Disembarked Navigator today

[PaulaJK]

TC,

 

I loved the crew and found most of the cuisine to be very good. You could not beat our New Year's Eve dinner!..or our dining room team who served it.

 

I do feel that there are some shortfalls or possibly cutbacks in F&B ..e.g. the orange juice is not freshly squeezed and they carry only a few juices. That meant that a rum punch [nice Caribbean beverage] could be made only w orange or pineapple juice.

 

I used to absolutely love the Regent cheese selection. This trip the variety was limited and primarily in the firm category [e.g. Jarlsberg, St Paulin] The only 'soft' cheese was 1 camembert which was in poor condition. No triple creams. The cheese plate was often still chilled, not an attractive quality.

 

In this age of 'healthy breads' there were no dark grain or multi grain breads;the french baguette remained seductively delicious.

 

I thought that the quality of the meats/fish was excellent...and the pastry chef had a wonderful hand with chocolate.

 

Those who love Navigator will still love her...but she will have a lot of competition in the Med. Lucky the posters who did not have brown water but many of our fellow cruisers also reported it. Perhaps because it was a holiday cruise, we had contingents of Brits and some Russians, many of whom were expressing displeasure. We merely listened but there was a lot to hear.

[Travelcat2]

Paula,

 

Your comments are really interesting and enlightening.

 

On our Mariner cruise last month, the only place where the orange juice was fresh was in Compass Rose. In terms of bread, our server told us about the 6 grain bread (which didn't look like 6 grain but was extremely good). While we also love the baguette, a couple of times I had a sandwich on the 6 grain at lunch time in CR. Since the 6 grain bread slices are small (good thing iMO) they gave two small sandwiches. Upon arrival of the delicious sandwiches, I took out the turkey from one sandwich and put it into the other to make one sandwich full of turkey (gave the extra slices of bread to my DH - he loved it).

 

Agree with your Navigator comments. Passengers that did not experience brown water are fortunate. Hopefully this is one thing that will be permanently fixed on the Navigator during dry dock. The rust that comes out of the taps seem like they would stain fabric so I can only imagine what they would do to your hair. One time I had a white washcloth under the tap when the rust came out and I couldn't get it out of the washcloth:o

 

Do you have an Explorer cruise booked?

[noir36]

IMO, the reason the Navigator has been such a money maker is because it has spent the last few years in Alaska and the Caribbean. These are the least expensive itineraries with the lowest airfare costs since the majority of passengers are from the U.S. and. Canada. IMO, if Regent repeat customers have a choice between the Navigator and any other Regent ship in the Med., the choice will not be the a Navigator (unless the fare is low).

 

All Regent ships have great service and food..... the Navigator could be a great ship if 20 or so suites were turned into public areas or another dining venue. A forward lounge would also be nice. Just my humble opinion.

 

Could not agree more. Our last cruise Montreal to Miami was full of the most happy pax ever. But, public space was often full. My preference is to build a new larger ship, same pax but space for more restaurants, forward lounge and larger public space.

[wacogirl]

We are all paid up for the 3/17 cruise on the Navigator. Hmmm-have sailed on Voyager and loved it. That's why we booked this cruise. We are so looking forward to a relaxing transatlantic crossing. Perhaps we'll lower our expectations a bit...

[eliana]

We've decided to postpone booking the transatlantic crossing until Mid-February to see how comments on the Navigator develop. Taking a chance that our preferred suites are still available. We are anxious that Regent may be running it down until the dry dock. They could help if they told us in advance names of lecturers, entertainers, cruise director and senior officers.

Edited January 13, 2016 by eliana

[Travelcat2]

We've decided to postpone booking the transatlantic crossing until Mid-February to see how comments on the Navigator develop. Taking a chance that our preferred suites are still available. We are anxious that Regent may be running it down until the dry dock. They could help if they told us in advance names of lecturers, entertainers, cruise director and senior officers.

 

Regent does put the names of the lecturers on their website in advance (not a year in advance but in advance). Just like with excursions and flights, Regent has to get contracts in place for entertainers and lecturers - not sure how far in advance they do this.

 

They never put names of the senior officers or cruise directors on the website as they frequently change. As you know, Regent does send quarterly flyers to customers in the U.K. listing the officers that is usually obsolete by the time it is printed. As with all of our lives, things change. Some officers may need to take vacation early (actually, more often than not they are needed longer than their contract), some officers switch from Regent to Oceania for special training, etc. We did know who the F&B Director was suppose to be for our last cruise about a month in advance. Unfortunately, right after learning who it would be, it changed and we had a "new" (new to the position - not new to Regent) F&B Director on our cruise.

 

Hope you don't wait too long to book as the Navigator books up quickly. The odds are that there will be both positive and negative posts between now and mid-February. Time will tell.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Travelcat2

[eliana]

One lecturer for a transatlantic cruise in two months time seems a bit meagre and no mention of entertainers. They've confirmed that there will be a Bridge Director aboard which should satisfy my wife but I'm hoping for some intellectual/cultural stimulus.

[Travelcat2]

One lecturer for a transatlantic cruise in two months time seems a bit meagre and no mention of entertainers. They've confirmed that there will be a Bridge Director aboard which should satisfy my wife but I'm hoping for some intellectual/cultural stimulus.

 

That does sound rather meager for a transatlantic crossing. We had two lecturers (no Bridge Director) on our transatlantic crossing (unfortunately we had 7 consecutive days at sea as the one port we were scheduled to stop at had to be skipped due to illness of a passengers on board). It was also unfortunate that one of the two lecturers was quite boring.

 

There will be events on board your transatlantic cruise but am not sure how intellectually or culturally stimulating they will be but do hope that you enjoy your cruise.

[Suzez]

We will be sailing on Navigator in April, in the med. I do hope we have picked the right ship! This will be our first cruise with Regent Seven Sea, we have high expectations of this brand. We did take a look around Voyager, which we thought was very nice. I have seen what Navigator is like in comparison. I just hope her re fit will fix her plumbing issues. Other than RSS being all inclusive, I have nothing I can compare her to, on a 6* basis. Maybe I shouldn't expect too much!

Edited January 18, 2016 by Suzez

[JPR]

We actually don't mind Navigator, but transatlantic!!?? Even with stabilizers, in rough seas she is like a cork. My wife never gets seasick, but on the way from Charleston to Bermuda we encountered stormy seas and she was on green apples. Having prepared by starting bonine a few days before the cruise, I was one of the few passengers at dinner.

 

Take plenty of bonine, or even Dramamine because if that puts you to sleep you won't miss very much...

Edited January 19, 2016 by JPR

[flossie009]

Hope you experience seas as calm as we had in December on Mariner.

 

We did not think that the Atlantic could ever be this calm :)

Mariner_Atlantic_Dec 2015.pdf

[eliana]

We have crossed the Atlantic twice from The States to Europe and we never had really rough seas. Also it eliminates the usual West to East jet lag.

Edited January 19, 2016 by eliana