jeb_bud

I think of RSSC and Regent as the same thing. What is the difference?

I still remember my muster station on Explorer in 2019(Pacific Rim). A few days into our cruise last summer I had forgotten where our muster station was and had to look it up. Then I forgot again. I’m fine with going back to real muster drills.

Congratulations on the insurance claim. I wish we had used your company. We keep getting emails telling us they can’t proceed because they need more information, but they don’t say what they want. When I call to ask, the agent says something like “huh that’s weird, I can’t see anything missing. I will escalate and get back to you in a couple of days”. After that radio silence until the next email about unspecified missing info. I’ve traveled this loop several times. It appears they don’t want to pay and are giving me the runaround until I give up.

That was our experience.

Did they recommend NOT taking Paxlovid? Did they say why?

My travel insurance company is also resistant to paying for my Paxlovid from our cruise last year. Paxlovid ostensibly is only for people who have tested positive. I would love to have some in my luggage on our next cruise. Did you have to do anything special to get a prescription?

Interesting, I looked for and didn’t find that on Splendor last year. I guess I didn’t look hard enough.

There might be a special brunch on a non-Sunday, but I don’t think you want it to happen. On our Mediterranean cruise in 2019 we had a Wednesday sea day brunch. Before that we missed three or four ports due to bad weather(two of which became sea days) and were late into Rome due to a medical emergency. The brunch was very nice but missing Pompeii and Sicily much less so.

In 2016 it was Grande Denali Lodge. The rooms are fine and the views are excellent.

You need to put in a little work but it’s easy to do. We did a simple extension to our cruise by renting a car in Anchorage and heading north. We booked a hotel at Denali, the same one Regent was using for their extension assuming they had found a good one. Booked an evening show at Husky Homestead and a bus tour into Denali the next day. We could have used another day or two but we got a nice overview. Since you are driving on your own you can also stop at any interesting sites along the way. Just be sure to book your car and hotel early.

If you book your own travel you also need to get yourself to your hotel. Concierge will get you the hotel night which also includes transfer to the ship. Our first Regent cruise was Vancouver to Seward in Concierge. Our home airport is not on Regent’s list and we found it marginally more expensive to book our own first class air than to let Regent book us in coach. So we booked our own air and took a taxi to the hotel. If this is your first trip to Alaska I would think about flying in a few days early, renting a car and spending a couple of days in Denali National Park.

Gateway seems to be a word with more than one definition in the Regent context. One type of gateway is included in the “free” air. On the other hand if you find a cruise on rssc.com and select Plan My Cruise, then select “select a gateway” in the air travel section, PDX and many other lower tier airports are on the list. it appears you would need to pay an extra $149pp to use PDX but compared to driving to SeaTac, booking a room and paying for meals and parking but to us that’s a small price to pay. We fly from MFR which is too small to show up on the gateway list but is available for the $149pp fee. Well worth it to us.

In general I agree with you Bill. In our case I was the one who told her to take it. She cruises because I cruise so it’s really not in my best interest to do anything to degrade her experience! I still was able to muddle through with my iPad and phone😉

I guess my experience is the exception that proves the rule. Our cruise was one segment, not a B2B, with one booking number. It was only available as a 16 night cruise. We were able to book each restaurant twice in advance.

Last year it was reported in one of the live blogs that during a town hall meeting the Regent CEO said a major WiFi upgrade was in the works and would be implemented in Q1 of 2023. We will be on Voyager in May and are looking forward to experiencing this improved experience. Or not.

It depends on the itinerary. We were on a 16 night cruise last July on Splendor and we were able to prebook two dinners per specialty restaurant. The cruise was a combination of two shorter itineraries (Norwegian Fjords and Baltic Sea) but was not a B2B as the parts could not be booked separately. We were allowed to book each specialty once per “segment”. We were surprised that we were able to prebook six specialty dinners but we’re happy to take advantage of the opportunity. what is your 14 day itinerary?

Regarding hooking a box to the tv, I have read a few posts in the past reporting or guessing, I can’t remember which, that if you bring your own Samsung remote you can access the TV functions and change inputs. Looking at our TV and remote on Splendor last July it was configured as a computer display.

I wonder if they would let you use the OBC as a future cruise credit?

I believe these promotions are not available after final payment. It could be they your pay-in-full offer put you in that situation. Our May cruise’s final payment date was yesterday. We talked to our TA Thursday and got a discount from the promo, although it was nowhere near 25%.

If it makes financial sense for you to cancel and rebook it also makes financial sense for Regent to do it internally and reduce your fare for your booking. Either way I would certainly pursue it. A few years ago there were some threads on this topic. Some people went the cancel/rebook route and Regent woke up and and started taking care of it without the actual cancellation part. You should go back to whoever you originally booked with, Regent or your TA and have them work it out for you.

A slight digression…. Has anyone used Geo Blue as a medical supplement? If so how did that work out for you?

I think the fine print says two cards can’t be used to insure the same trip. I was thinking about signing my wife up for her own Sapphire Reserve card for that purpose and was dissuaded by my interpretation of the card ember agreement. My recollection is that it applied to all Chase products so I could not benefit by charging part of the cruise to my MileagePlus card either.

In my experience, 1 liter.

We cruised Barcelona to Venice during Easter season in 2019. There were a few kids but not more than we saw last July in the Baltic.

Our cruise life began in 2015 with a Danube River cruise on Scenic. We chose Scenic because 1) it was all inclusive so we would not be surprised with a big balance due at the end of the cruise; 2) the dress code was relatively casual, in keeping with our casual lifestyle; 3) I don’t know what #3 was at the time. Now I would say it has to do with the onboard experience and how we are treated. That river cruise was our “once in a lifetime “ cruise experience. Of course in actuality it was the starting point. In conversations with other passengers on that cruise we heard some variations of “If you like Scenic and want a similar experience in the ocean you should check out Regent”. So we did. Our reasons for choosing Regent are basically the same as our reasons for choosing Scenic in the first place. We sailed Regent twice pre-COVID, once pose-COVID and have four more cruises planned in 2023 and 2024. So far we have only cruised on Scenic and Regent. Cruises are expensive and we are not big gamblers. Until one of the lines disappoints us we will stick with them.