All Hat, No Cattle

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 4

Review summary

We are well travelled having completed over forty cruises along with several land-based tours with Abercrombie & Kent. We usually cruise Celebrity. We decided to try a luxury cruise line to see if it was a truly elevated experience. We chose the October 7, 2024, 11-night Japan cruise which included a three-day pre-tour of Tokyo and business class roundtrip airfare. We were hoping for a truly luxurious experience, but we received the most disappointing cruise experience of our lives. Here are the details: First on a positive note, I found the shipboard entertainment to be quite good and our cabin was nice. The included wine was very good. Unfortunately, these positives could not overcome the negatives described below. Pre-tours of Tokyo were dreadful. The tours were designed to cram 2-3 experiences into a 4-hour tour with a bus load of about 25-30 people with little time to do anything more than get off and look around for a few minutes. Examples included a stop at an office building to view Tokyo harbor (after standing in an outside line for a long time), a stop in the Ginza shopping district for 45 minutes of "power shopping" at stores available in any large city and a visit to an urban park with less than interesting features. The "included tours" offered during the cruise themselves were no better with a bus load of 25-30 people and guides without amplification which made it difficult to hear anything. Of course, we could have arranged private tours with our own personal guide for a better experience, but then why pay the extra fare baked into the cruise price? I would describe the ship's interior and public spaces as "modern mortuary." The dark woods, dark carpeting and dated decor created a depressing backdrop. The main elevator had glass windows (that appeared cloudy) that looked out to nothing but a wall of white paint between floors (very odd for a luxury cruise ship). The dining experience was extremely disappointing. We had four specialty dining reservations and ate the remainder of our evening meals in Compass Rose (the main dining room). The food quality was inconsistent, ranging from good to awful. The buffet selections at lunch were surprisingly limited, many offerings were lukewarm, and the venue was very crowded. No luxury here. We had lunch in Prime 7 and had the worst baby back ribs we have ever had. They were the consistence of leather and tasted the same. We ordered a bottle of premium red wine at Prime 7. Unfortunately, the server poured the wine “hot" at room temperature. I would have thought that a luxury line would have a temperature-controlled wine cellar, but the server admitted he had pulled the wine from a shelf in the lobby area of the restaurant. Compass Rose was too brightly lit for our taste, not romantic at all. The server stations scattered around the room were noisy with the clang of dishes and silverware distracting from the experience. Celebrity, by contrast, has higher walls around their service areas that muffle the sound and provide a less visually "busy" experience. I expected that the higher crew to passenger ratio would be evident in higher levels of service. That was not the case. The most shocking thing was the attitude of the staff. The captain and most senior officers were mostly out of sight, only appearing at set required events. There was no effort to get to know you or your preferences from the wait staff, service was sloppy or indifferent at times, not very much smiling. I felt there was a moral problem that permeated the staff. Daily activities were limited, and the casino was never opened due to regulations. Regent does not have an app for your phone that lists daily activities and dining times which means you must consult a piece of paper delivered to your stateroom each night. I saw a lecture or two. I found the lectures not remarkably interesting covering the same information that we were getting from our tour guides. Prior to the cruise, we were invited to participate in a Breast Cancer awareness night and asked to bring pink attire. However, we were never told which night until materials were delivered to our room the night before. By that time, my wife had already worn the pink dress thinking that there was no set time. Communication was lacking. Finally, upon debarkation we were ushered off the ship at 8:15 am for a bus to the airport for a 6:00pm flight. We chose this flight as one of the options from Regent for airfare without an upcharge. If you wanted a better flight, you could pay additional money. The point is the "included" airfare is based on contracts with the carriers, many of which have odd connections or require flying at off-peak times. Take the credit from Regent to book your own flights. Do not expect the credit to cover the cost of a decent business class flight, however. Upon returning from our trip our travel agent asked for a cruise follow-up, and I relayed this information to her. She forwarded my comments to Regent. A few days later, I received an unsolicited email from Regent. Although they apologized for some of the items mentioned, they implied that WE could have taken more initiative to find out the date of the Breast Cancer event and pointing out that WE chose the flights and could have taken advantage of their tours prior to our departure time at additional cost, of course. These tours were never communicated to either me or my travel agent prior to the cruise. I would not have taken them anyway as we found their tours lacking, plus we had already done a three-day pre-tour of Tokyo. Finally, they offered us a Future Cruise Credit of $200 as a sincere apology. While we never asked for any compensation for the poor experience, it is obvious that they have no interest in us as future guests given the condescending tone of their email and the miserly FCC offer. That is fine as we will never cruise with Regent again under any circumstances. To summarize - All Hat, No Cattle.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Tokyo, Japan

Shimizu, Japan

KYOTO (KOBE), JAPAN

Kochi, Japan

Hiroshima, Japan

Busan (Pusan), South Korea

Nagasaki, Japan

Kagoshima, Japan

Nagoya, Japan

Disembarkation