Marc, I think the Chinese "play games" with the ships and the docking times. Particularly the American ships. Twice we have sat out in the ocean waiting for the Chinese to give us permission to enter the harbor. I am sure we had an appointed time but we were not allowed to enter.

A Captain once told me this is regular procedure. They give a docking time and then at the end say sorry "you have to wait". There were so many ships out in the ocean waiting for permission to enter the harbor.

We were also messed around once in the dock on clearance and then made to leave early the next day. I understood on this trip the Captain requested a dock further out and he would bus the passengers but this request was denied.

With all this power playing going on Shanghai is still a sensational port of call and well worth the hassle the ship and the guests have to go through to visit. You soon forget in a frenzy of shopping heaven and sight seeing.

My guess is with Marc Conroy's comment they had a docking slot in the original schedule but it has been changed now causing the late arrival into port. Nothing to do with the speed, if the pod was 100% the same delay would have happened.

Wendy may have hit why Regent is so quiet on these types of subjects. I have had emails asking why Regent does not do an announcement about the pod.

Probably most of the guests on the Mariner are not aware the ship has a pod problem. The majority of the schedules are not even affected, so in reality there is no problem that causes any issues for the passengers. It is only the long sea parts of a trip that cause any problems now with the itinerary. Advertise the fact a pod is not up to par and people dont book the ship when in reality it will not affect them on their cruise at all. If you take all the passengers on these ships the percentage that read these boards and are in the "know" is very very small.

An announcement about issues like this and it becomes a much bigger problem. Although I like everything to be out on the table I certainly see the reasoning for not making a big announcement about the pod.