurbished. Our cabin was a Penthouse level 1. Great size for two people. Plenty of room with lots of drawers and a good size closet. Although not as big as Oceania. Suitcases had to (and fit fine) go under the bed. Room was always clean and Butler was always available if we needed anything. Refrigerators always had plenty of soda and there was wine there as well. And beer. It was very comparable to the suite on Oceania Riveria. There was Lily express maker but no cappuccino maker like on Riviera. Also the afternoon canapés were always better on the Riveria. Restaurants and food were better than NCL, Royal Caribbean, Disney and Carnival. But not as good or as varied as the Oceania Riveria. There is one main dining room, Compass Rose, which has half the menu same every night and the other changes daily. Lots of choices. There is also La Veranda which is an Italian restaurant which has a set menu with some daily specials. In bed th restaurants Food was good, but not great. Desserts were almost always disappointing. Service for certain things was not good. Constantly had to ask someone to refill water glasses and at time difficult to find person for more wine. All were very pleasant. Tomas at La Veranda was the next waiter on ship. Very knowledgeable and friendly. Neither of those restaurants took reservations. However, for two nights we could not get seats at La Veranda at 7:00 because it was full. There are two reservation restaurants. Prime 7 had the best food in any steakhouse we have been on in any ship. Chartreuse, the French restaurant was very good as well. Unfortunately, with my class of Penthouse 1, you can only reserve them online at each one time per cruise before the cruise. On the second night I tried to book more nights and they were already filled for every night. Entertainment was basically 4 Review shows - Broadway, country, crooners, and a mix. Singers were very good. The dancers were fantastic. William was especially great. Really really amazing. Felt shows were comparable to Oceania. One show at 9:30 which was kind of late. Excursions were good but not for the younger generation. My wife and I are 50 and we had our 18 and 19 yo old children. We were all on Oceania last June touring the Mediterranean. We knew Regent was an older crowd but it was quite different than Oceania. Not sure whether that was because of cruiseline, Alaska, or being in May as opposed to June. However, even the tours that were the “most” strenuous were not tiring at all. Lots of bus tours and slow walking. We were hoping it would be more rugged and descriptions of tours seemed more active than they actually were. Alaska is beautiful and wildlife is incredible. Our biggest complaint was the lack of activities on the ship. No organized games except for one trivia each year. No real interesting lectures on any day. We all wished there had been lots more to do like there were every other cruiseline we have been on. Overall the Mariner is a great ship if you want to relax and drink and eat with a quiet group of people. And it is an excellent ship but probably would not cruise on Regent again. I think we will opt for Oceania. Read Less

The ship is absolutely beautiful - both public spaces and cabins. Like a very luxurious hotel. By appearances, you could easily forget that you were on a cruise ship - more like being at a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons, and our Explorer Suite category cabin was extremely comfortable. But that was the problem. It was all about appearances. That may be enough for some, and you would not be disappointed in terms of high end comfort. The library, lounges, restaurants were all very attractive. But then the service. Didn't even come close to matching the surroundings. I actually found some staff downright hostile. They seemed so unhappy so much of the time. Our butler was nowhere to be found the afternoon of embarkation and for the rest of the cruise it was like pulling teeth to get anything out of him. At one point he threw away newspapers I had set aside on our sofa (needed them for work) and he took it upon himself to throw them out when he brought in the newer newspapers then tried to blame it on the room steward who swore up and down that he never throws anything away if it's not in the garbage can, which I believe because when I did have things right next to the garbage can to throw out (they didn't fit in the can) he did not take them. The room steward seemed pleasant enough, but overworked and doing his work somewhat begrudgingly. They seemed really "cheap" about things. For example, a spare roll of toilet paper is usually kept in the bathrooms. They would never replenish this - even after we had to call for more tp and you could clearly see there were only a few sheets left on the existing roll. You would think once that happened they would be better about restocking. The last night, we needed to take tp out of one bathroom for another. Toiletries were never replenished, even when soap was down to a sliver. Service was quick and perfunctory. We had to ask multiple times for them to put the cushions back out on the deck chairs. I understand taking them in at night in inclement weather, but even when we were in port overnight with very pleasant weather, they would not put anything out and often we had to do ourselves. Not a big deal, but you would think at these prices they could make sure details like that were attended to. Also, with all it's beauty, the ship itself still seemed kind of odd. We are used to the creakiness when a ship is at sea. But this one made all kinds of weird noises at all different hours - especially at night. We did not get one decent night's sleep over the 12 days we were on board. Dining was okay, but varied widely from one venue to another. Anywhere from bad to pretty good. Never really good. Prime 7 and Pacific Rim were very disappointing. We get better steaks at our local diner, and the Asian food left us not feeling great and very thirsty all night long. Chartreuse was the only specialty restaurant we enjoyed and would return to. Compass Rose was decent with good service. The Pool Grill lunches were okay if you stuck to the salads, but the hot foods were pretty awful. Husband said it was the worst hamburger he ever had, and I could barely eat two bites of the chicken wings I ordered. Pizza was dull and flavorless. In Veranda, lunch was okay. Dinner (when it became an Italian restaurant) varied. Breakfast was not good at all if you wanted anything beyond eggs. On the plus side, we did not go hungry, but compared to other cruise ships we have been on, the pickings were slim and with very limited hours and availability. Servers for the large part seemed unhappy. Most did their jobs, but that's it - just did their jobs. Once in a while you would get someone with a smile and that was such an exciting moment due to the rarity. The ports and itinerary for this particular cruise were, for the large part, very good. That's why we picked this cruise (Lisbon, Porto, A Coruna, Bilbao, Bordeaux, L'Orient, St. Malo, Guernsey, Southampton). We did Lisbon on our own, but I heard from other passengers who did pre-cruise through Regent that there was a bit of a cattle car feel. We then felt that throughout the cruise with any excursions booked through Regent. They may be free (as part of "all inclusive"), but be warned. You get what you pay for. Generally speaking the Excursions staff was clueless. Not only were they uniformly not very nice, they knew little to nothing about the ports. On other cruise lines, we have gotten much more detailed port information, including maps, the night before and there is usually someone you can speak with on the ship who has some familiarity with the ports. With this we had to wait for a local representative to come on board the ship the "day of" before we could see any map or get any local iniformation. The excursions themselves were pretty mediocre. Every day we saw or heard stories of people getting left behind or "lost." You are sent out in groups way too big to get much out of anything. The tours were not all that informative and very poorly timed. There was a lot of wasted time, and when you were given any free time it was usually not in the center of things. Huge variations among guides depending on the luck of the draw with which bus you ended up on. Some people complained that they couldn't even understand their guides. In one port, even the guide was wondering who had arranged such a tour. We were left with nothing to do except have tea for an hour and a half in the middle of nowhere - at the expense of seeing the island. As compared to other cruise lines we have been on (Crystal, for example) or when doing independent touring, Regent appears to be scraping pretty close to bottom of the barrel in terms of what tour companies they are using. And you never once saw a Regent rep accompanying any of the tours to see how things were going, nor was there any effort to get feedback from passengers. Clearly they take a "hands over one's ears, hear no evil, see no evil" approach to things. Another big shortcoming was the quality of WiFi. No excuse in this day and age, especially on such a new ship, for it to be so erratic and unreliable. We have been on much older ships in the middle of nowhere with much better service. They have clearly skimped in this area and have no interest in serving their customers except for collecting the money for usage. Fortunately, the wifi plan was included with our stateroom, otherwise I would have been furious for spending so much and getting what we got. Can't really comment on the entertainment. Especially with living in NY, we go to see theater, music and other entertainment quite often, so don't really look for it on a cruise ship. Although on many cruises we have been on, they have had some fun and different offerings that we don't get to here in the city. Not on this cruise. Nothing was really to our taste and the little bit we did see and hear, was not particularly impressive. The one thing I will give them high marks for was the Enrichment lecturer - an instructor from NY. She was the only person we heard from throughout the entire cruise who had any insight about anything. She was smart and well spoken, and we enjoyed her lectures. Overall, it's tough that we were left feeling the way we did. Great ship, great cabin, great itinerary, but the service end of things made us feel really badly and makes us doubt we would try Regent again. Maybe they were very good once, but it seems that since NCL acquired them things have gone downhill. The ship may be fancier, but it's still Norwegian Cruise Lines - not one of our favorites. A cruise is about so much more than just your room and surroundings. And maybe it is just how this particular ship is managed, but there definitely appears to be a morale problem among employees. Even higher level officers. On just about every other cruise we have been (several of them over multiple brands), the officers are much more visible and there is more opportunity to interact with them. Here, there was no effort whatsoever. To us it seemed very obvious that they just want your money, they will make you comfortable enough, but then want you to leave them alone. I have felt much better treated on much less expensive cruise ships. In my opinion, you would be better off paying for the best cabin you can on a less luxurious ship but then getting much better service and being made to feel more special. When we have stayed in higher level suites on other ships, we have received true VIP service. Nothing of the sort here. Other than free newspapers and free wifi (that barely worked), there was nothing here that made us feel special. As I mentioned earlier, there was even a sort of hostility here. Heck. On our last morning I couldn't even get a cup of tea. We had ordered room service and they brought me a decaf tea bag. When the steward came to try to service our room 20 minutes before we were supposed to be out of it, I mentioned the tea bag to him and asked if he could get me a non decaf regular tea bag. He snatched it out of my hand and never came back. So would I recommend this line to others? Likely not. Or I would lay it out as is and leave it up to you to decide if it's worth it. I think with so many lines building so many new ships now, there are much better options. Even as one who loves luxury hotels, I would be willing to go just a little less luxurious on a ship for better service.The surroundings are just not worth the premium charged here and for the lack of quality in other areas. Read Less

We took a our first cruise on Regent in May from Lisbon to London and we were blown away. We have taken Crystal in the past on some 15 cruises, and now we find ourselves remiss for patronizing a good cruise line (Crystal) when there was such a much finer cruise line (Regent) out there. Regent beats Crystal in room quality, service, staff, food, athletic facility, spa, public areas, embarkment, and in a very big way, in excursions. Crystal does have better entertainment, but overall this is a minor item to us. Further, Regent is not as pretentious as Crystal by declaring itself the "best" cruise line, and Regent does not push purchasing photos at every conceivable instance as Crystal always does. And even the passengers on Regent appear to be more polished and polite than those we have encountered on recent Crystal ships. Perhaps Crystal is yesterday's cruise line, but Regent is today's. Special compliments to the Regent's ship management. The attendants for the rooms were almost invisible, yet their job was always complete in a timely manner. Similarly, we were treated excellently by the food mangers in the various restaurants. Our favorite restaurant was Prime with the bone-in ribeye. Every excursion seemed better than the one before! Thank you Regent-job excellently done! Read Less