Cruise Review - Voyager, Singapore to Sidney, Feb 2 to 20 2018

[drcandon]

This is a review of the Regent cruise Singapore to Sydney on Feb 2. I always post a review of the Regent cruise we went on not so much for the experienced Regent customers but more for those either considering Regent for the first time or for those who have no been on that cruise or that ship before. Please be warned ahead of time this is very long..please forgive me.. This is also not a supplement to the blog already posted live but my independent thoughts from my point of view, so that being said, to start…

 

 

The ship Voyager – overall impression. We have been on her before but that last cruise was a whirlwind Europe one and we did not really get so much down time. This time, we did, and this round was also after the last renovation. The ship overall is up to the normal Regent standards, that being very good to excellent. They were sanding and painting some of the railings during our cruise so that part looked a bit odd, but maintenance must be done. This ship has very good use of outdoor space. The walking track is well designed if you go from one end to the other ( game area to game area) is a decent walk. The runners are asked to stay confined to a smaller circular area, but is still good. The game or activity area is well maintained and – for our cruise at least – even on the numerous sea days – available for use. Of course that could have been because it was so incredibly hot and playing paddle tennis would have been an interesting sweaty challenge. The pool area was well maintained and the staff was actually removing bed savers (those folks who think that leaving a book on a lounge for hours while they wander about is fair). Because it was a full ship the beds were in constant use and the staff put some more up on the top deck and the deck under the lifeboats...first time I have ever seen a Regent ship do that – so everyone could have a chance to just lay around. The interior of the ship is beautiful, well designed – and seem to always have a quiet corner you could go to get out of your cabin – if so inclined. I still think the coffee connection is in an odd place , but is serviceable. One nice thing I really like about Regent ships ( at least the 3 we have been on) is that the stupid casino ( sorry to any who like that) is small and out of the way so you don't have to constantly ramble through it like on the other cruise lines – trying to desperately suck money out of you. Of course the boutique is a walk through, but on Regent ships the staff don't harass you as you wander through..again a big plus for this cruise line. The bars are in a reasonable location and were never packed. In fact most of the time I wondered if anyone even knew about the Observation lounge. This is probably because Regent has one of the highest guest to space ratios in the business. My one complaint is the library is not a self contained area and like the coffee connection is for lack of a better explanation – a wander through space. If you are sitting reading a book..someone is always passing by you. Nothing is perfect. The new carpet is just an odd design..clean, well maintained but reminds me of the game, Quirkle. The other thing that is funny is the art work down the guest halls...really who gets paid for painting 3 watermelon slices on white?

 

 

Restaurants...the refurbishment in the Compas Rose is well done and makes this main restaurant seem less crowded (all main restaurants on all ships are kinda crowded especially on sea days with a full ship). The new menu is super and even when the specials of the day did not appeal to us, the “always available” was great – especiallly the lamb chops with mint jelly. The new order system of electronic hand held devices works perfectly and we never ever waited long for any course. Of course your experience will vary with the time you arrive. This cruise was very odd as the main restaurant was full within 45 min. of door open at 6:30, not like the other Regent cruises we have been on. I did hear one complaint when one of the experienced waiters was sick and one of the staff from another restaurant was pulled in to fill the gap...the timing was off..geez give people a break will you. Prime 7, is well Prime 7...this was never my favorite restaurant. It was very highly coveted during this cruise with folks lining up down at reservation pleading for another...okay you can have my extras..( not that I had extra – just saying). I did enjoy the massive serving of crab legs I had. And much to our surprise Regent actually read the “do you have any special event” area and gave us a happy anniversary embarrassing song and real great chocolate cake slice..yummm. Sette Mari at La Veranda was the usual Italian spectaculer and I love the lasagna as the main. La Veranda ( Sette Mari’s daytime changeover) always had a great selection of food to eat too much of – especially the huge shrimp at noon. There was a very well done different noon buffet every day on the pool deck – except for me the seafood one could be skipped (don't like the smell of cooking fish – personal preference). And as a side note the burgers are huge and with a beer to wash it down – perfect.

 

 

Which leaves poor Chartreuse...oh how I miss menu 2 and 3 of the old Signatures. The new designed plates are really nice...Well let me put it this way, Signatures, especially menu 2 and 3 was my favorite restaurant, on a past Regent cruise once we got past menu one, we tried to get in every night. My wife and I struggled to find something we liked this time. And that is why I have to rate this place as not so good anymore...NOW before anyone jumps all over me, I was told that I got the bad menu and the other 3 or 4 (I was told 4 – think only 3 ) were excellent..I just got the crappy one...Maybe so, but even on Signatures number one –the not so hot menu – I still found stuff I like. I used to love the old Bon Appetit – lift the coves off the plates...Now they just plunk it down – honestly I don't think the staff even like the restaurant – it kinda shows. AGAIN, before people who love Regent tell me I am full of it, this is my personal opinion – the restaurant was mostly full every night. AND remember I said this used to be my absolute favorite.

 

 

Staff. Wow what a huge huge improvement. All the staff- even the guys tasked with the duty of scraping rust on the scorching hot days, were very cordial and always said hello or some kind of greeting and always smiled. What a difference compared to other cruise lines that actually grump at you if you dare look at them. I cannot sing enough praise about our room stewards. After we met them and they got the hang of our pattern we never ever saw them...we actually had to hunt them down to get a photo of them. On this cruise we were fortunate to have a butler for a luxury. Despite the fact we never really utilized him like some other overly demanding guests did...he never never was too busy to at least say hello or ask how our day was going or if we needed anything...When I asked for a refill on the Scotch bottle I barely got off the phone when he delivered it (OK a bit of an exaggeration). The room was maintained in perfect condition- I just can’t say enough about them. Other people on the cruise we met had the same remarks about this cruise. Frequent cruises remarked that the staff happiness has had a remarkable turn around lately. One gentlemen I talked to who also sails Crystal a lot said they are better than that line. Just to make a point on a previous Regent cruise, the one we took to the Amazon, the staff seemed harried and a bit short on conversation. So something, perhaps in management has improved?

 

 

Excursions...okay here we go down the rabbit hole again. For those who used to sail Regent many moons ago, before the excursions became part of the package, this is still an adjustment phase. But, please let me tell you, that on other cruise lines if they could make you sit on top of each other in a bus, they would. On all but one excursion, on say a 50 seater bus they only filled it to about 60 % capacity – so if you did not want to sit with someone – you could go it alone. Now what about that other one time I mentioned ? What happened was the jumping crocodile excursion had to be canceled due to high water. So, UNLIKE other lines that just say sorry chuck – out of luck, Regent got a few more buses for an already running excursion and gave the guests the chance to go on that one. Unfortunately, that port does not have huge buses EXCEPT for their version of school buses (which are still major huge air conditioned buses). And also that port does not have many of those particular type of buses, so every seat on the buses they had, had to be filled. Still the buses were big air conditioned coaches…

 

 

The quality and choice of the excursions varied port to port – but were the best that port had to offer. I keep saying this and with the risk of making some people mad – try mainstream excursions – you will kissing the feet of the excursion desk folks in this line. Nuff said…

 

 

As for the ports themselves. Jakarta was what I has expected – very busy and crowded, luckily we were there on a Sunday so the 3 million migrant workers that come in every morning and the 2 hour traffic jams were not there. However all the parks and public areas especially the miniature village were packed. Win some, loose some. I understand Regent goes to Jakarta for an experience but another Indonesian port would be a better idea. Bali was a huge disappointment to me, I was unprepared what to expect. Bali is not a Asian version of a tropical paradise like say Fuji. The one side of the island is a jammed, village to people jammed village intensive maze. The other side of the island is a national park but trying to get there would take literally more hours than the ship would have been in port. On the positive side we saw lots of temples and architecture that I was interested in. In essence we chose one of the wrong excursions, the one with the terrace rice paddies would have been better. Others found it very interesting. I was just not ready for the human congestion. Komodo was an incredible experience. I was expecting from some photos a wind swept almost desert like dried out island. The area we explored was hardly that. Yes it was not exactly rain forest style, but way more lush then I thought. And we saw well over 20 of the monsters! Semarang, to some was a washed out mess. We did the horse back to the ancient hilltop temples. Yes it was a bit wet and it rained slightly in the mountains, but that just added to the incredible vista – and kept the other tourists out. The Australian ports I had pre read about and was not surprised at any of them. I guess because I had to opt out of the Great Barrier Reef excursion, I wanted to get the best of all the others and we did. We did a number of sanctuaries and nature walks through parks, billabongs and wet land forests. Everyone we met was great. I highly recommend the Kuranda train ride, the view from the gorge is breathtaking. We also got out and walked the small towns, again just hopped the shuttle to town, after our excursion. One thing I was amazed at in Darwin is, once you get past the 4 or 5 miles of human habitation along the coast, the vast Australian interior is miles and miles of more miles of no-one….not even a house along the road...

 

 

Oh one more thing, the pre and post. The pre at Angkor Wat was perfect. The hotel was beautiful, the staff had a bit of a language issue – yea it is Cambodia. The post was a surprise the hotel was literally a 5 minute walk from the Opera house in Sydney. The staff at the hotel was very good. It is not anyone’s fault that everything is hideously expensive in Sydney – except for some local wines and beer! As a side note funny instance, the only real Aussie wine we are familiar with is a brand exported to Canada called Yellowtail. Well being the rubes we of course are, we went to a small liquor store stuffed in a corner at the Quay and looked for it. I am not fond of Yellowtail but thought it was a mid range Aussie wine. When I told the friendly guy behind the counter he started to laugh uproariously. His answer and I quote...AY mate that eese the swill we export to the reast of the foolish pelicans. We keeeeep th’ goood stuff. He pointed to a (okay don’t fall over ) six dollar bottle of red that he said was miles better. Never to be one to know better than back away from an obvious challenge, I bought it figuring it would be good mouth wash...I was wrong, even that bottle makes Yellowtail seem crappy...( Just in case the Yellowtail manufacturers read this, this is strictly a personal opinion and subject to error and poor taste buds). Oh yes, we actually bought a couple three other bottles he said were very popular and good...he was right! To sum up, Sidney itself is, for a Canadian, just like Toronto, clean, busy busy and in most places very expensive. But unlike Toronto, has small bars with local craft beers everywhere.

 

 

A final note on a controversial subject tipping..not on the ship I want to stay out of that firestorm, I am talking in the ports. Unfortunately, in countries that actually used to think tipping was an insult, namely Singapore, Cambodia and Australia – now it is commonplace. But still not expected or demanded like in the Caribbean. Just an FYI.

 

 

Overall thoughts and impression. This was a cruise of a lifetime for my wife and I. I am extremely grateful we had this chance. We have to save for our cruises and as such sacrifice a lot. I am not asking for sympathy I am only stating this to say we expect to get our money’s worth out of such an endeavor ..and we did.

 

 

If you would like to see some photos please go to

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/DonCWoodPhotography

 

I will be posting a set or sets of series concerning the various ports and subjects in the near future - as soon as I get them sorted out and developed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[WesW]

Drcandon, outstanding review, you shared a marvelous cruise experience with us—thank you.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[forgap]

Agree completely with your review! Thank you for posting. It did seem like a happy ship and I am sure the Captain set the stage for that. He was such a lovely person.

[Travelcat2]

Really enjoyed reading your review. We did the identical itinerary on the Voyager four years ago (in December - when it was dramatically warmer ...... think 114 degrees in Komoto Island and 110 degrees in Darwin).

 

Agree with most of what you posted - except for Bali - we enjoy Bali and will be visiting there on the Voyager on March 23rd. We spent a week in Bali several years ago and again four years ago. This time we are doing the pre-cruise and will do some (but not all) of Regent's excursions. There is no charge for our pre-cruise time in Bali which is quite a good deal.

 

While we have not tried Chartreuse on the Voyager, we have on the Explorer. My DH prefers Signatures and I much prefer Chartreuse. I thought that the "Bon Appetite" presentation was quite cheesy and am happy that it is no longer being done. To be fair, on Explorer we mostly dined in Chartreuse for lunch -- they had a couple of items that were wonderful (unlike Prime 7 which we generally do not care for).

 

Our experience on recent cruises was that CR was full within 45 minutes of opening. For that reason, we are there when they open - mainly because we tend to dine for 2+ hours and need time to digest our food before going to bed. When we have early excursions, we tend to go to bed by 10:30 p.m. So, it is healthier for us to dine early.

 

Very surprised to hear how busy the pool deck was. We will be visiting a very warm part of the world in March so I'll pay attention to the pool deck (an area we tend to ignore ..... having been raised in Southern California, we have had enough sun to last us two lifetimes). Glad to hear that chair hogs are being foiled by the efficient crew. For some reason, it seems that chair hogs are not on CC. If they were, they would likely know better than to act in this rude manner.

 

In any case, you have wetted our appetite even more for our March Voyager cruise. We have not been on Voyager in over 2 years and she used to be our favorite ship (replaced by Explorer).

[Keith1010]

Terrific review and I am going to check out your photos right now.

 

Keith

[1982CruzStart]

Thanks so much for your great review.

[RachelG]

Thanks for the review. As George says about some of the artwork, “I hope they didn’t actually pay money for that.”

[GOARMY]

A bit late on this--but for whatever it is worth. Appreciate comments on all aspects of your recent cruise. Succinct and on-point re: onboard and when on shore excursions.

 

My wife and I, together with my brother and his wife, and our dear friends who have cruised with us on several occasions over the past 50+ years--did this almost-exact cruise segment, in the reverse, from Sydney to Singapore aboard Voyager in February, 2013.

 

Bottom line is highly recommending such an itinerary--in either direction. With a few caveats. These concern ability to deal with extreme heat, and common-sense decisions to decide when on a shore excursion to call it off, and go back to the ship. You have addressed these realities.

 

We had a top experience, not diminished by weather conditions and situations which required extracting several guests from the ship due to health problems; cancelation of one extended Indonesian shore excursion to a UN-designated historical site due to a volcano explosion spreading ash at that location; and, again, extreme heat.

 

While on Komodo Island visiting those dragons: Suggest a morning excursion. That way, the onshore heat will probably not exceed 105 degrees. This is no exaggeration. Just be prepared. The guy in front of me on the onshore trek to the dragon site decided, about 1/4 hours after beginning, that this was not a good idea. He had the good sense to call for help from a Game Warden, reverse course, and walk back to the beach for a quick return via waiting tender to Voyager.

 

About 10 minutes later, there we were in a clearing. And,there they were--about 30 dragons. We leaned later those monsters had been fed about an hour before our arrival. So--they were fairly docile. Nonetheless, a "confrontation" not to be missed. Just, do NOT stray from the path.

 

Our cruise started at Sydney. It afforded opportunity to scuba and snorkel off The Great Barrier Reef several days' later. That was the other top experience. Every aspect of that Reef excursion was expertly handled.

 

We did a no-additional cost three-day add-on from Singapore to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur. Again, top 5+ experience. All flights back to USA via Singapore to Seattle were First Class on ANA Boeing "Dreamliners".

 

So--go for it. My wife and I will do-so, again, in 2020 on either Regent or Seabourn.

 

GoARMY!

[gjkov]

drcandon thanks for your great review. Very comprehensive! And your photos are beautiful! You really captured some wonderful sites and moments.

Like you we have to save and do some sacrificing in order to travel and we don’t take any of our travels for granted. Thanks for sharing your experience!