I'm going on a regent cruise for the first time this summer to the baltic. What is the dress code on the ship? Any advice for this cruise line? I have been on several other cruise lines (oceania, celebrity, holland) Other than being all inclusive what else can I expect? I'm 50, what is the age group on this line?

You'll probably find that the majority of passengers are in their 40s and up, so you should feel right at home. You're right in the middle of the primary age group that chooses Regent.

You'll have at least 1 or 2 formal nights on board. And passengers on Regent do dress up; some men will wear tuxes, women formal evening gowns. Even on the so-called "informal" nights, men must wear a sports jacket but no tie. I don't think these cruises are quite as formal as some other cruise lines, but people do dress up a bit at night.

You'll find many answers to all your Regent questions on their board at CC:
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=176
These boards are very informative, especially for someone like you, who is new to a specific cruise line.

The information given above is incorrect. I just double-checked with Regent. On our 7-night Baltics cruise in August, there are no formal nights, one informal night (probably the second night), and the rest are country club casual.

Let's hear it for the Regent - they are "getting with it" and leaving the past behind. Welcome to the new millennium.
No formal nights!

I wouldn't overreact if I were you. My understanding is that Regent has not had formal nights on its Baltics cruises for some time. I don't think this represents a basic change to their dress code system.

In that case, I wonder how exactly are the Baltics different from the Med or Carib (or any other body of water for that matter) in the mind set of Regent? Would love to hear that logic.

FYI: Regent has begun adding the Dress Codes to all of the cruise Itineraries shown on their Web site. This is similar to what was done on their old Web site. For example, one cab confirm the information I provided above on the 7-day Baltics cruise (no Formal nights), which differs from that on longer cruises that include the Baltics and still have Formal nights.

Did this exact cruise end of Aug. 08...my husband hates dressing up and thank god this cruise had none of that. I wore dressy Chico's outfits for evening and he wore Chino's and a collared tennis shirt most evenings and on the dressier evening he wore a sport coat and botton down oxford shirtw/ dark slacks. On the dressy evening (not formal) men HAD to wear a jacket or you needed to retire to your room and eat there...we loved this cruise and this ship....my hubby hates cruising and is now willing to go anywhere as long as it is on Regent!! Best cruise line we ever sailed with.....

Dreps,
Thanks for the info, but it does not address my question - how and why is the Baltic cruise dress code different from all others for Regent?
Obviously, there are cruise lines that do formal nights on all cruises (majority) and others (Oceania, Azamara) that never do formals.
According to this, Regent is neither fish nor fowl.

Hummmm this cruise just seemed to be more casual than the normal cruise even for Regent...could be because the schedule is soooo gruling!! Everyday a differant port and a very long tour!! By the time we got back to the ship it was all anyone could do but to drag ourselves to the drink of our choice!!!
Did I say how wonderful this ship was.....you have got to love a ship with walk in closets and marble bathrooms!

I'm learning something from this discussion because I didn't realize Regent was experimenting so much with its dress codes on certain cruises. They do seem to be all over the place, and many longer itineraries have several formal nights while others go back to the traditional 1 formal/1 informal that I'm used to seeing on Regent.

Here's my take. Now that Regent is owned and operated by the same company that owns Oceania, I'm betting that they will experiment more and will slowly begin to transition over to country-club casual on all cruises and eliminate formal nights altogether. But you've certainly piqued my interest, and I'm going to investigate this a little more. If I come up with anything, I'll let you know.

I suspect that this is the trend in the industry in general - I think it's only matter of time till formal nights will be the exception and limited to a few select cruise lines. I have seen these discussions on all boards and even those lines that have formal nights (Princess, HAL, etc) have a lot of people "pushing the envelope" on dress codes.
Dressing in Europe used to be more formal/conservative (jackets in restaurants) - they too are relaxing a bit and getting more casual; years ago you would never see Europeans wearing shorts - now most of them do.
Most people on vacation want to relax , dress casually and pack fewer things. I do know that many people like to dress up as well. There should be a place for everyone to travel/cruise the way they prefer.

regent claims to be "all inclusive" but what other added cahrges can one expect on this ship? Are drinks really free, or just at specific times of the days? Is the liquor low end stuff or is it good? Is the spa high priced?

The Baltic Regent cruise I was on last Aug. was VERY inclusive, did not matter what time of day drinks were free. My husband drinks Black Label Scotch and that was free....the wine was very nice, certainly not grocery store stuff...one nite they had Far Neinte as their wine of the evening....a bottle to your stateroom would not have been free, but a glass of wine to your stateroom is free! The only charges extra we had where excursions - remember in Russia you need a Russian Visa to get off the ship except for Regent sponsered outings....we had a private tour guide for 3 days, they provided the VISA - some people did not know they could not just wander around on their own...
Anyhow we have never gotten off a cruise ship oweing so little extra on our bill...mostly because our bar bill is usually so big...not the case this time!

Hummmm my one regret is that I did not visit the spa!! I am sure that was a big mistake but on this cruise we had no at sea days to spend in the spa !!! In looking back I would have skipped Talin, it was a tourist trap...and it rained cats and dogs! Every day it was get up and get off the ship, no time to enjoy this beautiful ship or to explore....so take a day off....

Nana, you had a private tour guide for 3 days....how did you arrainge it? Was it pricy? Was it worth it? Were thinking about taking the tour to Moscow, any information on that tour? thanks!

On the Rick Steves web site he spoke of an outfit called "Peters Walking Tours" this is for english speaking tourists. It was just us and a young lady who was a University english teacher...arranged the whole thing over the internet and it was alot less that the cost of Regents tours had we done all day trips with them...I think we paid about $1200 US for all three days total and that incl. the van and guide but maybe not all our admissions to various sites. It was wonderful, but my travel agent was having fits about the whole thing, Russia is kinda ify. We were wait listed for Moscow and as it turned out the weather was so bad that the people who went had all kinds of delays and problems..doesn't mean that it would be that way again though. But that is a very very long day, they did not get back on the ship until after midnite!
And yes our St Petersburg guide was really worth it and in fact she and her 9 yr old son are coming to visit us next summer. We are going to show her around for a couple weeks and do Disneyland!

Did I say you are going to LOVE this ship!!! You will not want to cruise with anyone other than Regent ever again!!! Time to buy a lottery ticket so I can continue to afford to cruise with them....thinking about Australia over Thanksgiving and trying to convince hubby to say yes!

Regarding why the Baltics cruise is more casual dress, my understanding is that one reason is that it is extremely port intensive with 3 days in St. Petersburg and the opportunity for practically nonstop excursions. There are no sea days.

Also, remember that this year is different than previous years regarding excursions for many Regent cruises. That is, almost all of our excursions in the Baltics are included in the fare. A few of some relatively small supplements. This is on top of a fare reduction of $2200 per person since we originally booked in December 2007.