Voyager: The Seven Seas awry

Things are going from bad to worse – and good again – for the passengers who paid anything from $100,000 to $380,000 for their world cruise on the ultra-luxury Regent Seven Seas Voyager.
One of the ship’s two propulsion pods was damaged when it tangled in fishing lines on leaving Singapore, and the ship has been limping along ever since, missing out a number of scheduled ports of call. First it was hoped that repairs could be carried out at Cochin, in India, and when that proved impossible, the plan was for engineers to do the work in Dubai.
Now it has been decided that the ship will have to go into dry dock in Italy for repairs, and it is heading there instead of to Istanbul. It will be withdrawn from service on arrival at Civitavecchia and the next leg of the world cruise, scheduled to begin on April 8, has been cancelled, as has the planned May 8 sailing which was to have been a 23-night transatlantic voyage to Southampton via Reykjavik. The ship is now expected to be ready for service again by May 21.
Regent are making plans to fly passengers home from Rome and are handing out what appears to be extremely generous compensation packages.
Passengers on the April 1 world cruise segment will receive a 50 per cent refund of their fare and credit towards a 50 per cent of the cost of a future cruise. All passengers on the March 18 voyage from Singapore to Dubai, during which the ship was damaged, will be refunded the entire value of the segment, due to the missed ports.
Regent have also offered full world cruise travellers and those scheduled to embark in Dubai several options, including a transfer to sister ship Seven Seas Mariner’s current voyage in the Far East.
Those well-heeled passengers with time on their hands must be thanking their lucky stars. All that compensation and they haven’t even had to threaten a mutiny.