mj_holiday

I enjoy the Dover Sole in CR along with the waiter deboning the fish.

There are many manufacturing complexes that are set up for tours. This is a great idea. Another idea would be in an area where there is a special type of food, a tour to do with the manufacturing of the food, dessert or what ever.

Jumper/sweater whatever - My DH will usually wear a sweater for dinner because he gets chilly in the dining rooms

Because there are the people who work in places where they can bring home $500 cash a night is one of the reasons tipping is still part of our culture. Some states now have laws that if the wait person is not making equal to minimum weight with tips, the employer needs to adjust the pay for that day, so basically when slow nights happen the people get sent home. In many places the wait staff will give a percentage of their tips to hostess/table buster. Yes, 15-20% is appropriate. On our last trip (in a country with tipping) we discovered that now with table side card readers, they will bring a check to your table that looks like a check for a hotel guest to use to charge to their room. If you want to pay with your credit card they will bring a card reader to your table and enter in the amount and you insert or tap your card. No chance for a tip to be added. If you want to add a tip, you add it on the initial check and when the waitperson brings the card reader they will enter the tip amount when they enter the amount from the check. And this is the tip scenario for some places. It took me a couple times to figure it out, basically I had to ask.

Who do you check with regarding access to the Spa Pool?

Enjoying the port descriptions as we are getting ready to book tours for a 2024 trip. Thank you so much for the time you spend.

DH and I are on Explorer next April and are very interested in your current cruise and your experiences. Thanks for sharing.

OK, my turn - Sheila, you shouldn't have been treated the way your were. In addition to talking to the GM, make sure you have your words composed to put on the final cruise survey; that seems to go to the corporate office. Probably it is the tour boat captain's right to refuse boarding of someone, but Destination Services should have an understanding of the requirements of the tour boat captain. And the tour boat captain should have been able to trust Destination Services to know they wouldn't bring someone for the tour that wasn't capable. And probably, boarding Sheila first would have been the best thing. Putting these things all together involves more than just calling tour numbers in the theater. More facts for Regent Management Our only cruise so far post covid on Regent also showed many shortcomings of Destination Services. First it seems they changed the activity levels on most tours on our cruise, even when the descriptions seemed to talk about bus ride length etc. It was like they were making sure to be able to point to the activity level if someone had an issue with the tour. One tour clearly stated in the description that the stops may be reversed so that two buses don't end up at locations at the same time. Well this time both buses (full capacity) showed up at the very same time and the museum couldn't accommodate the crowd. Another tour had the bus stopping on the way out of town for directions and the tour guide giving different times (incorrect times) to people to be back on the bus. So some of us who were back at the first time mentioned had to wait an hour for all to be back and we were very late for the tender back to the ship. Another put us on a mini bus where the back seats (that we got) had no window to look out. The above I included in end of cruise survey. Our disembarkation for a post cruise tour had our large suitcases being left on the side of a very uneven street on top of railroad tracks and we had to get them the short distance to our bus. I was just waiting for someone to stumble and fall. I had our tip ready for luggage handling but no porters to be seen.

One past Azamara cruise and one starting next week. We really enjoyed our Azamazing evening's entertainment, but consistently felt rushed to get in the venue and seated, then didn't want to miss the bus afterwards. Walking was on dark pathways and walking much faster than I thought prudent for me. Also, since it was dark, didn't get to see any thing going to or from the event. Will see how we feel after the upcoming evening in Seville, excited to see the entertainment which is flamingo dancing. If there is good entertainment brought onboard I can see how that can be just as enjoyable.

As far as I’m concerned, I always get there early, allowing time for something to go wrong. So I would try to get an embarkation time of around 1 PM. I enjoy that first afternoon on the ship; we will sit down in the pool grill and have a nice quiet lunch and just watch everybody go by. I am sure it lists some place the all aboard time, that would be the latest you could get on the ship.

thanks

We are getting ready to take our second Azamara cruise. On our first cruise I didn't spend much time looking at the evening info on Windows because we are not buffet people. But I have read (somewhere) that the evening meals in Windows are more like table service than the buffet for breakfast and lunch. I do remember that Windows had themed nights but still didn't want buffet meal. Can someone explain to me what the format for dinner is for Windows restaurant?

Like what I see with the new website. Got the big notice that the website is not available for any business, but looking through what was there, it is so much easier to find what you are looking for.

Thanks for the great information.

I have seen various descriptions of what suites/packages you need to have to get wine delivered to your room with room service. We will be onboard next week and will see for myself. While I know the ship is small, I really don't want to interrupt a room service dinner by getting up to run down to a bar for a refill. That aside, we are looking forward to this cruise and will be purchasing the Premium package. We like the variety of beers and the list of spirits. Our last Azamara (and first by the way) cruise we went with the basic included and bought whatever extra dinks. We did find the included wine fine, and at the time (pre covid) they brought by 2 whites and 2 reds to choose from.

thanks

Getting ready for our second cruise with Azamara. I want to purchase beverage package for us. Is there any benefit to purchasing the package now before we get to the ship or after we get to the ship?

Can someone answer this please, I am also interested in the answer.

Post COVID Cruise We cruised Cape Town to Cape Town in December 2022. Some of our excursions were very good but others showed the effects of being closed for many months. Several Tour Guides told us that we were their first tour since Covid. This covered the Pre and Post events of the cruise. Our Regent Rep in Johannesburg when we got in was just great, friendly and explained anything we would need to know. When she saw DH looking for a tip she told us she had taken care of all of that. This definitely was not her first time at this. Our Pre cruise Victoria Falls trip was good, but there was too many meals scheduled and we got fussed at for eating at the wrong place. I felt this resulted from some inexperience. Two Walvis Bay excursions which were very good and not over crowded. Two Richards Bay excursions and neither was crowded and were very good. Maputo - small group but in a small (brand new) van (crowded) and our seats didn't have any windows to look out of. Durban - 2 full buses to the same place arriving at the same time, didn't work. Mossell Bay - Full bus, driver had to stop at a gas station to ask directions. Speakers in the back of the bus didn't work and that threw the guide. Got to the waterfront area and the guide told different people different times to return to the bus, so we were very late getting back to the tender, very chaotic. IMO - the excursions for all RSSC ships are not getting the attention of Destination Services and when they do decide to make changes, it will be quite awhile before a situation can be fixed. (After our cruise, and the one right after, when will there be the next cruise that is in that area for any corrective measurers?) I am looking at the excursions for our cruise in 2023 and hoping things will get better with more experience.

POST COVID Cruise

There is a link on a post in this forum to a recent review on the Navigator. That should take care of a lot of questions about the navigator.

Thank you for clarification on downloading excursions, good to know. But one port, Beppu Japan - I get the above shown Regent banner and can't get any further or back out.

Further digging - it does this on only one port so far. I have been able to get to some of the other port excursion listing.

I am attempting to get the list of excursions by going through "Find a cruise" and through my account. I can't get the itinerary on my account. I made sure I was not logged in, but that didn't work. The only place I can get to itinerary is through "find a cruise". Then when I click on a port I get a pop up from Regent about please accept our apology but the website is unavailable, or something like that. Then I can't get anywhere in the Regent site. (This started about 5 ports down on the list of ports.) I have tried to access this on my phone and getting the same popup and no luck getting to the port descriptions.

We will be able to book excursions on April 2 for a rather long cruise future cruise. I want to start looking at the available excursions. When I look at my account I cannot find a way to see the excursions per ports, I only get a small description of the port. When I go through "Find A Cruise" to get to the itinerary and excursions, I get an error statement with Regent apology and cannot get to the excursions for the port. I realize looking at the excursions this week has no guarantee that those will be the ones offered, but it gives me time to weed through them and have a proposed excursion in mind. Is there another way to get to the list of ports and excursions?