SusieQft

I was one of the lucky winners of this drawing. They said it would be a drawing of all those who completed their survey by 6pm the evening before disembarkation. The purser called to notify me at 5:30pm, and was very concerned that I also had several hundred additional dollars OBC that she thought I had to spend that evening, not realizing I would also be on the next segment. Sometimes the last night is an overnight, in which case about the only thing to spend it on would be a nice bottle of wine with dinner. Useless the morning of disembarkation.

Would that include when at sea and the ship is connecting you directly to your cellular service? If so, what cellular plan do you have?

Currently on Mariner, they are automatically adding 20% "for your convenience."

Whatever the underlying cause, recurrent would be more accurate than temporary. I am on Mariner now, midship deck 7, with the Grand Voyage June 2 to Aug 24. Since we boarded, our toilets have been non- functional at least 4 times. The crew gets right on it each time, and fixes it within a few hours. But it happens with some regularity. Once we observed duct tape being used on the pipes, hopefully just to hold while the glue set....

Our Amex credit is shown as " AMEX Platinum Shipboard Credit ". You only get the Amex credit if you have the Platinum card (but can use any Amex card, as long as you also have the Platinum -- I usually use my Green card to get 3 points/dollar for travel) and also you must book through a TA that is connected with their system. So probably you should direct this question to your TA. I think (not certain) that if you book directly with Regent, you will not be eligible for the Amex credit, unless you book onboard and then transfer the booking to your TA who is in their system. According to my TA, she usually cannot give me both the Amex credit and also the credit from her "consortia" (not sure which one), so I have to choose one or the other. So far I have not had any incompatibility issues with the shareholder credit. 🤞

Yes, July 17, per Daniela onboard Mariner a couple of days ago. Booking starts on July 24.

If you deviate you can use Regent Air to fly to your cruise destination up to 30 days before embarcation, and you can fly home up to 30 days after the cruise. Some people have successfully flown home from a different city than where the cruise ended. I have not heard of doing that on the way to the cruise, but you can always ask. Of course it costs $75 for you or your TA to talk to Regent Air, but that is applied to the $175 per person deviation fee if you choose to book the air with them.

I have no definitive info but i thought someone posted on CC that Starlink was supposed to be active on all the ships by the end of 2024. Is that not true? Also, that the hardware is already in place, and they are waiting for the current provider contracts to run out before switching.

True enough, for airline initiated changes, but doesn't Regent step in an get you a new air itinerary if the ship is delayed or changes it's disembarcation port? Of course, at that point it will not be your carefully chosen deviation, just whatever they can find.

I agree with the above advice about last minute availability. But I would not just wait until you are onboard. Availability might open up before then, especially around the time of final payment or before that. A few months ago we were aboard Splendor when our excursions opened for booking the following year. Due in large part to the lousy onboard wifi, which exacerbated the lousy Regent online excursion booking process, we were unable even to waitlist 2 of the excursions we most wanted, within an hour or two of the start of booking. I mentioned this in passing to the GM, who made a note of it. Later I was contacted by the excursion manager, who told me he would relay the issue to decision makers above him. I told both of them I was only asking to be on a waiting list. I never heard anything back from Regent after that. However, a couple of months later (still well before final payment), I happened to take another look at "My Account" online, and one of the excursions was then available and the other was available to waitlist. I had to call to do both because mentioned above, you can't change your booking online. And you can't get on the waitlist online if you already have something else booked. But the phone rep easily did both. I also later noticed in My Account that I had cleared the waitlist (for an extra cost excursion), although Regent never notified me of that. There is a lot of room for improvement in this process.

We received a notice from Regent that our scheduled 6/6/24 stop at Bar Harbor is moved to 6/5/24. The scheduled 6/5/24 stop at at Portland is moved to 6/6/24. This is "due to port traffic."

If you are looking to Regent for a kids-free experience, you are mistaken. However, on our multiple Regent and old Crystal cruises, kids have been rare and well behaved, about the same on both. We are excitedly looking forward to adding new Crystal to our experience in 2025, but can't report on them yet. Regent also markets to families with children, with frequent "kids sail free" promotions. It seems like these always pop up after final payment, including all 4 segments on our extended b2b with them this summer. Hopefully the onboard experience will not change because of this. But it does illustrate that you cannot control what marketing effort will be made by either line, even after you are already into heavy cancellation penalties.

Perhaps the electric kettles that Regent will provide on request have an automatic shutoff so they know those are safe. If you bring your own, they would not be sure, so it is easier for them to provide on request rather than allow yours. But as jeb_bud pointed out, your Penthouse Suite should have a coffee maker that will dispense hot water.

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.