Regatta Review

Cancelled Ports=Disappointing Cruise

Review for the Panama Canal & Central America Cruise on Regatta
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Katie VM
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Oct 2018
Cabin: Deluxe Ocean View

After much research, we chose this sailing because of the nine ports of call included in the itinerary, which means fewer days at sea of course.

We boarded the ship in San Francisco on Mon. Oct 8 with a 6 pm sailing scheduled. Emergency evacuation drill was in the hour prior to sailing. After getting us all assembled on the deck, the captain came over the PA system telling us that due to a storm forming in the Pacific, Sergio, our itinerary would be changing. Sergio was set to make landfall on the Baja Peninsula on Fri. Oct 12. Therefore, we would not be visiting the ports of Cabo San Lucas, El Salvador, Nicaragua and instead of a docking time of 11 am in Costa Rica we would be delayed until 1 pm. We would still have Catalina Island and San Diego would be added. That would mean the first sea day as planned, 2 stops in the US and then 3 and a half days at sea in a row before arriving in Costa Rica. Catalina Island is very small and while San Diego is an interesting city, many had been there before, or at the vey least, we all know how easy it is to visit if one wishes. This announcement brought immediate negative, unhappy reactions from the guests.

Sergio? There was nothing in the news about this storm. The captain emphasized safety first. Safety yes. But this seemed to be a drastic reaction to a storm that had not yet made any presence in the news media. Many of us wondered why, if we had to miss ports, the decision was not made to push out right away, skip the US ports and get south of the path of the storm. Visiting the countries in Central America was a big attraction to this sailing and they were wiped out from the get-go. In the end we did not even dock in Costa Rica until 3 pm (we were told because of tides??) and had to be back on board in 4.5 hours. At first glance that might seem acceptable but one must realize that it was dark about 5pm so we could see nothing of their stunning natural environment.

Cabin Review

Deluxe Ocean View

Cabin C2

The Regatta is due for updating and while our cabin was fine an update is needed. There were small issues like cupboard doors not closing properly, very uncomfortable love seat and a lack of American style outlets vs. European. No outlets near bed side tables.

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