SWFLAOK

No chance that we would ever book a World Cruise and not book insurance. We don't have a high risk of something bad happening in our mid 60's with very few relatives, no kids, and no serious illnesses. We rarely dive anymore, but we maintain our Diver's Alert Network membership since they will provide medical evacuation for any emergency away from home if you arrange transport through them.

If the cost of your cruise would not cause you to have financial difficulty if you were to lose it, and you can afford medical and evacuation coverage on your own, then insurance may not be a problem.

Thanks for that info. We have a 36 night cruise the next time we're on the Whisper, so we may want to try the Pool Grill for dinner again to have more variety. We'll definitely ask to have them cook the steak before bringing it to the table, and we'll try to get a table as far upwind as possible.

On our last Silversea cruise in November of last year,  I ordered something that I didn't need to cook. I guess it was pretty forgettable since I can't remember what it was, but my goal was to not cook it myself.  My husband and brother both chose to cook, and it was not a pleasant experience for any of us. We had already made another reservation for the Pool Grill, and cancelled it the next morning.

2 hours ago, Observer said:

If (like me) you prefer not to dress up, you can dine al fresco at the wonderful Grill on formal nights.  It's always casual there.  LaTerrazza is informal on formal nights (jacket but no tie required).

The Grill at night is Hot Rocks on the Silver Whisper. I would rather dress up than do that again. They put a large, very hot slab of rock on the table, and bring you raw food to cook on it. It's smokey and sizzling, and since the light isn't good, it's hard to tell when you're food is done. The cooking of your meat or seafood is your responsibility. I guess there are some people who like doing this, but we didn't. While we rarely dress up in Florida, I would rather do that than cook on a slab of rock.

A dark jacket and pants with a tie worked fine for the Restaurant on formal night. La Terrazza and room service are both better alternatives to Hot Rocks on formal night if you don't feel like dressing up and your ship has Hot Rocks at the Grill in the evening.

On our September cruise from Tahiti to Fiji, our cruise director was Carlos Ferreira. We, and our neighbors in the cabin next door, met Carlos at the block party. He was accompanied by the guest relations manager, Christelle Raoul,  who we had met on our previous PG cruises. Later in the cruise, we were invited to dine with Carlos and Christelle, along with our cabin neighbors. Even though I normally dread eating with senior officers and staff, we had a great time. Carlos was quite charming, and Christelle seems to be his mentor since she's been on the PG for a quite a while, and he's relatively new to PG. We're hoping to see both of them again in April.

The new owners are Ponant, not Penang. We spoke to the Ponant corporate rep who came aboard on the tender from Aitutaki in the Cook Islands (having flown into the airport there). He was grilled quite a bit my the rest of us who were waiting for the tender, returning from our excursions. He was quite adamant about wanting to keep the PG experience the same since Ponant  customers would like it. He spoke to all of the employees onboard in a large private meeting. The room stewards, waitstaff, and their managers were expecting to stay. Those providing entertainment onboard were not optimistic.

If the Captain's contract runs out at the end of April, when the PG goes from Bali to dry dock with out passengers onboard, then perhaps they're parting ways at that point. Ponant could be looking for a French speaking Captain, or Captain Ljutic might not want to deal with the  new management, or a combination of both. I'm definitely hoping that the current Captain is there until we reach Bali since I trust him to get us there.

22 hours ago, jpalbny said:

Hi Scots, we have a 95 gallon salt water reef tank. It's getting a bit old; have had our current setup since 2008 and we will probably replace it in the next year (or sooner) with something in the 110-125 gallon range. We have a few cool fish and a couple of corals but I think they need a bit more room.

 

It's generally fun to keep though it can be a bit of work. We have been careful not to overload it with animals so it's not been too hard to keep it going.

We used to have 2 55 gallon fresh water tanks when we lived in Pleasant Valley NY. One was mixed tropicals, and the other African cichlids. Then we started thinking about retirement and traveling, and large fish tanks could not be part of that plan since there was no one we would trust to care for our fish while we were gone. No fish were harmed during our retirement plans since it took quite a few years to get there.

Now we go to restaurants with large fish tanks in Florida, and we take cruises where we snorkel. Between now and retirement we spent 8 winters living on our boat in the Bahamas looking at fish and coral that we didn't need to take care of.  It's all good.

Being from the US, we're not exempt and need at least forms and photos for Vietnam. The person from Canada may also need the form and photo for Vietnam, providing it to the ship on boarding. I would definitely not expect a visa to be included as part of an excursion. If you need a visa, you need it to enter the port. That's when immigration papers are checked, and the cruise line won't let you onboard without the ability to enter every port on your cruise.

We took a Silversea cruise to Brazil last November, and we needed to show our visas for Brazil before we boarded the ship in Barbados. Silversea let us know this before our cruise, and offered a service to obtain it, and there was a fee.

I can't imagine why anyone sailing on Silversea is worried about whether they will need to pay 25 dollars, or 6 dollars; or whether they can find an excursion that will include a visa. That's nothing compared to the cost of your cruise. Personally, I would never trust an excursion vendor to provide a valid visa in any country.

On 10/27/2019 at 9:16 AM, alwaysonaship said:

Personally I would never rely on a TA or anyone who organizes groups. French Polynesia is not that complicated and a little homework for the first time cruiser is all it takes. 

 

There is is so much good information out there especially today on where to go, what to do, that what appeals to one person may not be to another’s liking. 

 

‘’It sounds like you are a TA.  

Over the past few years, I have valued TBK's opinions on what to do and see in French Polynesia, with detailed information and photos to back it up. And it's been backed up by our own experiences. I have never gotten the impression that he was a TA.

I have not read anything of value about visiting French Polynesia posted by alwaysonaship. This just seemed like an unprovoked attack on someone who has been a contributor to the PG forum.

The first time we inquired about  a PG cruise (a company based in Seattle and sailing exclusively out of Tahiti) we were contacted by a cruise travel agent who was referred to us by PG. When we booked the cruise, my credit card was charged through a company in Ireland, causing me to incur a large foreign transaction fee. If it had been through Tahiti, I wouldn't have complained, but doing it through Ireland did not reflect well on PG in Seattle. Our travel agent was able to resolve that with PG, eliminating the FTF. 

Until this thread, I didn't know about the big Canadian currency discount. We're obviously paying way more in US dollars if Canadian currency is being considered the same in value. And we have never received an 8 to 10 percent payment back to us after our PG cruises. We do receive OBCs, but no where near 8 tp 10 percent. We've always stayed on deck 8. As Americans, I guess PG has taken advantage of us. Hopefully Ponant will level the prices in the future so that everyone pays the same number of Euros no matter where they're from.

Mikenbob, I'll be trying this as well. On our last cruise on Voyager,  MGSB was on the menu one night and I ordered it. It tasted great, but it didn't agree with me, and I was glad we had our one day at sea the next day. We have used all of those ingredients before, but not in that combination. Living in Florida, I'm thinking grouper instead of Sea Bass. Thank you.

15 hours ago, Hambagahle said:

We are booked on the Splendor in a Grand Suite for March 20.  The suite comes with an espresso machine and I asked my TA if it was Nespresso.  She said either Nespresso OR Illy - so I asked for Nespresso and she has confirmed that.   

 I'm not staying in a Grand Suite or higher so I may no longer have an espresso machine on Splendor since the Regent website doesn't mention it for any Splendor cabins. 

It seems odd that a choice of machines are available in the upper level cabins. I wouldn't expect them to carry a supply of each type, and let people choose which one they want for their cruise. If my TA said it was either Nespresso or Illy,  I would assume that information wasn't available yet, rather than assuming I had a choice.

I would rather have Nespresso,  but I'm going to assume that at best, an espresso machine is provided in my Penthouse cabin, and at worst, I'll need to wait until the Coffee Connection opens. I will also better appreciate my Illy on our upcoming Voyager cruise since I expect they haven't been removed since July.

4 hours ago, Hambagahle said:

For us  - not!   Double Nespresso intenso each morning.  Life doesn't get better than that!   My TA has made sure that on our Splendour cruise we will have a Nespresso machine in our suite.  There is no better coffee (and it is Swiss!)

Wow! We're booked on a Splendor cruise in 2021, and I could no longer find any mention of an Espresso machine being provided in any cabin. Will your TA be giving you a special gift onboard, or will the Splendor be replacing Illy with Nespresso on that ship? If so, will the other ships roll this out as well as they upgrade in drydock? Hopefully this will be the case, and they just haven't mentioned it yet in their cruise information.

The espresso machine on Voyager doesn't make a decent cup of espresso. It makes less than a mouthful of espresso. You can put a second shot of watered down coffee into the cup, but that tastes like water. Using a second espresso container gives you what I would expect for a cup of espresso. It you need a little more, you'll have used up your daily ration, and you might need to ask for more to have anything other than decaf the next day.

We spent a week on Moorea in an overwater bungalow many years ago at what is now the IC Moorea, but was then the Beachcomber. They were still being renovated when we were there in September, and the employees were on strike once again (a Moorea only strike, and not their first one).  We haven't stayed at the Hilton on Moorea, but from what I've read, it would be my choice. Since it's your Birthday, you should go for an overwater bungalow. We haven't stayed at the overwater bungalows at the IC Tahiti, but spoke to others who did. The best overwater bungalows at the IC Tahiti are the ones out in the water to the left as you enter the resort. The bungalows along the shore are noisy with the wave action under the bungalow.

I don't like to snorkel outside of the reef anywhere, or even just inside near an inlet when they chum to bring the bigger sharks in. It just doesn't seem like a good idea to me; especially in a place where the nearest hospital is a short helicopter ride away, and that's once they fly over from Papeete  to pick you up at someplace big enough to land near a dock.

11 hours ago, UUNetBill said:

When we stayed there, our ride to the airport was a Porsche Panamera.  Not a Turbo or even an S, but still...

 

And no, the driver wouldn’t let me drive.  And yes, I asked.   🤪

When we arrived at the Fairmont, they were having a McLaren event at the hotel. There were 2 in the lobby, and 3 or 4 outside on the circle where we were dropped off. They were all beautiful. We asked the Regent rep in the lobby if we could take a test drive since we would love to have one if we could fit comfortably inside (we're both tall). He said he didn't have the ability to authorize that, but he could probably arrange it. We told him we were just kidding because we would rather spend our money going on cruises than sitting at home in Florida with a really nice car in a narrow parking space on the ground floor of our condo tower. He laughed, and was obviously relieved that we were not serious. But we're still wondering if we can fit in that McLaren, and yes, we did try the doors on the ones outside everytime we entered or exited the hotel. They were locked.

19 minutes ago, aururab said:

Hmm... I was so hesitant on booking this cruise just because of the way the flights work out. 

 

I have to arrive at 8:30pm on a Thursday, and leave at 8:00pm on a Saturday. Leaves me with 3 full days in Tahiti when I expect I would rather be nearly anywhere else along the way. 

 

 

I'm not quite sure what your timeline is. From your first post you arrive at 8:30 PM on Feb 6th, which is a  better arrival time than we've ever had at PPT from LAX on our 4 trips there.

The IC Continental is a very nice hotel. It's a short drive from the airport, but with very few flights so not a lot of noise. All of the rooms have been renovated over the past few years. There is no real beach, but there are 2 great pools, and the lagoonarium where you can snorkel with fish who are small enough to swim in and out (unless they stay too long inside). There's some coral, and we even saw a few future giant clams growing in there last month.

It's easy to hang out there for the day and stay there for a second night, especially after a travel day with a long flight. On Friday, they have a free Polynesian dance show between the main restaurant and the larger pool. You might be lucky enough to see it from your room, but otherwise you can sit in the bar area, either next to the main restaurant, or at the bar behind the reception area. Bar snacks are substantial, and much cheaper than the buffet.

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by spending 3 full days on Tahiti. Do you mean that you will be spending 2 days before you embark on the first Saturday at 3 PM, and 1 day at the end of the cruise after disembarking, and before an 8 PM flight on the second Saturday? It won't be hard on the front end. I would not bother rushing off to Moorea for the night. If your 8 PM departure is on the way back, you will need to find a way to kill quite a bit of time no matter what you do pre-cruise.

It would seem that you are booking your own flights and hotels rather than doing it through Paul Gauguin. We don't do that because the amount of money saved is not worth the inconvenience to us. If you book air and transfers through PG, and ask for 2 nights pre, you get 2 nights at the IC Tahiti, a bus waiting at the airport to take you to the hotel, a great full buffet breakfast each morning, lunch at the hotel on Saturday, a bus to the PG at the dock for your 3 PM embarkation. At disembarkation, you're taken on an optional excursion of the highlights of Papeete, and dropped at the IC for a few hours at a day room until you're returned to the airport in time for your fllght.

At the end of the trip, you can ask to stay as long as possible onboard. You need to leave the cabin at 830 AM, and I think the latest departure last month was 10. After that you wouldn't need to be at the airport until 6, so you would have 8 hours. You could rent a car and drive around the island. There are a number of interesting places to stop (a museum, a botanical garden, blow holes, waterfalls, scenic lookouts (and some that are still mentioned on Trip Advisor but haven't existed in years). With a stop for lunch, you should be able to fill 8 hours from the port to the airport, and you'll have a convenient place to keep the luggage. There could be some traffic in Papeete,  but on Saturday, there won't be rush hour/school traffic to deal with.

20 hours ago, MrRandal said:

You can go to the marina at the ICH Moorea and for $16 each they will take you out to a great snorkeling spot about a 5-10 minute boat ride away, between 2 motus, one with "restrooms". You just need to tell them how long you want to stay and they'll come back and pick you up. This spot is a popular stop for many of the tour operators, you get it for a fraction of the cost of an excursion.

And you have to hope that the ICH employees aren't on strike when you arrive, as they were when we were there in September. And it wasn't the first time for them this year. Our excursion at ICH was cancelled, and finding another excursion at the last minute isn't easy.

If you decide to rent a car, it will be much better if you can drive a standard. An automatic is rare in French Polynesia, and you won't know what's available until you tender ashore and meet with the car rental rep.

7 hours ago, 1982CruzStart said:

We are staying at the Fairmont Rey Juan Carlos 1. It is the Regent hotel and we are taking all their transfers. 

Once we get to the hotel we will just hang out there. We originally wanted to do a tour of the Cathedral but have since decided to just stay put. 

That's where Regent booked us for our precruise stay. We were perfectly happy with it for a hotel. It was quiet, and outside of town. It was close to the airport, and we were given a ride in a Mercedes cab to the hotel. There are 2 very large pools, and we ate tapas and drank wine at the happy hour instead of having dinner, and it was all good. The buffet breakfast in the morning was good, and included. We took the free bus ride to town and back the afternoon we arrived, and there were no problems with protestors back in July.

Entrance to the Sagrada Familia needs to be booked well in advance, and we didn't do that. We walked around the outside by paying for the Regent panoramic bus trip from the Fairmont to the ship the next morning. The lines to get in for those who had tickets (mostly Chinese and Russian tourists) were extremely long. I spoke to someone onboard Regent who had bought a ticket to tour inside. She purchased it  a little over a month in advance, and had toured it in the afternoon while on the free bus from the Fairmont. She highly recommended buying the indoor tour ticket in advance. Our next chance is in 2021, and it that cruise works out, we'll be buying Sagrada Familia tickets on our own.

The area around the hotel didn't look like a place we wanted to walk. The old part of the city that they took us to by bus felt safe back at the beginning of July. I don't know how it is now.

On 10/14/2019 at 8:05 PM, Travelcat2 said:

It depends upon when/if Regent decides to cancel the port.  Generally speaking, Regent has the right to change ports without notice.  If this happens months before your final payment,  you could certainly change to another cruise.  If you are within the 'penalty phase",  you would not be able to change cruises without penalty.

Newcruzer said that their cruise starts in Istanbul, and are wondering what would happen if they start elsewhere. That's different than Regent changing ports along the way. If you book your own airfare, pre and/or post hotels, and/or excursions,  you'll have to change those as well, and chances are there will be a penalty, especially on the airfare. It will definitely be more work.

Our second cruise on Regent was changed entirely, and we were not happy with the entirely new itinerary which we didn't like. We cancelled and rebooked since we were (not very long) before the penalty period, and we try not to book anything outside of the cruise line we're traveling on.

We have an upcoming Regent cruise on Voyager, and the ship is scheduled to stop in Dubai before it heads to Singapore where we board. We also fly through Dubai on a flight that  Regent selected for us. We have no reservations that were not made through Regent. If they cancelled our cruise and let us rebook, that would be OK.

But, if Regent changed the entire itinerary of our cruise, and we ended up with a Med cruise in winter for the price we paid for our cruise because of problems in the middle east, we would definitely expect to be able to cancel that cruise and change to another cruise in the future without a penalty.

18 hours ago, Sharle said:

deviation is 175 each person. I don't mind the drive to Miami when going if there is a reason to do so but not the drive home so RSW works for us. We chose these flights and booked through Regent as they met our needs. We have found connections in the past that are the same from Miami or RSW, connect  to the same flight, so why drive.

We haven't had any luck with choosing flights that Regent is willing to book for us. They have so far always come back saying there are no options from RSW, and have offered us FLL or MIA. Do you have any hints on how you choose RSW flights that Regent can work with? Do you often end up with an additional flight to use RSW?

19 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Woah!!  Never connects?  DL has 7 daily nonstops from RSW to ATL.  From there to the west coast, DL has:

 

13 non-stops to LAX

7 non-stops to SEA

6 non-stops to SAN

4 non-stops to SFO

3 non-stops to PDX.

 

Lots of connections.  And to overseas it's even more amazing that you think so.  ATL is a major gateway for international flights, both across the Atlantic, the Pacific and to South America.

 

Maybe you are one of those people where only a connection of between 60 and 120 minutes is "acceptable".  Maybe you find that there aren't flights on Regent contracts that fit your needs.  But to say that ATL doesn't work - when it has FAR more international flights than MIA and FLL (except perhaps to South America) seems a bit of a stretch.

 

Of course, YMMV.

Maybe I should have said that Regent doesn't give us any flight options from RSW. On our Alaska cruise, we asked Regent for a flight for RSW to Vancouver. They offered us a flight from FLL to ATL to Vancouver on Delta. The FLL flight left exetremely early, so we paid for a hotel overnight hotel before the flight. It had a connection time of an hour in ATL, which I would never had scheduled myself. I would rather have flown to ATL from RSW the day before, and would have paid for my hotel there, but that wasn't an option allowed by Regent. I spent a lot of time worrying about the 1 hour to connect in ATL until we boarded the plane in FLL. The flight attendant told me that the crew would also be connecting to the Vancouver flight in ATL and they wouldn't be leaving without us.

For our Regent cruises, the pre and post hotels are always said to be a "named hotel" used in the past, or an equivalent. It's only when we received our final cruise package that we have know for sure which hotel we'll be staying at. On our July Med cruise, the "named hotel" at the time we booked was the Fairmont. We had a concierge amenity cabin, which gave us one night pre stay and transportation to the hotel, and then to the ship the next day. We arrived at 9:30 AM in Barcelona. We were given transportation in a Mercedes sedan to the Fairmont. Our included room was available for check in when we arrived around 11:30, but so was a room with a view on the 10th floor for a slight upcharge. We took it. Free bus transportation was available to and from the Barcelona city center the rest of the day, and we took advantage of that. Breakfast buffet was included the next morning, and we could choose between a transfer to the port late in the morning, or a 3 hour bus tour of Barcelona with several stops and a drop-off at the port for an additional charge (around 70 dollars each if I remember correctly). We walked directly onto the ship from the bus tour.

We've always preferred what the cruise line provides rather than booking it ourselves. There are certainly ways you can save money by doing it yourself, but saving a little bit of money by finding your own cheaper transportation, hotel room, tours and breakfast seems like too much work when the savings is insignificant compared to the total cruise cost.

On 10/16/2019 at 7:09 PM, Sharle said:

we are going to Hong Kong. Using Delta/ Korean Air. Crazy connections but my husband insists on Delta. Miami, JFK, Seoul, Hong Kong. . coming home we are tokyo to Ft Myers with  change in Atlanta

We live quite close to Ft Myers airport. We never use it for any cruises since it never connects well to any other flights. While it has plenty of flights to Atlanta, they never seem to connect to flights to the West Coast, or to International flights. We always drive to FLL or MIA, and ask for flights from their on our cruises. We prefer to have Regent book us all the way through from either of those airports, and pay the deviation to book early and we often add a few extra days on one end or the other so we would need to pay for the deviation for that. I think our deviation charge is normally 250 dollars.

8 hours ago, commodoredave said:

Good intell - thanks.. 

It will still just be jacket and tie for me. We go from the Caribbean cruise to our winter home in Florida, and I simply do not have room in my luggage or any use in Florida for a suit. I will get some additional use, however, from the jacket. 

A dark jacket and tie look pretty close to a dark suit when you're sitting at a table in the restaurant. Just don't wear jeans or shorts on the way to the table and you should be fine.

We've been Florida residents for over 7 years now, and agree on there being no use for a suit, and rarely for a jacket and tie. Even long pants are rarely needed in South Florida most of the year. Dresses were no longer found in my closet until we started taking cruises a few years ago, but now I often wear one for dining out locally. And we have plenty of options to bring along for our cruises. What we bring in our limited luggage space depends on which cruise line we're on, where we're going, and what we're doing pre or post cruise.

On 10/6/2019 at 11:26 AM, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

I realized after posting before that you were not on a typical Societies or Societies/Tuamotus cruise, but went over to Fiji.  So the climate thing really varies I think in the South Pacific, and many people here wouldn't have done the Fiji trip, so would not be familiar with the weather at a particular time of year.

The cruise before ours was a typical Society Islands cruise, and that's the one that had rain the entire time. We heard this from several high level crew members that we spoke with. It was also mentioned on a loudspeaker announcement that gave the forecast for the day, early in our cruise, which pointed out how lucky we were to have a sunny day. We had 3 days in the Society Islands, at Moorea, TaHa'a, and Bora Bora, and all were sunny, but also windy and cool. If we didn't want to snorkel, it would have been perfect weather while in the Society Islands.

How late in the morning do you need it to be quiet? We are always up by 6:30, and ready for breakfast at 7:00. We have always stayed on deck 8, once in 818 and the last 2 times in 808, and have another cruise scheduled in 818 next year. The sun deck above deck 8 is rarely used in the morning. Passengers are not allowed to go up there  before 8:30.

I agree with TBK that the unmarked space on deck 7 forward is an officer cabin. I would expect it to be the Captain's cabin since it's behind the Captain's reception lounge. The Captain and a number of other officers normally have a table reserved for them outside at La Veranda for breakfast. They normally start showing up when the restaurant opens at 7, so they would be moving about the officer's cabin area and bridge just before 7. I wouldn't expect to hear them since I haven't noticed the sound of doors opening and closing on deck 8, and I wouldn't expect the bridge crew to be loud talkers.

The ship often drops anchor before 7, and it anchors almost all mornings. We don't hear it on deck 8, but someplace lower, toward the front of the ship, is going to hear it. I don't know if that will be on deck 7 or lower than that. Maybe someone else on the board has experience with that.