pappy1022

Thanks. My TA checked with Regent and the Regent agent confirmed that the reservations were in the system but had no idea why it wasn’t showing up in my account. It’s nice that we have another source for information. Thank you cruisecritic and the Regent cruisers.

Thanks. I did check directly with the airline website and I do show we have reservations. I was just surprised to see it missing.

I’ve done the price comparison because I needed justification in my mind to pay a premium price for a premium product. For our British Isles trip, the biggest difference is Regent’s included business class air. International airfare is extremely expensive these days. Regent will give you a credit for arranging your own flights but in our case it wouldn’t even cover a premium coach fare. I would prefer that shore excursions weren’t in the all inclusive fare because I am not a fan of large group tours and they don’t offer a credit for not taking the ship’s excursions but it is what it is. When all the numbers are added up, Regent is remarkably close in price to other premium cruises from Oceania, Silversea, etc.

I was just checking all of my itinerary information one last time before we start our journey in a couple of days, I noticed that our Regent supplied air travel information no longer shows on our account. I confirmed with another couple that they are experiencing the same thing. I asked my TA to follow up with Regent and also hope that Mr Moore sees this and can tell me what’s up. I did confirm with the airlines that I do have airline tickets and seat assignments so I’m sure it was just a website change on Regent’s side.

I have a cruise starting early next week so I asked for the SPA price list to see if it had changed from the price list I received 2 months ago. I didn’t check all of the prices but most stayed the same and a few went up in price. Notably, the Regent 50 minute signature massage went up $30 from $199 to $229. Remember that the final cost will include a 20% gratuity which is automatically added to your bill. As recommended in previous posts on SPA pricing, verify the price they will charge you before starting the SPA treatment you scheduled.

I have been on Regent and Oceania but it’s been a couple of years. I have a cruise on Regent Splendor next week. I enjoyed both very much. I will say that I think that Regent has better food but others will give the nod to Oceania. I also think that the cabins on Regent are better but had no complaints on Oceania. I think you would be happy with either. Given everything being equal, I would choose Regent but my first priority is the itinerary. I haven’t cruised any other lines than Regent and Oceania so I can’t compare to other cruise lines. Go for it and see what works best for you. Try them both on short cruises.

Cruzin1616, it was several years ago but yes I did the research and chose the guide for my family of 5. I will check my records to see who the guide was but I have done several guided tours in the last couple of years and I have found Tours by locals to be very good. You do have to do the research even within this group because they have several locals that specialize in certain tours. I have a private guide scheduled for 3 couples through tours by locals for when we visit Belfast in another 2 weeks on Splendor.

As the saying goes, “hope is not a plan”. I am sure that some cruise line has found something to make communications work better for excursions.

We booked an all day private tour to Florence with a stop at a small winery and of course a stop at Pisa. I thought it was well worth the money because we got a better understanding of what we were seeing, the history of the area, early access to museums and a great stop at a small bakery for some lunch and treats. The guide made all the difference in the world. I would recommend a guide to see this city and surrounding area.

It sure would enhance the shore excursions if you could listen to the guide via your mobile phone and ear buds. I think they tried that and for some reason pulled the plug on it.

I have a Regent cruise in a week so I can tell you afterwards. What I’ve read on these boards is that it is a mixed bag ranging from poor to great but I would say the majority of them are good and worth taking.

Viator is just a middleman and that just adds cost and another layer of communications in the event of issues. I much prefer private tours vs ship tours but it is more expensive. You can make it more appealing by getting another couple or 2 to share the tour and the cost. The way I look at it, I will probably be in a city/town once in my lifetime and I want to get the most out of that day. Private tours are the only way to accomplish that. I’ve had good and bad ship tours. I’ve only had good and great private tours.

I am pretty sure it’s a “all depends” answer but around what wind speed does it usually become unsafe to dock or tender?

Doesn’t sound like the 5 star experience that we’ve come to accept with Regent. I admire your tolerance and ability to find the humor in things that didn’t go well.

Any hint of COVID for the production team that was sick? It must have spread somewhat for multiple people to be sick.

You should have had them. It is listed as a benefit of concierge level.

Lew, I have a Chase sapphire card and my wife is included on my card for a nominal additional fee. Do you and your wife have 2 separate Chase cards and both pay the full annual fee?

Dry cleaning is available for a additional cost

We will be joining you in Copenhagen for the British Isle cruise. It’s getting closer and becoming a reality now.

Call Steve at tripinsurance store dot com. He will explain all to the options and help you make sense of things and let you know what he thinks would work best for your situation. There is no obligation and there is absolutely no pressure to buy their offerings. We bought our insurance when we made final payment so there was a look back period for the pre conditions. That may not be best for you for your circumstances. One call to Steve made everything make sense and I was able to zero in on the policy that worked best for me. There are a lot of variables including age, whether you want to be able to cancel for any reason, etc. and they all affect price. This was my first time buying travel insurance but I felt it was worth it because of the cost of the cruise and it included international travel. Good luck.

So how do we ask for specific setups before getting on the ship?

Nice. We aren’t so lucky.

Looking forward to it. At least once I get on the ship. 😀

We finished our online tasks and received our embarkation information email from Regent today. We are getting excited to be back with Regent. We also have a Regent pre cruise hotel package for the night before embarkation and I have a procedural question. We have an 11:30 AM embarkation time slot. How does the hotel to ship process work? I assume that the earlier the embarkation, the earlier the bus you are assigned. I know that others we are traveling with have a 12 noon embarkation time slot. When do we get the details about when we will leave the hotel and what bus we get on? Yes, I get into the details but that’s just in my DNA.

Thanks Mike, appreciate your efforts to get things corrected. In our case, the 3 couples each did 1 specialty restaurant reservation for all 6 of us and it appears we somehow stepped on each other’s work. Databases should be able to handle that conflict of updating records but somehow it failed. The real strange thing is that we each got an email saying that our reservation was booked for all 6 people but when we looked at our individual accounts, it didn’t always show all 6 people in the reservation. At the end of the day, we didn’t get all the dates and times we started out to reserve but we are fine with what we ended up with after human help.