Regent cruise line – “An Unrivaled Experience”...... but NOT in a good way

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 3

Review summary

Regent cruise line – “An Unrivaled Experience”...... but NOT in a good way, hands down the worst and most disappointing vacation of my life by a long shot! I take very active vacations, such as hiking for 2 weeks in Patagonia last November, but when my friends sent me this cruise, I thought it would be a great chance to see Greenland and agreed to go. We have been signed up to go on this trip since last November and the itinerary had four stops scheduled in Greenland, one fjord day and 2 stops in Iceland. I was packed and ready to go, but 48 hrs before we were to board our plane, at 5:15 PM on a Friday right after all offices had closed, Regent sent an email saying we wouldn’t be able to make 3 of the 4 Greenland ports, and added a new Greenland port, Nuuk on the western side of the country. We were now down to 2 Greenland stops instead of 4, and 4 sea days instead of 2 and at that time they were ‘trying’ to come up with some port activities in Nuuk where we would only be docked until 2 pm. All of the other ports had had late departures, the earliest leaving at 4 PM and the latest at 9 PM. Every one of the 7 of us in our group were ready to cancel, but at 5:15 PM on a Friday with our flight leaving in less than 48 hrs, we really didn’t have any option but to go or completely surrender the sizeable amount we had spent on this trip. The trip started out ok, but at the first port we had picked the Fjords & Flowers excursion over the puffins because it stated ’45 minutes of walking/standing over uneven pathways’ which we thought indicated a small hike. The tour was to be 3 hrs but we were back within 2.5 hrs and the only ‘hike’ we got was a 10 minute walk around a tiny botanical garden. While it was nice to see some of the countryside via bus, if we had known the true extent of this tour we would have gone to see the puffins instead. On the 2nd day we arrived early to the Destinations desk to book an activity for Nuuk, only to get back to the room to find that my excursion for the last day had been canceled. The tour operator was blamed, but in reality, we were to arrive in Grundarfjordur at 8 AM per the original paid for itinerary but they had changed the itinerary to not arrive until 10 AM and my excursion was to have started at 9 causing it to be canceled. I had to go back to the Destinations desk, at which time a giant line had formed to book excursions at Nuuk and spend a good part of my morning waiting in line to try to get another excursion in Grundarfjordur. After all the time spent researching our ports and planning our excursions, we shouldn’t have had to spend our actual vacation replanning these things Following 2 sea days, one of which should have been a Greenland port, we got up early and were ready to finally get off the boat in Paamiut, but were confused because we were not yet at the port at the designated time. Shortly after the captain announced that there was too much ice and we would have our 3rd sea day in the row. We were now up to 5 sea days, 1 fjord day and only 3 ports between Greenland/Iceland. Definitely not what we paid for, especially for someone that rarely takes a day to just sit around and do nothing, and now there had been 3 days of nothing in a row, Wifi that rarely worked and when it did, it could only be used by one person per room at a time. We finally got a sunny fjord day, followed by our short stop in Nuuk, leaving at 2:00 PM, to be followed by an additional 2 sea days. On the 2nd sea day, the captain made an announcement at noon eluding to us potentially missing out last stop in Iceland due to the fog that we had had on our return to Iceland. We had been initially planned to be at Grundarfjordur at 8 AM, which changed to 10 AM before we had even left from Reykjavik, and then was changed to ‘hopefully’ noon the following day. The destinations desk couldn’t provide any info on whether we would still be stopping at the port and if there would still be excursions that morning as many left before noon. This was the day I had been signed up for an 8.5 hr tour, which got down sized to 5.5 hrs and then we weren’t sure if we were even stopping. We were told there should be an update by dinner, that changed to not knowing anything until around 11:30 the day of and another morning wasted waiting to see if we were going to be able to get off of the boat or not. Fortunately we did arrive by noon, but due to the late arrival, even with leaving Nuuk at 2 PM and sailing 2 additional days many people had their morning excursions canceled and were left with nothing to do that day in port, and Destination services was just full of excuses. On a positive note, Elizabeth at the reception desk is one of the sweetest people I've ever met, Rivey our room attendant is an exceptionally hard worker, Simone on the wait staff was wonderful and the laundry service was exceptional! There was also a juice bar, not well advertised, but it was only open in the early hours of the day. This should be moved to the fitness center so it can be taken advantage of after a workout, or it should be kept open longer. In summary, I am not a heavy drinker so free alcohol isn’t appealing to me, and I don’t care about room service and 2 hour meals. I came on this trip to experience Greenland and its culture and was robbed of this experience. We were told Regent has known for months that we would not be able to make our ports due to ice but they made no effort to come up with a suitable itinerary to replace the missed ports, waited until the last minute to notify us, and if questioned just had excuses or said to speak to someone else. The only compensation we were offered was a discount on a future trip. We asked to be reimbursed for our missed port fees and were told to contact our trip insurance. We reached out to Joseph Camacho, our Personal Consultant about this matter and received no response. With 5 sea days, the wifi was not reliable, for several days wasn’t working at all and only one person per room could use it at a time making checking in at home very difficult for days at a time I am kind of embarrassed to go back to work and catch up with friends that are all waiting to hear about my wonderful trip, only to tell them I was scammed, wasting valuable vacation time and an awful lot of money to spend all of my time stuck on a ship at sea

Embarkation

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Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Reykjavik, Iceland

Grundarfjordur, Iceland

Isafjordur, Iceland

Disembarkation

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