On Thursday we boarded Regent’s Seven Seas Splendor, to sail for the following seven nights, through Greek Islands calling at: Istanbul, Lesbos, Ephesus, Rhodes, Crete, Santorini, Mykonos, and Athens.

Map

The boarding procedure was extended by a welcomed rigorous Covid19 testing of all passengers. Onboard, everybody was vaccinated and wore a mask. But other than that, it’s just like any other cruise. Well, not quite. This is a very wonderful luxury cruise. The itinerary (Istanbul to Athens) is called Return of the Byzantine. Being all inclusive meant not only wine and dine, but also free on-shore excursions, which with an itinerary like ours, was very important.

I can not overstate how gorgeous the ship is. Built by Fincatieri and joining the fleet in February 2020, not only it’s very new, and offers all the luxury and quality you would expect from the best luxury cruise line in the world, but the interior decoration is of an understated elegance that I have not seen in any other ship. In my humble opinion, it is a bit more elegant than its sister Seven Seas Explorer. Besides, given the fact that occupancy was around 50% of the full passenger capacity of 750, it means service ratio of more than 2:1 since the crew is 542.

There’s very little to say other than: impeccable. Just look at the pictures (link below). Everything absolutely spotless, elegant, delicious… with perfect service.

After boarding, before retiring to our stateroom, we had dinner at the spectacular Pacific Rim specialty restaurant, where we enjoyed amazing cocktails, dim sum, miso cod, lobster tempura, and coconut tres leches with pear-ginger white tea. We liked it so much we made reservations to return later in the week. The funny thing is that by the end of the cruise, this became our least favourite restaurant in the ship, because the others were even more amazing!

Some photos here.