well I was having a great time on my recent region 7s cruise and then I started speaking to fellow guests some first timers as well as longtime regulars they raised a couple of issues which made me start to wonder if I was maybe being too forgiven after all the trip had cost me a lot and so it is worth being picky but after digesting it all and taking on board their thoughts here's actually what with reflection I believe the line does really well does differently and what doesn't work certainly for everybody and why welcome aboard
I'm Gary benbridge making it fun and easy to discover plan and enjoy Unforgettable Cruise vacations first a quick recap of what Regent is it's part of the Norwegian Cruise group and they call themselves the most luxurious Journey at Sea it competes with ultra luxury lines like Seaborn silver sea and I guess now explored Journeys and the revamped Crystal they say in their advertising they have the most Fair inclusions of all the ultr luxury lines and I will keep coming back to this because it's both a plus and it's a negative everyone I spoke to agreed
with me though that they have beautiful ships they have six ships at the time of recording three are the same design explorer that I was on Splendor and Grandeur each carrying 746 Passengers The Marin and Voyager are another design carrying 698 and the Navigator have also been on taking 496 the ships feel spacious for relatively small ships I think they never seem crowded at all inside I think it looks stylish sophisticated the furniture is all very plush it's all and I think it looks expensive including the artwork by the way which includes works by famous
artists like Picasso himself it's probably not as contemporary Decor I don't think as the newer Seaborn and silver sea ships that I've been on but I do really like the style of the ships I also really like the range of venues and Facilities on these relatively small ships I think they've done a really good job so for example on Deck 12 there's a sports Deck with Crazy Golf paddle golf deck games and a walking and running track then down on Deck 11 there's a pool deck a massive observation Lounge a library a connoisseur Club Cigar
Lounge a card room and the culinary arts cooking Center then right down on Deck five you've got a spa with a big fitness center just above it on Deck six which is a good size an infinity pool fantastic uh Coffee Connection which is open most of the day with tasty snacks the Meridian Lounge which is a bar at night and serves afternoon tea in the afternoon which is absolutely I think one of the best at Sea guest destination Services future Cruise sales internet cafe dining reservations are also on Deck 5 then down on Deck four
there's a surprisingly large Casino for the size of the ship and a Swanky bar with dance floor and then the shops there are 15 grades of suets which are a good size for such a small ship for example I was in an F2 Superior Suite in 803 which is in the kind of the lower third of grades but it was was comfy it was spacious had a great bathroom and a good-sized balcony so I do think the ships are great but have you noticed I'm sure that I didn't mention dining venues and dining because that's
what I want to focus on next it's the second thing that I think and I found that they do well though I don't think they beat the competition and I'll talk about that and I do think they have a couple of issues there are seven dining options on all the ships but the smaller Navigator so compass rose is the main dining room it's open for breakfast and dinner it's got uh a great big menu with standards and then daily kind of rotating items I saw firsthand through dining with some of my YouTube channel members who
are on the cruise that they do cater for vegetarian and vegan passengers well by working with the guests individually on the menus that suit them each day dinner did get busy at peak times service then could be a little bit slow but the good thing is it's open- seated dining and I could get whatever table configuration I wanted be a dining alone or or with any other guests that I met on the cruise there are three speciality restaurants included in the fair but I had to make bookings for these and that was only possible once
I was on board annoyingly I could eat in each one only once and then I had to check in during the cruise if there was space and availability to go again highgrade suets I do believe can go as often as they want to especially restaurants now here's what I thought was good and maybe a little bit less good about each of these so Prime 7even is the steakhouse it is undoubtedly a beautiful venue but pretty much every line at every level uh has a Stak house and I think it's really hard to stand out I
found it perfectly okay other people I spoke to they were less enthusiastic than I was they said the Stak quality they didn't think was fantastic and actually regulars but the menu in here and actually on the other restaurants is not evolving fast enough for them they did have a tasty Smoky tomato soup a moose Bush that I love but regular said kind of this has been around forever they felt there could be more change but I did like it specific B room was my favorite specialty venue an amazing range of Asian food and a wow
factor looking venue I really like the venue I had I had great service but I did D there early again I met people that said they had a slower experience at peak times uh shter serves modern French cuisine again another really striking venue and I'm not a big fan of French food but I did actually enjoy this way more than I thought I would do now they have another evening restaurant which is called setti Mari at lavanda now Veranda is it's a really good buffet restaurant at breakfast and lunch then at night it becomes a
waiter served Italian and it does have a great menu and great food however it gets crazy busy and I found it quite hard to get into on this cruise and my previous C Cruise because you can't do reservations so like on that last Cruise people were lining up ready for the 6:30 p.m. opening to get a table so it kind of takes a little bit of the edge off luxury because it's a bit of a bunfight to get in but really nice food there's the pool grill with a healthy breakfast option and you during lunch
it then serves pizzas Burgers sandwiches salads that kind of stuff uh and they certainly w't open for dinner uh on my cruise and either of my cruises and I think this is one of my misses there's no casual dining option in the evening because the only other option would be to you know versus a sit down served meal was in sweet dining and I'd really really love the option of just having something casual some night particularly I was on an 11 night cruise I didn't want kind of drawn out you know three course whatever way
to serve meals every day so they do food well in my opinion and it's definitely at worst on par with the other Ultra Luxury competition food definitely is better than say on premium lines like cond America princess celebrity that I've been on though I do wonder whether their sister line Oceania which is also owned by Norwegian because they have great food it probably gives them a little bit of the run for their money because Oceana food is is pretty elevated I think the other thing that they do well is service of course all sort of
ultr luxury lines do have great service it's kind of their thing and I do need to factor in that some of the crew do recognize or know me from my YouTube channel but everybody I spoke to I think agreed that the front-facing crew are really friendly they take time to chat they get to know you they they really go full-hearted to serve you they're efficient it's lighthearted it's personal I won't spend a lot of time talking about this because I think good service is kind of a given at this level of cruising so let me
shift now onto what I think they do that is unique and is different when I look at their brochures and their website they talk a lot about region 7 se's having the most inclusions within their Fair now although this is true versus pretty much all the luxury lines silver SE is kind of shifting a little bit close to them building more into their fairs however I do think with this they creating a rod for their own back as I will explain what's included in the region 7 C's fair then economy flights and transfers although pentas
and above get business class flights concierge and higher grades also get a pre Cruise hotel stay within their Fair everybody though gets unlimited chore Excursions Unlimited drinks gratuities special restaurants laundry and unlimited Wi-Fi but in some of these inclusions there are a couple of kind of issues so first of all when it comes to the included transfer and hotel stays both before my Caribbean and Japan cruises neither felt that luxurious I thought there was a bit of a disconnect between the luxurious of the ship and the kind of the transfer Hotel experience on land it
was uh you know at the airport look for the cruise line sign kind of wait get on a bus to the hotel the hotels I felt were pretty standard chain conference package type Hotel so for example in Japan it was the Hilton Tokyo a pretty standard room it was really packed with other groups and tours in terms of the unlimited shore excursions there are a couple of issues here and a couple of upsides though first of all they released about a year before the cruise at a certain time of the day and so people all
swoop into at that time and pick out all the best ones so for example on my Tokyo trip they released sort of sometime after midnight so I thought I'll go to bed uh I logged in at 6:00 a.m. when I woke up and I found that some of the included excursions that I really wanted to do were already weight listed now some of the other lines like silver that includes uh excursions they uh release them when you actually book The Cruise so they reward early Bookers more which I think is kind of a nice thing
to do some of the better and the more interesting excursions with costly elements do have charges so for that Tokyo trip I actually paid although I had these included excursions a total of $400 for excursions in three of the ports like a visit to the Mountaintop Shrine that required a cable car ride a visit to some caves in Kachi and then a more in-depth tour of Tokyo than was the included one the included tours although there is definitely a decent number of choices per Port I felt tend to be a little bit more walking panoramic
tours with some of the entry fees covered so for example access was covered into the kto nio palace grounds but you had to pay extra then to tour the actual Palace itself I did also see a lot of no shows so you know particularly after a long day like after that Kyoto or people in the morning handing back tickets but of course by then region have had to commit to the guides the buses all the cost so that kind of cost is already has to be built in so I think there could be a lot
of wastage you now and I wonder if that actually affects what they can offer so I do feel it could be kind of creating some problems anyway the Excursion process I think also could probably made a little bit more luxury you know like big ships uh cruises you have to meet in the theater you get a tour bus number uh other luxury lines have sort of shifted where silver sea I believe for example they'll allocate your tour as you leave the ship it just feels a little bit classier now I'm probably overthinking that but these
little things sometimes uh you know can add to the feel of luxury overall I don't want to appear too negative because I did enjoy the included excursions I went on I did think there was a good amount of choice but there are a couple of kind of quirks and issues within them now because I don't drink alcohol I asked a lot of people on board about the included wine the drinks and the cocktail lists and I think there was pretty much Universal agreement that it's a long good and generous uh list of inclusions what I
did love which does show luxury is that it did have kind of all the quirky drinks that I like like caffeine-free Diet Coke actually also had caffeine-free regular Coke they had sugar-free ginger ale and other drinks that I normally struggle to get on many other lines including some of those luxury lines I had to pay to upgrade to streaming Wi-Fi because only basic is actually included in the fair and that was pretty so so but this is going to go away because starlink is rolling across the fleet and everyone will get fast Wi-Fi included I
I could get as much laundry done as I wanted and it would come back the same day I love this there were though very busy guest laundry rooms on all the decks because apparently people told me they didn't trust sending their fancy or delicate clothes to the laundry so that's something to be of interest perhaps now I often ask how region differs from the other Al luxury lines and I I will actually dive in more detail in a separate video because it's such a big topic uh there's a lot that is similar as I've mentioned
and here's a couple of kind of headline differences uh so not completely ignoring that question unlike Seaborn and silver sea Regent do not do Expedition cruising that's one big difference Seaborn for example has gone down the route of more celebrity Partnerships they have or have had because they evolving some of them Partnerships with like Thomas Keller and dining stim rice in entertainment Dr Andrew will in Wellness Molton Brown in toiletries hel Hansen in clothing and so on they also do have a really focused enrichment program with a thing they called their conversation series which I
think I think is a Miss as I'll talk a bit later on Regent silver sea has a slightly different feel it's more European and approach they have Butlers for every grer sweet and what they do is they focus on what they call Salt their sea and land taste Gourmet program and that affects the menus they have onboard events excursions and I think they are also very destination immersion focused you know and based on what I've seen from an upcoming South African trip I've got booked with them although they have fewer options of excursions they do
seem to have more pre premium excursions that region do included within the fair I would say the daily program cross all of them are pretty similar with the usual trivia debt games themed song and dance shows uh but I do think that the lack of kind of History cultural enrichment talks and poort talks which the other lines do a bit more of is more of a Miss with Regent Regent actually costs though less than I think many people appreciate though of course it is at a price that's way out of most people's budget but to
put it in context I went on the Cruise a few weeks after Royal Caribbean Symphony Of The Seas where I'd booked a suet on there because I wanted to test out the whole suet experience on a big ship the cost per day on Raw Caribbean once that added in all the add-ons like Wi-Fi especially dining excursions drinks gratuities transfers all the stuff that including the region Fair it cost me exactly the same per day as my region trip but of course it was a very different experience on Symphony Of The Seas I was paying for
a big high scale theater water shows wide range of facilities lots of choice and a sweet area to escape crowds and noise on Regent I had less of that but I was paying for a smaller sophisticated more reserved much more personalized kind of service which they do well so when people ask me if I think Regent is worth the money I say it's all about what is important to you for me I would love and I was happy to pay that amount of price for that experience but I met people on the trip who actually
said actually they missed the big shows they missed the bustle and they missed the big choice now if you want to know much more about Ary cruising and other things that I think I see people misund understand join me in this video where I talk about something that I still can't get over compared to Resort and premium Cruise Lines see you over there
