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Immersive Overnight sailings?

gcorgain

By gcorgain,
in Regent Seven Seas Cruises

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gcorgain

gcorgain

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I received notice today that our March 2025 sailing to Japan was modified to be one of a new series of Immersive Overnight vacations. Now we have four ports, all with an overnight (Kobe, Incheon, Shanghai, and Tokyo). Four additional Japanese ports were dropped and two sea days were also added.

 

The email also states "Additionally, these journeys will include special shoreside experiences, crafted to make each overnight stop a memorable and unique part of your journey."

 

Do any of our insiders know anything about this program, and especially the special shoreside experiences? At first glance losing four Japanese ports for an extra night in Tokyo and Incheon seems like a real loss, especially given that we already have the pre cruise land program in Tokyo.

 

Interested in any other information or opinions.

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PhD-iva

PhD-iva

Posted
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I’m thinking the cities in Honshu and Kyushu will still be cold in March especially at night). I have a resy on another cruise line for Tokyo to Vancouver that embarks in Tokyo in late April. I prefer Regent, but I don’t like cold weather. Brrr!

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gcorgain

gcorgain

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Thanks. That is interesting. In many cases this type of itinerary would appeal to me, particularly if the evening immersive experiences were special. I’ve never cruised on Azamara, but I’ve heard great things about their azamara evenings. 
 

That being said, I was really looking at a Japan focused cruise and this is no longer really that. 

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mj_holiday "Live from...." Rare

mj_holiday

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8 hours ago, gcorgain said:

Thanks. That is interesting. In many cases this type of itinerary would appeal to me, particularly if the evening immersive experiences were special. I’ve never cruised on Azamara, but I’ve heard great things about their azamara evenings. 
 

That being said, I was really looking at a Japan focused cruise and this is no longer really that. 

We have done Azamara 2 times, and it definitely was for the itinerary.  Caribbean - had 5 port days there and two overnights at one island.  The immersive experience was a performance at the Tropicana.  Spain - had an overnight in Seville and the experience was a performance of Flamenco dancing

Regent is still our first choice and will be interesting to see what types of overnights they come up with.

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Damaris1900

Damaris1900

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10 hours ago, gcorgain said:

Thanks. That is interesting. In many cases this type of itinerary would appeal to me, particularly if the evening immersive experiences were special. I’ve never cruised on Azamara, but I’ve heard great things about their azamara evenings. 
 

That being said, I was really looking at a Japan focused cruise and this is no longer really that. 

We're booked on the March 31, 2025 cruise, so this change will not apply to our cruise, but I wouldn't be interested in the cruise if the itinerary had changed in this way.  Multiple overnights are a great idea, but losing the additional days in Japan and adding in more sea days would change the cruise in significant ways, and would not be what we are looking for.  Have you decided whether you'll keep this booking or look for something else more similar to the original itinerary?

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gcorgain

gcorgain

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I haven’t decided whether to move yet. We had some credits that could only be moved once and we pushed this cruises back a year to go on a different sailing with friends. I’m waiting for my TA to get back from the Grandeur to discuss and hopefully learn more. 

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cAPS lOCK oN

cAPS lOCK oN

Posted
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That Japan cruise actually appeals to me. I like the idea of spending 2 full days in each of four major cities in the region. If we didn't already have a cruise scheduled that month I'd consider it.

 

What I don't understand is the Splendor cruise next August that spends 3 of its 8 days in "Paris" (actually Honfleur). I like the concept of a floating hotel, but I'd prefer one that isn't a 5+ hour round trip from the featured city.

 

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CardowMD

CardowMD

Posted
Posted (edited)

Beware, I just discovered that 2 cruises I had gotten quotes on yesterday, Voyager Oct 27-Nov 6 , 2024 got changed today from Istanbul, Dikli, Athens, Kusadasi, Messina, Naples, Rome, Corsica, Marseille, ending in  Barcelona to Istanbul overnight, 2sea days, Rome overnight, 1 sea day, Marseille overnight, Barcelona overnight. All very industrial ports. I have been to these ports several times , done most of the tours, and since it gets dark at 5pm don’t want to go wandering around these ports by myself at night.
 

The second cruise, Navigator Nov 15-22, Rome to Barcelona, deleted La Spezia, Cannes, Mallorca, Palamos, changed to Rome overnight, Livorno overnight, Toulon Overnight, Barcelona overnight.

 

RSSC saves a ton of $ by not having to move around and expecting people to eat all their meals off the ship. Would be much different if Overnight was in Cannes or smaller port where restaurants were walking distance from port.

 

So far the Navigator Nov 5-15, Istanbul to Rome seems to have retained its stops. When I am paying for luxury cruise, including tours, want the opportunity to visit different places. Unless this gets changed tonight, will pay my deposit on this one.

 

My TA on Grandeur now, hopefully back tomorrow so I can find out what is going on.

Carole

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mrlevin

mrlevin

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This is nothing new: Radisson used to do this regularly.  Mariner 14 night October 2005 Hong Kong to Singapore. Overnights in Hong Kong, Ha Long Bay, and Saigon. Then overnight in Bangkok wherein Radisson put all passengers in hotel in Bangkok so we didn’t have four long bus rides. Finally, overnight in Singapore.  Might be the best cruise ever. 

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sanne

sanne

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11 hours ago, mrlevin said:

This is nothing new: Radisson used to do this regularly.  Mariner 14 night October 2005 Hong Kong to Singapore. Overnights in Hong Kong, Ha Long Bay, and Saigon. Then overnight in Bangkok wherein Radisson put all passengers in hotel in Bangkok so we didn’t have four long bus rides. Finally, overnight in Singapore.  Might be the best cruise ever. 

And a few years later the  overnight in Beijing where the whole ship stayed at the Regent hotel. We had tours to the Great Wall etc etc before going back to the ship. That was really good and very memorable. 

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beaujolais

beaujolais

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15 hours ago, flossie009 said:

This experiment seems to defeat the primary benefit of cruising; a new location almost every day.

…………. but I suppose it saves on fuel 😉

 

 

 

We had a cruise booked on the Voyager, part of a B2B,  next Sept for 10 days,10 different ports in the Adriatic and no sea days

 

RSSC in their wisdom changed it to 4 ports only and 2 sea days, 2 days in Trieste, 2 days in Zadar,2 days in Kotor and 3 days in Athens ( actually Pireaus, not that they mention this). What on earth do they imagine that we do for 2 days in Zadar or Kotor, so close that some tours are offered in each port. As we have cruised with Regent and Silversea for many years we have been to these ports many times and would never booked this cruise if we knew what would occur

 

After a lot of work our TA has managed to change the cruise to another,( I'm in the UK and under their rules), we have 2 other cruises booked and I am now worried will they change the itineries on these cruises

 

They are yet to change the itinery on their webpage

Edited by beaujolais
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mrlevin

mrlevin

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5 hours ago, sanne said:

And a few years later the  overnight in Beijing where the whole ship stayed at the Regent hotel. We had tours to the Great Wall etc etc before going back to the ship. That was really good and very memorable. 

Yes, that was also wonderful!  It was National Day and a large group of us went down to Tiananmen Square for all the festivities.  Crowds were gigantic and we traversed the tunnels.  

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rallydave

rallydave

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7 hours ago, sanne said:

And a few years later the  overnight in Beijing where the whole ship stayed at the Regent hotel. We had tours to the Great Wall before going back to the ship. That was really good and very memorable. 

We were on a cruise that ended with the Beijing excursion included and it was a COMPLETE disaster that Regent failed to acknowledge in fact claimed in writing to a credit card dispute that it was "free" so no compensation at all. Believe we all know the correct term is included thus we did pay as part of the cruise fare.

 

This experience was truly memorable as well after spending about 10 hours on a bus going nowhere.

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SWFLAOK

SWFLAOK

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To bring this back to the "immersive" topic that started this thread, that would be the end of our Regent cruising. We go for the ports. We have no desire to stay longer in ports, and spend more days at sea.

I have no desire to spend multiple nights in a commercial port, and more and more cruise ships are being docked in commercial ports rather than in the heart of the destination.

I think we were already hit with this on our Bangkok to Abu Dahbi in April. One of the most important stops to us was Phuket. When excursions opened for us, the first one I booked was SPECTACULAR PHANG NGA BAY, which was our most anticipated excursion.

After a few months, we were notified of a change in our itinerary. We would be skipping a small island that few ever visited in Indonesia so we could spend an overnight in Phuket.  I had actually been looking forward to that as well, since who doesn't want to visit a small tropical island where your small ship is the only one there? But it meant that I needed to quickly rebook our anticipated excursion for 1 day earlier, which luckily I was able to do.

When I looked at what the overnight in Phuket meant to us, it was nothing worthwhile. They had added a number of evening excursions which mostly left from the ship before we returned from our 8.5 hour excursion late in the day. I doubt we would feel up to a night on the town after that. And some were expensive dinners out, so more money coming in for Regent.

After the overnight in Phuket, the ship leaves the dock at 8 AM, so no additional excursions the next day, just an additional day at sea in place of our remote island stop that was removed.

We go for the destinations, and we already lost one. If they were to do this on our cruise  on the large scale done on some of these examples, we would not be happy at all.

I think this is a play for the new young cruisers who haven't been on Regent (or maybe any other cruise line) before and are looking for as many opportunities to post on social media about their well known ports of call.

 

 

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irishwitchy

irishwitchy

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On 12/16/2023 at 4:12 AM, beaujolais said:

 

We had a cruise booked on the Voyager, part of a B2B,  next Sept for 10 days,10 different ports in the Adriatic and no sea days

 

RSSC in their wisdom changed it to 4 ports only and 2 sea days, 2 days in Trieste, 2 days in Zadar,2 days in Kotor and 3 days in Athens ( actually Pireaus, not that they mention this). What on earth do they imagine that we do for 2 days in Zadar or Kotor, so close that some tours are offered in each port. As we have cruised with Regent and Silversea for many years we have been to these ports many times and would never booked this cruise if we knew what would occur

 

After a lot of work our TA has managed to change the cruise to another,( I'm in the UK and under their rules), we have 2 other cruises booked and I am now worried will they change the itineries on these cruises

 

They are yet to change the itinery on their webpage

What day does this cruise start?  

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