March 13, 2009
Hello blog readers! This report is from a wonderful couple from Berkeley I've become friendly with in the last year or so. This was just written a few days ago, before disembarking the Seven Seas Voyager in Auckland.
I hope that this will not sound like an advertisement as these can easily become places for misinformation.....either flattery or slander. However, it is real and I hope that it will be of some value to you.
By way of introduction we are a married couple from the SF Bay Area and started cruising (somewhat casually) about ten years ago. On one of our cruises we sailed aboard the Radisson”Song of Flower"; we loved the ship and the intimate atmosphere of a small cruise ship (appx. 170 passengers) despite the crankiness of an aging ship. We later sailed on other Radisson (now Regent) ships as well as some other lines such as Crystal and Silverseas; we probably qualify as frequent sailors as we have about 400 days at sea in the last ten years.
With the above as an intro, here is how we see our current adventure aboard the Regent Voyager (we are ending a World Cruise segment between Los Angeles and Auckland, New Zealand).
For openers, it is outstanding. The ship recently came out of drydock where all the "freshening" was done; new carpets, chairs, and those other things that need to be replaced or repaired. The food and entertainment are better than ever; one of the "theme" restaurants which had been "cute" before but a bit tiresome on a longer cruise is now a five-star sort of steak house and is overbooked every evening. The shows are at least as good as they have been in the past and we now have (I cannot claim that my suggestion to the line is the reason for this but it has been changed in a positive way) lecturers who talk about the history of the area where we are visiting. To be more specific, I complained last year that while we cruised along the Eastern Shore of Australian and through the areas where WW II had been fought (we went through the Solomon Seas and stopped alongside Iwo Jima and visited Saipan and three cities in Japan) that there was no mention of any kind about WW II. For this year's cruise they have added lecturers such as a retired Australian Colonel and a former Editor of Time Magazine to talk about both the history and future of this area. Regent gets an "A+" from me for all this.
The Deck Tennis court (which I use for all sea days) is excellent and has a loyal and regular group of players. It is fun, good exercise and a great place to make friends quickly and easily. We have free Wi-Fi in our room as well as free phone calls and daily delivery of our preferred newspaper and laundry service (as frequent sailors on Regent).
I hope that this will help you; it has been over two years since we have traveled on another line (Crystal) so we have little to say about what the competition is doing today.
For my complete set of photos from this trip and others, visit my photo home page.