This was our third cruise with Regent and the start of the recent television series in the UK on the ‘Explorer’ had put us in the mood for a luxurious break. We flew from LHR with BA which was fine, and our private transfer was waiting, all good. We were in a Concierge level suite so we had the free previous night’s accommodation included - and the ‘meet and greet’ at the hotel was well organised. While we could understand why Regent use the Divani Caravel Hotel from the point of view of the easy handling of a large number of cruise guests, 5 star it certainly wasn’t, particularly our room, which was small with old and scruffy furniture. The rooftop pool was good though, and you could see the Acropolis in the distance. Given Regent’s sales pitch, we would have expected a better hotel nearer the centre of the city.

We were transferred to the ship by coach and the embarkation process was very quick, with helpful agents. Our suite was fine, very comfortable bed, everything worked - except the door to the balcony which we had to get an engineer to fix it so that my wife could open it – you would think the room steward might have spotted it first. Most of the staff were generally friendly and competent; the one exception were the barmen - they had clearly not seen the TV programme which says that ‘no’ is not an option. It’s a real first world problem, but if you want French dry rose wine to drink, to be offered Pino Grigio because the barman can’t be bothered to go and get the wine you want is not the way to go. Food in Compass Rose was excellent, and much better than we remember, but we can’t say the same for the buffet in Sette Mari. Keeping meat dishes hot seemed to be a problem, and flies dive-bombing the various cold dishes was quite common. The other new introduction for us was an evening barbecue on the deck in the middle of the cruise, and also a buffet on the last night. We were not impressed by either.

We ate at both specialty restaurants, Chartreuse was really excellent, unfortunately Prime 7 was not and left a lot to be desired in all areas - decor (it’s so brown), very, very slow service and poor food quality. We had to ask several times to speak to the Maitre’D and his response when we managed to speak to him was poor. Even the table next to us hosted by the social host was suffering, she must have been very embarrassed - it needs a serious review. Read more