Doesn't Someone in Regent Ops know how to read Tide Tables?

We received word from Regent a couple of days ago that our three day/two night port stop in Myanmar on the December Voyager cruise from Dubai to Singapore has been significantly altered. The arrival on Dec. 16 has been delayed from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, while the departure on Dec. 18 has been advanced from 8:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Clearly, that changes what was to have been a stop of three full days to a stop of one and three-quarter days, in terms of opportunity to do excursions. This is a most disappointing development, considering how few cruises stop in Myanmar.

The reason cited by Regent for the "revision" was that it was "Due to local tide restrictions..."

We are well aware that "Ship happens!" and that alterations must sometimes be made to schedules. That is a regular element of cruising. However, one assumes that most of such changes are attributable to unforeseen circumstances, such as weather, port conditions, local politics, or the like. In this case, was the unforeseen circumstance the failure of someone in Regent operations to bother to check the tides for the Yangon River before the cruise was scheduled and sold in the first place? That seems like a rather non-trivial oversight.

For most areas of the world, tide tables are available years in advance; and, indeed, it appears that one can easily find them online for the port of Yangon through at least 2018. I would invite any of the kind CC'ers who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding such nautical matters to correct me if I am being unfair or unreasonable when I suggest that this is something that Regent ops could easily have been able to determine well in advance of scheduling the cruise and should certainly have done.

Cheers, Fred

Fred, I totally agree with you; this is not rocket science and should have been known in advance. When this happens, I get more concerned not that they can't read tide tables (they should be able to do that) but, rather, that they are adjusting the port visit in order to save fuel on runs before and after Myanmar; in other words, they don't think WE can read tide tables. The one thing that irritates me is being lied to.

We have the same three day stop in Myanmar in 2017; I am off to see if our visit has also been altered.

edited to add:

Just checked our cruise and we also leave Colombo at 1800 but still arrive in Yangoon at 0800 four days laters; will be interesting to see if they change our cruise. I guess I could check the tide tables myself and verify the tides and compare to the tides when you get there.

Marc

World cruise their too in 2017. Just looked at web site and there are no times now. So........

We received word from Regent a couple of days ago that our three day/two night port stop in Myanmar on the December Voyager cruise from Dubai to Singapore has been significantly altered. The arrival on Dec. 16 has been delayed from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, while the departure on Dec. 18 has been advanced from 8:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Clearly, that changes what was to have been a stop of three full days to a stop of one and three-quarter days, in terms of opportunity to do excursions. This is a most disappointing development, considering how few cruises stop in Myanmar.

 

The reason cited by Regent for the "revision" was that it was "Due to local tide restrictions..."

 

We are well aware that "Ship happens!" and that alterations must sometimes be made to schedules. That is a regular element of cruising. However, one assumes that most of such changes are attributable to unforeseen circumstances, such as weather, port conditions, local politics, or the like. In this case, was the unforeseen circumstance the failure of someone in Regent operations to bother to check the tides for the Yangon River before the cruise was scheduled and sold in the first place? That seems like a rather non-trivial oversight.

 

For most areas of the world, tide tables are available years in advance; and, indeed, it appears that one can easily find them online for the port of Yangon through at least 2018. I would invite any of the kind CC'ers who are much more knowledgeable than I am regarding such nautical matters to correct me if I am being unfair or unreasonable when I suggest that this is something that Regent ops could easily have been able to determine well in advance of scheduling the cruise and should certainly have done.

 

Cheers, Fred

We had exactly the same situation when we visited Myanmar in January and strongly made the same point about someone in Regent operations being able to read time tables.

Obviously they can't read Comment Cards either !!!:confused:

John, my notes indicate that there has never been times listed for the WC stop in Myanmar. I hope our time at that stop won't be limited.

Peggy

Peggy, you are correct. I went back and looked at our invoice. No times.

Did you hear about " The day the earth stood still" ? That caused all the tide tables to change! See there's an explanation for everything.

Regent is owned by the same company as Oceania who are notorious for last minute schedule changes and port eliminations which they always blame on someone or something else. If you add up all the port charges they save on both lines over the course of a year (and never refund to the passengers) it's clear to see why they do it.

I wonder how many port/schedule changes Oceania made on it's World Cruises over the past couple of years.

Peggy

A bit off topic, but for those of you that are going to Myanmar book the over night trip to Began. It was relatively cheap by Regent standards. Began is right up there with Machu Pichu or Angor Wat. It is really a special place.

As for the tide questions, I don't know, but the river channel runs out to sea for at least 30 miles and there is more going on than just the tide level at the port.

j

Jmariner - You are absolutely correct that there is much more going on than simply the tide level at the port. River ports are often much more complicated than ocean ports, as tides and currents are major factors in navigating them. In this case, on Dec. 16, there are fairly extreme tides with very high tidal coefficients, perhaps resulting in ebb or flood currents that will greatly impact/limit/restrict the ability of the ship to make its way to the port at certain times of the day.

However, as I inartfully attempted to state in my original post, none of this information is (or at least, should be) new to the people in Regent ops who determine whether and when ships will be able to dock at each port. This data is available years in advance, well before cruises are scheduled and sold. Therefore, announcing this dramatic change a few days prior to final payment (which is, I admit, better than announcing it a few days after final payment) is quite peculiar. Geez, did Regent ops just check the tidal/current data last week?

Clearly, ops did not give Destination Services a head's up on this matter until last week, as Destination Services has been booking all-day tours on the 16th in Yangon since the first week of April. Now, Destination Services must scramble to reorganize the whole Myanmar port stop. Lordie, talk about one department not talking to another department within the organization.

Lest someone point out, quite correctly, that until the day of arrival, things could still change due to weather conditions (particularly rain affecting river levels), no one is questioning that situation. Here, however, we have a situation where entirely relevant technical information was easily available and was either: 1) not known by Regent ops; 2) known to Regent ops but not communicated to Regent marketing; 3) known to Regent marketing but cynically withheld from Regent passengers in order to make the cruise more attractive; or 4) some bizarre combination of all of the above.

All things considered, this is not a remarkably impressive show on Regent's part.

Cheers, Fred

1) not known by Regent ops; 2) known to Regent ops but not communicated to Regent marketing; 3) known to Regent marketing but cynically withheld from Regent passengers in order to make the cruise more attractive; or 4) some bizarre combination of all of the above.

 

All things considered, this is not a remarkably impressive show on Regent's part.

 

Cheers, Fred

I agree. I always amazes me how poorly the main office seems to run. Especially since the ships crew usually do a remarkable good job scrambling to fix their mistakes.

Of late I have wondered about your #3. It seem that IMO there has been some marketing hype that latter turns out to be untrue or impossible.

I am reminded of two recent instances. in 2015 the Mariner sile the South Pacific from Tahiti to Lima. The ship had a stop scheduled for Pitcairn island. I wasn until the last day before arrival that it was announce there would be no stop due to waves. Normally I accept such things. But latter I found out that the same thing had happened with a sister Oceans ship and that is just about logistically for any ship to stop and land passenger. Over hyped by Regent?

A few weeks later the Mariner was to stop at the Falklands. The stop was canceled days before even attempting the trip from Ushuaia, reportedly to due to weather and waves. Yet the weather maps and sea state info didn't seem to show anything abnormal. Again I found out later that both Regent and Oceania regularly end up skipping the Falkland. And by skipping the ship don't even try to make it over to the Island.

Does it mean anything? I am starting to move towards the cynical side.

j

I'm trying to imagine the phases of the planning process.

Phase 1 they define the itineraries. At this point it's just A-B-C-D-D-E-...etc. Presumably there is an ops component to this, because they have to know how long it takes to get from A-B, and if it's inordinately long, then a port stop might be shorter. If there are overnight stops, then they define special overnight trips, etc.

Phase 2 is when they actually publish the itinerary. That's when they have to have the times nailed down, and any special overnight trips offered. Obviously they don't have the excursions defined completely at that time. As excursion selection approaches, these are finalized, within the timeframe defined by the stop.

And then ops comes along and says, "whoops, we can't do that"? This makes no sense. As you've pointed out Fred, this determination should be made between phase 1 and phase 2, by the time the itinerary is offered for sale. At least roughly.

Given that this is Burma, I'd be really ticked off too, Fred. You'll probably still love it--we only got to see it from a distance, at the Friendship Bridge in Thailand. But if they're going to cut off a day and a half, I'd be asking where is that time being re-allocated? Are you spending longer in some other port? Frustrating, very frustrating.

Wendy, they just added a sea day. They will likely have to slow the ship down and save some $$$ on the fuel bill. Must have been a really hard decision!!!!!

Wendy, they just added a sea day. They will likely have to slow the ship down and save some $$$ on the fuel bill. Must have been a really hard decision!!!!!

So cynical, and I'm sure you're right. Sucks. Enough to cancel?

No, Wendy, it isn't enough to force us to cancel, which is perhaps exactly how Regent management views this sort of sharp practice. That is, perhaps the unspoken policy is to advertise and sell a cruise based on either misleading or uninformed port schedules and then, when most passengers are so invested in the cruise that it is unlikely that many will cancel, announce significant changes in key elements of the port stops.

It is also interesting to note that, at least based on the anecdotal evidence from on our experience and the posts on this board, when such changes occur the alternative action taken by Regent never seems to involve Regent putting any more money on the table but rather seems too often to involve the ship slowing down and thereby saving fuel or skipping ports.

So far no change in the Myanmar stop for the 2017 WC. Still March 20-22. No times posted though.

Peggy

No, Wendy, it isn't enough to force us to cancel, which is perhaps exactly how Regent management views this sort of sharp practice. That is, perhaps the unspoken policy is to advertise and sell a cruise based on either misleading or uninformed port schedules and then, when most passengers are so invested in the cruise that it is unlikely that many will cancel, announce significant changes in key elements of the port stops.

...

Yep, well. I find after 16 years of cruising, that I am less "vested" than I used to be. Until this year I had never cancelled a cruise, now I've cancelled two. I'd hate to cancel our upcoming Mariner trip in January, and that would get trickier once we book non-refundable travel in S.A. (which will be soon.)

But perhaps that's a good thing. Trouble is, we're running out of time to do all these big trips. Gotta get out there and enjoy the world now! So I guess we just go with the flow and hope it works out. And I presume this is the attitude Regent counts on.

Agree that this late and significant change in itinerary is very poor, and reflects extremely badly on Regent's marketing and/or operations departments

If the issue is being attributed to tides then why couldn't the ship have been re-scheduled to arrive in Yangon 3 hours early (5am) rather than 9hours later?

Wendy, they just added a sea day. They will likely have to slow the ship down and save some $$$ on the fuel bill. Must have been a really hard decision!!!!!

Is a day at sea more expensive than a day tied up in port?

Good point! Coming up with an alternative port stop in that part of the world would not be an easy task.

Many years ago we started a cruise in Myanmar on Song of flower when it was still Seven Seas. It was our second day in port and we were scheduled to leave at midnight. We were just returned from a morning excursion and were finishing lunch. We were looking forward to getting off the ship and doing some exploring on our own. All of a sudden the announcement was made that we were leaving at 3pm upon the "advice" of the government that the tides had changed. I don't know how they were able to round up all the passengers in time. The government had a very tight control on the island so exploring was somewhat limited. This was our second cruise on the line that became Regent.

I am presently scheduled for this cruise in 2017 but after the Regent fiasco in Yangon on the April cruise and hearing this I am looking at other plans. The Regent "free" air is very expensive to start with.

I am presently scheduled for this cruise in 2017 but after the Regent fiasco in Yangon on the April cruise and hearing this I am looking at other plans. The Regent "free" air is very expensive to start with.

What "Regent fiasco in Yangon on the April cruise?" I did some searching and could not find any posts from April searching on Yangon, Yangoon, Rangoon, Myanmar, or Burma.

Marc

World cruise in March

World cruise in March

Regent hasn't sailed a World Cruise in many years. :confused: