Regents Explorer - Athens pre-cruise hotel Divani Caravel indicative of what Regents is about these days?

[CINGULARONE]

On 1/9/2024 at 4:53 PM, NYC-London said:

Unfortunately, as Regent continues to cut costs it will affect the overall experience and one way to cut costs it to provide a lower grade hotel. Over the past few years I have noticed that the hotels 

Regent uses are not what they used to be and most of the time we now take the credit and book our own and the credit covers the cost of a nicer hotel. Even if it doesn't, there is a lot to be said about the peace of mind of being able to arrive without hassles.

 

It is also nice to arrive at the port on our terms without having to deal with the bus - I will never forget one cruise we were all on the bus ready to depart for the port - they asked if we had our passports and then required us to show them and it appears that one couple could not locate theirs. First they emptied all of their hand luggage and then all the luggage had to come off the bus so they could look for their passports (turned out to be in the pocket of the jacket one of them was wearing on the plane) and then we had to get out to identify our bags before being reloaded onto the bus. Instead of getting to the port at 12:30, it was closer to 3:00pm. If this had been me, I would be apologizing non-stop to the other passengers, that did not happen here. Since that incident, we have always arranged our own hotel and transfers.

I did not like the idea of others picking the hotel and the flights, we booked our own.  King George in Athens, JW Marriott (Maybe the Ritz, TBD) for Istanbul.  

[wcsdkqh]

Regent put us up in the Grand Hyatt Athens for pre-cruise land program last November. It was perfectly fine.