SusieQft

I had this app loaded on my phone for my recent Dec/Jan Splendor cruise, and it did facilitate logging back on when the wifi periodically kicked me off. But it did NOT work for Passages, menus, or "more" as advertised on its home page. I probably should have inquired about this at the IT desk, so I don't know if he could have helped.

Sounds great. I sure would like to figure out how to make this happen for us. We have 130 nights with Regent and it is still a major struggle to get our beverages of choice.

We're the previous and current cruises in a butler level suite?

The shareholder OBC does not conflict with Amex. Some of Regent's special offers do, though. I think I lost an Amex credit with the Black Friday special. Often my TA's consortium offers an OBC in the same amount as the Amex, and I can have one or the other, but not both.

I suggest that you go ahead and request it anyway, as soon as you have made the initial deposit. I have never had it turned down. I have "other offers" on most of my bookings, and also the shareholder benefit. For some I have added the recent Black Friday offer after the shareholder benefit was in place, and the shareholder OBC did not go away. I'm not sure if I could have added the shareholder benefit afterwards, because I have not tried that. Where I have had difficulty is with the Amex OBC offer, which seems to be incompatible with other things more often than not: consortium OBC offers (generally for the same amount), Regent offers, etc. The Amex OBC will go away if you add an incompatible offer after the initial booking.

I agree that the laundry service is a major plus for sailing on Regent. I just did not want people to expect it to always be back in less than 24 hours. Realistic expectations will avoid disappointment.

This was not our experience recently on Splendor. Laundry out before 6:30 pm was back sometime after 6:30 pm the next day. Always more than 24 hours, usually by just a bit. But laundry out ~9 pm was back sometime after 6:30 pm two days later, about 46 hours. Maybe if we were not going to dinner at 6:30 it might have been back before dinner, but I doubt it. It came back with our evening turndown service while we were at dinner. I'm pretty sure we never put it out in the morning, but I don't think that would have gotten back any faster than the night before.

Good luck. You can probably get some sort of sugar free Coke. Diet Coke is very iffy, if that distinction matters, depending on where in the world you are. In my experience, getting it caffeine free is extremely difficult, even when requested in advance.

I presume you are talking about Vista. Splendor (and I presume also Explorer and Grandeur) have the same issue. The aft elevators do not go to Deck 4, so unless you sit in the balcony on Deck 5, you have to go up one flight of steps to avoid the congested forward elevators after any event in the Constellation Theater.

The weather in Alaska can be very unpredictable. On our first Alaska cruise (late June and early July), it was very cold (with some rain but not constantly) and out of necessity we bought some fleece jackets at the first opportunity. The next time (late May and early June) was sunny and much warmer, and Seabourn's jacket was really overkill and unneeded. Our last Alaska cruise was in late September, and it was raining and foggy nearly every day, but not as cold as our first time in July. I would be prepared for rain and cold, but hope for better, regardless of when in the season you go.

What about on Regent's Grand Arctic Voyage? I'm sure some of those ports will need a warm jacket! I am tempted to bring the one Seabourn gave me on an Alaska cruise.

That is pretty sneaky, IMO, since they promote the onboard bookings to have a lowest price guarantee.

On Splendor Buenos Aires to Rio this January, there were a number of truly awful excursions. For example, starting an hour late, then a 2 hour bus ride, 20 minutes at a different less interesting museum than the one in the tour description, skip the cathedral because we were behind schedule, then 2 hours back to the ship. We did a couple of other tours almost that bad in that segment as well. Most of the tour guides were totally obsessed with getting us back to the ship at the scheduled time, even if it was long before all aboard. That seemed to be far more important to them than the quality of the tour, and that emphasis came from Regent. Several of the guides mentioned that they would be significantly penalized if they did not get us back on schedule. Starting on time was not a high priority, though, resulting in some abbreviated tours. For the first several ports of the next segment, Regent provided each tour guide with 2 evaluation forms to give to random guests, asking that we return them to destination services on the ship. More forms were available on board if anyone else wanted to opine. The tours we took that used these evaluation forms were all pretty good, so I am sure they got a lot of positive feedback. My impression was that they got a lot of complaints during the previous segment, so they decided to actually ask for some feedback. I don't know how often destination services does this, but it is something that they have done on at least one segment.

Cancellation penalties! Final payment for the Voyager "Grand Spice Route Quest" is due on Oct. 26, 2024. We were booked on it but recently decided to move our deposit to something else instead. It looks like a great itinerary, but we did not like the uncertainties involved.

Lucky me, most of my losses were repaid by American Express. The remaining $2,000 of very old admin penalties-->FCDs was paid by my travel insurance. Of course then I was unable to carry that insurance policy forward to another trip, but we'll ignore that loss. My travel insurance company insisted that I file a claim for the $2,000. Their thinking at the time was that then Moecker would pay them back what they paid me. I could not see that happening, but I did comply with their instructions because I wanted my $2,000. The form included a spot for the name of my insurance company, and in due course my claim was appropriately rejected. So in the end all this accomplished was some extra work for Moecker, me, and the insurance company. It is good that Moecker is doing their due diligence, although unfortunately that can be very challenging in cases with multiple losses, and some partial reimbursements from credit cards and insurance.