Tag Archives: Rail Baltica

Hebridean Island Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruise Lines

Now that we’ve been on a Regent cruise… are we converts?

I have long maintained that when it comes to cruises, I am strictly a “small ship” person. I like to be able to get around the ship easily, and get outside to get the best photos. I like really good food, personalized service, and all inclusive pricing. I don’t care much about ship based Broadway shows, shopping on board, lots of restaurants, casinos, coffee bars, waterslides, or marble bathrooms.

I do appreciate spas, hot tubs, and pool areas, but they aren’t a must for me. I like having the chance to meet new people, but that’s also not an absolute must. I mainly just want to get through the week without constantly running into people who are annoying, or annoying other people myself.

I resisted trying Regent Seven Seas Cruises for a long time, because I figured the ship would be too big for me. I also read some reviews of their older ships that made me think they would disappoint me. Even though Splendor is a very new ship (for me, it’s extremely new), I was still kind of skeptical that I’d love it.

And… well… to be honest, while I had a great time on Splendor, I didn’t fall in love with it. I wasn’t wowed by the experience the way I was when I got off my first SeaDream or Hebridean cruises. Some of that may be because now I’ve done a few luxury cruises. It no longer blows me away to be able to order a cocktail on a ship and not have to worry about what it costs or what the tip should be. I’m older, and maybe I’m a little jaded. It’s been awhile since we were last “broke”. 😉 (knock on wood)

Maybe I’d be a confirmed Regent “cheerleader” if our most recent cruise was my first luxury experience. But it wasn’t, and there were some things I didn’t like about Regent. I think the main thing I noticed was that it wasn’t a very personal experience. Almost none of the crew knew our names or preferences. While that’s not a big deal to someone like me, it also doesn’t fit my definition of what a luxury experience is. One of the quickest ways to impress me is to call me by my preferred name… and not my legal first name! Call me Jennifer, and you’ll definitely annoy me. No one who actually knows me, calls me that.

Another thing I noticed was that the wait staff had some lapses in table maintenance. They were pretty good about replacing silverware and removing dishes in a timely manner, but they often neglected to pick up things like used sugar packages or other trash. Only one or two servers used a table crumber after the main course. Granted, table crumbing is a little thing, but I think if a line wants to bill itself as “luxurious”, that’s a necessary part of service. Especially when there are obvious crumbs that need to be swept up.

Regent had a lot of buffets. I don’t mind buffets, and what they offered was fine. In some cases, it was a real treat. I don’t get to enjoy a lot of fresh shrimp cocktail or prime rib these days, for instance. Regent’s buffets didn’t have a lot of lines, which is a good thing. However, table service, really, is more luxurious to me than going to a buffet. SeaDream and Hebridean both have the occasional buffet, but they are much less pervasive. Hebridean has a cold seafood buffet that is positively decadent and put Regent to shame. But then… the ships are much smaller!

I think, what Regent offers is a very comfortable ship. There aren’t huge crowds, and most everything is taken care of in some way. That’s a good thing, and I think their product is excellent quality. I would not balk at cruising with them again in the future, especially for the right price and itinerary. I probably wouldn’t book Regent for a common itinerary that I could find on a smaller ship. I never see my usual lines going to the Baltic Sea, so that’s why we tried Regent. It worked out great for that purpose. Moreover, I can’t deny that our superior suite on Regent was fabulous. It was the most comfortable room we’ve ever had at sea, and it wasn’t even their top category.

This couple was on our cruise, and they had a much fancier suite than we did!

I also think that I probably prefer land based trips to cruises. I usually only choose cruising if I want to cover a large area in a short time, or there’s limited or difficult accessibility by land means (say visits to islands). Sometimes, cruises simply work best for certain itineraries. Our last trip, for instance, was in an expensive area where there’s a lot of water and not too many land based options for travel. Cruising is good for the Baltic and Nordic countries, especially if you don’t have an electric car! But, given a choice, I’d generally rather arrange a road trip and stay in a really lovely hotel or self-catering place.

We didn’t cruise in Norway (where some people are actually discouraging cruising), but I noticed that most of the cars there are electric. Gas is expensive! Actually, just about everything in Norway is expensive, save for things like education and healthcare! I would have loved to have traveled by land, though, so I could see more of the country and explore its hospitality from locals. Ditto to Sweden and Finland, although we have driven in Sweden and Denmark. I am especially interested in doing some land travel in places like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I’m hoping that when the new Baltic train is completed, we can try it out.

I don’t know if or when we’ll cruise again. I suspect we will. I’m still dying to try a French Barge cruise, and I’ve seen some smaller lines that I think we’ll like, like The Majestic Line in Scotland. I’m also curious about certain unique ships like Sea Cloud, and Europa and Europa II, even though they aren’t all inclusive. I still love SeaDream for its friendly and service oriented staff and amenities, although I don’t think I enjoy the clientele as much. Of the lines we’ve tried so far, Hebridean has my favorite mix of crew and fellow passengers, but doesn’t go to as many places as other lines do.

Anyway… I do like Regent, and although I did say I wasn’t sure if I’d cruise again, the truth is, I probably will do another cruise with them someday. But I definitely haven’t joined the Regent Seven Seas “cult”. 😀 Some people get personally offended when people have anything negative to say about their favorite cruise lines! They all have their drawbacks, though, and it’s not a bad thing to point out a cruise line’s plusses and minuses. After all, these trips are expensive! Most people don’t want to gamble with $10,000, especially if they aren’t wealthy!

No line is perfect, but some lines suit certain people better than others do. I’m just glad there are so many choices to be made, and fascinating places to see. And I’m grateful to have the freedom and be in a position in which we can do these trips and enjoy them to the fullest. It’s a privilege to experience these travel adventures and get to write about them candidly. I could certainly be doing worse things with my time!

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Champagne Bucket trips, trip planning

In case you needed a reminder… Scandinavia is EXPENSIVE.

The featured photo was taken on a day cruise we took in Oslo, Norway, back in 2009.

It’s not so often that I travel blog during the work week. We have the pandemic to thank for that, as it made taking normal trips a lot more difficult for the past couple of years. In 2023, things are pretty much back in full swing. I expect Europe will be, once again, teeming with people this summer. In fact, I expect there will be more people than ever.

A week ago, we did a champagne bucket draw, and Finland won. That meant planning a trip that included a stop in Finland. I marvel at the changes our plans have undergone within about ten days. We went from planning a Helsinki based trip that would include land based stops in the Baltic countries, to pulling the trigger on a luxury cruise, with a week in Norway beforehand.

When you see the words “luxury cruise” in my blog post, of course it goes without saying that this trip is going to be pricey. We are going to sail on Regent Seven Seas’ newest completed ship, Splendor, in June. An even newer ship, Grandeur, will be sailing this year, but I don’t think she’s had her maiden voyage yet. So, as of this writing, Splendor, which was built in 2020, is Regent’s newest. This will also be the newest ship we’ve ever sailed on, as we usually opt for either SeaDream or Hebridean Island Cruises, both of which offer luxury on much smaller and older vessels.

One of many Regent Splendor cruise ship tour videos on YouTube.

I chose this particular cruise on Regent mostly because of the itinerary, which includes a stop in Helsinki, as well as most of the Baltic locations we wanted to visit, along with a couple of other stops. It’s not our first Baltic cruise, though.

Our very first cruise was on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas, back in 2009, and that was also a Baltic cruise. It was only four nights, and included stops in Tallin, Estonia and Copenhagen, Denmark, with embarkation in Oslo, Norway, and debarkation in Stockholm, Sweden. On that trip, we spent a couple of nights in Oslo, which we both really enjoyed. The cruise was loaded with Norwegians, and we found that we really enjoyed their joie de vivre. 😉 Later, we encountered a friendly bunch of them on our second SeaDream cruise and vowed we’d visit Norway again. So that’s why we’re doing a week in Norway, too… and staying longer, so we can see more of Norway than just the city of Oslo. Below are a few photos from our cruise from Norway to Sweden in 2009… As you can see, I need to take more photos of beautiful Norway, at the very least! That was before I had an iPhone.

When I saw Regent’s June 23 Stockholm to Copenhagen cruise, I knew it was a no brainer to book it, because I was finding it very difficult to plan a land based trip including Finland and the Baltics… And yes, before anyone comes at me, I know there’s a large body of water we’d have to cross to get to the Baltics. I was planning a few days in Finland, then a ferry ride to Tallin, where I naively thought we could arrange train travel or maybe rent a car or something… At this writing, a train route is being constructed to make that vision come to fruition in the future. As of now, though, it’s just not convenient. 😉 I also realized Bill wouldn’t want to be driving so much, and I wouldn’t want to be flying so much.

The cruise solution was simply more practical, and it was available during the time we wanted to travel. And– we had the money to pay for it, thanks to a big tax refund. Even better was the fact that the sailing I found was on sale… which was a damned good thing. In fact, I should have waited another week, because the price went down again, and it was quite a significant drop! Some people would probably tell me to cancel and rebook, but I’ve already had lots of words with my bank. Oh well… you win some, you lose some.

Anyway… last night, we were trying to decide how long we wanted to stay in the places we’re visiting before the cruise, and how we wanted to travel to them. It didn’t take us long to decide to visit Bergen, which is a very beautiful city on Norway’s west coast that offers enchanting scenery, fresh seafood, and lots to do. However, from Oslo, it takes seven hours to drive there or take the train. We could also fly; that takes just an hour. But if we fly, we’ll miss the incredibly beautiful scenery on the way, and have to deal with everything that flying entails nowadays.

I thought maybe we’d drive and stop somewhere on the way, maybe do some exploration. Unfortunately, renting a car in Norway, especially for a one way trip with drop off in another city, is VERY expensive. Gas and food are also very expensive in Norway, plus there are tolls on the road we’d be using.

The route from Oslo to Bergen is also rather devoid of places to stay. There are a lot of apartments to rent, and a few hotels that are either in the middle of nowhere or have dodgy reviews. I wouldn’t mind renting an apartment, but I’d hate to do that for just an overnight. Most of the ones I found were pretty bare bones, too. I did manage to find several hotels that allowed me to book now and pay later, and can be canceled up to the day of arrival. Clarion Hotels for the win! They even have a hotel out in the middle of nowhere that I considered booking, but then I thought again.

Finally, I think we decided we’d just take the train… which means we now have to decide if we want to leave at 8:23AM or 12:05PM. The later trip is notably less expensive, but slower. I suspect we’ll go for the morning time, so we can get to Bergen in the afternoon. If we wanted to spend another night in Oslo, we could get a really (relatively) cheap train fare… but then we’d be paying for another night in Oslo, which is legitimately a nice city, but one we’ve already seen. It’s not a super pretty town, either, although I do remember enjoying the day cruise we took on the Oslo Fjord in 2009.

So, once I found a hotel that offers parking, in case we drive after all, I went to book plane tickets. A flight from Bergen to Stockholm takes one hour and twenty minutes. I found seats on SAS– Scandinavian Airlines (although when I hear SAS, it reminds me of a cursed statistics program I had to use in grad school). I tried to book with my PenFed card, but for some reason, PenFed refuses to send texts with codes to overseas phone numbers, nor will they send the confirmation codes to emails. So that means I can’t authorize charges through their stupid two factor authentication program.

I went to USAA, which did successfully send me a text. But, even though I entered all of my information, gave them a fingerprint, and tried to authorize the charge, they still declined it and blocked my card. At 10PM, I was calling USAA– for the second time in a week– to ask them to unblock my card and authorize payment, so we can get from Bergen to Stockholm. The lady I spoke to last night was very nice and professional, unlike the other person I talked to a few days ago, who was quite rude to me.

We finally got the plane tickets sorted, and now we just have to confirm where we’ll be sleeping for our night in Stockholm. I had wanted to stay longer in Stockholm, since we never really got to see the city when we were there in 2009, but that would have meant arranging for another night there. Our night in Stockholm is already included in our cruise fare, so adding another would mean going to another hotel or paying more to Regent. I think we’d prefer another night in Bergen, anyway.

All that’s left to do now is buy train tickets, or arrange for a car to get us from Oslo to Bergen. I’ve even mostly paid off the credit card companies. I paid off the deposit and Lufthansa tickets last week, which I booked through PenFed. Then, this morning, I accidentally paid USAA for the rest of the cruise fare. I had only meant to send them $1000 today, but ended up requesting to pay the whole bill. Luckily, there was enough money to pay for it. Thanks again to Bill’s decision to pay taxes all year and get a refund, we had the cash available. Edited to add: I just got us our train tickets… good thing, too, because the seats were already sold out, and I had to get us a compartment for six people instead. That was another $500. At least it’s changeable and refundable.

Living in Germany sure has been good for us…

But dammit… the fares went down 2,000 euros this week!!!!

Oh well. We’re sure to have a great time. I look forward to blogging about it, and experiencing new places on a different cruise line. I’ll be surprised if I’ll want to give up small ship cruising for Regent permanently, but we’ll see. I suspect that if I ever spot a hot deal like the one they’re offering right now for our cruise, I’ll want to jump on it. Especially if we have the money!

If you’re curious about what we’re in for on our journey from Oslo to Bergen, have a look at a couple of videos… I think it will be unforgettable.

Let’s hope for sunny weather!
Looks good!

And yes, I know we don’t have to spend this much money to have a good time… but I have definitely done my fair share of cheap traveling. It’s nice to have an upgraded experience, and I’m grateful we have the opportunity. We never thought the day would come.

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