Sailing only a segment of a world cruise..

[smg4412]

Looking for opinions and suggestions here with two questions..

First.. my wife and I are considering booking a SE Asia cruise on the Mariner, March 2021. I noticed it will be a segment of an ongoing world cruise. Anyone have any experience with this? Will this cruise feel different to us than our previous (nine) Regent cruises?  Would anyone consider this a “deal breaker”? We really like the itinerary, which is the primary attraction. 
 

Second... We have been in Mariner Penthouse A suites in the past, but are considering moving up to a Seven Seas (Aft) Suite. Anybody have experience with this suite. As mentioned previously, we’re open to opinions and suggestions. 
Thanks...Steve

[smg4412]

Sorry it’s March 2022

[rcandkc]

Personally, it would depend if segment was towards the beginning or end or world cruise.  I’d go with the earlier. We have been in aft of Mariner in a great suite except above lounge below.  We tend to go to bed before lounge music done and it was a problem.  If we had been one deck up it would have been great. 

[Travelcat2]

The aft Seven Seas suite on Mariner is wonderful.  We really love it.  While we would not do a segment of the world cruise, it would likely be fine.

[Brownie54]

We prefer the Horizon View suites on Mariner. Be sure to look at the floor plans. You don’t want to be directly under La Veranda or above a lounge or restaurant.

 

We did the WC2017. I would also suggest an earlier segment.

[CruiserFromMaine]

46 minutes ago, Brownie54 said:

I would also suggest an earlier segment.

Can you please elaborate on why?

[wishIweretravelling]

I agree with Brownie54. My reason for agreeing has to do with the social elements. If part of what you enjoy about Regent is interactions with fellow passengers, the earlier in the world cruise the less those folks have coalesced into circles of friends. Thus, there is more interaction among all the passengers. If this social element is important to you, I'd suggest you avoid the last segment altogether. That's when those who have been together for the whole cruise are winding down and making a particular effort to have a last dinner or other last activities with friends they've established on the cruise, and are less anxious to get to know newer passengers.

 

In favor of world cruise segments: Regent tends to put a bit more effort into onboard activities and special events on world and grand voyage cruises. And it may be my imagination, but I think they tend to make sure that these cruises are staffed with some of their more experienced personnel.

 

And, if laundry is one of the included perks for full cruisers, that means that the laundry rooms will have more availability.

[smg4412]

Thank you all for your helpful comments. The world cruise begins January 5th and ends May 5th. Our cruise begins in Singapore on March 15th. This puts us close to the middle of the world cruise. Would this make a difference to any of you? My wife and I are fairly independent, so if we’re on our own, then we’re on our own. This cruse is port intensive and hits a lot of “bucket list” places for us. I guess I’m looking to be reassured we won’t be treated as 2nd class cruisers.

 

Also, this cruise is two years away, so I’m hopeful the fallout from COVID will have  resolved by then.. Thanks again for your input.. Steve

[CruiserFromMaine]

58 minutes ago, wishIweretravelling said:

I agree with Brownie54. My reason for agreeing has to do with the social elements. If part of what you enjoy about Regent is interactions with fellow passengers, the earlier in the world cruise the less those folks have coalesced into circles of friends.

That makes sense. Thanks. 

[Pcardad]

I disagree - I am on that segment (and another but not back to back) and it makes no difference at all. You are going for the itinerary, the friends you make are a plus and Regent is selling this WC in pieces which means there is demands for it early on. There will be lots of new people.

[Brownie54]

Our last segment on the WC2017, which was a crossing of the Atlantic back to Miami, with so many sea days ended up becoming a lot of “farewell” dinners among the world cruisers. We still enjoyed interacting and dining with passengers who were only on for that segment, but I felt we were in the minority. 
We still keep in close touch with many that we sailed with on that cruise, including segmenters.

The next year we were on a segment of the WC (but not the final segment), from Cape Town to Rio. We loved it!

As others have said, it’s all about how you approach the sailing and the itinerary.

 

 

 

[wishIweretravelling]

2 hours ago, smg4412 said:

Thank you all for your helpful comments. The world cruise begins January 5th and ends May 5th. Our cruise begins in Singapore on March 15th. This puts us close to the middle of the world cruise. Would this make a difference to any of you? My wife and I are fairly independent, so if we’re on our own, then we’re on our own. This cruse is port intensive and hits a lot of “bucket list” places for us. I guess I’m looking to be reassured we won’t be treated as 2nd class cruisers.

 

 

 

The middle is great, particularly on a port-intensive itinerary. Collegiality seems to be at its highest then, and the crew at their peak. Your ship will have recently left Bali, a place from which quite a lot of the bar and wait staff hail (let's hope that's true post-COVID19). Which means that many will have gotten to see their families, which is usually a boost for them, even if it makes some a little wistful.

 

Do try to get to the bars on the overnights, even if you've had dinner on shore. Note-comparing the first evening in a port can give you some great ideas for excursions the next day that you might otherwise have passed on. 

 

I don't believe you'll be treated as 2d class cruisers. While you will see that there may be special rapport between some crew and passengers, that's as much a function of repeat cruisers as it is of the passengers being on an extended cruise. But the crew are pros, and they'll not neglect you--anything but. As for other passengers, there will be a tiny handful who will view themselves as somehow superior. But those are people you'd probably not want to associate with anyway, so they are doing a favor by revealing themselves this way.  

[mountaindoc358]

We were on segments 2 and 3 of the 2017 World Cruise on the Navigator. We did note some circles of friends that seemed to do things together but we like to do share tables and found no shortage of world cruisers that were sharing with others. By the end of our segments there did seem to be more established "cliques". Overall I didn't notice any world cruiser "elitism" if you want to put it that way.

[JMARINER]

My experience is similar  to mountiandoc358 , above. We have been on segments on at least 10 different World Cruises or Grand Voyages. Yes, there are some already formed groups, but they account for a small portion of the passengers, and I doubt you will even notice them much. Beside, with 9 voyages already under your belt, you will already know some crew and maybe some other passengers. Go for it.

 

J

[flossie009]

We joined last year's Regent World Cruise on Navigator for a cruise in Asia.

We thoroughly enjoyed the segment (see our blog), but some of the world cruisers seemed to have an issue with some of the "segmenters" (see a few of the posts on page 6 of another thread)

 

 

 

 

Not Regent, but this report about this year's MSC World Cruise was enlightening; not least because of the details about mis-information feeding virus paranoia about cruise ships' passengers & crew. 

MSC Magnifica_20.04.20.pdf 

Edited April 20, 2020 by flossie009

[Pcardad]

I think I would rather be a segmenter than a snob....

[RachelG]

I have been on a segment of a world cruise (in the middle) and on the first segment of a Grand Voyage.  We didn't have any issues.  only issue was finding a trivia team to accept me on the middle segment.  Since all the teams are pretty set by then, I had to find other segmenters.  But it all worked out. I would probably avoid segments near the end though.

[labonnevie]

We were on the Perth to Singapore segment on the 2018 Navigator WC. The world cruisers had been on for quite some time and we definitely felt the chill. We are very outgoing and since we travel as a couple we like to share at dinner. We have met some wonderful people and good friends that way. Not so much on this cruise. Since the WC'ers knew we weren't going the distance with them, they didn't seem to respond when we tried to get to know them. Definitely different from our other (many) cruise experiences.

Of course, everyone is different, but we decided not to do a WC segment again.

[mj_holiday]

We did a last segment of a Grand Voyage this past year.  There were plenty of people who boarded when we did, so was easy to get a trivia team formed.  I really didn't notice who was on the grand voyage and who had just gotten on.  Everyone really friendly.  We are also looking on a last segment of a world cruise in 2022, the fact that it is a world cruise segment and the last segment does not enter into our decision.