Jassy

I am also on the November crossing and would be very interested in any personal critiques re the excursions.

That being said, I read in one of Regent's descriptions of the ports somewhere that the two islands in the Azores are new ports of call for Regent (this was one reason we chose this cruise :) ). So, there may not be any info that past cruisers can provide us. I have not checked on the TA over to Europe that leaves this Sunday. If it stops at the new ports as well, hopefully someone on that cruise will give us their impressions after their trip.

Dear dcsam,

 

Thank you for reaching out. We are happy to respond to your inquiry.

 

Our air promotions are only valid when air is purchased through Viking. A credit will not be issued should you wish to decline Viking Air and arrange transportation on your own.

 

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate you understanding our position.

 

Kind regards,

Viking Cruises

My goodness, Viking's policy is harsh! We like to make our own travel arrangements and have always received credits from other cruise lines when we opted out of their included air programs. Sadly, this Viking policy is yet another reason why we will not be sailing with them any time in the foreseeable future. :( A pity, because their ships look lovely.

Greetings MrRumor!

We will be embarking on the Mariner in Miami on April 20 for the Panama Canal cruise (only a couple more weeks to go :D), so I am very much enjoying your trip report.

I hope they have the French Bistro on our cruise; it sounded wonderful. I'll be sure to get in line early. :cool:

Hi Jassy

There is a very regular relatively inexpensive train service between Greenock Central and Glasgow Central Railway Stations. Greenock central is a short walk or taxi journey from the cruise terminal. The rail journey takes approx 45 minutes, the cheapest fares are between 0930 and 1600hrs, Glasgow Central Station as the name suggests is in the city centre, and is only a 5 minute walk from George Square where you can pickup the HOHO tour bus. On your return journey you would board a train for Gourock or Wemyss Bay but check with Rail Staff as it is not a route I use.

Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have and I will do my best to get the info you may require.

Thank you for this information! It is very helpful.

The original post is 5 years old so although much of it holds true, some things have changed. For example, the art college was almost destroyed in a fire last year and is now closed pending re-building. However Charles Rennie Mackintosh is still an icons figure and you could take that as your theme for the day.

 

Kelvingrove Art gallery and Museum. Fantastic building and the Rennie Mackintosh Gallery is fabulous.

 

Nearby at the university is the Hunterian Museum. You can visit the house designed by CRM and his wife and rebuilt with original furniture on the museum site

 

Scotland Street Museum. School designed by mackintosh and interesting to see what education was like in years gone by

 

Willow Tea Room. Afternoon tea to quench your thirst.

 

Details here:

 

http://glasgowmackintosh.com/plan-visit

 

 

We spent a day doing this and loved it

This is exactly the information I have been searching for! Thank you!!

A question -- How can one get to Glasgow on one's own from Greenock, where our cruise ship will be docked? Cost, time in transit, reliability (don't want to miss the boat :D), etc.? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

A Napa burger is probably nothing more than a regular burger which costs more because it's called a Napa burger (not on the ship, course.)

Thank you, even though I was very much hoping it would have some California influence. ;)

I'm going to be visiting the Palo Alto area for business in early spring next year, it will be my first visit to Northern California. I'll definitely make some time to visit Napa. More for the wine than the burgers and the slaw! The French Laundry is on my must do list for the trip.

After doing a search, this is the best I could come up with re a TK burger: http://www.savoryhunter.com/2010/06/thomas-keller-does-hamburgers.html

Perhaps this is the elusive "Napa burger". :)

The article in the link as well as a couple of others in my search mention that TK wants to open a burger restaurant. However, the most recent mention is from 2010 and so far there is no TK burger joint.

I must admit, that the photos and description of the burger in the link did not greatly excite me. Hopefully, the one served on SB will be delicious.

I talked with a rep from Viking today and got some new information. She told me that on Jan 15th, they are revamping the Viking Oceans website, and all the information about port times, excursions, costs, etc will be posted. .

Good news! Boy, Jan 15 is going to be a busy day -- the Viking announcement plus Regent Seven Seas will be announcing the itineraries for its new-build, the Explorer. Looks like I will be spending a lot of time at my computer that day. Will have to warn DH that he'll be on his own for breakfast and lunch. :D

We are on the RSSC Voyager cruise that arrives in Kobe on Feb. 14, 2014.

Our Kyoto tour on Feb. 14 has been canceled. In looking at the itinerary, I believe it is probably because it is not reasonable to get to Kyoto (or Osaka, for that matter) and back (1.5 to 2 hr away in each direction from Kobe) when we are not even arriving into Kobe until 1:00 pm.

So we have rearranged to visit Kyoto on the 15th, which leaves us with what to do on the afternoon of the 14th when we arrive into port.

Regent is offering a tour of Mt. Rokko, but that does not light our rockets. Does anyone know of or has used a local Kobe tour guide in Kobe? We are looking for an interesting local tour.

Just curious, but what's going on with this cruise? Seems to be selling slowly and this week I received an incredible offer from my TA with a substantial discount over Regent website prices. I won't post the discount as it may upset some whom have already already made their final payment. Unfortunately I was not able to take advantage of the offer. Is this not a good itinerary?

I am one of those who signed up for this cruise a while ago, long before all those wonderful, amazing prices and perks -- which, as you no doubt will appreciate, I am not now entitled to. This does, in fact, make me quite upset. However, I also realize that we throw the dice and take our chances in these things. It really is a pity, however, that Regent can't bother to at least throw out a bone to those of us who signed up early; some small gesture of thanks would be nice.

All my ranting aside, I personally chose this cruise for the itinerary, which sounds very interesting. While the weather will indeed not be stellar, I'm not sure that would account for the apparently poor sales on this cruise. Who knows why it's not selling???

That being said, Regent has already cancelled at least two of their previously-offered shore excursions. Currently, I am not a very happy camper. And, alas, the requests of my TA are falling on deaf ears at Regent.

I will still very much enjoy (I hope) the ports and the cruise overall, but I am not so happy with Regent at the moment as I have been in the past.

I guess living in San Francisco would exclude me as Seabourn hasn't stopped here in years.

 

Sent via squirrels and a rotary phone

Ah! Perhaps that is why I'm not hearing from them, either (and now I understand your choice of handle, Emperor! :) ).

I feel left out. :(

Me, too. :(:( Perhaps because I haven't signed up for any SB cruises in a while? :p

But you would think I'd be a demographic they would be interested in hearing from - three past cruises and then silence for two+ years. I'd love to be able to comment on desirable future cruise destinations - part of the reason we haven't cruised with SB lately is that their itineraries are not exciting us. Ah, well.

... we have found sailings on the site with the "ticker" successfully a few months out and done really well. ....

:confused: I'm afraid that I don't understand what the "ticker" is or the method for using it. Could you kindly elaborate for an inexperienced Regent cruiser? Thanks!

MHO is that Navigator will exit the fleet at some point around the time Explorer comes on-line. Not that my opinion is worth anything! :)

My TA has heard rumors that the Navigator will be leaving Regent. But, these are only rumors and I will keep my fingers crossed that they are not true. I, too, would be very sorry to see her leave.

Love your photos and tour of the Navigator, Computerworks! We were passengers on her when you visited. But we weren't in your photos because we were out enjoying NYC! :D

This was our first cruise on the Navigator and I hope that it will not be our last. I am most fond of small ships (we have done all the Seabourn "Little Sisters") and I must say that our cruise on Navigator was one of, if not the best cruise I have taken. I love her layout. And I think you have captured her well in your photos.

Hi!

 

So glad to "meet" you.

 

Please join us on the roll call for this cruise here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2089499

Yay! A roll call for our cruise! This cruise is officially official now. :D

We like smaller ships, we love all-inclusive. The extras that attracted me to Viking Oceans are the interesting itineraries, the overnights in several ports, and Viking's excellent reputation with their river cruises. The pre-cruise visit to Iceland led us to choose the Aug. 2015 Passage Through Western Europe as our first (and hopefully not last) cruise on Viking.

We have not decided on which pre trip to take but we think 2 day Iceland - any others on the 8/8/15 cruise

We are on the 8/8/15 cruise and will be doing the Iceland pre-tour. The Iceland excursion was one of the big reasons we picked this particular Viking Star journey.

Jackie & David

cruisealert -

Thank you for a great report. We will be traveling on the Mariner for the first time (also first time with Regent) this December. With so many excellent reviews, I am getting extremely excited!

The land tour you took pre-cruise sounds wonderful. It is an area of Italy that we have not been to and would love to visit. Could you share the name of the tour company that hosted the tour? If you would prefer to respond by e-mail, mine is jslarson"at"ix.netcom.com [replace the "at" with @].

I have good friends Dr. Janey, her mom and Kit onboard. They have reported back to me what a great time they are having!

I will have to write to Kit and get a report! I keep trying to get on the same cruise with him -- one of these days!

We board the Mariner on Dec. 20 for the trip from Buenos Aires to Rio, 15 days including over Christmas and New Year's. This will be our first Regent sailing (Kit finally talked us into it :) ) and I am very much looking forward to it.

I was on the Pride around SA and there was a private tour option from Ushuia to BA, thereby missing 5 days of potentially wonky seas. Another couple got off and went to Barriloche (or however it's spelled) but I was the only one for BA. Had private tours and wonderful shopping and tango shows and a way too brief overnight at a Polo Ranch with handsome gauchos swaggering about with machetes. Divine. Could stay a week there. It's a long way from Philly. Hope you are there overnight!

We will be there for four days pre-cruise plus overnight on the ship. I am really looking forward to it!!

Me again. Another popular Seabourn port. One of my personal favorites, too.

 

http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/travel/36-hours-in-buenos-aires.html?ref=travel&_r=0

Thank you, Jane! This arrives at the perfect time. Buenos Aires is at the top of my bucket list and we will be there this December. Not on Seabourn, alas, but on Regent Seven Seas. Our first cruise on Regent; it will be interesting to see how the two cruise lines compare.

Thanks again for all your interesting and informative posts.

Do they have a webcam at the Fincantieri yard?

Wouldn't that be cool. :)

Jassy - Jackie and David - we just booked the Aug. 8 Passage Through Western Europe cruise. We also signed up for the pre-cruise excursion to Iceland. This should be a lot of fun!

Now I need to change my signature and try sitraveler's instructions for hacking together a countdown clock. :D

!. Go to countdown clocks

2. do the usual, but take any other ship

3. before doing the copy step change the name of the ship

4. copy & go

sitraveler,

Thanks so much for these instructions! :cool:

The "little sisters" of Seabourn have been our first choice in cruising for a few years now. Have always had excellent cruises with them and especially enjoy the small-ship experience. But now the three small ships are leaving the Seabourn fleet, which is sad. I am also Platinum on Princess and we have cruised with HAL a few times (I loved the Rotterdam V - that is the old-style real "cruising" that I so enjoy) and several other cruise lines once.

We decided to try Viking Oceans rather than Seabourn's larger ships, even though the Star is a bit larger, because Viking's itineraries really spoke to us. We just booked today on the Aug. 8 sailing from Bergen to Barcelona, with the pre-cruise excursion to Iceland. The ports are diverse and several are on our travel bucket list. Also love that we will sail up the Thames and the Seine Rivers and that we will be staying two days in several of the ports.