SWFLAOK

We also just returned from from Splendor, Southampton to Barcelona, following the previous Southampton to Southampton. It was our first experience with Splendor, with most of our previous experience on Voyager. Our last cruise on Regent was back to back Singapore to Singapore, Singapore to Sydney, Dec to Jan, 2019 to 2020, on Voyager in a Penthouse B, which we loved. This was our 3rd attempt at this Splendor cruise, due to Covid delays, in a Concierge E. We loved the layout of our cabin on Splendor since it was wider rather than narrower. It wasn't quite as wide as the Penthouse B on Voyager, but it worked for us. We didn't miss having a butler, and our room stewards provided really excellent service. There was definitely a problem with staffing. At many ports, we saw staff leaving and new staff arriving. Quite a few of the staff had been asked to extend their contracts. We felt that the staff was doing a very good job, while bringing the new arrivals up to speed. We did, however, have problems with Prime 7. We had booked the first night of our first segment, and everything was perfect. Both my seafood and meat choices were perfect, and the service was well paced. We ate there for lunch during the first segment, and it was also a good experience. During the second segment, the service was slow at lunch and dinner. Our dinner near the end of the cruise was not good at all. There were several large tables, even at 6:30, and one had an officer dining with them. They were given all the attention by the waitstaff. The food that night came poorly cooked, and of inferior quality to what we had previously. We totally enjoyed our 2 dinners and 2 lunches at Chartreuse, and our 2 dinners and a wine lunch at Pacific Rim. The food and service were all excellent. Our biggest complaint was with Destination Services. They seemed to schedule too many excursions at the same time, and normally it was over lunch. When 500 people return to the ship at the same time, and the only place still open to eat lunch is the Pool Grill, it's hard to find a place to sit. They had to reopen La Veranda a few times to provide lunch. I'm sure that affected dinner service. I think our second segment was near capacity. The first was not.

We did a SilverSea cruise from Barbados to Manaus and back in 2018. At the time, Brazil required those entering the country to have a Yellow Fever vaccine, or a doctor's note explaining why you did not have a vaccine. We were required to provide this to board our cruise ship. It was required by Brazil because a number of tourists had entered Brazil and needed treatment for yellow fever. I found information on one of them who was a sailboater from Canada who probably brought it with him from Central America. But Brazil didn't want it to spread, and required everyone else entering the country to be vaccinated. Not long after our cruise, they discontinued the requirement. We're in our 60's and had the vaccine a several months before our cruise with no after effects at all. If Namibia is currently requiring the yellow fever vaccine, then I would not expect you to be allowed to board the cruise that goes there. Previous tourists may have brought yellow fever to Namibia, as was the case with Brazil. Staying on the ship will not be an option since you could have already passed it on to others on the cruise.

We normally give to the crew fund if we've had a great cruise (which we have had all but once, but we had a refundable cruise credit so we donated it anyway). We have given an additional tip to a few crew members that went out of their way to make our cruise great. We don't just pass out tips to every crew member that we have encountered on the cruise. The cruise's included tip covers that.

The ship has only been owned by Ponant since mid 2019, and cruising ended by March 2020. Many of us have not been able to cruise on PG since then due to cancellations. We do speak some French, but have never needed it onboard the PG to make ourselves understood. Les Gauguins and Les Gauguines always seemed to enjoy the chance to speak English. We translated some words and phrases for them now and then, just as French speaking people in the Caribbean have done for us in the past. Hopefully none of that has changed since the last time we were onboard, but I can't just dismiss the previous review if the officers onboard are now all from France.

On our Alaska cruise on Regent, there might have been "fresh" fish, but it was terrible. I'm a fish person, and after a few tries of Alaska fish, I went for something I expected to be frozen - tuna, which was good. My first try was salmon which was totally dry. My second was rockfish which was good, but when I ordered it again a few days later, it was tough and fishy. At the end of our trip, we visited family in Anchorage who had fresh caught salmon. It was terrible. We ate a few bites, and said we were full. They later fed the rest of it to their dogs. In late summer, the salmon are easy to catch as they swim upstream. They've also used all of their fat to make it to their breeding crowds. At that point, they're easy to catch and to serve as "fresh" salmon. On our other 3 Regent cruises since then the food has been much better than our Alaska trip, and I still eat mostly fish and seafood. We still love Regent, and will finally be back onboard next week, but Alaska just did not do it for us even before Covid. I was wondering how the OP got to Juneau by land? It's my understanding that there's no road that goes there. I will say that our favorite part of Alaska was borrowing our Anchorage family's small RV and spending 4 nights and 5 days exploring Denali, Fairbanks and Valdez. But the cruise to Seward from Vancouver was the least favorite cruise we've ever done on any cruise line. We didn't hold it against Regent.

The second cruise we ever took was a Regent cruise from Vancouver to Seward in August on Mariner. Our first cruise ever was the previous January from Papeete to the Marquessas and back on the Paul Gauguin. We enjoyed that first cruise much more than our second cruise. In fact, we enjoyed traveling around Alaska in an RV for a week after our first Regent cruise much more than the cruise itself. However, we have taken 3 Regent cruises since then, Barcelona to Venice, and Singapore to Singapore, with a back to back Singapore to Sydney, all on Voyager, and we will be on Splendor from London to London and London to Barcelona starting next week. We also have booked a 2024 Bangkok to Abu Dhabi on Navigator. We've done the Paul Gauguin from Papeete to the Cook Islands, and from Papeete to Fiji, and are booked on Fiji to Bali in January. We've done 4 Caribbean cruises, 3 on SeaDream and one on HAL We did a Silver Seas cruise from Barbados to Manaus and back, and are booked on the Silver Dawn world cruise in 2025. Of all of those cruises, the Alaska cruise was our least favorite. There was nothing wrong with the Regent Mariner, but the ports just didn't do it for us, and I'm sure they're even more crowded now than they were a few years before Covid. Large ships full of people in small ports with a limited number of things to see and do, and almost nowhere to go on your own, with iffy weather even in August doesn't make for an ideal cruise.

The last time we were on the Paul Gauguin in September of 2019, they had gone from upscale toiletries in small bottles to large containers mounted on the wall that were refilled with something of unknown origin. I expect that we'll have the same on our cruise in January.

I didn't see that at Prime 7 on Voyager on our last cruise. I did order crab legs out of the shell, although I think it was an appetizer, but the legs were just cracked, and it took a lot of picking to remove the shell from the meat. If they have the seafood tower on the menu, I'll give it a try. Normally when I think of a seafood tower, I think of those served at upscale restaurants in NYC, where there's a lot of raw clams and oysters included on some floors of the tower. I avoid raw seafood when I'm on a cruise since I don't want to take a chance of having a very bad excursion experience the next day.

I mainly eat fish and seafood, and have never really enjoyed a meal at Prime 7. An appetizer and adessert are the best I could do. It would not be my choice for my Birthday or Anniversary. Chartreuse or Compass Rose would be my preference for a special occasion.

We've always found a place to walk around on the PG. There's no long track, but there are places to walk. I haven't used the gym, but my spouse has. The hallway outside of the gym has a few places to sit, and I've spent some time reading there to give our stew a chance to take care of our room after breakfast. PG isn't an excursion intensive cruise, so there' s often time to walk deck 9 on calm days.

We're on the Sept 19 Small Group City of Edinburgh and Castle. We prefer the small group for bus travel since it's easier to get 16 people on and off a bus than 2 or 3 times as many people. We also prefer our tour guide not being allowed to guide us through something like a castle, cathedral or museum. They always keep you from seeing everything that you want to see because they're interested in something else, or someone else on the tour is. Add photos and selfies to any place that still allows photos, and you might only make it into the building before it's time to head back to the bus. I always research what I want to see ahead of time, as well as read the history of the place, so the guide isn't really needed. I'm retired and have time to do that while I'm anticipating our cruise.

On our last Voyager cruise from December 6, 2019 to January 7, 2020, there were definitely selections on the Compass Rose menu that were from Pacific Rim. I ordered them a number of times, and was looking forward to trying Pacific Rim on our September 2020 back to back cruises on Splendor. We will hopefully be taking those Splendor cruises on our 3rd try in less than 2 weeks. I already have my dinner reservations made.

Our first SeaDream cruise was on deck 4 with only half of the passenger capacity. This was pre Covid, but for some reason, the ship was lightly loaded. It was a cruise being sold through the local SW Florida PBS as a bird-watching cruise, but while we live do live there and heard of it through PBS, we booked it on our own. I don't remember if it was a connecting room, but there were very few passengers on deck 4. We really enjoyed this cruise from Barbados to St. Thomas, despite some high seas, and some port changes. There were very few people onboard that stayed up late. We met many friendly people onboard, and most of them were not from our home area since they stayed together and didn't mingle much. We did our second and third SeaDream cruises back to back last spring, taking my brother along. My brother booked a deck 2 cabin, and we booked a commodore suite on deck 3 so we would have room for the 3 of us to socialize in our cabin. We booked it during Covid, hoping it would be over, and we were close to that for our cruises from St. Thomas to San Juan, and San Juan to San Juan. We only needed a Covid test done on the pier before boarding. We passed, and enjoyed our 2 weeks onboard. There were a some new crew on each of the 2 cruises, but the experienced crew kept a close eye on them. Again, we found that there were no loud passengers heading back to their cabins at night. The crew said that the only time they have problems with loud and obnoxious passengers is on charter cruises. They had just finished one before our cruise, and they had a few incidents (and broken furniture to repair, especially at TOY).

We were headed back to Florida from London back in June and Woodford in small bottles was served onboard. I enjoyed it, and it's certainly widely available in the US since it's served by American Airlines. We've taken 3 long PG cruises (Marquesas, Cook Islands, and Fiji) and never found it difficult to find good selections of beverages. We've never had to pay extra for any of them. Hopefully Ponant hasn't changed that. Our last cruise on PG was September of 2019, and we've had numerous cruises cancelled since then. We're booked on Fiji to Bali in January and are really looking forward to it.

Our favorite cabin ever is the Penthouse B on Voyager. It has a layout with a side by side bedroom and living area. The bedroom area has a large desk with a window for a view. Perfect if one of you spends a lot of time at the desk on their laptop. Next to the bedroom is a living area with a small couch, table, and chair, with a sliding glass door to the balcony. There's a huge walk-in closet on the living room side, and a large bathroom on the bedroom side off the entry hall. We loved this layout. We enjoyed 34 nights on back to back cruises on Voyager, and would have no trouble spending way more time than that with this layout. We have a Concierge E next month on Splendor, for our 3rd attempt at Southampton to Southampton to Barcelona. We'll see how that works, but it's hard to beat the Voyager Penthouse B.

We've sailed on Sea Dream twice, including a back to back this spring as our first post covid cruise. Regent is our favorite cruise line with 4 cruises so far and back to backs next month, but the ships are much bigger than Sea Dream, and the interaction with other guests is much less. The service pre covid was always excellent on Regent, as it was on Sea Dream. I suspect Regent is in training mode this year, just as Sea Dream was, but the experienced crew on Sea Dream worked hard to get them up to speed. As already pointed out, the dress code is no shorts, tank tops, t-shirts, jeans, ball caps or flip flops for dinner or lounge after 6. But even at Christmas and New Years in 2019/2020 we saw very few people with gowns or tuxes. A dress, and a jacket with a tie, worked for the holiday dinners. Other cruise lines expect more than that.

We did this Regent excursion on a Singapore to Sydney cruise in early 2020. The sanctuary has a limit of how many people can hold the Koalas each day, and by the time our excursion arrived, they told us the limit had been exceeded. However, everyone on the excursion could have their picture taken with a koala (with their own camera) while it was being held by one of a Sanctuary employee. After seeing that koalas frequently leave puddles and piles during these photo sessions, I was happy to not be holding it. We were allowed to touch and pet the koala, which I enjoyed, and it seemed to as well. We enjoyed the Sanctuary, seeing many other Australian animals, as well as the rest of the koalas who were just hanging out in their "trees", some with babies.

We've taken many cruises on a number of different cruise lines (Silversea, Paul Gauguin -now Ponant, HAL SeaDream Yacht Club, Regent, Viking). All but one of those cruises has been a minimum of 2 weeks. While I enjoy a bath at home, I have never taken a bath onboard. There's just too much to do. I would love to have the new ships include more cabins without a tub. The only thing we've ever used it for is to hang wet clothes.

The PG cabins on the lower decks are that small. But Splendor has a lot more public space than PG so you would have way more ship to explore. A 7 to 10 cruise would probably be OK in an H on Splendor, especially if it's port intensive.

And while you might have had a business class seat, and might have paid extra for it, the airline will automatically rebook you on their next available flight, which won't be business class since all of those seats have been filled with upgrades before your delayed flight lands. You can complain to the airline about the delay causing you to be downgraded, and after proving it with boarding passes, the cruise line will receive a refund for your downgrade. At that point, you'll need to spend a lot of time trying to get your upgrade fee back from the cruiseline. We're still waiting for 1200 dollars back from a flight booked by Viking on Delta that had a connecting flight with 90 minutes between flights in Atlanta, which was delayed by 60 minutes before arriving, and another 15 minutes at the gate.We were able to make it to the gate for our flight, but they closed the door as soon as we arrived since they had given away our business class sears. The flight was in May, the upgrade money was returned to Viking by Delta in early July, and we're still waiting for the money to be returned to us.

From what I've read, the only ships that have pickleball are Explorer and Splendor. We've been on Voyager a number of times, and Mariner once, and there were no pickleball courts there. Since we don't play pickleball, and have had to listen to it being played, a lack of pickleball courts is a plus for us on Navigator for our 2024 cruise. We'll be on Splendor next month, and are on deck 6 (for avoiding sea sickness on Southampton to Southampton), so we shouldn't have to worry about the pickleball noise.

Here's my opinion after our Marquesas cruise, the Cook Islands cruise, the Papeete to Fiji cruise, and the hopefully Fiji to Bali cruise in January 2023 that they cancelled less than our departure from Florida in April 2020. Our first cruise was a B Veranda stateroom, and we loved the location on the pool deck, and the view from the veranda. We've always booked B Veranda since then. We haven't always been in the same stateroom, but we've never had a problem with noise, and our room stewards have been wonderful.

If you can't drive a standard transmission, make sure the rental agency knows that you need an automatic. The last time we were on Moorea, only standard transmissions were brought to the dock. One renter could not drive it, and the rental company was trying to find an automatic. I don't remember the name of the rental company that we used. We also rented a car for our post cruise IC Tahiti stay, and the car that they brought to the hotel for us was a standard. They said that was all they had so we took it. We're old enough to know how to drive a standard, but when going up and down steep hills, we prefer an automatic.

We had access to make reservations earlier than those who had not cruised on Silversea in the past. There was no waitlist at the time since we went for it right away, and our TA was told we would have no worries But we still have not been confirmed, and do not know when that will happen. Apparently there are others who have priority over us, and until they make up their mind about taking this WC, we have to wait. They did however require a deposit while we wait.