A honeymoon to remember

My husband and I sailed on Grandeur for our honeymoon, and it was such a beautiful and unforgettable trip. The crew went above and beyond to make us feel celebrated. When we arrived, our room was decorated, and chocolate-covered strawberries were waiting for us, which was a sweet and thoughtful surprise. One of the most memorable moments was dinner at Prime 7, where they brought out a cake and sang to us in honor of our honeymoon. It made the evening feel extra special and truly personal. The food throughout the cruise was incredible, and our minibar was already stocked with all our favorites when we boarded—everything felt so thoughtfully customized. Even with a port change, the crew handled everything so smoothly. We arrived in Monaco earlier than expected and had two full days to explore, which became a major highlight. As avid cruisers, we’ve sailed with other lines before, but Regent took it to another level. It was incredibly relaxing, and we visited ports that simply aren’t possible on many other cruise lines. Every detail was tailored to us and exceeded our expectations. I genuinely can’t wait to take another Regent cruise and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a luxury experience that’s both personalized and unforgettable.

Treat Yourself to the Grandeur Experience

The Grandeur is a stand-out luxury vessel in the Regent line. Regent attracts an older and wealthy class of patron. It's not geared towards teens of younger children. You'll find successful and well-bread folks who are generally respectful of the ship's rules and are fun to get to know. The Compass Rose restaurant is absolutely the best designed and most impressive dining venue on board, in our opinion. A great way to meet people in the early part of the cruise is to tell the hostess you are willing to sit with others at dinner. The specialty restaurants are all great, but the Pacific Rim is a real treat. The crew are all amazing and are a real value-added constant on Regent's vessels. The crew of the Grandeur are arguably, the best of the best. The entertainment is anything but "ho-hum" as indicated in one review summary. In fact, on our cruise, the singing, dancing and choreography was the talk of the ship. Hands down, the best we'd ever experienced. Food was excellent, as it always is, on Regent's vessels. However, there is room for innovation and variety in some offerings that are dated after so many years on the menu. The "included" featured dinner wines are very good and the pricing for premium wines is very reasonable. Sommelier service in each dining venue is top notch. Tio: you can ask for a bottle of the featured wine sent to your room. Hint: If you book a forward suite, expect wave noise/vibration to be somewhat extreme in rough sea conditions. The in-room dining menu options are limited. We love the chicken wings served at the pool grill but sadly - they're not of the in-room menu?? The evening dress code is politely enforced so don't embarrass yourself by wearing inappropriate appeal to dinner. Utilize your Butler for the services he provides but be patient - you're not the only suite he services. Don't like your pillow - ask for an upgrade - they have many types. The electronic method for asking your cabin stewards for service works great - they don't have to guess when you're in or out. The tender drivers are among the best trained - it's so irritating when they take several tries to dock the boat. In short - everything about the Grandeur is top-level and well worth the cost.

Regent never disappoints us

We joined the ship in Miami for the trans Atlantic crossing to Barcelona and continued on to Istanbul for a total of 28 days and, as a couple who has sailed on each of Regent's ships going back to the Song of Flower and on a ship that been leased (Hanseatic), we were not disappointed in this cruise. On board there are plenty of activities to do from puzzles, bridge, lectures, trivia, learning to dance, games with the officers and entertainment staff and more all of which were put together by Cruise Director Lorraine Weimerskirch and her team. The orchestra led by Josh Jenkins on trombone, who also did a Motown show on his own, was excellent as were the guest entertainers. There was one exception to the guest entertainers a violinist who thought she was a rock star throwing her hair around, stomping her feet and calling it dancing. The Observation Lounge entertainer, Adam Sanchez, who also did a separate show based on the music of Elton John, was excellent. The Production crew singers and dancers were some of the best and not to be missed is Crew Kapers! Service throughout the ship was equal to or better than our experience on some other Regent ships. Friendly, helpful, always a smile and kind word. It always makes an impression on us how each crew member remembers a guest's name from day one! On this cruise a crew member, Geo in Compass Rose, who we had met on a prior cruise, greeted us by name on our first visit to the restaurant! With all of the guests that she must see, how does one remember a guest from a prior? Sometimes I can't even remember what I had for dinner of watched on TV the night before! :-) Our suite attendants were great! We never had to ask for anything as they anticipated our needs/wants. The suite has a lot of drawer space, is well appointed and arranged. Better bring a clock as there isn't one in the suite. Unless you want a Nespresso coffe maker, a pre night hotel and transfers, we prefer an F1 or F2 suite as the size for these Serenity suites are the same as a Concierge suite. We can't comment much about Ports of Call or ship's tours as we mostly stayed on board. Those tours that we did take though were average at best but the busses were awful. I'm only 4'11" and I didn't like the legroom on any of the busses.

A magnificent cruise on this wonderful ship

After reading many reviews extolling the virtues of the ship, we were not disappointed. It is simply magnificent, with a friendly professional crew, offering high service levels. Embarkation and disembarkation at Miami can be quite a challenge, as can be accessing the port. For this cruise, Regent were using terminal J, a fairly old building. Check in was a bit chaotic with seemingly no plan for early birds. We sat down, as directed and people re later stood in lines, seemingly knowing more about the boarding process than the rest of us, so we then stood behind them. It was a fairly quick process and we boarded at about 11.30 am. Next, in what has become a boarding tradition for us we went to the pool deck to enjoy a cocktail in the sunshine, then ate lunch before exploring the ship. The rooms were ready by about 2pm, so we unpacked but ignored the welcome bottle of champagne and it stayed in the fridge for several days. Next we completed our admin by amending our shore excursion program, caused by my wife’s recent unexpected eye surgery, which prevented her from snorkelling. As it happened, the ship didn’t make it to our first port of call, Aruba, due to a medical emergency requiring the ship to return nearly to Miami to offload, by helicopter, a seriously ill passenger. This meant we had 3 sea days at the beginning of the cruise, far from ideal, but much better than the poor person who became ill on the first day. Next year, all being well, will return to Seabourn for our Caribbean cruise as they start from Barbados, enabling us to be in the warmer weather straight away. The ship has a very good activity program, including many deck games and organised Bridge. We had booked an F1 guarantee and were allocated Suite which was close to the back, but had a large balcony similar to the nearby concierge suites. It was the best suite we had ever had and a really comfortable bed and large bathroom, including a decent size shower and bath. It also had two sinks, but I’m not sure why people are keen on this. The ship has three speciality restaurants and most guests are allowed to reserve one visit to each restaurant during the cruise, but we managed 10 visits, mainly by daily visits to the restaurant concierge to check if there were any late cancellations. After first night issues with service and making a complaint, we had excellent service and food and drink throughout our cruise. That was quite a good excursion program, although we helped that some of the trips weren’t very well organised and some elements were missing, which we didn’t find out until we started the excursion. I was a little concerned over some safety aspects, including drivers using their mobile phone whilst driving, which is illegal in the UK. I had an accident on the tubing excursion, when my tube overturned and I sustained a painful back injury. I felt that although the guides were keen to help, they won’t necessarily in the right place to offer immediate assistance. The organiser took note of my name and suite number and after waiting for a few hours to be contacted, I contacted reception and I was invited to visit the ships Doctor. This I did and the first thing they did was to explain that if any injuries were felt be not related to the accident, I would be charged. I felt they were trying to make money from an unfortunate accident. They considered that I had a chest Infection and were going to charge me for all the tests related to that, when we felt that these issues could have been caused by the accident. When I received a bill for about $1700, I complained and later that day I was notified that all charges were being dropped and I would be refunded the money, which I was. When I returned home yesterday, I visited my local clinic and had a further chest x-ray and they were not certain that I had been given good advice on the ship, but that is the past. Anyway, I am now home, still in some considerable pain, but very lucky that we travelled yesterday as today Heathrow Airport was closed due to a fire, with all flights diverted, with some diverted to Europe, crossing much inconvenience to many people. We were often too tired to enjoy the after dinner entertainment, often going to bed early, as we prefer to be up early in the morning and often enjoyed our breakfast on the outer decks. I often enjoyed freshly squeezed juices and smoothies by the swimming pool and a few times I had room service breakfast, which was excellent and was ideal before an early morning departure for an excursion. Sadly, the day of departure soon arrived and once again, it was a bit chaotic, with many people ignoring the request not to block the corridors around the gangway. The announcements started later than expected and we left the ship about 30 minutes later than expected. Finding our luggage was easy and we quickly discovered that there was high demand for the Uber services and the quote to the airport was about $70, so we use the standard Service, which was very efficient and cost about $50 including tip