5 reasons to book a Regent Cruise

Do you want a luxury cruise experience where every single thing you can think of is taken care of? And included? Search no further – Regent Seven Seas Cruises is for you! We’ve just returned from the most magnificent 10 night cruise through the North and Baltic Seas and we can’t wait to plan another voyage. Check out our Spotlight on Faberge journey and find out the 5 reasons you should be considering a Regent Cruise.

While we have cruised before and thoroughly enjoyed it, a Regent Seven Seas Cruise is an unparalleled experience! Pete and I were so excited to cruise and experience an area of the world that we have never been to. This cruise on the Regent Splendor started in London (Southhampton) and ended in Stockholm, in total cruising 2020 nautical miles that included crossing the North and Baltic Seas. The exact itinerary can be found HERE. Ports of call included Kristiansand, Norway, Copenhagen, Denmark, Gothenburg, Sweden, Kiel and Lubeck, Germany, Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland. While onboard, we got to enjoy educational components about Faberge. I hope you were following along on Instagram as I chronicled our daily experiences. All video content can be found by clicking HERE and HERE. Sometimes, the video content really helps give the story perspective.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises has special offers all the time such as 40% off, 2 for 1 bookings, suite upgrades and business class airfare included. You heard right! I highly encourage you to sign up HERE so that you can be notified of their specials. Also, this will be the easiest way to book your cruise. They have so many amazing routes and are already accepting bookings for 2024 and 2025!

5 reasons to book a Regent Cruise

The ship

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We were booked into a Concierge Suite – E and it was perfect. Every suite onboard a Regent Cruise has a verandah so you are guaranteed beautiful views! With only 373 suites and a maximum of 746 guests on the Regent Splendor, the ship never feels full. The guest to staff ratio is 1.29. There are 10 guest decks. The Captain of the Splendor is Felice Patruno and he has been with Regent since 2009. Amenities included free unlimited WiFi, valet laundry service, minibar set up with our selections in addition to all excursions, meals, premium alcohol and gratuities being included. Did I mention that our suite had a walk-in closet?

The ship has a beautiful spa, pool, gorgeous restaurants and numerous lounges. There is a casino, theater and several boutiques. We never ran out of things to do while onboard. The best part is that everything on a Regent Cruise is included. Excursions, dining, alcohol, activities, roundtrip transfers, and gratuities. It’s all taken care of in your booking price. They offer numerous specials so I encourage you to get on their list by clicking HERE.

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Cuisine

A Regent Cruise is different from other cruise lines I have experienced in that there is no early or late dining seating or assigned seating. All restaurants operate just like that – a restaurant with reservations or walk up seating. While reservations are encouraged at their specialty restaurants for dinner – Chartreuse, Pacific Rim and Prime 7, we simply went to dinner when we felt like it. We either had room service in our robes and enjoyed breakfast on our veranda or popped in for a quick coffee and light bite at Coffee Connection in the morning. Pete and I enjoyed lunch at La Veranda or the Pool Grill when we returned to the ship after an excursion. Compass Rose is also another great option for fine dining. We often found ourselves returning for the Italian menu at Sette Mari. There are ample bars and lounges to enjoy cocktails, snacks and activities. We found the food, wait staff and service to be exceptional!

Not to be missed is the Culinary Arts Kitchen where you can sign up for a cooking class. We did this with Chef John Stephano and highly recommend it. We cooked a three course meal that we then got to enjoy. Our class was The Contented Viking and each one of us made the following delicious menu. Not only did we cook and eat our creations, we also got to take the recipes home. Yum!

• Nordic Salmon Rillettes
• Swedish Meatballs with Cranberry Sauce
• Pink Peppercorn Pasta
• Swedish Glogg
• Gotland Daffron Crepes with Sweet Berries
• Cardamom Ice Cream

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Excursions

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I was a bit overwhelmed when I started selecting our excursions online through my Regent dashboard. Once you are booked on your cruise, you will have a profile online to make selections which helps personalize your trip. On our 10 night trip, I had over 80 excursion options! Pete and I love to learn about new destinations so we signed up for outings at every port of call. Regent Cruise partners with local expert guides to give you the best experience. I also loved that there were ample selections of walking and driving tours. This helps when deciding how much activity you want. For the most part, our excursions were around 4 hours which gave us a good overview of the town/city we were in. We also loved getting off the ship to walk and enjoy the spectacular weather we were having. It was in the mid 70’s most days.

If excursions is not your thing, there was always a shuttle bus to take you to town for you to enjoy the destination on your own. In one instance, Pete and I did an excursion in the morning and then went in to town in the afternoon to do some more exploring. This was when we were in Copenhagen.

Here are the exact excursions we signed up for. We felt like each one was perfect for our destination and interest level. Most of these cities and towns offer UNESCO World Heritage sites.

• Kristiansand, Norway: Walking tour of Hollen fishing village, Sogen and the Vest Adger Open Air Museum
• Copenhagen, Denmark: Castles of North Zealand – Kronborg Castle, Fredensborg Palace and Frederiksborg Castle (After the tour, we then went into Copenhagen to explore the city on our own)
• Gothenburg, Sweden: Walking tour of Gothenburg – Masthugg Church, Haga district, Jarntorget public square, Gotaplatzen square and quick stop for fika.
• Kiel, Germany: Lubecks Hanseatic History and Story – This included a coffee and cake break at the famulous Niederegger Cafe and an in depth visit to the Hanse Museum
• Kiel, Germany (day 2): We explored the city of Kiel on our own and enjoyed a German lunch
• Tallinn, Estonia: Walking Tour and Medieval Concert – St. Olav’s Church, town square & town hall, concert in Holy Spirit Church, Mere Boulevard and Muurivahe Street
• Helsinki, Finland: Highlights of Helsinki – Rock Church, Senate Square, Sibelius Monument, pier and market
• Stockholm, Sweden: City overview by bus

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Destinations

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Regent Seven Seas Cruises offers endless options on destinations around the world. You can book a cruise in 2023, 2024 and into 2025 and there are over 500 destinations. When we talked with other guests onboard the Splendor, one thing was clear. These are repeat guests and they have already booked their cruise for 2024 and in some cases for 2025. Many of the guests enjoy cruises for longer periods of time – 21 and 28 nights was not unheard of. In fact, one guest on our ship had been on the Splendor for 82 days! Heck, Pete and I thought a 10 night cruise was a long time when we booked it. It didn’t feel long when we were there.

The Splendor is the newest ship in the fleet, built in 2018. They have five beautiful ships in their fleet (Splendor, Explorer, Voyager, Mariner and Navigator) with the sixth ship scheduled to have its christening cruise in December. You might wonder why our cruise was called the ‘Spotlight on Faberge’ cruise. The sixth ship – GRANDEUR,  will feature a bespoke Faberge egg onboard. Click HERE for details about the partnership. We loved having the Feberge folks on board our cruise and learning the history of Feberge Imperial Eggs and more. This was a wonderful history lesson in a small setting and we even watched the documentary film in the theater. It was lovely to meet Archduke Dr. Geza von Habsburg and Josina von dem Bussche-Kessel during the master class.

As I mentioned earlier, Regent offers specials and discounts all the time such as 40% off, 2 for 1 pricing, suite upgrades and  business class airfare included and more. Be the first to get notified by signing up HERE. They also offer Pre and Post Cruise add ons.

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The People

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The people – by this I mean the guests and the crew. The guests are lovely, highly educated, enjoy luxury and want a great experience where every detail has been thought of and take care of. They are seasoned travelers and have done it all. We loved meeting people from the US, England, Australia, Mexico and more. Most of the guests we met had already been on several Regent Seven Seas Cruises and were excited to be back. Many are retired and cruise for longer periods of time and/or several times a year.

We found the crew to be charming. They automatically know your every need. This isn’t their first rodeo. In fact, when we asked various crew members how long they had been working in the cruise industry, the average was 5 years. And most of them had done all of their cruise work on Regent ships. They are loyal!

I truly feel like we did it all and had a great time. We highly recommend a Regent Seven Seas Cruise and can’t wait to go again!  What’s your next cruise itinerary? Let us know in the comments.

xoxo –  Tanya (and Pete)

P.S. Everything I packed and wore can easily be found in this blog post. I detail out the exact outfits and how I styled them. There is a dress code on Regent Seven Seas Cruises: No jeans after 6 PM and sports coat for dinner (men) is preferred.

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This post was done in partnership with Regent Seven Seas Cruises. All selections and opinions are my own.