Cuba and Mayan ruins

Miami to Miami via Cuba and Central America 6.12-16.12

We have cruised with REGENT 6 times now – sadly this cruise fell some way short of our high expectations and standards, and we will be seriously re-evaluating our future cruise choices

Day 1: Key West: Pre-booked glass bottom boat tour cancelled without apology or explanation.
Tour of Key West was supposed to include Truman’s White House, but did not. Driver just “dumped us there”, no pre-booked tickets to enter as promised: asked to pay and find our own way back to the ship. We gave up.

Day 2: Havana: Excellent tour of Havana Highlights with superb hostess,however……………
Habana Café evening excursion cancelled without explanation or apology. This was to be the highlight of the entire cruise for us and was booked around a year in advance – no equivalent alternative tour offered. Extremely disappointing!

Day 4: Cozumel: We were informed weather was too rough to tender, so entire day was cancelled and we moved immediately on to next port, Roatan. After several guests voiced criticism, Captain ‘Stan’ made the observation that “safety was paramount” [true!] and a weak excuse that although there were berths in port vacant, these were unavailable to us since all had been booked in advance, so RSSC couldn’t use them. Begs the question why RSSC HQ management hadn’t thought to book a berth well in advance to avoid such a possible scenario? Probably trying to save Port Fees?

Day 5: Roatan: Glass bottom sub tour was difficult because of poor vis and difficult access to seating below the waterline. Of much more concern was the fact that no safety briefings were made for the entire trip and no life jackets at all were provided or demonstrated. An extremely unpleasant and potentially dangerous experience as we crashed and bumped over the coral heads! If there had been a problem most passengers would have drowned.

Day 6: Santo Tomas. Very pleasant trek through the rainforest to the Las Escobas springs. Unfortunately, though, the paths were very steep and uneven and quite difficult to navigate for people with limited mobility: we aborted the trip halfway through and returned to the coach for an hour.

Day 7: Harvest Caye. A very pleasant short trip on an electric boat to see manatees. Beautiful island, very well run and spotless.

Day 8: Costa Maya. We cancelled our trip to the Mayan ruins because we had not realised that around at least 5 of the 7 hours would be spent on a bus in transit. No internet, phone or TV all day because the 220.000 tonner “Allure of the Seas” was berthed right next to us and blocked all the signals!

Day 9: At sea [mercifully] Time to relax and enjoy the excellent food and service on board – although sadly not the “entertainment” and the “destination lectures” which were – sorry to say – also very poor and not up to the standard we have always so enjoyed on RSSC . e.g. our trip last year from Singapore to Hong Kong on ‘Voyager’ and our first from Rio to Barcelona on ‘Mariner’. The only bright turn was the comedian/magician who was excellent.

Day 10: Miami: The end of a disappointing and unmemorable cruise – which pains me to say such things about RSSC. especially since we are now “Gold Members”