Who Regent is for
Regent sells one idea and sells it hard: the fare covers the vacation, not just the bed. Unlimited shore excursions are included in every port on every sailing, along with premium drinks throughout the ship, the specialty restaurants, gratuities, wifi and laundry. A second fare tier adds return flights and airport transfers. Nobody else in the luxury bracket includes the excursions without limit, and that is the reason to look at the line at all.
The passenger profile follows from the price. Guests skew older and well-traveled, most have cruised before, and a good proportion are booking a three-week itinerary rather than a week. Under-eighteens are carried but rare, and there is no children’s program worth the name.
It is the wrong line if you want a large ship with a water park, if you prefer to arrange your own touring ashore and resent paying for a group bus you will not use, or if a headline fare of several hundred pounds a night is going to feel like a loss whatever it includes.
What the inclusive fare actually covers
The excursions are the load-bearing part. Every port on every voyage has a choice of included tours, bookable in advance, and the allowance is unlimited rather than a credit or a per-port ration. In practice the included list is the mainstream bus-and-guide program; the private cars, small-group specials and overland tours are extra and can be expensive.
Drinks are included everywhere on board, mini-bar and in-suite bar included, and cover wines and spirits rather than a house-pour tier. Gratuities are prepaid and no further tipping is expected. Specialty restaurants carry no cover charge, which on most luxury lines they do. Wifi is unlimited. Valet laundry is included; dry cleaning generally is not.
The two fare structures matter at the point of booking. The lower one is the ship and everything in the paragraphs above; the higher adds return airfare with a class upgrade option, transfers and a chauffeur service. Whether the second is worth it is arithmetic; price the flights yourself and compare, because on a short-haul Mediterranean sailing it usually is not, and on a Tokyo–Vancouver crossing in business class it usually is.
The ships
The line dates to 1992, when Radisson Cruises and Seven Seas Cruises merged; it traded as Radisson Seven Seas until 2006 and has been part of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, alongside Norwegian and Oceania, since 2014.
Seven Seas Navigator (1999) is the smallest and oldest, at just under five hundred guests, and gets the itineraries that need a small hull. Seven Seas Mariner (2001) and Seven Seas Voyager (2003) run around seven hundred; Voyager was the first all-suite, all-balcony ship built. Seven Seas Explorer (2016), Seven Seas Splendor (2020) and Seven Seas Grandeur (2023) are the current generation at roughly 750 guests, and Seven Seas Prestige joins them in 2026 as the largest the line has built, with more sisters ordered into the 2030s.
The scale is the other half of the proposition. Seven hundred guests is a tenth of what the biggest ships carry, and it buys a berth in the middle of Venice, Monte Carlo or Bordeaux rather than a container terminal, plus embarkation that takes minutes.
Geographically the program is Europe-heavy (the Mediterranean and Northern Europe are the bulk of it, out of Barcelona, Rome, Lisbon, Southampton and Athens) with a substantial Asia season from Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong, Alaska from Vancouver and Whittier, Caribbean out of Miami, and a world cruise each year.
What to know before you book
The headline fare is high and the discounting is real. Published prices are steep and the line runs frequent savings offers against them. Never take the brochure number as the number, and never book without checking what the same suite costs on a nearby departure date.
“Included” excursions are group excursions. They are competent and there are lots of them, but they are buses with guides. If your idea of a day ashore is a private driver, you will be paying twice, once in the fare and once for the car.
Suite category changes the ship more than it changes the cabin. The upper grades bring a butler, priority reservations and a pre-cruise hotel night. On a long itinerary those are worth more than the extra square footage.
Check the ship’s age, not just the name. Navigator, Mariner and Voyager have been refitted repeatedly but are twenty to twenty-five years old, and the newest three are a visibly different standard of ship. The inclusive fare is identical across the fleet; the hardware is not.