Voyager to hades.

[Pcardad]

5 minutes ago, seasickphil said:

I am certainly not judging you at all not on this thread nor any other.

Today I disembarked Voyager, but before getting off i spoke to two senior

staff managers regarding some of the issues which I and many others experienced on this cruise. Firstly both of them agreed that there had been issues from day one of Voyager’s restart. They went on to say that things had not been up to Regents required standard for their guests but had been working hard to improve on some of the issues. One asked if I had seen any improvement since the mid term questionnaire’s were submitted in the bars as they had taken extra measures to improve the service, I said unfortunately i could not say as I did not get to go into any of the bars afterwards due to getting norovirus. Both of them agreed that the high standards of Regent had not been met on the first cruise and at the beginning of this one.They were very apologetic but when you have paid a very large amount of money to take this cruise and Regent tell you that you can expect an unrivalled experience and they don’t deliver then most people would feel short changed.

There were many first time Regent cruisers on this cruise, i think Regent would have wished for a much better start for them. If I hadn’t already experienced what Regent excel at then I don’t think I would be rushing to book with them again. I’m back on Voyager for 18 nights in 2024, so hopefully that’s time enough for them to iron out these issues and get back to the value’s Regent promise.

I am sorry you were ill and that it didn't get better...we agree it should have.

[Dolebludger]

The problems on this cruise, while very real, are present in areas far, far away from its itinerary. A week ago we went to Vegas and stayed at the Bellagio for three nights. Hotel service was not up to snuff, and prices at restaurants and bars were out of sight. In our area of Durango CO, a rather major tourist area, we have poor service at restaurants and reduced hours/days of being open. Prices are up by as much as 5O% over pre-pandemic, and service is not up to par. Why? Shortages of labor and supplies. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that Regent was impacted by the shortage in qualified staff, like much of the rest of the world. Regent is a lux line, and was wrong in taking on paying guests without first resolving this matter, and a 10% FCC is inadequate compensation.

[Boatmans Lady]

Just to answer a few points raised. 

Rome to Barcelona shouldn't have been Voyagers start back cruise. It was delayed because of staffing problems, they perhaps should have delayed further. 

We personally would have accepted slow service IF the food had been even tepid, but cold food is very off putting and if only one meal was cold, one ate whilst one watched and then vica versa. 

We were also served part used condiment pots when ordering room service. You  may think this acceptable, but we didn't. 

 

We had a blast with production cast and social hostess and their attitude, work ethic, friendliness was everything we love about the Regent experience and gave us hope. 

We aren't that naive to think that cruising would be the same, but the basics should be right, clean tables and not being told to sit at the two places that hadn't been used on a table of 8, amid the used glasses, cups and plates as there wasn't any other tables laid and for food that is meant to be hot, to be hot and not cold. Congealed cold polenta with cold gravy isn't nice, trust me. 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Boatmans Lady
Spelling

[Boatmans Lady]

14 hours ago, Pcardad said:

A few points that maybe some overlooked...

 

Having the expectation that everything in the cruising world is back to normal on the first cruise out is probably not a realistic one...I have 4 cruises this year and I do not expect any of the earlier ones to be like they were 2 - 8 years ago. December Explorer was good but there were obvious differences. Employees left during the downtime - they have to support their families. And try as hard as you can...there is no substitute for experience. Davor is an EXCELLENT GM and he will have Voyager back to Her old self ASAP. I will be on board in a few weeks and have a look. The 10% was generous, IMO, because Regent didn't have to do anything and it is a nice gesture.

 

These are very small problems compared to a some very big ones we have in the world today. If you are not prepared for cruises to be different than they were pre-Covid, you should not book any for 6 months...just as you should not buy the first year model of a car. There will be issues...exercise some patience with people who are trying very hard to meet a very high standard.

 

I'd just like to put a different spin on it. When you book a cruise, you enter into a contract and one of Regents promises is "an unrivalled experience" 

 

If you translate this into buying a sofa with say, 4 legs. 

When after a three year wait, and you have had to change the colour, fabric etc, which you have happily agreed to as you trust the company, it arrives but only has three legs. 

Would you accept that this us OK, because a pandemic has happened. You still have a sofa, but it's not right. A key element is missing. 

Would you expect the company to put it right or would you be happy to accept a token credit and say "that is ok as they will get it right 2-6 months down the line and the sofas will be fine for later customers!!" 

 

I really hope they get it right and there is a saying, "you only know how good a company truly is by their customer service when things go wrong" 

 

 

[Gilly]

@Boatmans Lady   Your last sentence says it all 100%. 

[CAT58]

Having been on the Barcelona to Lisbon cruise I have to say that, as 1st time Regent cruisers, my husband and I were not impressed.  The staff were welcoming and trying hard but lack of  training was evident across the board.  Certain things, like afternoon tea, were positively down market (squirty cream on a scone - really).   It certainly wasn't an unrivalled experience - we have had better experiences in a Celebrity suite at a lower price.  Will we go on a Regent cruise again - unlikely! 

[seasickphil]

10 hours ago, Pcardad said:

I am sorry you were ill and that it didn't get better...we agree it should have.

Thank you. I would like say that things might well have improved significantly but because of the virus i just didn't get the chance to find out. I'm feeling much better today and will get a chance later to see if things improve on Voyager as i'm sure they will, as you have rightly said before, these issues pale into insignificance with the atrocities that are happening in certain parts of the world today, where lives will never return to normal.

[papaflamingo]

This is EXACTLY why I will not sail on the First Cruise of any ship, be it brand new or back from a 2 year layoff for a pandemic.  Too many "growing pains."   

As for the "worst cruise" ever,  I'd say that what was wrong with the Voyager cruise pales in comparison to 8 days adrift without any power on a Carnival ship. The food might have been cold, but at least the bathrooms worked on Voyager. 😱 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by papaflamingo

[CJANDH]

I am on Voyager now for its cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona. It is day 1 . . . a sea day. So far things are looking pretty good. I will start a new thread with my observations from this cruise. Stay tuned. Chris.

[mj_holiday]

34 minutes ago, CJANDH said:

I am on Voyager now for its cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona. It is day 1 . . . a sea day. So far things are looking pretty good. I will start a new thread with my observations from this cruise. Stay tuned. Chris.

Hope your cruise is great.  Will be looking forward to your experiences.  Please include examples of what happen (both good and not good).

 

We are on the Voyager this December and really looking forward to this cruise.

 

 

[iluv2cruztoo]

2 minutes ago, mj_holiday said:

I am on Voyager now for its cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona. It is day 1 . . . a sea day. So far things are looking pretty good. I will start a new thread with my observations from this cruise. Stay tuned. Chris.

I'll be eagerly following your posts, also.  We are on the Voyager on back-to-back in May & June-- Trieste to Barcelona & Barcelona to Bilbao.  I hope you have a wonderful cruise with more good than bad experiences.

[Pcardad]

1 hour ago, papaflamingo said:

This is EXACTLY why I will not sail on the First Cruise of any ship, be it brand new or back from a 2 year layoff for a pandemic.  Too many "growing pains."   

As for the "worst cruise" ever,  I'd say that what was wrong with the Voyager cruise pales in comparison to 8 days adrift without any power on a Carnival ship. The food might have been cold, but at least the bathrooms worked on Voyager. 😱 

 

 

Thank you for supporting my original point. The FIRST CRUISE of any ship, be it brand new or back from a 2 year layoff for a pandemic WILL HAVE too many growing pains. I am glad Regent agreed it was below par and offer up some compensation.

[seasickphil]

2 hours ago, CJANDH said:

I am on Voyager now for its cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona. It is day 1 . . . a sea day. So far things are looking pretty good. I will start a new thread with my observations from this cruise. Stay tuned. Chris.

Chris,

I hope and expect you will have a great cruise. When i spoke to a manager Thursday afternoon he appeared to me to be pretty confident that many of the problems had indeed been ironed out.

[1982CruzStart]

2 hours ago, Pcardad said:

Thank you for supporting my original point. The FIRST CRUISE of any ship, be it brand new or back from a 2 year layoff for a pandemic WILL HAVE too many growing pains. I am glad Regent agreed it was below par and offer up some compensation.

I think we should remember that there were people on this cruise that didn't buy the FIRST CRUISE after a 2 year pandemic. When they paid they thought they were buying a cruise that was going to give them the Regent experience albeit one after a pandemic so with some lower expectations but not a substandard experience. Also, unlike some posters here, some of these people may have spent their hard earned money on the only cruise they will do this year. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to cruise mulitiple times a year so can write off one bad experience while knowing the rest will make up for it. 

 

As i wasn't on this cruise and didn't experience the situation it is not for me to say whether 10% is sufficient or not but if the passengers that did experience it think it isn't enough then i think they are the ones that know better than the rest of us.  My opinion is that Regent should have offered cash or FCC so that the passengers could decide whether they wished to give Regent another opportunity to make up for the cruise or walk away without a total disdain for the company. 

[TomTN]

6 hours ago, papaflamingo said:

This is EXACTLY why I will not sail on the First Cruise of any ship, be it brand new or back from a 2 year layoff for a pandemic.  Too many "growing pains."   

As for the "worst cruise" ever,  I'd say that what was wrong with the Voyager cruise pales in comparison to 8 days adrift without any power on a Carnival ship. The food might have been cold, but at least the bathrooms worked on Voyager. 😱 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Pcardad said:

Thank you for supporting my original point. The FIRST CRUISE of any ship, be it brand new or back from a 2 year layoff for a pandemic WILL HAVE too many growing pains. I am glad Regent agreed it was below par and offer up some compensation. 

We booked our 3-26-22 cruise on Voyager in July of 2021.  At that time Voyager was scheduled to resume sailing on February15, 2022 from Barcelona.

 https://www.luxurytraveladvisor.com/cruises/rssc-shares-restart-dates-for-fleet-cancels-all-prior-sailings

 

When RSSC decided to cancel the earlier February and March sailings they did not notify people booked on the eventual first cruise of 3-26. 

I believe the cancellation of the February and early March cruises occurred in January, 22.

 

I have no interest in in a 10% FCC.. 

A 50% refund of the cruise fare(not a fcc)  would have cost NCLH only about $2,000,000.  I don't know exactly what % of refund would be fair, but I'd think not less than 25%.

 

 

 

[asnaleah]

5 hours ago, iluv2cruztoo said:

I'll be eagerly following your posts, also.  We are on the Voyager on back-to-back in May & June-- Trieste to Barcelona & Barcelona to Bilbao.  I hope you have a wonderful cruise with more good than bad experiences.

We will be with you from Barcelona to Bilbao and then on to Southampton. Hope everyone stays well!

[Pcardad]

45 minutes ago, TomBeckCruise said:

 

We booked our 3-26-22 cruise on Voyager in July of 2021.  At that time Voyager was scheduled to resume sailing on February15, 2022 from Barcelona.

 https://www.luxurytraveladvisor.com/cruises/rssc-shares-restart-dates-for-fleet-cancels-all-prior-sailings

 

When RSSC decided to cancel the earlier February and March sailings they did not notify people booked on the eventual first cruise of 3-26. 

I believe the cancellation of the February and early March cruises occurred in January, 22.

 

I have no interest in in a 10% FCC.. 

A 50% refund of the cruise fare(not a fcc)  would have cost NCLH only about $2,000,000.  I don't know exactly what % of refund would be fair, but I'd think not less than 25%.

 

 

 

No matter how you slice it, I will be spending $$$ to be on Voyager as well....so I will have the same skin in the game as you. If it is a sub-standard product, I promise you I will complain as loudly as anyone.

[TomTN]

3 hours ago, Pcardad said:

No matter how you slice it, I will be spending $$$ to be on Voyager as well....so I will have the same skin in the game as you. If it is a sub-standard product, I promise you I will complain as loudly as anyone.

Hopefully when you sail the great majority of staff will be well trained and experienced. We saw no one with an attitude problem.

 

[iluv2cruztoo]

13 minutes ago, TomBeckCruise said:

Hopefully when you sail the great majority of staff will be well trained and experienced. We saw no one with an attitude problem.

 

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I'm anticipating a great first cruise on Regent.  I'm sure that Regent upper management is following these posts and will do everything possible to ensure that future cruises go more smoothly.🤞🤞🤞

[papaflamingo]

16 hours ago, TomBeckCruise said:

 

We booked our 3-26-22 cruise on Voyager in July of 2021.  At that time Voyager was scheduled to resume sailing on February15, 2022 from Barcelona.

 https://www.luxurytraveladvisor.com/cruises/rssc-shares-restart-dates-for-fleet-cancels-all-prior-sailings

 

When RSSC decided to cancel the earlier February and March sailings they did not notify people booked on the eventual first cruise of 3-26. 

I believe the cancellation of the February and early March cruises occurred in January, 22.

 

I have no interest in in a 10% FCC.. 

A 50% refund of the cruise fare(not a fcc)  would have cost NCLH only about $2,000,000.  I don't know exactly what % of refund would be fair, but I'd think not less than 25%.

 

 

 

I certainly understand and sympathize.  I would not dare to suggest what one should think is fair compensation for a substandard cruise, too subjective for sure.  But much of this thread is very harsh and suggests that what you experienced is now the "norm" for Regent.  I believe that to be false, based on comments about all the other cruises going on.  What I feel likely happened is that Voyager, being the last ship out, had issues staffing her.  I would imagine that most old time Regent crews were called back as soon as openings came available.  I would imagine that after 2 years of shutdowns crew members chose to no longer work on cruise ships, that they found cruise jobs on other lines, and yes, sadly, some may have passed away due to Covid.  

I followed the events religiously (and still do). Every ship was delayed coming out.  We proactively cancelled because we could see the handwriting on the wall.  We are scheduled to sail on Navigator at the end of May,  Navigator also has it's issues, cancelled last week because too many crew members had Covid.  I expect, and hope, that by the end of May the "bugs" will be worked out and we'll have a great cruise. 

I truly hope you find satisfaction.  If 50% refund is your benchmark, good luck, but you never know. 

Edited April 17, 2022 by papaflamingo

[snh01]

10 minutes ago, papaflamingo said:

I certainly understand and sympathize.  I would not dare to suggest what one should think is fair compensation for a substandard cruise, too subjective for sure.  But much of this thread is very harsh and suggests that what you experienced is now the "norm" for Regent.  I believe that to be false, based on comments about all the other cruises going on.  What I feel likely happened is that Voyager, being the last ship out, had issues staffing her.  I would imagine that most old time Regent crews were called back as soon as openings came available.  I would imagine that after 2 years of shutdowns crew members chose to no longer work on cruise ships, that they found cruise jobs on other lines, and yes, sadly, some may have passed away due to Covid.  

I followed the events religiously (and still do). Every ship was delayed coming out.  We proactively cancelled because we could see the handwriting on the wall.  We are scheduled to sail on Navigator at the end of May,  Navigator also has it's issues, cancelled last week because too many crew members had Covid.  I expect, and hope, that by the end of May the "bugs" will be worked out and we'll have a great cruise. 

I truly hope you find satisfaction.  If 50% refund is your benchmark, good luck, but you never know. 

Unfortunately cancelling wasn't an option when Regent announced the delay from February to March as it was past final payment date in the UK and all monies would have been lost.

There are no doubt reasons why this happened but it can be equally argued that with the experience of it being the last ship out they had lots of knowledge from others to avoid these issues.

We travelled on another line in 2021 which was the first cruise back after 2 years and the experience was the exact opposite as they were ready and really focussed on service - so it can be done.

[papaflamingo]

1 minute ago, snh01 said:

Unfortunately cancelling wasn't an option when Regent announced the delay from February to March as it was past final payment date in the UK and all monies would have been lost.

There are no doubt reasons why this happened but it can be equally argued that with the experience of it being the last ship out they had lots of knowledge from others to avoid these issues.

We travelled on another line in 2021 which was the first cruise back after 2 years and the experience was the exact opposite as they were ready and really focussed on service - so it can be done.

Ahh... well that's too bad it was so late.  I have to admit, I didn't wait for our cruise to cancel, I could see where this was going (they seemed to delay about a month or so from their announced schedules).  As to Regent having "lots of knowledge," I don't think this happened on the first 4 ships out.  Probably due to having more experienced crews to man them.  Possibly the same with the cruise line you cruised on earlier.  All the cruise lines pulled from their best employees when starting operations.  The problem stems from no real experience left when the last ship sails.  

Anyway, again, hope you get satisfactory results.  Hopefully all these issues have worked out as the cruise lines get back to full schedules.  But if you read other posts you see that staffing issues are abundant industry wise. The world has changed, sadly. 

[snh01]

1 minute ago, papaflamingo said:

Ahh... well that's too bad it was so late.  I have to admit, I didn't wait for our cruise to cancel, I could see where this was going (they seemed to delay about a month or so from their announced schedules).  As to Regent having "lots of knowledge," I don't think this happened on the first 4 ships out.  Probably due to having more experienced crews to man them.  Possibly the same with the cruise line you cruised on earlier.  All the cruise lines pulled from their best employees when starting operations.  The problem stems from no real experience left when the last ship sails.  

Anyway, again, hope you get satisfactory results.  Hopefully all these issues have worked out as the cruise lines get back to full schedules.  But if you read other posts you see that staffing issues are abundant industry wise. The world has changed, sadly. 

Yes, with hindsight an earlier cancellation would have been wise but in UK that's still a 20% penalty so hard to walk away from.

[loriva]

Does anyone know if the 10-percent FCC is being offered to EVERYONE who was on the affected cruise?  Or only to those who have reached out to Regent on their substandard experiences?  How long do you have to use the FCC?

 

Many thanks,

[TomTN]

13 hours ago, loriva said:

Does anyone know if the 10-percent FCC is being offered to EVERYONE who was on the affected cruise?  Or only to those who have reached out to Regent on their substandard experiences?  How long do you have to use the FCC?

 

Many thanks,

We have not contacted Regent, and We have not been offered any FCC.

I recommend that you do contact them if you want some form of compensation.