Seabourn vs. Regent -- need your opinions

[mborchgardt]

My wife and I are booked on a Regent cruise in Sept. 2010 from Athens to Istanbul for our 15th anniversary. We have been on Regent once before several years ago (Baltics) and enjoyed it very much. Before that, several times on Celebrity.

 

Several recent posts on the Regent board and discussions with friends who have recently cruised on Regent have me concerned about declining service levels -- ranging from general inattentiveness to failure to address problems to food in the specialty restaurants, etc.

 

That has me wondering whether we should consider other luxury lines.

 

Seabourn has nearly the same itinerary in Sept. 2010 on Odyssey with similar pricing for a veranda suite. Only difference would be included shorex on Regent; however, we prefer to do our own thing in many ports -- so I don't view that as a major issue.

 

Can't consider Crystal due to their longer cruises since we'll be leaving kids at home and I think we would fit better with the age group on Regent or Seabourn.

 

The new Odyssey seems generally similar to the Regent ships in overall size and stateroom configuration, so I would guess any major differences between the two lines would be in service and food quality. Food quality would be the most important to us as we are fairly low maintenance when it comes to service.

 

Any thoughts from cruisers who have used both lines recently?

 

Any help would be much appreciated as we hope to make this a very special trip.

 

Thanks!

[JaneBP]

Here's a start:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1043322&highlight=regent

 

The difference, having sailed both, is that food and service are hands above Regent.

[diebroke]

I sailed Seabourn (one of the small ships, not the Odyssey of course) from Istanbul to Venice in October, 2008 and Regent (Voyager) from Copenhagen to Stockholm in August, 2009.

The food & service on Seabourn far exceeded Regent. On Regent, we had 2 good meals, 1 bad meal, & the rest were mediocre. On Seabourn, every meal was fantastic. On Regent, we had a few good servers, a few indifferent servers, and a few surly servers and even with some good servers, we experienced slow service a few times. All the staff we experienced on Seabourn were excellent.

I would cruise Regent again only if it had an itinerary I wanted that was not offered by Seabourn and/or if the price for Regent was significantly less than Seabourn.

[Tillylovesseabourn]

After many people trying to tell us that RSSC was on a par with Seabourn we thought we'd try it last year, well let me say I'm not sure what these people were thinking because the service,staff, in room amenites and food were not in the same league as S'born.

I would sail RSSC again if the right itinerary came along and seabourn or silversea were not available, but I just thought there were too many things lacking for me sadly!

Room stewards were surly, cheap nasty amenities in room, I waited 3 days for my chosen drinks in room to turn up,restaurant options were poorer,etc etc.

 

Go Seabourn,you won't be disappointed, but it will spoil you for the rest!

[lord of the seas]

I was on the Odyssey recently and there were several seasoned Regent cruisers onboard,all thought Seabourn was miles better than Regent.The cruise director and his assistant were old Regent employees.many good staff have left Regent for pastures new.

[mborchgardt]

Thanks very much for the feedback and opinions. I'm still a little up in the air, but have some time to decide. I'm trying to determine which ports we would do on our own and which would necessitate shore excursions, since that will determine the ultimate price difference between the two. But, I really enjoy doing travel research so at least its fun for me.

 

Thanks again.

[Kununoppin]

If you really want to compare "apples to apples", compare Silversea to Seabourn.

[Capri73]

Sailed on Regent,Silversea and Seabourn.Seabourn outshines them all.In my opinion Silversea has lost its luster.Go with SB

[lord of the seas]

If you really want to compare "apples to apples", compare Silversea to Seabourn.

 

Yes,I totally agree.Regent is a lesser product and experience.

[glo3479]

We sail with them last year and was disappointed. First they were trying to fill up the ship, we sailed Athens to Monte Carlo, so they offered Free sailing with kids. Our ship had over 100 kids on it.... I love my grand child very much but there was really not much for the kids to do other than run up and down the hall ways, ...on excersions we took the kids were loud and some out of control. We have sailed with Silverseas before and it was prefect, we are now looking forward to our trip on the Legend on April 1st. I most likely will not go back to the Regent. I did find service was below what we are use to having.

[Port 11]

We have just returned from RSSC Voyager, our 4th with Regent and had

already booked for 2010.

 

We are now worried as we also feel that the standards are slipping, we experienced lack of staff and service around the pool area and in the

the restaurants - we felt they had reduced staff numbers, probably in a cost cutting exercise.

 

I hope we are wrong - Seabourn is looking good!