pappy1022

I’m not stressing out about it. I just expect things to work in a logical way. Regent admitted that it’s quirky and sadly in this day and age, technology should be so much better. And the application performance is poor. A max of 375 people could have been online at the same time making dinner reservations and it came to a grinding halt. We shouldn’t accept technology that is so poor.

Here is Regent’s explanation. Doesn’t make any sense. The reason you guys had a hard time was because of all three of you were trying to do it and it doesn't work. That way one person has to make the reservations for everyone and if you're all trying to do it at the same time it glitches the system she said it's funny. She said it just works like that but anyway. Each of us was making 1 specialty restaurant reservation at a different restaurant on a different day. Total of 3. If Regent’s technology can’t handle that it’s in worse shape than I thought. Time to spend more resources on IT and forget about the fancy decorations.

Going into last nights specialty restaurant reservation process with 2 other couples, I started with high hopes that the Regent website woes of the past were behind us. When we did our shore excursion selections it was smooth and quick, so I expected the same. NOPE. The website was extremely, extremely slow. Each of the 3 couples was selecting a different restaurant on a different day and adding all 6 of us to each reservation. We eventually would get a confirmation email saying we booked a reservation for 6 on the selected day. OK, all good, but some of the reservations didn’t show up in individual accounts and one time a reservation was in the account and moments later it was gone. I decided to logout of my Regent account and log back in and lo and behold all the reservations appeared and after the 2 other couples did the same, they showed up in their accounts. On one reservation, we still don’t see the names of all of the couples but we do have an email saying that we have a reservation for 6 and all 3 couples show that they have 3 specialty dinner reservations made. It took over 1 hour to work our way through the system.It should have been done in 10 minutes or so.

When we booked our 2023 September cruise last year, Dublin showed up on the map but not in the detailed list of ports. Upon my inquiry to Regent they said the map was an old one and confirmed Dublin wasn’t on the ports to be visited. Not sure what the future holds for Dublin with Regent.

On our September 2023 cruise of the British Isles, Dublin is not a stop, nor is Dun Laoghaire. I don’t know if this is just for our cruise or going forward. Disappointed but we knew this when we booked the cruise.

How does one arrange for a ship tour? Or is this just walking the ship on their own?

It will improve the internet speed and make it more reliable because it is satellite based. The question is how much bandwidth Regent will sign up for and how sharing that bandwidth will work, so we won’t know until we see it installed and get some experience. At home, Starlink provides good internet speed, streaming movies, TV shows, etc. Wi-Fi isn’t impacted by Starlink. Think of wi-fi as the on ship connections that then talk to the Starlink device that then communicates with the satellites.

Is booking number the same as reservation number on the Regent website?

“Maybe it's "if you have to ask the price you can't afford the cruise." 😜”. 👎

Agree with redhead. Ours was actually the prior 270 days but it was from embarkation

Bearclaws, we are doing a British isle cruise on regent in September. I would be very interested in your comments about the other ports and excursions that you visit.

Dublin isn’t even a stop on our September British Isle cruise. A bit disappointing but at least I knew that going in.

I am also interested in whether you can use OBC’s for the spa gratuity which is automatically 20%. I know you can use it for the actual spa treatment.

Just like any comment boards, including the likes of Amazon, etc., you need to look at the totality of the comments and come to your own conclusions, the best you can. If you are a frequent visitor to these Regent boards you will get the feel for the cheerleaders and the “Debbie Downers”. Generally, people are more apt to register a complaint than to offer glowing praise. I have my concerns about the post COVID Regent, and all cruise lines for that matter, but it won’t stop me from going on another Regent cruise. That way, I can judge for myself and lessen the impact of the opinions of others. It’s clear that things have changed post COVID. That’s true for most industries and we have to adapt. Cruise lines are struggling with large debt and they have to change and reduce cost and/or increase revenue via price increases. It’s taken me a while to accept that cruising won’t be what it used to be prior to COVID. That’s true of Regent, all cruise lines, and most industries as well.

Thank you Pcardad. You have always been a source of useful information and I appreciate it very much. Some folks just got to argue for argues sake and don’t respect the thoughts and opinions of others. Your opinions are always welcome for me because you are balanced and although you often are very complimentary of Regent, you are also willing to be critical if needed. In this case all you are doing is pointing out facts that are public information. We should all be aware of where Regent spends its money. They have huge debt that added significant annual expense. They have to increase revenue and/or decrease expenses to pay for all that debt. It is simple math and paying out huge bonuses and stock options adds to the expense.

I’ve had plenty of very good wines for under $20. I was just wondering if this was an included wine or an upgraded wine. I will certainly give it a try. I’m sure I will find 1 or 2 Cabernet’s to my liking.

Is this wine you enjoy included? When I look at Raymond cabs online I see prices from $11 to over $400 for their different cabernet offerings. I suspect that Regent includes the $11 vintage (it’s the R class) and you can purchase higher quality Raymond bottles of wine.

As I said in a previous post, I sense a lack of attention to detail

My TA checked with Regent and they threw up their hands and said they have no control over the excursion providers. I am curious though. Regent had the excursion starting at 8:30 AM and we aren’t scheduled to arrive until 9 AM and it’s a tender port. I assume someone finally noticed the discrepancy and made the change. I know it’s not a big deal and I accept that some things will change and that I have to adapt. What’s bothersome, is that there seems to be an increasing lack of communication, a lack of attention to detail and an “ain’t my problem” attitude that I have never seen before on Regent.

And all of these changes were made right after final payment was due. Coincidence? None of the changes are a deal breaker for me. But it makes me wonder, if after final payment, Regent locks in on excursions with the providers.

If this is normal then I guess I have to keep checking my entire itinerary. Everyone needs to take heed of this possibility and know it’s up to them individually to monitor all changes in the itinerary. The weird thing is that my original tour time now shows it’s available to book on the Regent site. I’ve asked my TA to check out what is happening. It makes it hard to plan for anything outside of the Regent excursions especially when they don’t tell you about significant changes. In this case the morning excursion was changed to an afternoon excursion. Port times remained the same. We had planned to spend the afternoon on our own in Edinburgh, including a visit to the Palace, which we prepaid for on our own. Now we lose that money. In Belfast, they significantly changed the port times. We have a booked a private tour. No big deal to change the starting time with the guide but had I not stumbled upon the change we wouldn’t have been able to communicate that change to the guide. It would be pretty easy for Regent to have a program automatically communicate changes to their customers itinerary. They have all of the information in their system to do so. After all, someone made a change to start this ball rolling. Shoot, even the airlines tell you when they make a change to an itinerary or the schedule and they have a lot more customers than Regent.

haven’t heard a peep from Regent and either has my agent. I was just checking my itinerary again and Regent changed my excursion time in Edinburgh from 9 Am to 1:30 PM. We are still arriving at the original scheduled time. Again, no word from Regent. Do I have to check constantly to see if they made changes? Ridiculous.

Sure we do, but we have paid for excursions in our base fare. It’s hard pay for something you don’t use or you don’t see the value in. We shall see what value I get from Regent excursions on my upcoming cruise. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised. I still love everything else about Regent and they are my cruise company of choice.

And it is entirely up to a 3rd party to deliver, just like transfers, hotels, air travel. All onboard services are 100% the responsibility of Regent personnel. That’s the difference. If Regent has no control over their excursion providers, as many have said including Regent, then give us a choice to use Regent as the middleman or go on our own and offer a credit just like all other 3rd party providers for Regent.

I have found in life that if you don’t enforce the rules (in this case dress code) then there are no rules and incidents become more frequent because people see that the rules as words only. HOA’s are notorious for selective enforcement and then it quickly turns into unenforceable rules. I would prefer to have a more relaxed dress code for evening hours on Regent, but as they say, the rules are the rules, so I abide by them. I expect all of the passengers to do the same thing.