Bad Weather But Excellent Post Cruise
Seven Seas Voyager Cruise Review to Other (Asia/Africa/Middle East)
17 Night Journey To Nirvana (Bangkok To Hong Kong)
Sail date: February 03, 2016
Ship: Seven Seas Voyager
Cabin type: Suite
Cabin number: 718
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 8 years ago
Review summary
Very bad weather in the South China Sea caused the ship to cancel the voyage to Vietnam and skip another port because of scheduling conflict brought on by the Vietnam cancellation. So the ship spent an extra day in Brunei (at best a one day port) and Manila (again a one day port). Destination Services said they could not schedule any tours on these extra days because of the Chinese New Year holiday.
And because we were doing a back to back cruises (Singapore to Bangkok was the first cruise), Destination Services said that we could pay for the tours of Bangkok on the full day we were docked. My opinion of Destination Services is very low and this will negatively affect any future bookings with Regent.
We were given two extra bookings in the "specialty restaurants" and we took advantage of this extra.
Our dining experience in the Compass Rose varied from poor to okay(consistently slow service and some bad tasting dishes). But the dining experience in the Specialty Restaurants was always excellent.
We found that dining at lunch time in LaVeranda/Pool Grille was pleasurable both for service and for the variety of food options. Also the service at Sette Mare for dinner was always great.
Having cruised many times with Regent, we are now skipping the Jean Anne Ryan shows as they do not change. And on this segment we only tried one of the other entertainers.
The enrichment lectures were both educational and well done.
It seemed that many people who boarded in Bangkok brought with them serious coughing. I came down with bronchitis shortly after their boarding and visited the ship's medical facilities for very expensive treatment. Did I catch it from one of the passengers?
The post cruise in Hong Kong was well done except that three bus loads of us were dumped on the Shangri-La Hotel at one time. It took over one hour to check-in. Bummer. But the hotel was excellent and the tours were above average.
Transfer to the airport was handled very well.
A note to Regent: There seemed to be many passengers who took the pre-cruise to Angkor Wat and were very disgruntled with it. They made their bad feelings known to us and other passengers. Then the weak response by Destination Services to the weather disruption seemed to fuel the hostile attitude toward Regent Cruises.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
Be prepared to miss ports of call because of bad weather or other misadventures. Don't expect much from Destination Services.
Ports of call
Laem Chabang (Bangkok), Thailand
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam