SusieQft

If Regent allowed those who do not take excursions to opt out, they would not decrease their cost, since those passengers do not take excursions anyway.  (I know, dividing passengers into those who do excursions and those who don't is a bit simplistic, but I am doing it for the sake of simplification.)  Since the per passenger revenue would go down, the only way this could be cost effective for Regent would be to increase the total number of passengers. 

Obviously, this would not make sense for Regent if the ships are sailing full.  There might be a dip in occupancy once they start sailing again, but I suspect it will be very temporary.  All those FCCs floating around out there have to be used within a short time period, and that alone will help to ensure that the 2021 and 2022 sailings are relatively full.

The other logical disconnect in the pro-opt out argument is that it seems to me that those wanting the opt out are mostly long time Regent sailors who have been there, done that, and still want to sail Regent anyway.  And are for the most part, sailing Regent anyway.  I don't think I have seen anyone post that they personally would sail more often if given this choice.  I was not reading the board back when people were saying they would leave Regent because of this, and if they left they may very well have found compatible cruise lines elsewhere.  If so, giving the opt out option now may not get them back, anyway.  How many were sitting at home waiting for Regent to lower the prices, before we all had to sit at home anyway?

Part of the loyalty to any given cruise line is familiarity, relationships with the crew, and the reward program.  By now the people who may have left Regent over this issue have probably developed all of those things on other lines.  IMO, whatever number of past cruisers who would be brought back to Regent would be minimal compared to new customers who might not be drawn to Regent for the included excursions.

Before you say this yet again, I will do it for you: 

4 hours ago, Travelcat2 said:

It is unfortunate that I am being misquoted repeatedly about the excursion issue.  I have absolutely not made any comment about removing or stopping included excursions.

It is nonetheless true that an opt out would put a "price" on the included excursions and would factor into the decision making for all people considering Regent, both new as well as returning passengers.  They would become an optional add-on instead of being included.  This is also true of the air and hotel, regardless of how Regent words it in its marketing.

25 minutes ago, toseaornottosea said:

I'll bet local tour operators charge Regent more for a tour than than would charge you or me if we were to book a tour directly with them.

I would take that bet.  Surely Regent gets a volume discount.

2 hours ago, Travelcat2 said:

The U.K., if they are successful in developing the vaccine this year, will make it available globally.

Of course, it will still take time to manufacture and distribute the doses, in the UK and elsewhere.  Probably many months.  One article I saw said they plan to have 1 million doses available in September, and will prioritize the UK's 1.5 million health care workers.  So I suggest that you don't hop on the plane until you are sure you can get the vaccine once you arrive.

As a Crystal fan and Regent newbie (assuming my bookings sail), I feel compelled to weigh in on the included excursions.  This was a major part of the reason that I decided to try Regent.  Regent's prices are generally higher than Crystal's, but adding up the cost of the Crystal excursions convinced me that maybe the price difference is acceptable.  Since I live in a "non-gateway" city, the included air is more of an irritation to me than a benefit so far.  So as others have commented, there are people like me for whom the included excursions are a significant selling point.

54 minutes ago, RachelG said:

The FDA does move incredibly slowly on some things, but there have just been too many instances of drugs being brought to market too soon and then have very serious or lethal side effects.

Just look at all the advertisements, "If you or your loved one took this drug and had that complication, call our law firm and we will get you a big payoff."   No doubt this contributes to the delays in introducing new drugs, and even then sometimes they don't figure out all the problems with it until after it is released.

4 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

It doesn't happen "all the time". Not exactly a big picture review of how airlines operate. Do flights occasionally get canceled? Of course. But not "all the time".

No, of course that was a figure of speech.  I think the point was that the hotel was accustomed to it happening frequently.  And yes, this was not a big picture review, just one anecdote.

I don't think it makes much sense to do a pre-flight or pre-boarding test for antibodies.  It takes a while to develop the antibodies, and this would not detect the early stage of infection when someone would be contagious.  It is possible that the antibody test may not even be positive until after the contagious phase is over, but I don't think we know that.  It needs more study.

If they want to do a pre-flight test that makes sense, they need to do the nasal swab test for active virus.  The  point of service "fast test" that is being promoted recently can get results in about 15 minutes, one test at a time, 4 tests per hour.  Not very practical for this purpose, at least not yet.

American cancelled our red-eye home from the Big Island of Hawaii a few years ago.  At 4 am when they finally got everyone to the same hotel at the same time, the hotel clerk said, "Oh, this happens all the time."  We had 2 extra nights in Hawaii, well 1 1/2 nights unless you count all the time spent at the airport before they finally cancelled the flight.

30 minutes ago, bissel said:

susiQft

Do you think a vaccine will found? What’s the probability of success, speaking as someone who seems pretty well versed in this?

Thanks!

Yes, I do.  IMO, the primary reason that vaccines are "not found" is because they are not a high priority.  If SARS or MERS had persisted, so would the efforts to get a vaccine to market.  If the common cold were killing people, there would be more interest in developing a vaccine.  It takes a lot of time and money to develop a vaccine. 

The main problem with a vaccine for COVID-19, other than taking many months, will be re-engineering it when the virus mutates.  This is the reason why we get a new flu shot every year.  I think the most likely thing is that in 2 or 3 years, we will all be getting our annual coronavirus vaccine along with our annual flu shot.  Neither will be 100% effective, but should help make the disease less virulent, even if it does not completely prevent it.

SARS (the original one) and MERS are both coronaviruses, as are many of the viruses that cause the common cold.  A great deal of money was invested in developing vaccines for SARS and MERS, but the diseases had run their course and were no longer threats before final approval and/or production was reached.  That previous work has proven helpful now, because they are building on it to be able to develop a vaccine more rapidly for SARS-CoV-2.  That is a big part of why we have so many potential vaccines entering trials so quickly.

Of course, they still have to go through human trials again to gain approval for the new vaccines even though some of that work was done before.  I am not familiar with the rules for veterinary medicines, but even if they are less stringent and approval for veterinary use precedes that for human use, it would not speed up the process for human trials.

I have not heard this much recently, but with some of the initial talk about vaccine development, there were strong implications at the daily press conferences that when we had a promising vaccine entering Phase 2, that the US government could subsidize ramping up commercial production simultaneous with Phase 2, so that when Phase 2 ended and approval was granted that we would not have to wait another 6+ months before the general public could get the vaccine.  It is not inconceivable that if a vaccine is proven elsewhere (eg hopefully the Oxford lab, or others) and they agree to license it to a US company, that something similar could happen even with a vaccine developed elsewhere and additional texting in the US is mandated before release.  It would be an option to speed things up, but perhaps that has already been built into the 18 month time frame being discussed.  

3 hours ago, rallydave said:

After reading the entire article don't see anything about a COVID=19 vaccinated being ready by the end of the year.

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19 disease.

1 hour ago, Travelcat2 said:

This is something that Regent has done for years (plus extending cruises for passengers that are already booked for a really nice discount).  

If they extend a cruise, they don't have to include air.  I like to sail b2b itineraries, so this is one beef I have with Regent.  Clearly in that case, there should be a big discount for the air I am not using.  And the discount really should reflect the actual cost of the air and not the amount you get for waiving it, although I am somewhat doubtful that would be the case.  I have not been able to figure out how to comparison shop what the actual prices would be for different b2b itineraries other than the pre-packaged Grand Voyages.  I know, the answer is to ask my TA, but I really like to do a lot of independent research and to ask my TA about every one I am curious about would just be way too much imposition.

If anyone knows the formula for Regent's b2b discounts, I would love to hear it.  Also, if Regent only secretly offers these to those already booked, they will be missing out on a lot of sales opportunity to others who also might like to do that b2b but never hear about the discount because they did not book the single itinerary.

4 minutes ago, flossie009 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-52344676/coronavirus-possible-to-be-infected-with-covid-19-more-than-once

Sounds great, and I hope it pans out.

5 minutes ago, RachelG said:

I was typing my answer as you replied, but we basically said the same thing.  Lol.

Yes, but you did put an additional spin on it.  Despite the body's incomplete ability to eradicate HPV and varicella, they do have vaccines.  It was my impression that, at least in the case of varicella, the idea was to prevent you from getting chicken pox in the first place, so then you would also not get shingles.  

4 minutes ago, wcsdkqh said:

Last I heard (in the past week), there is absolutely no evidence supporting the theory that once you have had it, you are immune. And if you happen to be immune, there have been no studies to indicate how long the immunity persists.  Much study and research required to answer these questions.

If people (or at least most people) are not immune after actually having Covid-19, then IMO there is not much chance of getting a vaccine that works.  Such a vaccine would require some real creativity to surpass the immune response of the actual virus.

2 hours ago, Pam said:

I don't think I have ever heard it spoken of as courtesy.

Amenity

3 minutes ago, Pcardad said:

I would think that Regent would only owe you the funds back when they agreed to refund the money and the timer would probably start then.

But if you are disputing a charge, I thought the timer would start when the payment was made to Regent.  If there is no refund forthcoming, you are disputing something that never happened, from the credit card company's POV.  I would love to be wrong about this.

9 hours ago, Pcardad said:

As a 30 year banker, 90 days is unreasonable. Regent needs a kick in the butt on this. I would happily wait 30 days but at 45 I would get the ball rolling. Many banks require you to bring an item to their attention with a certain time frame.

Could you be more specific about the range of required time frames?  For many, the final payment could already be 3 months before cancellation, and the deposit maybe over a year before that.  Then add on another 90 days and it could be 6 months since the last charge and 2 years since the initial deposit.

2 hours ago, mrlevin said:

 

My port fees and taxes were refunded within a week and the FCC was applied to a previously booked cruise within three days.

I am confused.  When Regent Reassurance was first announced it said that the FCC had to be applied to a new booking.  I thought I saw when they extended it past September, that it could be applied to any booking.  I found that very "reassuring" because I have bookings in October 2020 and May 2021.  But now the Regent website again says the FCC must be used for a new booking.  So did you just happen to use yours in a brief window when they allowed it to be applied to existing bookings, or do they not enforce the new bookings only restriction?

51 minutes ago, Travelcat2 said:

We used points and are still  jumping through hoops to try to get points back, etc.   It will take a while for fights to stabilize and I would rather have the experts at Regent looking out for us.

I was thinking of using points for our May 2021 Regent Navigator booking (Miami to NYC), after (if) we make final payment in December.  I was under the impression that you don't necessarily get back the cost of the flights, and especially not the deviation fees and non-gateway fees, if your Regent booking is cancelled.  Could you explain how that works?  I am thinking that points would be easier and less costly to unwind, as well as to get business/first class domestic flights.

What happens if your luggage does not make the connection where you go through customs to re-enter the US?  Do you proceed without your luggage, and eventually, hopefully, it makes it to your final destination?

Yes, no movement without USCG permission, but I would expect that permission to be fairly easy to get if a ship wanted to leave US waters and promised not to come back.  Not that I think there will be a huge rush of ships wanting to do this....

1 hour ago, GOARMY said:

Previous Posters have hit on the reason(s) we picked East to West

I hate to break it to you, but the last time I checked Japan was west of Alaska, and the April voyage is West to East.  You will have some 23 hour days instead of some 25 hour days.  Unless you go the long way, of course, avoiding the International Date Line.  But that would take a lot longer.

1 hour ago, Travelcat2 said:

In my opinion, one of the main reasons for the masks are for those that are infected and are not yet showing systems. Since no one knows if they have it (until symptoms appear), it is best for everyone to wear one.  I have a box of N95 masks in front of me and it is clear on the packaging that it will not prevent "you" from becoming infected.

Did you originally purchase the masks to protect yourselves or to protect others?  IMO, they can protect "you" to some extent, but not without supplementing them with hand washing, not touching your face, etc.