Cruise Passenger > Reviews > Review: Seven Seas Voyager

Review: Seven Seas Voyager

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28 Feb 2011

This will be the first of four blogs from Regent’s Seven Seas Voyager, as I enjoy a 25-day world cruise segment from Sydney to Beijing. Currently the ship is in Cairns on a pretty steamy day, the last day of summer – not that you’d know it from the weather here! As I write this, Ben is off photographing interiors of the ship, a group of passengers have gone off to the pub to watch the Oscars live from LA, and the rest of the ship is away on tours including a Barrier Reef snorkel trip and Kuranda.

It’s been five-odd years since I last cruised on Voyager and more than two since setting foot on a Regent ship. In the past couple of years I’d heard a few less than favourable reports about cutbacks and service since this five-star line took on a new owner, but if things had dropped off in any way, they certainly are back up to speed now. From the moment we got on board last Wednesday, the crew have been exceptional. A few days ago I saw one F&B boss send back a burger on the pool deck because it hadn’t been arranged neatly enough!

Voyager has also had a makeover since we last cruised on her. She’s elegant in an understated way, and the public areas feel even more luxurious than I remembered, mainly thanks to plush couches and cushions. The waiters and bartenders remember your name after one encounter, and everyone has a smile on their face with nothing too much trouble. We’ve eaten at three of four venues, and have nothing to complain about except for the possible expansion of our waistlines at the end of the cruise! Signatures has steered away from its classic French roots but is still top quality, La Veranda is casually elegant, and Compass Rose is like dining at a top international restaurant. Prime 7, the new steakhouse, is all that’s left to try and that’s a treat reserved for next week.

So far we have had three stops on this world cruise, Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns today. One point of difference with Regent is that it includes shore excursions up to the value of $200 per excursion in the fare – something which can save you a lot of money if you are a keen explorer. In Brisbane we opted to visit Australia Zoo; it may not be quite the same without Steve, but his presence is everywhere in this theme park of a zoo. I also got to pet a wallaby for about the 100th time, but I never tire of wildlife! Townsville was a family day being my husband’s home town, and today we are off to do a few exciting things which I can report back on another time.

From here we head to the remote outpost of Thursday Island, then Darwin, and from there we leave Australia and head into the exotic north. I will report back on all of that next week, and tell you how our special steak dinner at Prime 7 went! Happy cruising…

I am writing this second blog from the Seven Seas Voyager, on a sea day heading from Bali to Borneo. So much has happened I hardly know where to start! But I will do so with the destinations…. Thursday Island, Darwin and Bali.

First Thursday Island – to be honest there isn’t much to say about it except blink and you’d miss it. A walk about town was quicker than the tender ride over, which took about 20 minutes to the strong current, and although the best thing to was either swim or hike, both of which weren’t possible. Swimming was risky due to a recent croc sighting, and with the temperature hovering around 33C and very high humidity, hiking the hill behind town was reserved for the hard core only.

Speaking of crocs, that was undoubtedly a highlight of our day-long tour in Darwin. We’d booked an excursion to the Adelaide River and a jumping crocs cruise – you go out in a small cruiser, a member of crew dangles raw meat into the river and the crocs appear and wow us all by jumping right out of the water for it! I have some great footage which I will add to this blog at a later date – it would take about 3 hours to upload using this satellite internet! The only downer on the day was the rain.

Typically it started as we were disembarking to go to the tour buses, and brought new meaning to the phrase “raining cats and dogs”. It was torrential, and umbrellas were useless due to the wind. But I might have started a new trend. Regarding myself as somewhat intrepid, I wrapped myself in Regent beach towels – big, nice and fluffy – and walked off ship looking like a mummy much to the amusement of fellow cruisers and Ted the driver of our bus!

On to Bali, our third visit here and still hawker central as soon as you arrive at the pier. This cruise we opted to take an unusual tour, a village cycling tour, which was great fun if a bit more strenuous than the brochure described. Headed up by a lovely Balinese guide called Tomato (yes for real), about 18 of us donned helmets, picked a mountain bike and we headed off out of Padang Bai into the countryside. We saw temples, school kids, paddy fields, a few landmarks, a typical village and finished up at a traditional Balinese home. There were a few mishaps including a cut leg and one guy completely coming off his bike, but there were no serious injuries and a great time was had by all.

Back to the ship and it continues to be hard to fault it, especially where service is concerned. We’ve dined at the steak restaurant, Prime 7, which reminded me of the fabulous Lawry’s in the US. They even had the totally evil but extremely yummy creamed spinach! And courtesy of our delightful Indian butler, Bejoy, we have also been treated to a private Indian banquet in our suite…..chicken tikka, lamb curry, veggie curry an home made nan bread and pappadums included.

The service is at such a high level on this ship I am hard pressed to say I’ve seen better. Everyone greets you with a smile, the bartenders get to know your favourite tipples quickly – yes mine’s a cosmo – and pretty much anything you want within reason is attempted. And yesterday, we asked for a wine bucket and ice to finally open the champagne which has been sitting in our fridge since day one, Bejoy not only brought it up immediately but it came with a plate of caviar treats….now that’s class!

The epitome, however, was perhaps last night. A fabulous deck BBQ and party was planned for our departure from Bali, but Mother Nature was set to spoil the show with impressive rainstorms and lightening like I haven’t seen in years.

The party went ahead regardless – tables were moved under cover, the Veranda Cafe was opened up for comfortable seating, the band played on…..and a team of crew armed with giant umbrellas escorted you from buffet to your table. As for the seafood….I think I have become addicted to crab claws and legs, though…..Happy Cruising!

It’s been a week of high drama on the high seas for a variety of reasons! First I had to see the doctor on board Seven Seas Voyager; only the second time I have seen a ship’s doctor in more than 20 years of cruising, but my second visit in six months! It’s a long a and boring story surrounding a stitch which was left in my back from minor procedure five months ago….all is good now but with a bill of almost US $800 it reinforces the need for good travel insurance!

I left off last weeks blog ahead of a stop in Bali, where we spent a full day at anchor in Padang Bai, and we embarked on an unusual cycling tour of the area. It was fascinating riding through the countryside, up hill down dale and through the winding village streets meeting the locals. To say it was a contrast to our life back on board would be a major understatement! That night we also had our deck party in a massive thunderstorm…soggy but great food and the crew went to huge lengths to make it fun.

The real dramas unfolded after we sailed late due to the late arrival of some new guests….what it resulted in unfortunately was that Sandakan had to dropped from the schedule, as we couldn’t get there before the low tide in order to safely navigate a major sandbar to get into the port. For the second time for us, no visit to Sepilok to see the orang-utans.

Our loss was the crew’s gain, though. Extra time was scheduled in Manila and with the majority of crew hailing from the Philippines it meant more time for many of them to snatch precious time with family and friends. There we took a tour to an old plantation about 100 kms away…Villa Escudera…..complete with a police escort!

We were told it was to get us back to the ship on time -we were due to sail at 6pm – but in reality it was probably a reaction to the terror attack on a taiwanese tour bus last year. All the same the two cops on motorcycles did a sterling job, waving traffic off both sides of the road so we could hurtle through the countryside at time ploughing down the middle or opposite side of the highway!

On our return to the ship the dramas continued…..first the appalling scenes after the massive earthquake from japan, then the captain announcing that we and Manila were on a tsunami warning, and later that our refueling barge hadn’t shown up that morning and we would be late leaving port again…1am became 5am.

As the tragic events unfolded north of us in japan, the mood on board was sombre, but the predicted 30 cm tsunami we were told to expect either didn’t materialize or Voyager didn’t feel it. Which is more than you say for others in the region.

After leaving Manila we enjoyed our lat hot day at sea – as we venture further north the temperature is dropping – then we we spent most of the next day at sea also cruising up the coast of Taiwan to our next port of call….Keelung. From here we take a day-long tour to the capital of Taipei, so stay tuned next week for my fourth and final blog covering this, Seoul and finally China. Happy cruising!