Voyager to hades.

[Travelingwithstyle]

Just now, TomBeckCruise said:

"Steady" is an overstatement. Some things improved to what I suspect was 80-100% of normal.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be  new things that went wrong every day.

Hopefully our "trial run" cruise will get everything corrected for future passengers.

Please keep us posted if you have any followup from Regent.  Im sure they know that things were not to standard.  It will be interesting to see if corporate addresses it with you once you get home.  It is an expensive trip to be on a "trial run".  Thank you for posting. 

[asnaleah]

I agree with the above. Regent should be aware and offer something to those who were not given the cruise experience they expected.

[Dutch48]

I’m scheduled to go on the Barcelona to Rome trip April 25th. I sent the link to this thread to my agent who works with Regent. She was quite surprised so I’m hoping she has alerted someone who has power to fix things before we get there. Apparently this is isolated to Voyager. Everything I’ve read about other Regent ships are nothing but superlatives. This is our first Regent cruise and if it’s not what we expect and paid for I know I’ll never convince my husband to book with Regent again. Fingers crossed.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

3 hours ago, asnaleah said:

I agree with the above. Regent should be aware and offer something to those who were not given the cruise experience they expected.

Used to be that a well-written, polite letter to management would do the trick.  But that was in the Radisson days, so maybe not.

[Dolebludger]

I agree with Wendy, and would like to hear about the responses to those letters before I will ever book a Regent cruise in the future.

[seasickphil]

We are currently on Voyager, the title Voyager to Hades is not our experience but things are certainly not up to Regent’s normal high standards.

They don’t have enough staff on in the bars for pre dinner drinks, consequently people are leaving to go to dinner without getting their drinks, some are more vociferous about this than others but I have to say the wait times are a little longer than one would expect. Also a couple of times my meat ( lamb chops & fillet steak were over cooked ) while still nice this should not really happen.

There are too many previous Regent cruiser’s saying this though, for this not to be a bit of an issue. The words, this cruise is not as seamless as normal Regent cruises are is often mentioned.

[CJANDH]

2 minutes ago, seasickphil said:

The words, this cruise is not as seamless as normal Regent cruises are is often mentioned.

Please keep posting your experience. We board Voyager next week. Any indication that the staff issues are related to covid quarantine? How many pax on board?

[seasickphil]

1 hour ago, CJANDH said:

Please keep posting your experience. We board Voyager next week. Any indication that the staff issues are related to covid quarantine? How many pax on board?

It is a staffing issue pre dinner only. Wait times are much longer in both Observation Lounge & Horizons before dinner, after dinner the bars are better staffed. I think that the training of the staff has not been good either, as in the Observation Lounge the young waiter would take an order and then wait for the drinks to be made before serving them, rather than taking another order while the drinks were being made, essentially more staff are needed until they gather more experience. I have been told that there are around 500 pax onboard.

[cruiseluv]

20 minutes ago, seasickphil said:

It is a staffing issue pre dinner only. Wait times are much longer in both Observation Lounge & Horizons before dinner, after dinner the bars are better staffed. I think that the training of the staff has not been good either, as in the Observation Lounge the young waiter would take an order and then wait for the drinks to be made before serving them, rather than taking another order while the drinks were being made, essentially more staff are needed until they gather more experience. I have been told that there are around 500 pax onboard.

I’ve had this experience many times on before pandemic cruises, specially on Explorer ( I haven’t been on Voyager in years). Sometimes I went to the bar myself to order the drinks

[GeorgiaPeach51]

Interesting.  We were just on the Explorer and had no problem getting drinks in the Observation Lounge or the Meridian.  Service was very prompt.  But, we were usually there around 6:30 or so, perhaps earlier than what you experienced.

 

Joanie

[seasickphil]

It is our 7th day into the cruise and I’m sorry to say things have not improved much if at all. The food has been hit and miss, the wait times for drinks is patchy, only this morning at breakfast in La Veranda it was busy but was eventually found a table, it was quickly made up with all the necessary utensils, we asked for 2 teas with skimmed milk, the waiter took the cups off the table disappeared in the kitchen and over 5 mins later reappeared with same 2 cups, 2 pots of tea but no milk. We were not having any food so we could only sit and wait.

My opinion on this is Voyager did not return to service until the 26th March 2022, much later than other cruise ships and therefore all the more experienced staff had already found employment, so Voyager has many inexperienced staff and consequently are struggling. Even now many people both newbies and others who have sailed with Regent before have been complaining.

It is obviously going to take more time for them to get up to speed. I hope they can do this before our next cruise on Voyager in 2024.

[1982CruzStart]

Gosh i hope it is before my cruise in August.  Sorry there are so many challenges especially when you pay the kind of money required for a Regent cruise.  I hope Regent provides some kind of compensation for all the passengers but i won't hold my breath. 

 

[snh01]

On 4/8/2022 at 12:30 PM, Travelingwithstyle said:

Please keep us posted if you have any followup from Regent.  Im sure they know that things were not to standard.  It will be interesting to see if corporate addresses it with you once you get home.  It is an expensive trip to be on a "trial run".  Thank you for posting. 

Regent certainly know as when I called on my return home (to enquire about a feedback link that has still not arrived), I was told I wasn’t the first to have called that day to raise concerns.  
They asked me to email my issues which I did - 4 pages of them.  I have an acknowledgement but they say it may take 28 days to respond…….  I am not holding my breath.

[wishIweretravelling]

2 hours ago, seasickphil said:

 

My opinion on this is Voyager did not return to service until the 26th March 2022, much later than other cruise ships and therefore all the more experienced staff had already found employment, so Voyager has many inexperienced staff and consequently are struggling.

We encountered quite a few new staff on our recent cruise on Navigator: the second to last ship to return to service, and we were on her second cruise since the shut-down. Fortunately, there were several long-timers peppered in among the newbies, and they clearly were mentoring the newer staff. Example: one evening in the Navigator Lounge, a first-contract bar waiter who had served us only once before immediately came up and named the drinks we'd had before, along with the peculiarities of how we liked them served. He was visibly proud when we said "exactly right." So proud that I didn't have the heart to order anything different. When he went up to the bar to get the drinks, I could see the (very experienced) bar tender and a very experience bar waitress congratulating him on having nailed it.

 

I have the sense that Regent drew on the experienced staff who they were able to get back to re-launch the two shiny new ships and the "kinda" world cruise, leaving the other two with fewer experienced personnel. And it didn't help that both ships had their start dates pushed back. I think we were lucky with Navigator that some of those experienced staff are utterly loyal to that particular ship, and made assignment to her a condition of their return.

 

[Travelingwithstyle]

5 hours ago, snh01 said:

Regent certainly know as when I called on my return home (to enquire about a feedback link that has still not arrived), I was told I wasn’t the first to have called that day to raise concerns.  
They asked me to email my issues which I did - 4 pages of them.  I have an acknowledgement but they say it may take 28 days to respond…….  I am not holding my breath.

Thanks for the update.   Hoping they do the right thing for you.  Keep us posted.

[snh01]

On 4/11/2022 at 10:48 PM, Travelingwithstyle said:

Thanks for the update.   Hoping they do the right thing for you.  Keep us posted.

Well I didn't need to hold my breath long as I have a reply which is underwhelming... an offer of FCCs at around 10% of the cost of the cruise..... nothing else is on the table.

There were a lot of unhappy passengers on that ship and I don't see that offer bringing many of us back to try again especially as it will not even cover that %age on a replacement cruise at current prices.

[mrlevin]

Just now, snh01 said:

Well I didn't need to hold my breath long as I have a reply which is underwhelming... an offer of FCCs at around 10% of the cost of the cruise..... nothing else is on the table.

There were a lot of unhappy passengers on that ship and I don't see that offer bringing many of us back to try again especially as it will not even cover that %age on a replacement cruise at current prices.

Wow, they offered you a lot more than they did us on the holiday Splendor cruises.

[TomTN]

3 minutes ago, snh01 said:

Well I didn't need to hold my breath long as I have a reply which is underwhelming... an offer of FCCs at around 10% of the cost of the cruise..... nothing else is on the table.

There were a lot of unhappy passengers on that ship and I don't see that offer bringing many of us back to try again especially as it will not even cover that %age on a replacement cruise at current prices.

Old saying that I found helpful in business :

Screw me once, shame on you.

Screw me twice, shame on me.

That's where I am.

[iluv2cruztoo]

I am interested to know how Regent is handling Covid.  Are they testing the passengers every day?  if someone tests positive, are they quarantined in their cabin or removed from the ship to be quarantined in a hotel?  

[snh01]

38 minutes ago, mrlevin said:

Wow, they offered you a lot more than they did us on the holiday Splendor cruises.

The exact amount was about $650....

[Pcardad]

46 minutes ago, iluv2cruztoo said:

I am interested to know how Regent is handling Covid.  Are they testing the passengers every day?  if someone tests positive, are they quarantined in their cabin or removed from the ship to be quarantined in a hotel?  

Testing passengers? Not unless they HAVE to. If you test positive you get 11 days in a cabin on deck 6...and that's about all they will tell you.

[iluv2cruztoo]

24 minutes ago, Pcardad said:

Testing passengers? Not unless they HAVE to. If you test positive you get 11 days in a cabin on deck 6...and that's about all they will tell you.

Thanks for the info.  That actually seems reasonable.  We are booked on back to back Voyager cruises beginning May 25 from Trieste (formerly Venice) to Barcelona then Barcelona to Bilbao.  But before Regent, we'll be coming off of a Viking River Cruise.  Viking tests daily and Covid positives are taken off the boat to a quarantine in a hotel at the passenger's expense.  We're thinking of canceling Viking and hopefully our Regent cruises won't be going to Hades.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

2 hours ago, snh01 said:

Well I didn't need to hold my breath long as I have a reply which is underwhelming... an offer of FCCs at around 10% of the cost of the cruise..... nothing else is on the table.

There were a lot of unhappy passengers on that ship and I don't see that offer bringing many of us back to try again especially as it will not even cover that %age on a replacement cruise at current prices.

I think an FCC of 10% of the price of the cruise seems pretty fair to me.

[Pcardad]

4 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

I think an FCC of 10% of the price of the cruise seems pretty fair to me.

Agreed.

[cwn]

33 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

I think an FCC of 10% of the price of the cruise seems pretty fair to me.

 

28 minutes ago, Pcardad said:

Agreed.

Agreed also. They offered something. Your choice as to giving Regent another chance.