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New to Regent, Old to NCL - is it time to jump ship :o)?


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Here is a YouTube video on the Haven drinks are included.

 

 

We were in the Haven a couple of weeks ago and drinks are not included (unless you purchase the premium beverage package). Although discounted - with the alcohol shown on the video, you do have to pay extra (and drinks on NCL are expensive!!!). If you watch the video again, the bartender does mention the beverage package.

 

golfgirls - yes, I can compare a room in the Haven to a suite on Regent. Our stateroom on NCL was lovely - good size and well appointed. However, it was in dire need of soundproofing (and this was a brand new ship). Many of the doors close automatically and therefore slam automatically. We could hear slamming doors all night.

 

One thing that is included in the Haven is bottled water (you pay for it on the rest of the ship). We had a wonderful steward on our cruise but only saw our butler once.

 

The food in the Haven restaurant was good to very good (the seafood buffet luncheon was excellent but we were told that this was only put out for the christening cruise and regular NCL passengers had never seen it before.

 

The food in the specialty restaurants (we went to four - The Bistro (a French restaurant), La Cucina (Italian), the Mexican restaurant and barbecue restaurants. The Bistro was excellent and the other four were mediocre to poor. For included dining venues, we had a great breakfast in one of two coffee shop type restaurants. You may have noticed in the video that, even though breakfast was included in these restaurants, cappuccino and espresso is extra. We did stop by the huge buffet and had a soft serve ice cream which was good. Everything else looked okay - didn't try anything else.

 

It should be noted that passengers not only hog seats on the pool deck but also in the Observation Lounge. I believe the the Observation Lounge on the Bliss is the largest in the fleet -- it has lounge chairs (nice ones - not like on the pool deck) and people put everything you can think of on the lounges to save them. There is also a lot of food offered (included) in the Observation Lounge so there is food around. I can only imagine what the place looks like when they have 200 children on board.

 

I'm not trying to put down NCL - we actually had a lot of fun but to compare it to Regent is difficult if not impossible. There is a thread on the luxury board where I discussed our NCL cruise (the subject is something about having a luxury experience on a mainstream cruise line). I've included photos!

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Thank you for sharing your experience. I think it would be fine for a seven day cruise in the Haven and still have the feeling of some luxury. If we were to sail NCL we would probably never leave the Haven but we are so spoiled with the luxury lines and our shortest cruise must be at least 14 days and 14 days goes by too fast.

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We were in the Haven a couple of weeks ago and drinks are not included (unless you purchase the premium beverage package). Although discounted - with the alcohol shown on the video, you do have to pay extra (and drinks on NCL are expensive!!!). If you watch the video again, the bartender does mention the beverage package.

 

golfgirls - yes, I can compare a room in the Haven to a suite on Regent. Our stateroom on NCL was lovely - good size and well appointed. However, it was in dire need of soundproofing (and this was a brand new ship). Many of the doors close automatically and therefore slam automatically. We could hear slamming doors all night.

 

One thing that is included in the Haven is bottled water (you pay for it on the rest of the ship). We had a wonderful steward on our cruise but only saw our butler once.

 

The food in the Haven restaurant was good to very good (the seafood buffet luncheon was excellent but we were told that this was only put out for the christening cruise and regular NCL passengers had never seen it before.

 

The food in the specialty restaurants (we went to four - The Bistro (a French restaurant), La Cucina (Italian), the Mexican restaurant and barbecue restaurants. The Bistro was excellent and the other four were mediocre to poor. For included dining venues, we had a great breakfast in one of two coffee shop type restaurants. You may have noticed in the video that, even though breakfast was included in these restaurants, cappuccino and espresso is extra. We did stop by the huge buffet and had a soft serve ice cream which was good. Everything else looked okay - didn't try anything else.

 

It should be noted that passengers not only hog seats on the pool deck but also in the Observation Lounge. I believe the the Observation Lounge on the Bliss is the largest in the fleet -- it has lounge chairs (nice ones - not like on the pool deck) and people put everything you can think of on the lounges to save them. There is also a lot of food offered (included) in the Observation Lounge so there is food around. I can only imagine what the place looks like when they have 200 children on board.

 

I'm not trying to put down NCL - we actually had a lot of fun but to compare it to Regent is difficult if not impossible. There is a thread on the luxury board where I discussed our NCL cruise (the subject is something about having a luxury experience on a mainstream cruise line). I've included photos!

Just read your report on luxury part of cruisecritic. Very interesting have sailed on Regent but not ncl

If you do not mind sharing how did the price compare regent to ncl?

Read you are trying a different line in september. which one?

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Just read your report on luxury part of cruisecritic. Very interesting have sailed on Regent but not ncl

If you do not mind sharing how did the price compare regent to ncl?

Read you are trying a different line in september. which one?

 

As stated in the luxury board thread, we were guests of NCL but did look up prices to get an idea of the cost of the suite that we were in. It would have been around $11,000 for both of us. As you know, there are some Regent itineraries where you can book the lowest category suite for that price point. However, you pay for just about everything on NCL. In order to compare with Regent you would have too add in the cost of airfare, transfers to and from the ship, gratuities, alcohol, non-alcoholic beverages and even water.

 

While I would rather not say which cruise line we are sailing on in September, it is a premium cruise line - booked in a suite. Due to a promotion, gratuities are included as well as a $300 OBC, the premium beverage package (normally around $65/person/day) and a few other benefits. I will likely post on the luxury board to once again and will report on whetheri a person can sail in the luxury area of a premium cruise line and have a luxury experience. I expect the food to be better than NCL.

 

P.S. The cost of the premium cruise in September is $12,700 (for two)

 

We are totally Regent customers but will be having a bit of fun - trying out new things on the west coast in September 2018 and September 2019 -- just something to break up the year as we do not sail in the summer and, at the moment, have no desire to sail to the Mediterranean or Baltics. I have learned to "never say never" because in a million years I would not have predicted that we would try two new cruise lines. Sailing on NCL opened up a new world to us.

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Thanks

Are you saying that ncl and the other line you are trying is more cost than regent if you add all the extra bits

 

It could be more money if you book a high level suite on a non-luxury cruise and add in everything that is included on Regent (especially airfare which is a big expense). On the other hand, if you book a small suite on a non-luxury cruise line, the price is so low that adding a couple of thousand dollars on incidentals is still much lower than Regent.

 

For a while, Regent was comparing their lowest suite to the highest suites on Celebrity, Princess and Holland America because the prices were so close when adding in all of the "extra bits"

 

Before booking a premium cruise line for our 7 night cruise, we looked at every cruise on Regent that sailed in late August/early September and found the prices extremely high. Then we went to Oceania (we have sailed Oceania previously) and found a wonderful price in a huge suite for a Baltic itinerary. Even though we are not interested in returning to the Baltics, we wanted to book that cruise. It was the price of business class air that prevented us from booking the cruise. We tried multiple itineraries but the air was just too high (likely because we were looking in June for Aug./Sept. flights). Then we came up with the idea of doing local cruises (note: we are not going to Alaska in September) and the price difference was hard to pass up. Another consideration was flying long distances for only 7 nights. You hardly get over jet lag when it's time to return home.

 

I would not recommend most Regent customers downgrading to mainstream or premium cruise line. In our case, we did international land vacations from 1987 - 2002 and have cruised Regent since 2004. So, we have "been there - done that" in terms of staying in hotels - moving around from city to city or country to country. We love cruising and are allowing ourselves to get out of our comfort zone just a bit.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I know you booked already, but I'm going to second the opinion on moving to an F2 cabin. I know it's about a $500/pp bump on a typical 10-night cruise, but to us it was definitely worth it for both the extra space and the floorplan. Having your bed oriented to the the sliding door is a huge plus for us. But that's just our opinion, man. :-)

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Going to Regent from NCL will be a great experience. Our last NCL Cruise was in 2015 on the Pearl in their Haven. The suite was huge and very nice. But there was no separate lounge where it was "open bar" for us. Our included drinks had to be obtained in the room from the mini bar. There was no separate restaurant for Haven guests with open seating, open time. To avoid the lines and crowds getting into the main dining room, we had to get our butler bring the food to our room, which we did. And on the non-Haven part of the ship was like being in the middle of an infomercial -- somebody was always trying to sell us something. And the amount of the fair did not reflect these deficiencies given the lux price. Never again on NCL for us. To make matters brief, you won't have these problems on Regent.

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.......Before booking a premium cruise line for our 7 night cruise, we looked at every cruise on Regent that sailed in late August/early September and found the prices extremely high....... It was the price of business class air that prevented us from booking the cruise.....Another consideration was flying long distances for only 7 nights. You hardly get over jet lag when it's time to return home......

 

 

 

TC - Completely agree (It does happen every so often :rolleyes:)! We would never consider/do/recommend to friends the 7-night Baltic (Stockholm to Copenhagen) cruise again, unless an extended stopover or land visit was added to the itinerary - either "pre", "post" or both. We found/felt that the considerable overseas packing/preparation/flights/cruise costs per day/flight costs/etc. just weren't justified for such a short cruise. In fact, it was tedious and not very much "fun". We felt like we were packing up to go home as soon as we had arrived on the ship. At the end of our cruise, we actually stayed in Copenhagen to visit some friends for an additional 3 days and it still didn't seem "enough" time to warrant the long travel and expenses involved. The 14+ hour flights (including connections) each way between Phoenix and Scandinavia (Stockholm and Copenhagen) - despite being in F/C and B/C just didn't seem worth it. Perhaps we'd feel differently in the case of a longer itinerary such as the 12-night London to Stockholm, but would certainly not do another 7-nighter to Europe from PHX.

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