Regent Seven Seas Cruises
View company profile →
No “wow” factor in service or decor
We are actually on a Regent cruise as I write. We booked this cruise (Rio De Janeiro to Santiago, Chile - a 24-day cruise), because we’d had a great experience with Regent on an Athens to Istanbul cruise many years ago. What a difference a few years make! It’s like a totally different company, and in fact it is since now Regent is owned by NCL. They’ve ruined what had been a great cruise line. Regent sets us up to believe we booked a luxury, high-end cruise. But our experience has been far from it. Each disappointment may seem like a small thing, not worth complaining about, but we’ve had so many mistakes, they are quickly adding up to a cumulative effect of huge disappointment and an experience of let-down at every turn. Regent planned our flights which were ATROCIOUS! Part of their marketing is that they include First/Business Class travel. But they gave us the most tortured itinerary - in no way was this a “first class” experience! Instead, over 30-hours traveling on three different flights which included a NINE HOUR LAY OVER, left us exhausted, worn out and unable to enjoy our first day in Rio De Janeiro. We flew from San Francisco to Atlanta on a Tuesday night, had a NINE HOUR layover, then flew from Atlanta to Lima, Peru, had a few hours layover there, then flew from Lima to Rio De Janeiro,Brazil, where we arrived at 6:10AM Thursday morning. There were direct flights from Atlanta, and other routes that would have made much more sense. There is simply NO justification for such terrible flights, when other much more direct flights were available. My husband, along with many others, contracted the Norovirus on this cruise. He was violently ill and required IV hydration. Best practices recommend having had me (or him) moved to a separate room. But no. We both were literally locked in our cabin together for 2.5 days, putting me at high risk of contacting the virus too. We missed the ports of call I was most eager to explore. A shore excursion we were able to take in Santos before he got sick had a tour-guide with a weak grasp on English, and English pronunciation. She had trouble understanding and answering questions. She had a lovely and enthusiastic demeanor, and was clearly so proud of her city, but I could have learned more about Santos with 5-minutes of Google. It was a cookie-pan deep tour. I was surprised Regent allowed such a sub-par provider to lead an excursion. The service on this particular cruise is seriously lacking. The crew try hard, and are very nice, but they continually make way too many mistakes. It feels like this is a training cruise! We have not had a room service order that is correct yet - missing items, items we didn’t order, cold food, long wait times for delivery... At the restaurants service is friendly, but erratic and unreliable. One meal at Prime 7 took over 3-hours! We sat there 2 hours before we got our entrees. We’ve had to send food back frequently because the meat wasn’t cooked right - if it’s in the ballpark, I can deal with it, but I’m simply not going to eat beef ordered medium rare, that is so raw it looks gelatinous. Don’t they know what a meat thermometer is??? Same thing with the salmon. Ordering a coke has become a nightly joke with my husband. It has never come with just one ask. He always has to ask at least twice (usually giving them 10-minutes after the first ask), and even then that is no guarantee a coke will ever be delivered. We have not had a flawless meal yet. Also many of the servers barely speak English, so I suspect lots of mistakes are the result of this. Our Captain has cancelled several ports-of-call resulting in way too many “Days at Sea”, including an EIGHT DAY stretch that was supposed to be five. Now we are having another 3 Days at Sea that was supposed to be 2. We are getting cabin fever! We are terribly disappointed at missing key highlights of this cruise. The Captain claims poor weather, and he should know, but it’s hard to believe when you look outside and it’s clear and calm, and hear from other guests who have friends on another ship essentially on this same itinerary that they are making the stops that we bypassed. We chose this cruise based on the fabulous itinerary, yet due to being quarantined, and then the Captain bypassing scheduled ports of call, we are not getting the cruise we thought we were. The ship decor seems tired. The artwork in the halls on our floor is pale and anemic. There is little to no visual “wow” factor - I thought we were on this exact ship many years ago, and it was beautiful! Now it just seems tired - looks like a mid range Marriott, not a luxury cruise. The one positive is that the guest lecturers specializing in Antarctica are fabulous! Their presentations are fascinating and educational. Thank goodness for them!