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Navigator voluntary bump.....?


Mudhen

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Maybe someone out there can explain all this to me. We are on the Navigator out of Vancouver to Anchorage on May 29th. Up until a month or so ago, there was so much availability, I could hardly believe it........huge selection of numbered cabins to choose from. Then overnight, they all disappeared, save a few, maybe 8 or so out of a previous 24/25 numbered available cabins. That's not counting the "guaranteed", or "waitlisted" choices. They are now down to 4 cabins, all upper uppers......All other catagories are "waitlisted", with only the Navigator suites listed as unavailable.

Yesterday our TA called and said that Regent had made an offer to us to change from our cruise to one in Aug or in Sept. Although the offers were most attractive, we couldn't use them due to work schedules.

So just what does that all mean? Our cruise is oversold? A month ago there was a ton of empty cabins and now it's oversold, so much they're looking for folks to take a voluntary bump? I don't understand. Also what's the difference between a waitlist and unavailable?

Are they still playing musical cabins?

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In a weird way, you can say that they play musical cabins. Cabins on Regent tend to sell from the least to most expensive. Many times this leaves them with several categories being full and upper categories having availability. They generally start making upsell offers to Penthouse Suites. Passengers pay a lesser rate to be upgraded to a Seven Seas, Voyager/Navigator/Mariner suite, Grand Suite or Master Suite.

 

As upsells occur, it opens up availability in the Penthouse Suites. Then they start offering upsells in lower categories, etc. As soon as suites become available, people that are waitlisted get them. Suddenly the ship is full. Not sure at what point offers are made to existing passengers to change cruises. Passengers who are able to make the change and are interested in the incentive, change to another cruise.

 

I'll let someone else explain "guarantee" as this is something we would not choose to do (concerned that we were get an aft suite on the Navigator or Voyager).

 

Curious as to why this is upsetting to you.

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My guess is that you've never been on a cruise where a company, corporation, group, club, etc has booked and occupied a large number of cabins on a cruise. Suddenly it's impossible to find a "spot", whether it's by the pool, in a lounge, or some other public venue. "oh we've saved these for our other 20 friends or members of our group". It's especially worrisome on a ship as tiny as the Navigator.........

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I'm not saying that's what happened for sure. It was only a thought. But one thing I know for sure is if someone told me they were saving a lounge for one of their twenty friends I'd plop myself down and ignore him.

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I'm not saying that's what happened for sure. It was only a thought. But one thing I know for sure is if someone told me they were saving a lounge for one of their twenty friends I'd plop myself down and ignore him.

 

Giggle! I'll tell them you told me to.........haha!

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As travelcat said, the musical cabins thing happens on pretty much every cruise. Just because there appeared to be plenty of availability a month ago does not mean that the cruise was undersold. If certain categories were waitlisted, they were oversold in that category, and a few weeks prior to the cruise, they start putting in people on the guarantee list, upselling to fill the unsold higher categories, and clearing the waitlist.

 

This is normal procedure. We have been offered upsells many times. We have been upgraded once as our category was oversold, and I guess no one took an upsell or bump offer. We have had bump offers multiple times, one which we have actually taken as it was very generous. It all works out. If you don't take the bump offer, don't worry. Someone else will because they will keep making the offer sweeter until someone bites.

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They have begun to plan guests who have not booked a suite number, but only guaranteed suite now internally really provide with a suite number.

So the last time you saw this many numbers this was not the real amount of free suites

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We are (were) on a guarantee and had an assigned cabin at least two months ago, maybe more. Another question, even tho we booked a "guarantee", now that we have a numbered cabin, they won't change us or take that away, will they?

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Don't know how you knew that there was a "huge" inventory of unsold cabins, since the website doesn't really tell you that. I agree that they've probably just been shuffling the GTY's around close to sailing.

 

I would not worry about any of this. Please do post and tell us what a great cruise you're having--I'm jealous, having done Alaska last year.

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Don't know how you knew that there was a "huge" inventory of unsold cabins, since the website doesn't really tell you that. I agree that they've probably just been shuffling the GTY's around close to sailing.

 

I would not worry about any of this. Please do post and tell us what a great cruise you're having--I'm jealous, having done Alaska last year.

 

I found the "inventory" when I pulled up our cruise as if I was going to book it on the Regent web site. It lists all of the cabin cats, what cabins are available to book, what's waitlisted, what's guaranteed and what's unavailable. Still not sure what the difference between waitlisted and unavailable is.........

I promise I'll be back to everyone here with a blow by blow as to how our cruise was. I'm sure it'll be wonderful!!! My daughter and I are so looking forward to an all girl trip!!!

Thank you, Wendy for asking!

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My wife and I (and another couple) are on this same cruise. We also received several offers to bump or upgrade. We took the one yesterday to move from a Cat F aft suite to a deck 11 PH suite for $300 pp. thought that was a pretty good deal. However, having read some of these posts, maybe I should have held out for a better deal.

 

Hope to see you on board.

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My wife and I (and another couple) are on this same cruise. We also received several offers to bump or upgrade. We took the one yesterday to move from a Cat F aft suite to a deck 11 PH suite for $300 pp. thought that was a pretty good deal. However, having read some of these posts, maybe I should have held out for a better deal.

 

Hope to see you on board.

 

In my opinion, if you are fortunate enough to receive an offer, and you like the category, go for it. Unlike accepting a voluntary bump, upsells are popular and go quickly.

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My wife and I (and another couple) are on this same cruise. We also received several offers to bump or upgrade. We took the one yesterday to move from a Cat F aft suite to a deck 11 PH suite for $300 pp. thought that was a pretty good deal. However, having read some of these posts, maybe I should have held out for a better deal.

 

Hope to see you on board.

 

We never received an upgrade offer. We probably would've taken it, had we been offered one. The offer to change cruises was extremely generous, but with two weeks to go, re arranging vacation time for my daughter was not possible. We're in an F too, but at the most forward part of the stern (does that make sense?!!). Anyway, we're looking forward to great weather and a terrific time, See you on board!!!

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You may want to give Regent or your TA a call. I got the email offer at noon yesterday and had it booked by 2:00. They said they had eight PH suites left on decks 9, 10 & 11.

 

Might be worth a shot if you're interested.

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For what it's worth, our first Regent cruise was on Navigator and a large chunk of the passengers were corporate (Proctor & Gamble, if I recall) and I don't recall any of the guests 'reserving' seats or anything of the sort.

 

The only negative we had with the corporate crowd was one night they had a poolside reception in the evening that was supposed to end by 10:00 or 11:00 and it ran late. WAY late. We had been upgraded to a Navigator suite, you guessed it - right under the pool deck. Took numerous calls and finally a walk up to the crew on deck to break up the clomping/scraping/yelling...normally, I'd have just gone up and had a drink with them, but we had early morning excursions the next day and really just wanted to sleep...

 

That was the only negative - the rest of the cruise was fantastic, and we met some really fun people, too.

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I'm sure our cruise will be fine. It's just that I've seen what affinity groups of any kind can do to a cruise, especially on a small ship like the Navigator. I'm hoping that won't happen on this one!

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