They were right! A new owner for Regent Seven Seas Cruises

It looks as if the reports yesterday were right.  Regent released the attached statement on their blog today:

"We have some exciting news to share.  The parent company of Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Prestige Cruises International, has agreed to be acquired by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Ltd., parent company of Norwegian Cruise Line.

This is a significant milestone and an achievement only made possible with the hard work and dedication of the entire Prestige Cruises International family, from the officers and crew onboard our ships to the staff and management team here in Miami.

For our loyal guests, you can rest assured that the Regent Seven Seas Cruises experience you’ve come to love will remain unchanged.  At Regent, we pride ourselves on providing our guests with the most inclusive luxury experience at sea with included round-trip air, fine wine and spirits, unlimited shore excursions, specialty dining, ground transfers and gratuities. We continue to enhance our offerings for guests with our expanded free internet program that begins next year, and in summer 2016 we will introduce the most luxurious ship ever built with Seven Seas Explorer^®.

With Norwegian Cruise Line, we’ve found a partner that shares a similar passion for going above-and-beyond to deliver exceptional guest experiences and we’re excited about starting this new chapter for our company.

When the transaction is complete later this year, it will bring together three great brands as part of one family.  The combination will create a diversified cruise operator with a full spectrum of offerings that range from family cruising on Norwegian’s innovative Freestyle Cruising ships, to the country-club casual experience on Oceania’s fleet, to the all-inclusive, more intimate experience afforded by Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ luxury offering.

For the Regent Seven Seas Cruises brand, our mission will be to preserve the distinct offerings, guest experiences and unique onboard culture our guests cherish, while always exploring ways to further enhance our luxury experience."

It'll be interesting to see if this change in ownership has any effect on the Regent cruise experience, positively or negatively.  As someone that's sailed 175 or so days with them, I hope it'll be a positive development.  I for one will be watching as my next booking is likely to be next year after the acquisition.

New Owner for Regent Seven Seas Cruises?

Reuters are reporting today that Norwegian Cruise Lines are in talks to buy Prestige Cruise Holdings (PCH), the owner of Regent and Oceania in a deal worth $3billion.  Apollo Global Management (a private equity firm), the owners of PCH also own 20% of Norwegian.

Seven Seas Voyager anchored off Komodo Island - February 2014

As Regent is one of my favourite cruise lines, I wonder if this deal goes through will I be greeted with the large graphics on the hull so beloved by Norwegian the next time I sail?

New Style Tickets from Silversea

It's always really nice to return home after a long day's work to have an envelope with your cruise tickets waiting for you on the doormat.  I had that very pleasure this evening.  My tickets for my next Silversea cruise in September had arrived and they were the first I've received in their new format.  I'm really impressed!

Previously with Silversea, tickets were sent in a large silver box inside a wallet and comprised separate sections/pages for the cruise, air, excursions and luggage tags.  The wallet was a nice way of keeping everything together in your hand luggage when travelling.

Now, we still get the silver box (albeit slimmer) but all the tickets and information are professionally printed in a personalised booklet/journal (in Italy) detailing all your travel information, a day-by-day description of the cruise and information on the suite, ship and amenities aboard.  Printed luggage tags are included.  In my view it strikes a fine balance between detail and not being too bulky (it's about A5 size and mine was around 70 pages) that would put you off carrying it about.

Not only that but I can see myself keeping it on my bookshelf afterwards as a reminder of my travels (in addition to my blog entries of course!

Pacific Adventures (part 2)!

As well as sailing out of San Francisco to Papeete in September, in a fit of ebullience last year, I also booked with Silversea to fly back to Papeete in November to re-board Silver Shadow for its return voyage from French Polynesia back to the South American mainland and the port of Valparaiso and an overnight stay in Santiago.

The full itinerary is:

03 Nov 2014	Mon	Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia		19:00
04 Nov 2014	Tue	Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia	08:00	22:00
05 Nov 2014	Wed	Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia	08:00	17:00
06 Nov 2014	Thu	Fakarava, Tuamotu Islands	09:00	14:00
07 Nov 2014	Fri	Day at Sea
08 Nov 2014	Sat	Day at Sea
09 Nov 2014	Sun	Adamstown, Pitcairn Islands, United Kingdom	08:00	16:00
10 Nov 2014	Mon	Day at Sea
11 Nov 2014	Tue	Day at Sea
12 Nov 2014	Wed	Easter Island, Chile	14:00
13 Nov 2014	Thu	Easter Island, Chile		17:00
14 Nov 2014	Fri	Day at Sea
15 Nov 2014	Sat	Day at Sea
16 Nov 2014	Sun	Day at Sea
17 Nov 2014	Mon	Day at Sea
18 Nov 2014	Tue	Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile	08:00	18:00
19 Nov 2014	Wed	Day at Sea
20 Nov 2014	Thu	Valparaiso, Chile	08:00

I just couldn't miss the opportunity to visit some of the remotest islands in the world and to experience some British history with a visit to Pitcairn Island.  The highlight of this trip has to be the overnight stay to Easter Island lying 2,294 miles west of the Chilean mainland offering the opportunity to see the legendary Moai.  Averaging 7 metres in height and over 160 tons in weight and almost 900 in number these monolithic statues must rank as one of the must-sees on this planet.  So-much-so, it was declared a UNESCO World heritage site in 1995.







Keep checking back for regular reports from my trips on Silver Shadow in the Pacific in September and November.

A Pacific Adventure - Preview

The next cruise for me will be a Pacific adventure on Silversea.  I'll be travelling on Silver Shadow from San Francisco to Papeete.  Here she is docked in Vancouver a few years ago, when I met her for a Pacific crossing via Alaska.

Itinerary

24 Sep 2014	Wed	San Francisco, California, USA		17:00
30 Sep 2014	Tue	Hilo, Hawaii, USA	08:00	18:00
01 Oct 2014	Wed	Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, USA	08:00	23:00
02 Oct 2014	Thu	Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA	08:00
03 Oct 2014	Fri	Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA		14:00
10 Oct 2014	Fri	Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia	09:00	22:00
11 Oct 2014	Sat	Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia	08:00	17:00
11 Oct 2014	Sat	Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia	20:00
12 Oct 2014	Sun	Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia

I'll be back in a Terrace Suite - the same one I had when I sailed from Vancouver to Tokyo a few years ago.

Silversea is a luxury cruise line offering all-inclusive six star service, with personal butler service in every suite on board - a real luxury that you soon learn to appreciate.  With fine dining picking up on the line's Italian heritage and in partnership with Relais & Chateaux, every mealtime is a fantastic experience.

And of course there's nothing quite like a chocolate (or chocolates!) on your pillow when you come back to your suite to retire for the evening.

I'll  be stepping aboard in 8 weeks, so standby for some regular updates during the cruise.

Building Starts on Regent Seven Seas Explorer

It's been reported that building has started today at the Fincantieri shipyard in Genoa of the new luxury Regent Seven Seas ship - Seven Seas Explorer - with a laser cutting the first piece of steel for the ship.

Announced whilst I was aboard her sister in the fleet Seven Seas Mariner last year, the ship is reported to be 54,000 gross registered tons and carries a maximum of 750 passengers, similar in capacity to the existing Seven Seas Voyager and Mariner but larger than the baby of the fleet Seven Seas Navigator.  

It is said to boast the highest space ratios and staff-to-guest ratios in the industry with a hull 732 feet long and a beam of 102 feet and draft of 23 feet with a cruising speed of 20 knots. The contract price for the vessel, according to a Regent press release is approximately USD$450 million, apparently making the Seven Seas Explorer one of the most expensive luxury liners ever built. 

The Seven Seas Explorer debuts in summer 2016.  Hopefully there'll be a few single supplement promos available so I can try her out!

Refloating the Costa Concordia

Every time I go on a cruise, someone will always mention the Concordia disaster to me, mainly to ask if I'm scared that something similar will happen to me.  I've sailed more than 250 days in a relative short period of time (given that I've only been cruising for 5 years) and I've never felt in the slightest bit unsafe at any point.  From the mandatory pre-cruise muster drill (something I've always seen from the very first cruise I took) to the staff and crew training drills that I've seen when I've stayed on board, safety has always always seemed a priority on the ships I have been on.

It's perhaps because of that, that when the Costa Concordia went down it seemed so shocking.  The loss of life in an environment that I've only every seen as a place of relaxation and fun still doesn't seem real.

Since then, there's been a massive effort to refloat the ship.  From the engineering to lift the ship upright or parbuckling to the subsequent attaching of the sponsons, the culmination of all this work starts tomorrow as the refloating starts before the ship is towed to Genoa where it will be dismantled.

Let's hope this operation goes well and we can draw a close to this part of cruise history.

And then perhaps I'll just be asked if I'm bored on sea days...