Today we have our only sea day of this cruise and it is a real sea day, storm and all. When we woke up it was already blowing wind force 7 to 8, with the wind steadily picking up in velocity. But the waves took a while to be whipped up. This started to happen around around noon time when the ship make the occasional “Lurch” as the Americans call it.  At noon time the Captain made his speech from the bridge, with elaborate safety advice and I noticed that he had slowed down the ship somewhat so it could ride the waves better. I expect that he will speed up again to arrive on time at Dubrovnik after 5 pm. tonight when the waves will die down.

The stormy seas from the Observation window on deck 11. The foam is streaking off the crest of the waves, indicating that we are looking at over wind force 9. Add the ships speed to it , it comes up to 65- 70 knots at around 14.00 hrs. it was indeed wind force 12 relatively.

We had breakfast served in the cabin, most likely the only time this cruise, and much to the dismay of our Butler Mr. Savanan. As he wanted to be of much more service that we are asking of him. And then it was time to go into the ship. Lesley was going to the presentation of the Future Cruise Consultant as she has decided that we are going to do another Regent cruise. We are fully booked with cruises for 2027 and 2028 but not for 2029. There is an option to book an “Open Guarantee”. So you do not choose a cruise but you have a year to pick one and then you still get all the onboard credit and other discounts that come with on board booking. Then the booking is handed over to your travel agent who often then can still apply the discounts they get directly from the cruise company. So once again, we are going to save money by spending it. It is expected that by June 2027 the brochure for 2029 will be out containing expected cruises from the UK and thus this had to be investigated. It gave me the time to go out by myself and to take photos of the inside of the ship.

The Seven Seas Navigator (Photo courtesy Cruise mapper)

Yesterday I mentioned that the Seven Seas Navigator will transfer to another company in 2019 and become a “Residence at Sea” ship.  You buy your cabin, permanently, and then pay a yearly “maintenance” charge. Then you can stay on board the whole year or join the ship for sections in the world that are of interest. I assume that you can let your family and friends also use your apartment on board but I am not sure. “2019” seems to be a year with a lot of ships moving around. A sort of musical chairs and the one falling off, goes for scrap.

The ms Queen Anne. She can carry 2900 guests but has less “elbow room” than it should have for Cunard. (Photo courtesy Cruise mapper)

Then very recently it was announced that Carnival Corporation is moving ships around as well, between their brands. I think that this is caused by the Queen Anne not fitting in the Cunard brand. It had been moved from Holland America, where is was to be the 4th. ship in the Pinnacle class, to Cunard which needed more capacity. This has worked well in the past when they  built the Queen Victoria and the Queen Elizabeth which are enhanced Holland America Vista class ships. (HAL has 4, 2 are with Cunard and there are also 2 with Costa). But then some clever clog decided to “improve revenue” by adding 500 guests to a hull size that was meant for a maximum of 2500 lower beds.  So in practise it did not work.

We were on the maiden voyage of the Queen Anne (see the review under the heading on the right side of the front page of my website) and it was pretty bad. Apart from the extra guest numbers not fitting in, also the “Cunard flow” did not work, as it was not the sort of hull that worked for the Cunard brand. All management on board were not happy campers, and knew a few of them. We went back 6 months later and it had somewhat improved but still it was still not the Cunard product that we knew from the Vicky, the Lizzi and the Mary. They even sent this ship on a world cruise while there is not enough storage capacity on board to do so, as you need a bit of a buffer stock of supplies on board.  The Pinnacle class can store for a maximum of 3 weeks and that does not suffice for a world cruise if something goes wrong. Just imagine a container with toilet paper being stuck with Customs in some African port and pressure gets “high” on board. and that has happened in the past, it is a famous story in the Cruise Industry, although it was not with HAL or Cunard). So she will be better off with P&O cruises and take the place of the ms Arcadia. That ship has 2600 lower beds, so the bean counters will be happy with the fact that the count will go up to 2900.

The ms Arcadia becoming xxDam in 2029. The difference is that she is not  a real Vista Class ship as there is the extra restaurant located in front of the funnel. She is sort of halfway between a Vista and a Signature class. When the ship comes to Holland America it will house the “Tamarind”, the Asian fusion restaurant.

Then there is Holland America. They will get their 5th. Vista class ship back as it was handed over, during the building,  by Carnival Corporation to P&O to increase their capacity. It is not really a Vista but somewhere between a Vista and a Signature class ship (Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam)  I think Holland America is getting this ship back as at the moment there is no shipyard capacity to build smaller Carnival Corp ships. All capacity is taken up by building the very large ships.  So Holland America has embarked on a “evolution” upgrade program for the Vista and Signature Class ships, instead of waiting for any new builds, which will not happen until after 2033; when their MIGHT be some shipyard capacity available.

The Arcadia will fit in directly in the HAL fleet as inside she is not that much different apart from not having a Neptune lounge for the suites. Lesley and I made two cruises on her and she felt just as a HAL ship, except from having less quality service.  I just hope that she will receive a good traditional HAL name and not something like “Nieuw Statendam” which was the visionary idea  of the then time President. We all know what the name Statendam stands for (The current one is nbr. VI) , but what was so “Nieuw”, (new in English) about it has been long forgotten. So please bring back another ms Ryndam (IV) or Amsterdam (IV). Traditional HAL names that are still easy to pronounce by non Dutch. (I would love a new “Spaarndam” (III) but we cannot torture the guests and travel agents with that name)

Our General Hotel Manager is Mr. Andrea Piccinin. He comes from Italy and has been at sea since 1993. He is married with 2 daughters and lives on the Spanish island of Teneriffe.

Thus I went walking through the ship. First thing I always look at is the Art on the walls. On some ships that is ……… well, not that great and added as an afterthought; but on some ships you really say WOW. With the Seven Seas Voyager, the company went for very modern paintings. Maybe not everybody’s cup of tea but some of them are very nice. A thing that is missing with all the paintings is, that there are no names /lables with any of the paintings. It makes it hard to find out, what the theme of the painting is (if anything) or who made it.

But the General Hotel Manager advised me that there are QR codes coming, to be installed next to each painting so you can just scan and read. And as everybody on board has free (and very good wifi), that will work.

How did I find him ? Well he has an open door policy. He has an office on Deck 5 and the door is always open and he tends to pop out when he sees somebody lingering in the corridor. Lesley and I have now done a lot of cruises on ships varying from 3 to 6 stars and it is often not so simple to find an Hotel Manager who is easy accessible. With the invention of Fire Screen Doors, they seem to have grabbed the chance to hide behind it. And yes, with the door open, you do expose yourself to a lot of “input”  from guests; input which otherwise would have to be fended off by Guest Services. But if you hear about it directly, and are then willing to follow up quickly, you improve your product and the complaints do not come back to start a life of their own on face book. (At least most of the time…………..)

So here is one example of a modern painting that I liked very much. It is a large painting that hangs in the aft staircase. Do not forget this ship has a space ratio of 68, so the main hallways, staircases and corridors are wide enough so these paintings do work well to enhance the decor.

I do not know the painter or the title yet, but to me this looks like a Glacial fjord impression by the artist. I see a white glacier in the background, an ice calving in the front and in back, a river carrying melt water away from the glacier. Your might not agree with me, but the inspiration struck me after 3 glasses of red wine.

The next interesting piece of art is the main sculpture / stainless steel creation in the Atrium. The atrium is quite narrow, as it consists of  the staircase and the 2 glass lifts. It runs from deck 4 to deck 12 so I hope that not many guests looked down today with the moving ship in the afternoon from the top. Again I could not find a description of what it supposed to be but it is very nice and sort of commands the attention but not in an overpowering way.

The main piece of art on board, the stainless steel sculpture in the Forward / atrium staircase. The marble floor has compass points in it, but the meaning of this one eludes me, even after 3 glasses of wine.

Then it was time for Deck 5, which is a continuous deck with public lounges (Deck 4 is only partially as it has the main galley behind the Compass Rose dining room.   A picture of the show lounge is still awaiting as I have not been able to get into it when it was completely empty. Either there is an activity going or the new cast where rehearsing and one morning I found two old men happily snoring away. No doubt being very happy with having escaped their spouses. And I am not putting “Ear from Wisconsin” in the photo as you never know if his wife might be reading this blog.

Deck 5, with most of the public rooms being concentrated here.

The speciality restaurant Chartreuse is located at the stern of the ship. French high cuisine where there is very little concern for calorific count. Sharing the location is the Horizon Lounge which acts as a 2nd show lounge. There they do quizzes and bingo and it also acts as dance location for after dinner, as it has a nice dance floor and in the evening the ships orchestra plays dance music here. Walking forward along the funnel uptake one comes to the Speciality Restaurant Prime 7. Which is a steak / meat restaurant but they also have a few fish dishes. We had dinner here this evening, so further down.

The Prime 7 restaurant. Specialising in steak and other meat dishes.

Then one comes to the shops. Expensive shops, but with very little stock. And Lesley did her best to buy something here. But forget tax free, everything just has a price. Also very little logo ware, apart from a few baseball caps. Focus is on brand names and the prices are accordingly. We saw very few guests actually buying something and neither of us have enough knowledge to say whether the Versace and Gucci handbags are a good deal, and same goes for the brand jewellery. We never saw many guests in there making a purchase.

The shops area. Nice stuff, little stock and not very busy. I hope they do make a profit.

Then you pass a wall with behind it (door open) the General Hotel managers office and then you move into the atrium where the one side is Destination Services and on the other side Reception and Concierge Desk.

Destination services. The two guests in the photo are having coffee as around the Atrium, forward of the desk of the Executive Concierge is a Coffee Connection with self service coffee and cookies.

Then there is on the starboard side the entrance to the show lounge upper level. The site lines are very good as the only deck supports / poles are in the back under the balcony and there are chairs behind it.

This is the deck 4 entrance to the Constellation theatre. On deck 5 you enter the balcony area.

The rest of the public rooms are on Deck 11 and on Deck 4.

Deck 4, with the only part of the deck given over to public rooms.

Here on deck 4 is the main “Compass” restaurant made up of a center section and two wings. It has an entrance at each side where the fore and aft staircases are located and on each side there is a podium where they receive you and take you to your table. Which is a very nice touch as you do not have to find the single entrance somewhere in “the other staircase”. The Maitre d’hotel is there for you and not the other way around.

Photo of the Compass Restaurant, taking from the aft entrance.

Side plate in the Versace pattern. No idea what series this is, but it cannot be cheap.

As mentioned before, they have Versace show plates on the table, which are then taken away when the serving plates arrive. Here a photo of a small side dish. Then each table also has a little flower vase, with a real flower in it ,and that vase also has  the same Versace pattern. I wonder, when there is a Captains table, if they pull out a complete set, inclusive glasses as I had for my Captains table on the ms Prinsendam.

In front of this dining room is a wider square that links to the main Atrium and where they had last evening, the “Rock the Boat” experience. There on the port side, is the Voyager Lounge, which in the evening has a Duo for music and which late at night acts as a Disco.

On the starboard side is the Casino, not very big, but large enough for a ship with 700 guests and reasonably busy when full of Americans.  What was of interest, when we walked into the casino, was that the atmosphere was not so stressful, with guests totally absorbed and absolutely focused on winning. It was more of a country club atmosphere with sitting around the tables, having a chat and throwing away some money.

Casino on board the “Voyager”.

 

 

 

 

 

The late evening cocktail lounge and night club, the “Voyager Lounge” on Deck 4 port side.

The Voyager Lounge, looking from aft to forward. Near the stage the screen for the coming karioke can just be seen. the pastries on the table where for the local officials when clearing in the ship.

 

 

For the evening we went to the Prime 7 restaurant, which was very good, and absolutely not calorie free. I will leave you with three photos. The menu pages, hopefully readable and how my filet mignon steak with pepper sauce looked like.

Table setting in the Prime 7 restaurant.

Page One of the menu.

Page Two of the menu

Fillet Mignon steak 8 oz. well done with pepper sauce.

Tomorrow we are in Dubrovnik and are anchoring under the old town walls. Weather is supposed to be sunny with temperatures of around 20oC / 70F.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xxx

 

xxx

 

omorrow we are in Dubrovnik and are anchoring under the old town walls. Weather is supposed to be sunny with temperatures of around 20oC / 70F.

xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Page Two of the menu