Lady Meer

We had this warning on our ports in West Africa this year.

We did the Vibrant Tokyo pre-cruise in March this year. We stayed at the Tokyo Hilton which was OK. The hotel was extremely busy due the Tokyo marathon being held on the day we arrived. The hotel had a 3 night package for the marathon participants and supporters. Unlike GOARMY we didn’t have a separate dining room for breakfast. We wished we had arranged our own tours as we didn’t find some of them very interesting, for example a high-end shopping street and a stone bridge! Obviously others would have a different view!

Oops, just realised we had the pre-cruise tour not the one night stay in Tokyo! That is why we had the airport transfer. Apologies 🤭.

Looking forward to your live report on this unusual itinerary. Thanks for taking us along. Regarding the aurora - on our recent flight from Tokyo to London we had a great view of the aurora which lasted over an hour. Hopefully you’ll be lucky too.

Retiredonvacation - We recently booked our own flights to Tokyo but used the included pre-cruise hotel. We gave Regent our flight details and were met and transported to the hotel along with 6 others passengers. There was no charge for the transfer. Regent’s representatives were very visible after baggage claim. On embarkation day we were taken on a short tour before boarding in time for lunch. The one snag was that the driver couldn’t drive to the hotel due to the Tokyo marathon and we were off-loaded to walk to the hotel with our cases ☹️.

Agree with you entirely. My pet hate is when presenters don’t know the difference between sat and sitting, and stood and standing 😡.

For those who haven’t sailed from Liverpool before - on the starboard side at Crosby you can see Anthony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ sculptures. There are 100 life-size figures on the shore and in the sea.

We were onboard with you and agree that it was cold - in fact on our tour in Kyoto it snowed 🤭! On the day we were docked in Tokyo (before disembarking the next day) the wind was strong - we had a tug nearly all day under our balcony pushing the ship to keep her on the dock!

Our kettle on Voyager was brand new - still in its box. The butler told us that a member of staff had been tasked with buying ‘x’ number of kettles in Cadiz (our first port)!

We had one on Explorer in Japan in March - just ask your room steward or butler, if you have one!

Sailing from Southampton we’ve always had a tea and coffee tray. Sailing from other foreign ports we’ve requested a kettle and always had one provided.

Only just discovered this thread. Was it just Bacardi that wasn’t available or did they have other bottles of white rum?

Tea needs to be made with boiling water - not just ‘hot’ 😳!

A great service by our coastguard (and also our land air ambulance service) - both free. I hope the casualty makes a full recovery I’m really enjoying your posts - we did this cruise 2 years ago and loved it!

We’re always happy to sit anywhere as we like to meet all the staff. We usually eat at 7.00. We’ve sometimes been ‘encouraged’ to hurry!!

On Voyager we shared a table one evening with a man who was coeliac, therefore gluten free. All was fine until his dessert arrived which wasn’t what he had pre-ordered. He asked the waiter to check if it was gf. He came back and said he had asked the chef and it was ‘nearly gluten-free’ 😳!

We’ve requested and received a kettle on our 2 Regent cruises. There was a coffee maker which we never used.

When we travel as a four, we often have to wait for a table at dinner - sometimes up to 20 minutes. We wait in the nearest bar so it’s not too inconvenient 😃.

We’ve been there once and had a great tour!

I think it’s the Victoria and Alfred Hotel! Albert was Victoria’s husband, Alfred was their son! Confusing, or what?

I agree, I have this too and find it works perfectly for me and DH uses the binoculars.

Thanks for confirming that. My mother was gluten free for 50 years but I can’t tolerate gluten free flour - the irony 🙄! I can’t go to our local fish n chip restaurant 🥲! I hope your friend enjoyed her onboard visit.

I hope your trip runs smoothly after a tricky start. I shall be following your every move! I did hear that the batter on the fish is now gluten-free for everyone. I wonder if you would be kind enough to check if that’s true.

I am sure the OP was referring to a P & O cruise on Aurora in ? February this year. It was well documented by Selbourne on the P & O board at the time.

You can all dine together in the main dining room. Suite guests can have their meals in the Reserve dining room and you would need to up-grade to a Reserve mini-suite or a full suite to join them.