Our cabin was on deck 10, and on the starboard side in the middle of the ship. Although a reasonable well run ship, the standard of service and ambiance of the ship is not as good as Silverseas, but it is a little cheaper
The veneer of one being an honoured guest is wafer thin. I did not get off to a good start with Regent, as on day one I was refused entry to a restaurant for dinner, on the grounds that sandals did not fulfil their "dress code". Dress Codes are the last refuge of the Daily Mail readers (or whatever their US equivalent might be). I went straight to see the General Manager (Hotel Director by the name of Andreas Piccinin) who informed me that Regent's dress code, of which he said I was aware, banned sandals after 6pm. We had a lot of shouting at each other, with the result that he sent emails and phoned head office to get "clarification" . It turned out that I was right, and he was wrong,: there was nothing in the dress code given to passengers that forbade sandals (and in fact he had nothing against the similar sandals that Chris was wearing). By way off apology he sent us a $80 model of the ship, which Chris decided to swap for a $15 Regent Teddy Bear. And at my suggestion, a further nights booking in Signatures. It was hassle I could have done without, and on a ship you cannot take your business elsewhere.
Although Regent claim that you can eat in the two specialty restaurants, Signatures and Prime 7, you can only get one booking in each during a cruise. Hence the rather degrading need to obtain extra bookings and wheedling with the crew responsible for the granting of these extra bookings. We ended up on the 14 nights with 3 in Signatures, 2 in Prime 7 and the rest in Siete Mar. Neither of us fancied the main restaurant, which was in the centre of the ship and had the fore and aft walkways running through it
And although they claim that shore excursions are free, they tend to get booked up quickly, and Regent do not have enough places, so in Luderitz we ended up without a "tour" and walked round ourselves. Similarly at Rio, it was difficult to avoid duplication on tours. Regent really need to sort this organisation, as at the moment it is a con.
A few days later and a day out from Walvis Bay, an announcement came over the PA system while we having breakfast, to inform us that a passenger had had an "medical emergency", and that the Regent Explorer would bypass St Helena, and steam at full speed for Rio. A synopsis of the various options that the ship considered was given over the PA (but none of this was covered on the daily closed circuit TV information)
The argument given was that the St Helena did not have an airport or hospital facilities, so there was nothing to be gained for the patient in going there.
The second option of turning back and off loading him in Walvis Bay was apparently ruled out as he would have had to go to Cape Town for treatment. Dubious one this, it would have been clearly in the interests of speed of treatment to follow this option. But it would have delayed the ship by 2 days, we would have missed St Helena anyway in the need to try to minimise the knock on effect on the ships onward itinerary. Following this option would have meant sailing at full speed for 6 days, and still being a day late in Rio with all that that would mean commercially to Regent
The third option, the one we followed, was to try to stabilise the patient, bypass St Helena, and sail at full speed to Rio, arriving there a day early, but none the less needing 6 days at sea to get there
There were obvious mutterings at the way Regent tried to underplay the missing of St Helena, with this one announcement. The cruise director thought we should soon get over any'slight disappointment and get on with having fun on his cruise: how many people had , like us, booked the cruise solely because it was visiting St. Helena? 2 days later, the man with the grandiose title of "Cruise Director" (but in reality just the Entertainments Manager - similar to a Butlins Red Coat) was forced to come onto closed circuit TV and give a few more details. Including the "fact" that the ship burnt $25,000 a day more in fuel at top speed, and that an extra days berthing in Rio would be $60,000 (I have no idea how true these figures are). The announcement failed to mention that the man with the heart attack was not a passenger, but one of the crew, a jewellery concessionaire on board. And I don't think these figures of his are correct, and I think the sum mentioned is the total cost per day of running the ship, not the extra required to increase speed to 21 kts.
After a couple of days at top speed (21 knots) one of the engines rebelled, and speed had to be cut to 18 knots.
The ironic thing was that once we finally docked in Rio, there was not an ambulance waiting on the dock, and once one did arrive after morethan an hour, it took another hour to get him off the ship. And by then we learnt that there had been another "medical emergency" patient, hence 2 ambulances on the quayside
Click on any of the thumbnails below to get a bigger photograph
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