Regent Explorer Sydney to Bali Review

[Cruiseswithfamilyornot]

I recently returned from a Regent Explorer Sydney to Bali cruise and I thought it would be good to post my review.  

 

For means of background, I have been on well over 50 cruises, mostly cruises on mainstream cruise lines when my kids were younger, but always sailing on luxury cruise lines as well more now as our kids are older.

 

I have always been more of a lurker on Cruise Critic and have received some great info on cruise lines and itineraries.  I was never a big poster historically as I always hated all of the drama and how people got crucified for expressing their opinions.   Having cruised as much as I do, I really believe that what each of us likes and don't like is very personal to us and does not necessarily apply to others.  Which is why I could care less about caviar or specific alcohols on board, two things that I know are very important to other people, but conversely I like to spend a little time in the casinos something I know many could care less about.   Personal opinions.  I've also seen differing reviews on the exact same cruise, and of course that is entirely possible as different people interact with other people, etc,,.

 

My favorite luxury line was the old Crystal previously.   I think since their ships were much larger than others and had more activities, coupled with exceptional service and very good food, and i must add people I really enjoyed meeting and cruising with, it was a no brainer.  I had tried out all of the other cruise lines and my first cruise with Crystal wasn't until 2008 but I was hooked.

 

With Crystal's demise, I have been going on all the other luxury cruise lines, and will be trying out the new Crystal of course, as well as Explora Journeys.

 

This was a tough cruise to start with as the ship had just come off of two very problematic cruises due to cancelled ports due to a problem with cleaning the hull in New Zealand waters and I had ready on line in numerous places that tempers had flared and some people were very upset.   I was concerned we might have had some backlash from that, but while there was some upset passengers, the crew was largely unimpacted despite being yelled out fairly often by upset passengers in the week before.  About 150 passengers were on a Grand Voyage from Auckland to Tokyo for 77 days.

 

Overall, we enjoyed our cruise.  I would definitely try Regent again, though I would do one or two things differently as you will see below.  We had about 630 people on our cruise the ship handles 750.  That number went down to 600 on the week we left.

 

I'd like to give a run down of what I will call four categories----The fantastic, the good, the bad and the ugly.

 

There are actually three things I'd call fantastic about the cruise.  In no particular order:

 

1)  The Ship.  It is a beautiful ship.  Hands down probably the nicest ship I've been on to date in terms of furnishings.   Some complaints about the ship being too dark in places, some columns in theaters that were fixed on Splendor, or what have you, but none of that impacted me.  Though I will say constantly announcing over the PA that it's the most luxurious ship on the ocean every day got a bit obnoxious lol...but it just made me laugh.

 

2)   The Food.   Was it always fantastic?  Of course not.  The first day on the ship I had some terrible food on the buffet, and if I'm to be honest there was a mix of poor things here and there.  They ran out of some things as well.  Pizza and Ice Cream weren't that hot but that might have been a blessing in disguise.     But I must say that I was extremely happy about the food overall.   Pacific Rim was incredible.  I loved Crystal's asian restaurant, I think I'd give Pacific Rim the edge.  Prime 7 was great too.   But the biggest surprise to me?   In the main dining room, they have an every day menu that consists of 12 different items with like 15 different sauces you can mix and match and tons of side options.   This includes Filet Mignon as well as other types of steak, Lobster Tail, the list goes on.  As a pickier eater, I REALLY appreciated this and more so....this dishes were fantastic.  Not the normal boring every day issues you often see.   I usually find people are desperate to try to get into the specialty restaurants as much as possible as the main dining room is nowhere near as good.  I did not find that on Regent at all, and in fact Compass Rose was packed every night.  Have to say their Chocolate Croissants and some of the cookies were fantastic.  Yes, I have a sweet tooth.

 

3)  The Service.  I never imagined I would find service as good as on old Crystal.  I was wrong.  We kept using the word impeccable.  It really was.   Were there a handful of snafus?  Of course, we were on the ship for almost 3 weeks.  But overall we couldn't have been happier.  I swear the service in Pacific Rim was the best I've ever had in my life and the Maitre D' there was a sweetheart.   I was told if you just show up after 8 pm even without a reservation they would try their hardest to find you a table and we did that one night and sure enough, couldn't have been nicer.  Prime 7 was great too, don't misunderstand me, but Pacific Rim was close to perfect service I've ever had in my life.  Every meal wasn't 2 hours, you could dine quickly if you wanted service was that great, something I have found to be an issue on some other luxury lines.  They take their queues from you.  Also have to add the ship was very clean.

 

For me, the above three are the most important things on a cruise.  While there are more "bad" items, they are all much more minor than the three listed above.  So while it may seem numerically there is more in the bad category, I would weight these much higher.

 

The Good

 

1)  Rooms.   We were in an Explorer Suite.   The room was very nice.  Can't say fantastic as a list of things that could be improved upon, including a glass door between the bedroom and the living room which is silly but they give you a velcro cover if asked.  One of the biggest reasons I splurge for a suite as I sleep a lot less than my spouse and want a separate room to go to so having the light coming through just wasn't thought out well(I was told they are fixing this on the next dry dock later this year).  A few other issues with the shower, I was surprised the veranda wasn't a little larger, but overall a very good room and I was very happy. Our butler(Amey) and stewardess(Andrea) were both excellent and very, very kind.

 

2)  Some of the Entertainment.   While it was a bit disappointing that there was definitely less in the form of entertainment on the ship(more on that in the bad category), I do have to give props to the two ship entertainers G Clef and the piano player Alex.   The female singer of G CLef was nothing short of amazing in her voice, and was a lot of fun to watch.   Her guitar playing male counterpart was very talented on the guitar.   And the pianist was just very good.  While there was a lack of entertainment on sea days, I will give them credit for doing a few unique fun things like a county fair one day.

 

3)  Floor 12 has a great track that goes around most of the ship, and also includes a paddle and pickle ball court, 18 holes of a short/mini golf game, ping pong, bocce ball and shuffle board.  My room was on deck 12, but I loved the track and used it every day and loved the views in this part of the world.  We also used everything on that floor minimally once, wasn't used much in fairness.  There are deck chairs on 12 too, but mostly in the sun.

 

4)  The Spa.   Yes their massages were expensive.  And yes, maybe we just got lucky.  But we had two amazing masseuses and had multiple treatments and it was awesome(some of the best ever).   Also, there is an infinity pool on the back of the boat you have to go to.

 

5)  Culinary Kitchen.  There are only 12 stations, and it's on sea days for the most part, but it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.  Chef Stefano had a great personality and was very knowledgeable.

 

6)  TV.  Don't laugh.  No I don't sit in the room excessively.  But when you're on a cruise for almost 3 weeks, most cruises the programming gets old and repetitive.  There are those of us who have it on as background noise, or like to watch before bedtime or fall asleep to something.  Regent had a good number of varied selections.  All included.

 

The Bad

 

1)  The Entertainment.   A bit disappointing that they just had two entertainers in lounges and other places.   They did use individual musicians from the Regent Orchestra to help bridge that gap.  Also, every guest entertainer performed twice.  Some you were happy to see twice, others not so much.  I had to stop going to the lecturers as they seemed best at putting me to sleep.  In fairness, the topics may not have been the most interesting  but for one of them they were just a bad speaker and I dont think could hold people's attention.   Compared to old Crystal, this didn't stack up well.   Also on sea days I found a definite lack of activities and was wishing there were more things later on in the cruise, but again I may be spoiled from Crystal and mainstream lines which obviously have a lot more options.  There was only one trivia per day, even on sea days.  I was happy to have a casino but it was smaller with limited games.  The staff in the casino were, of course, very friendly and nice as was the case on the whole ship for the most part.

 

2)  The shows were at 9 30 every night and dinners start later(I believe 6 30 in specialties and 7 pm in main dining room).  I am not an early person so I was fine, but many passengers were put off by this and the shows were never crowded due to this.

 

3)  Regent Air.  I would put this in the neutral category as for me this was ok.  I live in NY so never an issue with direct flights but they sent us the long way through Dubai to get to Sydney.  That said I was on Emirates Business class, so a few more hours in Emirates isn't exactly something to complain about though the flight was long.  Others complained of excessive connections and fees, which I experienced when I tried to change flights deviations as well so I didn't do.

 

4)  Sea day pool chair in the shade hogs.  Can't believe I'm writing this about a luxury line, but it's true.

 

5)  Gym was too small and constantly over crowded on sea days.

 

6)  The tenders.   This is most cruise lines, but I have to say, yuck.  Stuffed in like sardines, really not a pleasant experience.  I expected more from a luxury line.

 

7)  Internet. I still work full time, though it's my own business.  I paid for the upgraded plan.  Needn't have bothered.  It stunk.  Very basic things were ok(email and the like) most of the time, but that was it.  In fairness, there is no luxury cruise line that has this down, but the mainstream ones have gotten much better.  Thank god I was able to figure out how to do some of the things I had to do in ports but it was a pain.  I get that most people on luxury lines are retired, but even retirees want good internet!

 

The Ugly.

 

There is only one thing here but man was it ugly.  Excursions.  For full disclosure, I have made it a habit to book private excursions for the most part for years.  Price point wise, they are not more expensive and there are a list of things I don't like about group tours(hurry up and wait, lines, someone taking longer at a certain stop, etc,,).   But excursions were included in the Regent fare and my TA said try it as they heard mostly good things so I did.  I will say, in fairness, Regent loyalists on this cruise had commented that this cruise was below average in this category.  But it's not just this cruise.  I had booked a cruise on the Splendor for June of 2023 and cancelled it because all the excursions I wanted were sold out!   This cruise, it was a lot of the same, and some really bad stuff.   It would be remiss of me not to say most of the excursions we took(probably 2/3) were fine.   Sure, we sat in the theater waiting for our number to be called, sat on a bus waiting alot even on those, but it was fine.   There were many that were not though.   Starting with some ports with no excursions available.  If you are offering free unlimited excursions how does this happen?  Also, because of the age breakdown on the ship, there are a fair number of short excursions with very little activity mostly just on a bus.   Those are always the last to go and you can get stuck on some.   Some of the excursions were just terrible.  We paid $150 to go to a pontoon at the Great Barrier Reef surcharge.  Went on a boat where, again, crammed in.   I had been the reef before, and this pontoon was disgusting.   I think the only people who liked this were those that had never been before.  If you had, there were 12 loungers for 95 people.  The deck was covered in bird poop.  And the lunch they served was very bad cafeteria food.  There were people sitting on the boat waiting to go back an hour before we were supposed to leave.  Alot of people complained about this one.   We also went to Papua New Guinea.  Why?   We were fortunate in that the morning excursions were all fully booked within 48 hours of becoming available(another thing that stunk about the excursions) so when we went to get off the ship for our late morning/early afternoon one we saw the people coming back from the morning excursions and they literally looked like they went through a war.  Small buses with zero leg room and no air(very hot and humid) and nothing to see.  People said they felt unsafe.  One person said to us, and I quote "I feel like if I get Malaria, which I probably did, that was the highlight of the tour".   One excursion people paid a premium for couldn't go off.   The second day in Papua New Guinea was cancelled due to "safety" reasons an hour after we left the first port.   The staff let slip the ship has been there before and they will never get off there again, they felt unsafe.   How does the ship take us there?   This one was mind numbing.  I could on about a few other excursions that weren't great, but you get the drift.  If we did Regent again I would need to book on our own excursions, which just increases the price of an already higher priced cruise.   Hands down, this was my biggest issue.

 

The people on the cruise were very nice, though I did find they skewed older than Crystal and there were some more mobility issues than I used to see(which was reflected in many of the excursions I felt), but I really enjoyed meeting such a great group of people.

 

So I would cruise Regent again, but I'd have to factor in the cost of excursions as well and I wouldn't do too many sea days.  This is all very subjective of course.   Any questions, feel free to ask.

[Pcardad]

As a Regent client with a lot of nights (not that it matters other than to share my perspective), I feel your description is extremely accurate and this post should be pinned as it is a great resource for others. Thank you for taking the time to write it!

[gabelle]

We also were on this cruise, but started in Auckland.  You summed everything up perfectly!  The excursions and tendering were the absolute worst we have ever encountered.  Regent never used to fill the buses to capacity.  I never remember them sending numerous buses to the same location at the same time.  And the descriptions of the tours were not particularly accurate.  The staff, except for destination services, made up for so many of these shortcomings with their friendly attentiveness. They truly made us feel special.

[clelbonv]

Thank you for the detailed review. We are scheduled for Sydney to Singapore  January 2024 and this was very helpful. I have been reading about the poor excursions that regent offers and have been planning on a few my own. Do you specifically have any ports that you suggest we skip the regent tours all together? Sounds like Cairns may be one of them. Also our cruise has two ports of call in Papa New Guinea so this is concerning regarding the poor quality of the tours and the safety of the area. Did not plan to do a private excursion. Would you recommend just walking around and not doing a Regent tour?

[Cruiseswithfamilyornot]

Thank you all for you kind comments.  It's all just opinions, though I will say many people were vocal about their disdain for the excursions.  I actually could have said a lot more which @gabelletouched on a lot of.  But I think we got the point across.

 

@clelbonvCairns was actually one port we did two tour excursions from the ship and they were both good(for cruise ship excursions).   I will say for both we were waiting about 30 minutes in the theater to be called for the bus after we were told to report, but outside of that they were solid.  The tours I am mentioning below I did pay a premium for both of them, so not sure if that's why but they were the Skyrail, Kuranda and Cairns and the Jungle Train and Amphibious Duck Tours.

 

After seeing people getting on the ship after their tours and what they had to say in Papua New Guinea, while we did technically did get off the boat we turned around and went right back on.   We spent the day at the infinity pool at the spa which was really nice and I will tell you we saw extreme poverty looking out over the bow of the ship.  It was heartbreaking, reminded me of the extreme poverty you see in some of the Caribbean Islands.  I'll leave for others that were on the same cruise and commented to say what they did there and what their thoughts are since I did not really go into town or anything like that.  I do have to say, while literally 30 people told me how much they hated and every staff member said they'd never get off at that port, I was sitting at the casino with someone who told me they loved their excursion in Papua New Guinea as it was very eye opening, etc,, and it was one of their favorite ones of all cruises they've done in years!    So different strokes for different folks always....

 

I'm sure they will change the pontoon they went to for the Great Barrier Reef as when we mentioned it casually(not complaining) to the excursions desk they cut us off and let us know they had already received an earful from many other passengers.  I have been to Australia before, and I will say that while I prefer to cruise over a land trip most of the time, the Great Barrier Reef is one of those places I think is better seen by being at one of the beautiful resorts and really being able to enjoy the location.  Crystal used to do a few day excursions where you got off the ship and went to a resort somewhere and then could get back on which was very cool.  Obviously you pay a premium for that

 

The descriptions for some of the excursions were not accurate so I'd have to review each one and what we did to comment on that, though I remember the cruise in Darwin was totally mislabeled, and they took us to places to describe events that happened during World War 2 that the real history buffs enjoyed, but there is no way 99% of the people remember what was said cause it just wasn't that meaningful.  We've all had those experiences so I know you can relate.  I recall there was practically a mutiny on a bus I was on as they decided we need to more of the city we were in and literally just drove around for an hour and a half after spending hours out on a tour and everyone but literally one person wanted to go back to the ship.  I'm going to stop there, as I feel like I'm being way too negative about the excursions which I have been perfectly clear on.  I could and should have booked on my own as the crew on the ship, food and the ship itself were fantastic and overshadowed so much of this

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[Catlover54]

4 hours ago, Cruiseswithfamilyornot said:

I recently returned from a Regent Explorer Sydney to Bali cruise and I thought it would be good to post my review.  

 

For means of background, I have been on well over 50 cruises, mostly cruises on mainstream cruise lines when my kids were younger, but always sailing on luxury cruise lines as well more now as our kids are older.

 

I have always been more of a lurker on Cruise Critic and have received some great info on cruise lines and itineraries.  I was never a big poster historically as I always hated all of the drama and how people got crucified for expressing their opinions.   Having cruised as much as I do, I really believe that what each of us likes and don't like is very personal to us and does not necessarily apply to others.  Which is why I could care less about caviar or specific alcohols on board, two things that I know are very important to other people, but conversely I like to spend a little time in the casinos something I know many could care less about.   Personal opinions.  I've also seen differing reviews on the exact same cruise, and of course that is entirely possible as different people interact with other people, etc,,.

 

My favorite luxury line was the old Crystal previously.   I think since their ships were much larger than others and had more activities, coupled with exceptional service and very good food, and i must add people I really enjoyed meeting and cruising with, it was a no brainer.  I had tried out all of the other cruise lines and my first cruise with Crystal wasn't until 2008 but I was hooked.

 

With Crystal's demise, I have been going on all the other luxury cruise lines, and will be trying out the new Crystal of course, as well as Explora Journeys.

 

This was a tough cruise to start with as the ship had just come off of two very problematic cruises due to cancelled ports due to a problem with cleaning the hull in New Zealand waters and I had ready on line in numerous places that tempers had flared and some people were very upset.   I was concerned we might have had some backlash from that, but while there was some upset passengers, the crew was largely unimpacted despite being yelled out fairly often by upset passengers in the week before.  About 150 passengers were on a Grand Voyage from Auckland to Tokyo for 77 days.

 

Overall, we enjoyed our cruise.  I would definitely try Regent again, though I would do one or two things differently as you will see below.  We had about 630 people on our cruise the ship handles 750.  That number went down to 600 on the week we left.

 

I'd like to give a run down of what I will call four categories----The fantastic, the good, the bad and the ugly.

 

There are actually three things I'd call fantastic about the cruise.  In no particular order:

 

1)  The Ship.  It is a beautiful ship.  Hands down probably the nicest ship I've been on to date in terms of furnishings.   Some complaints about the ship being too dark in places, some columns in theaters that were fixed on Splendor, or what have you, but none of that impacted me.  Though I will say constantly announcing over the PA that it's the most luxurious ship on the ocean every day got a bit obnoxious lol...but it just made me laugh.

 

2)   The Food.   Was it always fantastic?  Of course not.  The first day on the ship I had some terrible food on the buffet, and if I'm to be honest there was a mix of poor things here and there.  They ran out of some things as well.  Pizza and Ice Cream weren't that hot but that might have been a blessing in disguise.     But I must say that I was extremely happy about the food overall.   Pacific Rim was incredible.  I loved Crystal's asian restaurant, I think I'd give Pacific Rim the edge.  Prime 7 was great too.   But the biggest surprise to me?   In the main dining room, they have an every day menu that consists of 12 different items with like 15 different sauces you can mix and match and tons of side options.   This includes Filet Mignon as well as other types of steak, Lobster Tail, the list goes on.  As a pickier eater, I REALLY appreciated this and more so....this dishes were fantastic.  Not the normal boring every day issues you often see.   I usually find people are desperate to try to get into the specialty restaurants as much as possible as the main dining room is nowhere near as good.  I did not find that on Regent at all, and in fact Compass Rose was packed every night.  Have to say their Chocolate Croissants and some of the cookies were fantastic.  Yes, I have a sweet tooth.

 

3)  The Service.  I never imagined I would find service as good as on old Crystal.  I was wrong.  We kept using the word impeccable.  It really was.   Were there a handful of snafus?  Of course, we were on the ship for almost 3 weeks.  But overall we couldn't have been happier.  I swear the service in Pacific Rim was the best I've ever had in my life and the Maitre D' there was a sweetheart.   I was told if you just show up after 8 pm even without a reservation they would try their hardest to find you a table and we did that one night and sure enough, couldn't have been nicer.  Prime 7 was great too, don't misunderstand me, but Pacific Rim was close to perfect service I've ever had in my life.  Every meal wasn't 2 hours, you could dine quickly if you wanted service was that great, something I have found to be an issue on some other luxury lines.  They take their queues from you.  Also have to add the ship was very clean.

 

For me, the above three are the most important things on a cruise.  While there are more "bad" items, they are all much more minor than the three listed above.  So while it may seem numerically there is more in the bad category, I would weight these much higher.

 

The Good

 

1)  Rooms.   We were in an Explorer Suite.   The room was very nice.  Can't say fantastic as a list of things that could be improved upon, including a glass door between the bedroom and the living room which is silly but they give you a velcro cover if asked.  One of the biggest reasons I splurge for a suite as I sleep a lot less than my spouse and want a separate room to go to so having the light coming through just wasn't thought out well(I was told they are fixing this on the next dry dock later this year).  A few other issues with the shower, I was surprised the veranda wasn't a little larger, but overall a very good room and I was very happy. Our butler(Amey) and stewardess(Andrea) were both excellent and very, very kind.

 

2)  Some of the Entertainment.   While it was a bit disappointing that there was definitely less in the form of entertainment on the ship(more on that in the bad category), I do have to give props to the two ship entertainers G Clef and the piano player Alex.   The female singer of G CLef was nothing short of amazing in her voice, and was a lot of fun to watch.   Her guitar playing male counterpart was very talented on the guitar.   And the pianist was just very good.  While there was a lack of entertainment on sea days, I will give them credit for doing a few unique fun things like a county fair one day.

 

3)  Floor 12 has a great track that goes around most of the ship, and also includes a paddle and pickle ball court, 18 holes of a short/mini golf game, ping pong, bocce ball and shuffle board.  My room was on deck 12, but I loved the track and used it every day and loved the views in this part of the world.  We also used everything on that floor minimally once, wasn't used much in fairness.  There are deck chairs on 12 too, but mostly in the sun.

 

4)  The Spa.   Yes their massages were expensive.  And yes, maybe we just got lucky.  But we had two amazing masseuses and had multiple treatments and it was awesome(some of the best ever).   Also, there is an infinity pool on the back of the boat you have to go to.

 

5)  Culinary Kitchen.  There are only 12 stations, and it's on sea days for the most part, but it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.  Chef Stefano had a great personality and was very knowledgeable.

 

6)  TV.  Don't laugh.  No I don't sit in the room excessively.  But when you're on a cruise for almost 3 weeks, most cruises the programming gets old and repetitive.  There are those of us who have it on as background noise, or like to watch before bedtime or fall asleep to something.  Regent had a good number of varied selections.  All included.

 

The Bad

 

1)  The Entertainment.   A bit disappointing that they just had two entertainers in lounges and other places.   They did use individual musicians from the Regent Orchestra to help bridge that gap.  Also, every guest entertainer performed twice.  Some you were happy to see twice, others not so much.  I had to stop going to the lecturers as they seemed best at putting me to sleep.  In fairness, the topics may not have been the most interesting  but for one of them they were just a bad speaker and I dont think could hold people's attention.   Compared to old Crystal, this didn't stack up well.   Also on sea days I found a definite lack of activities and was wishing there were more things later on in the cruise, but again I may be spoiled from Crystal and mainstream lines which obviously have a lot more options.  There was only one trivia per day, even on sea days.  I was happy to have a casino but it was smaller with limited games.  The staff in the casino were, of course, very friendly and nice as was the case on the whole ship for the most part.

 

2)  The shows were at 9 30 every night and dinners start later(I believe 6 30 in specialties and 7 pm in main dining room).  I am not an early person so I was fine, but many passengers were put off by this and the shows were never crowded due to this.

 

3)  Regent Air.  I would put this in the neutral category as for me this was ok.  I live in NY so never an issue with direct flights but they sent us the long way through Dubai to get to Sydney.  That said I was on Emirates Business class, so a few more hours in Emirates isn't exactly something to complain about though the flight was long.  Others complained of excessive connections and fees, which I experienced when I tried to change flights deviations as well so I didn't do.

 

4)  Sea day pool chair in the shade hogs.  Can't believe I'm writing this about a luxury line, but it's true.

 

5)  Gym was too small and constantly over crowded on sea days.

 

6)  The tenders.   This is most cruise lines, but I have to say, yuck.  Stuffed in like sardines, really not a pleasant experience.  I expected more from a luxury line.

 

7)  Internet. I still work full time, though it's my own business.  I paid for the upgraded plan.  Needn't have bothered.  It stunk.  Very basic things were ok(email and the like) most of the time, but that was it.  In fairness, there is no luxury cruise line that has this down, but the mainstream ones have gotten much better.  Thank god I was able to figure out how to do some of the things I had to do in ports but it was a pain.  I get that most people on luxury lines are retired, but even retirees want good internet!

 

The Ugly.

 

There is only one thing here but man was it ugly.  Excursions.  For full disclosure, I have made it a habit to book private excursions for the most part for years.  Price point wise, they are not more expensive and there are a list of things I don't like about group tours(hurry up and wait, lines, someone taking longer at a certain stop, etc,,).   But excursions were included in the Regent fare and my TA said try it as they heard mostly good things so I did.  I will say, in fairness, Regent loyalists on this cruise had commented that this cruise was below average in this category.  But it's not just this cruise.  I had booked a cruise on the Splendor for June of 2023 and cancelled it because all the excursions I wanted were sold out!   This cruise, it was a lot of the same, and some really bad stuff.   It would be remiss of me not to say most of the excursions we took(probably 2/3) were fine.   Sure, we sat in the theater waiting for our number to be called, sat on a bus waiting alot even on those, but it was fine.   There were many that were not though.   Starting with some ports with no excursions available.  If you are offering free unlimited excursions how does this happen?  Also, because of the age breakdown on the ship, there are a fair number of short excursions with very little activity mostly just on a bus.   Those are always the last to go and you can get stuck on some.   Some of the excursions were just terrible.  We paid $150 to go to a pontoon at the Great Barrier Reef surcharge.  Went on a boat where, again, crammed in.   I had been the reef before, and this pontoon was disgusting.   I think the only people who liked this were those that had never been before.  If you had, there were 12 loungers for 95 people.  The deck was covered in bird poop.  And the lunch they served was very bad cafeteria food.  There were people sitting on the boat waiting to go back an hour before we were supposed to leave.  Alot of people complained about this one.   We also went to Papua New Guinea.  Why?   We were fortunate in that the morning excursions were all fully booked within 48 hours of becoming available(another thing that stunk about the excursions) so when we went to get off the ship for our late morning/early afternoon one we saw the people coming back from the morning excursions and they literally looked like they went through a war.  Small buses with zero leg room and no air(very hot and humid) and nothing to see.  People said they felt unsafe.  One person said to us, and I quote "I feel like if I get Malaria, which I probably did, that was the highlight of the tour".   One excursion people paid a premium for couldn't go off.   The second day in Papua New Guinea was cancelled due to "safety" reasons an hour after we left the first port.   The staff let slip the ship has been there before and they will never get off there again, they felt unsafe.   How does the ship take us there?   This one was mind numbing.  I could on about a few other excursions that weren't great, but you get the drift.  If we did Regent again I would need to book on our own excursions, which just increases the price of an already higher priced cruise.   Hands down, this was my biggest issue.

 

The people on the cruise were very nice, though I did find they skewed older than Crystal and there were some more mobility issues than I used to see(which was reflected in many of the excursions I felt), but I really enjoyed meeting such a great group of people.

 

So I would cruise Regent again, but I'd have to factor in the cost of excursions as well and I wouldn't do too many sea days.  This is all very subjective of course.   Any questions, feel free to ask.

 

Thank you for your objective review.

It sounds like things were par for the course on this Regent cruise since the last time I was on  (e.g., crowded non-luxurious excursions of borderline merit, crowded non-luxurious tenders, chair hogs who are not controlled by staff,  borderline entertainment, and bad internet; but beautiful facilities and hard-working staff who know how to cheerfully ignore complaining passengers).

But it was good to hear that you found food and service in Compass Rose good (when I couldn't cut my lobster even with a steak knife because it was so tough, I had to agree with a former Regent cheerleader's frequent CC advice that one should try and eat as many meals as possible *off the ship* -- but it is encouraging to hear that may not be the case anymore!).

 

I mix and match cruise lines predominantly based on itinerary, and know none is perfect, so I will  be back soon 🙂

Edited February 21, 2023 by Catlover54
Typo

[Lonedaddy]

7 hours ago, clelbonv said:

Do you specifically have any ports that you suggest we skip the regent tours all together? Sounds like Cairns may be one of them. Also our cruise has two ports of call in Papa New Guinea so this is concerning regarding the poor quality of the tours and the safety of the area. Did not plan to do a private excursion. Would you recommend just walking around and not doing a Regent tour?

We were on that trip too AKL to Bali

 

We enjoyed the cairns tour to Kuranda  army duck and the train was fantastic.  We did go to the train ticket office and paid about $30 US for an upgrade to gold class with complementary food tea beer and wine and more comfortable seats.   Well worth it.  Amazing views of the waterfall.  We overnighted there and they changed us (we were supposed to go to the pontoon the first day but sounds like we made the right choice by sticking with the duck tour that day )  They have a nice aquarium there and some nice shopping in the downtown where the ship docks so easy walks albeit very warm.   Not sure why regent doesn't simply offer aquarium tickets.   

 

The Maitland jail tour out of Newcastle was very interesting.  The guide we had at the jail was a former guard there and wow what great stories.  

 

We were very disappointed with the territory zoo tour out of Darwin.  Lots of walking but not a lot of interesting animals.

 

The Australia zoo however was fantastic, the tender out of mooloolaba was dreadful.  Extremely hot and slow as OP mention. 

 

I suspect they won't be going to Papua on your cruise either unless the local authorities make some changes.

 

Just getting ready to leave Singapore today.  Great food but can be expensive.  Beers at hotel ($22 SGD per bottle) Yikes!    The food courts are much better.  And don't miss the cloud dome and flower dome at gardens by the bay if you like plants - phenomenal! 

Edited February 21, 2023 by Lonedaddy

[Lonedaddy]

Great thread and review - I'd agree more or less with everything mentioned.  We didn't do the spa just the salon which was good.  We stayed on our own in Bali and I had a fabulous 90 minute massage at the conrad for about 80USD  (cheaper outside the hotel) 

 

Stayed in Singapore and the Mandarin Oriental and DW and I both had some of the best treatments ever albeit pricey still not what the ship price was.   

[Cruiseswithfamilyornot]

3 hours ago, Lonedaddy said:

We were on that trip too AKL to Bali

 

We enjoyed the cairns tour to Kuranda  army duck and the train was fantastic.  We did go to the train ticket office and paid about $30 US for an upgrade to gold class with complementary food tea beer and wine and more comfortable seats.   Well worth it.  Amazing views of the waterfall.  We overnighted there and they changed us (we were supposed to go to the pontoon the first day but sounds like we made the right choice by sticking with the duck tour that day )  They have a nice aquarium there and some nice shopping in the downtown where the ship docks so easy walks albeit very warm.   Not sure why regent doesn't simply offer aquarium tickets.   

 

The Maitland jail tour out of Newcastle was very interesting.  The guide we had at the jail was a former guard there and wow what great stories.  

 

We were very disappointed with the territory zoo tour out of Darwin.  Lots of walking but not a lot of interesting animals.

 

The Australia zoo however was fantastic, the tender out of mooloolaba was dreadful.  Extremely hot and slow as OP mention. 

 

I suspect they won't be going to Papua on your cruise either unless the local authorities make some changes.

 

Just getting ready to leave Singapore today.  Great food but can be expensive.  Beers at hotel ($22 SGD per bottle) Yikes!    The food courts are much better.  And don't miss the cloud dome and flower dome at gardens by the bay if you like plants - phenomenal! 

 

I didn't pay for the upgrade as we had met some people and they didn't want to, I had a feeling we might have missed something!   The views from the train were amazing, I agree.  One of the highlights.   I liked the skyrail too.   You are high above the forest and you make some stops along the way that were interesting.  I love seeing animals like that, we did the Australian Zoo too.  I quite enjoyed that one but one tip I will give for that---you can actually book animal encounters there directly with the zoo where you have a chance to get up close and personal with an animal of your choice and feed them.  We did that with a Binturong(I never heard of it either before this trip) and it was a lot of fun as we had already done that with Koala's and some others on previous trips.  I thought it was well worth it, but by the time I booked it(3 months in advance) many of the encounters were either sold out totally or partially so do that in advance if you want to do it.

 

One other thing I will mention is that in Darwin(I had heard from others similar comments not to do the Zoo tour which we were shut out of anyway for a change....sometimes things for a reason) we went into town ourselves after the two hour "harbor boat tour" which was crap.  Not much there, but we did go to one place called Crocosaurus essentially a crocodile exhibit place.  But one thing they had there is civilians are able to pay money to go into an acrylic cylinder cage and get lowered into the water with live crocodiles.   Then they put pieces of meat on long hooks right next to the cylinder and you see the crocodiles smashing against it to get to the meat while the person inside the cylinder is making it look like they are kissing them and having a blast.  It was hilarious.  I have a video which I tried to upload but haven't been able to.   You can book yourself, again only in advance.   That was really the highlight, though there were a tremendous amount of crocodiles and some other animals too.  Not much in Darwin town otherwise.  We overnighted there too but due to cancellations of other ports.

[PaulMCO]

Also ex- Crystal.  Concur 100% with your review.  We did Splendor in November/Dec.

 

There excursion group is just about the worst in the industry.   It mirrors Oceania who we have a similar reaction and recent experience.  Oceania you pay for in advance so you have a recourse (like disputing the charges) when they skip half of what they promise.  Regent built into the fare.  Then again private tours are so much better as you can customize them.

 

As fare as service -- Regent is a culture of yes - very similar to that of Crystal.

 

As far as air -- Regent has been using a lot if Emirates and Qatar lately.  Certainly better than you would have had if they put you on United.

 

We were impressed enough to book two more on our last cruise.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by PaulMCO

[clelbonv]

Thank you for all the valuable information, we have booked the jungle train and amphibious duck tour in Cairns (extra fee) and the crocodile cruise in Darwin (free), we are open to finding private tours since in the longrun it will be a small added cost to the entirety of the cruise and also open to walking around on our own, finding restaurants in town, etc.  I do hope they just reschedule the papa new guinea ports or change at least one of them. Unfortunately they changed Brisbane to Newcastle so I don't think the Australia Zoo is an option on our cruise.  But the replies thus far have confirmed that we should be open to booking our own tours, not a big deal since the other things like food, service and room appear to be positive.

[irishwitchy]

Great review and I was on this cruise  also.  You nailed it very well.   I was ok with with the bird poop on the snorkel trip - I was in the water most of the time.  My husband did have to clean off a chair!  I found that food to be ok, but I will peel shrimp and the wings and curry were very good.  As you said, food is subjective.  I also was the first person in the water  and got out when everyone else finally got it together.  Hence,  we got lunch before the masses got to it!  Learned this trick, years ago on other snorkel trips.  
 

Darwin,  actually has a bunch of great national parks,  but it would be better as a overnight to Katherine Gorge and a few other places.   The jumping crocs was while worth it and we decided to Territory Wildlife Park was better for a nice, but humid hike.  Bird show was very good. Should have made an appointment that morning when we arrived for a bird encounter.  That was a whoops -  I had done this at the Australia Zoo, as someone else mentioned months before!  We did enjoy a lovely meal at Char in Darwin and a spectacular sunset.  
 

We did take a Helicopter to White Haven beach from the Airlie Beach port and that excursion was very good.  There was a little problem with weigh for the six of us, which required multiple trips to the beach.  However, the view was great and landing on the beach was fun also.  I did need to put on a stinger suit to swim,  but we really had a great time.   This didn’t get an excellent,  because the one couple missed the fact they were suppose to get out of the helicopter and enjoy the beach for an hour (they didn’t bring any water, either) .  Because of this,  we stayed on the beach for almost three hours.   I think the helicopter company was very thankfully,  we were ok with this.  They did have a canopy set up for us.  
 

Papa New Guiana was a bust.  I was on a paid excursion that it was obvious wasn’t ready for us and Regent didn’t check out all the details.  For example,  the boat to the island.  Please describe the boat,  how many people and life vests for all?  What was there was two small boats that could maybe hold 10 people each and no vests.  Not very safe for a choppy 30 minute ride.  
 

got to run, maybe more later

[horseymike]

Great review. Thanks for the honesty.

[rkaratsu]

On 2/20/2023 at 12:58 PM, Cruiseswithfamilyornot said:

I recently returned from a Regent Explorer Sydney to Bali cruise and I thought it would be good to post my review...

I was on the previous AKL - SYD leg of this Explorer jaunt and I found your review to be *SPOT ON*.  Your comments regarding things like the ship, cabin, service, Pacific Rim, entertainment, TV (ha ha!) etc. really echo what my wife and I experienced and did a nice job of summing up what it is currently like to cruise on Regent.

 

And although you did different shore excursion, our overall impression of Regent short excursions (and the shore ex staff) on our cruise was pretty similar.  More than anything, I think this is the weak link in the Regent experience.  (FREE, UNLIMITED!  Yeah, cool but if they are not any good, you shouldn't trumpet this so loudly...)

 

Thanks for your review!

[DaisyUK]

Thank you so much for posting this review. We are booked on the 33 day cruise Auckland-Singapore in Jan 24 and have been debating whether to cancel or not following the debacle this year. We assume that lessons will have been learned and the same thing won't happen again and, so far, have decided to proceed with it. The excursions, though, are a worry. We have never been to this part of the world before and would like to make the most of it through excursions and if they are a bust, then it will be disappointing to say the least.

 

Excursions aside, I enjoyed reading your review. We have been on several Regent cruises, and would agree that the weak link is always the excursions. Often it isn't a deal breaker as we have the opportunity to revisit/re-do ports where excursions have been disappointing, and we have done this many times, but this is probably not an option when we have to travel 24 hours to get to the embarkation port!

 

I'd also agree about the entertainment, although I don't think it's any better or worse than other ships we've sailed on.

 

We, too, used to sail 'old' Crystal and will probably try the new Crystal. There were many aspects of Crystal we enjoyed, with the lectures/speakers being high on the list, but in our opinion the accommodations and ships generally were showing their age and we do enjoy the general ambience and decor of the 2 new Regent ships.

 

Anyway, enjoyed reading your review and pretty much agreed with all of your comments about Regent.

[Cruiseswithfamilyornot]

I do wonder hearing everyone's responses and the same issues across the board, if Regent is better off offering an option to have the cruise without the excursions at a lower price?  Something tells me it wouldn't be much of a reduction and it may end up upsetting people at how low it is, but you do have the option to opt out of air and get some sort of a credit why not the same for excursions?    Just a thought.  I feel bad that people get so upset(myself included) about the excursions when there was so much positive about the cruise and the cruise line that it tends to overshadow somewhat

Edited February 22, 2023 by Cruiseswithfamilyornot

[papaflamingo]

3 hours ago, Cruiseswithfamilyornot said:

I do wonder hearing everyone's responses and the same issues across the board, if Regent is better off offering an option to have the cruise without the excursions at a lower price?

This is becoming a more and more expressed desire.  For me, it means the beginning of a slippery slope downward.   Next to go will be included alcohol and wine, replaced by a drink or wine package.  

Honestly, what I like about Regent is being the most inclusive cruise line out there.  I don't like to have to research ports and tour vendors anymore, I simply pick a tour that sounds good to me.  I also agree that the rebate for excursions will not be all that much.  

Honestly, other luxury cruise lines offer more of an "Ala carte" cruise.  By removing included items you are simply making Regent the same as the other cruise lines.  In my opinion it will change the business model and become the beginning of a down hill slide.  

 

[Cruiseswithfamilyornot]

Totally get what you are saying @papaflamingoand I agree many people like the ability to have excursions chosen and they just pick, it's definitely less hassle and work and makes alot of things easier.   I wasn't suggesting to get rid of that, just offer an option to not have the excursions included as they do with the airfare today.   But I hear your point about an all inclusive being an all inclusive and when you start going a la carte it's a slippery slope and it's a good point,

Edited February 22, 2023 by Cruiseswithfamilyornot

[Lonedaddy]

I think they need to upgrade the excursion experience to match the regent experience.  
 

more small group options for a premium.  More alternatives like some “city cards” that are on your own but include transport to the center of town and flexible ticket options choose 2 activities for example aquarium tickets and a museum or zoo and botanical gardens and a day ticket on the bus/metro system…..call it regent your way.

[Gilly]

I believe many of the current issues with excursions are as a result of the tourism industry restarting after Covid.  There are staffing challenges all over the world, many businesses have changed/closed/refocused and trying to get everything back in place must be an enormous headache.  In every port, Regent can only buy into what's on offer - the same tours that are available to all cruise ships and we've seen familiar descriptions on other sites that are nothing to do with Regent.  The guides and tour operators are merely contractors and though we always hope that a premium company will employ the best, we know that's not always possible.  

We find the Regent included tours a great starting point and have had some terrific included experiences (eg visiting a family vineyard from Amalfi last October) and some awful ones (one in Stavanger in June was disappointing).  But I'd hate to see the all inclusive product go and would love to see more progress in the way things were going with the "Go Local" tours, the environmentally themed tours and the specialist architecture (?) tours (I think) that were beginning to appear here and there.  I think there were some food themed market visits with a chef too?  Covid hit those new developments I think, but with more of us returning to ports for second and third visits, looking to do something different and maybe hoping for something fresh to do, let's hope to spot a few changes.

[Lonedaddy]

1 hour ago, Lonedaddy said:

I think they need to upgrade the excursion experience to match the regent experience.  
 

more small group options for a premium.  More alternatives like some “city cards” that are on your own but include transport to the center of town and flexible ticket options choose 2 activities for example aquarium tickets and a museum or zoo and botanical gardens and a day ticket on the bus/metro system…..call it regent your way.

too late to edit my post,  but I could also see them partnering with a booking engine like pick your guide or viator.  where Regent has its own site and you can book your independent guide or tour and receive a discount(credit.)  They could probably make money on it if they roll it out to Oceania and NCL for "approved independent tours" and capture some of the commission these sites get. 

[2012_Alaska_bound]

1 hour ago, Gilly said:

some awful ones (one in Stavanger in June was disappointing)

Ahh. Stavanger! I always remind my self I went to see the Stave Church! Had the same guide on another tour in the area. Same result.

[Gilly]

15 minutes ago, 2012_Alaska_bound said:

Ahh. Stavanger! I always remind my self I went to see the Stave Church! Had the same guide on another tour in the area. Same result.

Martha, I'm sure that part of the problem in Stavanger was that we were there on Navigator on the same day as P&O Iona....

 

(and apologies for taking this thread way off the Sydney-Bali review)

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by Gilly

[Pcardad]

Keep in mind that Regent lost a LOT of staff over COVID.....people needed to work and they went to other types of jobs. Its takes time to replace trained people. Regent pulled from Destinations to fill gaps elsewhere....and now the Destination staff is very green.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

On 2/23/2023 at 9:16 AM, Gilly said:

I believe many of the current issues with excursions are as a result of the tourism industry restarting after Covid.  There are staffing challenges all over the world, many businesses have changed/closed/refocused and trying to get everything back in place must be an enormous headache.  In every port, Regent can only buy into what's on offer - the same tours that are available to all cruise ships and we've seen familiar descriptions on other sites that are nothing to do with Regent.

I totally agree with you.  You could also say something similar about flights and airport experiences.