SWFLAOK

Based on the Regent Cruise in the Caribbean that we just finished, it's not a matter of your income bracket. It's a matter of how old you are, and what you can accomplish without a phone that works outside of the US. Once the phone doesn't work, many have no idea how to get it to work, and don't trust how much it will cost or if it will work, and are reluctant to tell their phone service to just give it to them. Verizon will prompt you almost everyday to check your voicemail, which will be from them, and trigger their international plan for the day.

You recently took your Regent packaging to a local mission thrift store? Why would they need or want that? You already told Regent that you didn't want it, so why do they.Give the local mission a monetary donation instead. If you can afford to cruise on Regent, you don't need to donate things that are worthless to charity. There are many new Regent cruisers at this point, and they should have the same welcome that we received in the past. And there are certainly some older Regent cruisers that may not feel comfortable without their expected hard copy documentation rather than needing to do things online.

If these items were useless, then why do you have a collection of them? Seems like they might have some value as a souvenir of your cruise. I would like them to stop printing and sending us advertising. We receive way too many of them, often multiples per week, and some in variations of our names, so not based on the cruises we've taken. We receive Oceania advertisements when we have no interest in taking Oceania rather than Regent. We have found no way to stop these. They are way more a waste of paper than cruise documents.

No, it would not be safe to assume that. We're already booked on a cruise next April, on the same ship we just sailed on. It will be our 8th cruise on Regent since we first started taking cruises in 2017. And we always take the longer cruises since 7 to 10 days is never enough. We've sailed on other cruise lines as well (9 other cruises total, on 5 other cruise lines), and Regent has met out expectations better than than the others. I don't believe that any cruise line will be perfect in every way, every time. Some things are more important to me than others. My comments are often in reply to people who have asked about something specific, as in this case. Since the OP asked, they might find it important. I've given my experience with it. Taking a cruise on a special occasion is celebration enough for me.

I think that it will be ignored if you don't mention it. If you do point it out, it still won't be much unless you're in a high level cabin. We had 2 Birthdays on our recent cruise, that were 3 days apart. We both had balloons in our cabin after dinner. One of mine exploded at 3:45 AM, which was extremely disturbing since I had been sound asleep. Another exploded at 6:15 AM, just as I got out of bed. Its remnants landed on me. During dinner on my Birthday, I ordered a dessert I was looking forward to, but it was extremely delayed. I was complaining to our cruise companions (4 of us in 3 cabins), when a cake was brought by staff, with much singing, and attention. The cake wasn't one I liked, and I don't like the attention of everyone in Compass Rose looking at me. Our friend had the balloons and cake in her cabin, and preferred that to having the CR celebration. The cake still wasn't very good, and it was after 10 by the time we got to it. Neither of us recieved an extra bottle of champagne in our cabins, but we probably could have asked for it. We had a difficult time arranging a Prime 7 dinner on the few days between our Birthdays since we already had booked one early on the cruise. After pointing out that we were 4 people and had booked 3 cabins, we were able to get a later reservation than we wanted, and had less than expected for both service and food preparation. In the future, I will not mention it again. Certainly you can request something special for a special celebration, but I would expect to pay extra for it.

We paid for the same on Navigator on the last cruise that we just ended yesterday. And there were times that even the upgraded service on that 1 device had no internet access. We were flexible as to when we needed it, and it was available often enough that we could do what we needed to get done. Service might be better in the US and Canada than it was in the Caribbean, but it seemed to be more about how many people onboard were using it.

Just finished Regent Navigator, Miami to Miami, which wasn't full a few months ago, but was extremely full when it sailed.I think there were a lot of guaranteed bookings that all were resolved the week before we sailed (without additional cost for some). Restaurant and bars were very full onboard, and we saw numerous cots being removed from cabins yesterday morning as we disembarked. I wouldn't expect many cruises to be less than full by sailing time on Regent. Possibly Trans Atlantic crossings since that attracts a different set of passengers that don't mind not having ports to explore, and don't get seasick.

We had booked a luxury river cruise to Myanmar on Scenic River Cruises a while back. We had booked a great cabin, with a wonderful itinerary. There was some unrest, but none in the area where our cruise would take us, and the president seemed to me doing what was expected of her by the military. But shortly thereafter, the local problem became a national problem, and shortly thereafter e postponed it, hoping for a peaceful resolution. Then their president was arrested, and we rebooked to France. Eventually, we cancelled that Scenic River Cruise as well since it was too much like a Regent cruise we had already booked, and too hard to fly to Scenic embarkations/disembarkations on our own with little help on booking flights to and from the US to Europe. Since then, I've looked for another opportunity to explore the rivers into Myanmar, and have found it o be much worse than political unrest. China has moved much of its mining operations to Chinese contractors who are heavily mining in Myanmar, taking all of the minerals they can find, and sending them back to China. They are heavily polluting the rivers of Myanmar. I would not avoid an itinerary that includes Yangon (formerly Rangoon), but I would not do any excursions to the interior at this point.

We had booked reservations for Prime 7 as soon as they were available to us as Gold members in a Concierge Suite for the cruise on Navigator that we just finished. We were able to add our 2 traveling companions to our reservation, one in another Concierge Suite, and the other in a Veranda Suite. Because they were on our reservation, they were not able to make a reservation for themselves. Our TA told us we would have no problem getting at least 1 more reservation for the 4 of us after we boarded. However, on our first day onboard, they did have a problem giving us another reservation, and only did so after we pointed out that we had paid for 3 cabins, and there were only 4 of us, with most of the tables being for 4 or more.They reluctantly gave us 1 additional reservation during the second week, but not at 6:30 as we wanted. Unfortunately, both of our cruise companions received terrible food on our first visit (they both ordered the same thing), and were reluctant to return. We did, and there was another disaster served. We actually much prefer Compass Rose to Prime 7, and on Navigator, Prime 7 is very small. We had previously booked another cruise on Navigator next year, and I doubt we'll bother with a reservation. Our 2 traveling companions in the other 2 cabins are unlikely to do another Regent cruise they had bad experiences at Prime 7, and Compass Rose was too packed and noisy for them. Neither was interested in the Italian dinner at Sette Mari, and we only tried it once in the past, and found that the best of their dishes were available in Compass Rose.

Silversea allows one included excursion in each port. The second one isn't free, and is chosen from the same list, making some seem very overpriced. There are also excursions that always cost extra, so choosing between an overpriced second excursion in a port, and one that always is extra makes it more complicated to choose excursions. On our 6 Regent cruises, the excursions on our 4 pre Covid cruises were very reliable with the bookings being available. The 2 post Covid were not reliable for our first cruise due to the Queen's funeral, and high seas around the UK in September. We're off for a 2 week Regent cruise of the Caribbean next week, and I just booked our excursions for Bangkok to Abu Dhabi next April, both on Navigator. I'm still a Regent fan. But we're booked on Silver Dawn for the 2025 World Cruise which is a lifetime dream for us, so I'm willing to spend time looking for the excursions that we really want to do. We enjoyed our 1 previous cruise on Silversea, and didn't do another because Business class airfare isn't normally included, But we chose their World Cruise based on the itinerary which included many ports we have not visited before, even in areas that we have already cruised through (or will next year). And Business class airfare is included for those taking the full World Cruise. And at the end of the cruise, flying back to Florida from NYC is easy.

On 2 of our many cruises, sea sickness medication was offered to anyone onboard who thought they might need it, after the Captain predicted rough seas ahead of us. Once was in the Caribbean in late January with a strong cold front coming through, on Sea Dream. Breakfast service fell to the floor in the morning. The other was leaving from Singapore in December and heading north toward Koh Samui. Our tender to Koh Samui was cancelled, but we sat in the swells for many hours. In both cases, the reception desk offered meclizine.

We received our cruise documents, and they show that we arrive in St. Georges Grenada at 2:30 pm, and our excursion is still scheduled for 2:30 pm. Maybe they'll just have us ready to go ashore as soon as we're cleared. I'm not going to worry about it since we've never been to Grenada, and just being able to go ashore in town would still be something new to us.

We haven't had a problem getting reservations at the specialty restaurants in the past by making one reservation ahead of time (or 2 if we were doing back to backs) and then asking for another from the restaurant concierge, butler (when we had one), or maitre d' at the restaurant. However, we have not been on Navigator before, where there is only 1 specialty restaurant. We have 3 cabins booked for the 4 of us on Navigator, and are gold members, and they would only give us 1 reservation for 4 at Prime 7. We're not Sette Mari fans, so I doubt we'll even try to eat there. We would not want to wait for a table at a restaurant that we didn't enjoy in the past. We have never had to wait for a table at Compass Rose, but we have never been on Navigator. If we have to wait for a table on our upcoming cruise, we will need to decide whether to cancel our cruise on Navigator next year.

We're on the same cruise, and I was also wondering about an engine issue. Our TA called us last week about the changes, which always delayed our arrival port later. We have an excursion in Grenada that starts at 2:30, and that's when we're now scheduled to arrive. I think most of the excursions were 2:30 or 3:00, and ours still was listed at 2:30 when I looked yesterday. Based on our last Regent back to back cruises on Splendor starting last September, during the Queen's funeral, I don't expect destination services to make any plans with the tour providers to adjust the times. Just as on those Splendor cruises, I expect them to tell us that they're cancelled, with an envelope in our cabin, when we board. There will be big lines at destination services after that, and they will have nothing other than a map, and possibly a shuttle bus, to replace our excursions. And if we're even more unlucky, we won't find out until we look for our excursion bus to find that it's not there, or that it's going to someplace other than we expected it to go. We experienced all of that on Splendor and gave Regent our feedback on the poor service provided by destination services. We had many great cruises on Regent pre-Covid, without this type of problem. I hope they get they're act together since we travel to experience the destinations, and not to stay in a floating hotel.

I was just doing some browsing today and looked a Azamara cruises. I was actually looking for a river cruise, but only found their ocean cruises. While their cruise prices were much less than Regent, the cost of the excursions were extremely high, with most being 200 dollars or more per person. While the ship experience is important to us, the itinerary is more important, and we want to get off the ship at every port of call. We would much rather have included excursions, that we have found to be worthwhile most of the time, than have to pay more for the excursions than the cruise itself. And I'm sure that many of those high priced excursions on Azamara aren't considered worth the price.

On our first day onboard a ship, we always make ourselves totally familiar with the layout of the ship first thing. We walk every deck and stairway. Once in our cabin, we locate our life jackets, and prepare a ditch bag, ready to go. We keep it next to the safe containing our passports. During a muster drill, we have followed the directions of the sales lady from the boutique to stand in line, single file, and wait for an extended period of time before heading to the life boats. It isn't something I find useful at all. If you sail on those huge cruise ships, where it will take longer to learn your way around the ship than the length of the cruise, then participating in the muster drill might be worthwhile. Just remember that you may not be in your cabin when an emergency occurs, and then the muster drill is worthless if you aren't totally familiar with the layout of the ship. We have never sailed on a ship that accommodates more than 950 passengers, and never plan to.

In 2019, we were on B2B segments in December. We were not required to attend a refresher drill, nor show up at the lifeboat muster station. It was optional.

We did back to back cruises on Splendor in September, Southampton to Southampton, Southampton to Barcelona, and found that most of the included excursions were very good to excellent. There were some cancellations and places not visited due to the Queen's death, but the excursions we took were well done by the contracted tour operators. Some told us they were required to take Covid tests before picking us up at the ship, which made us feel safer. And a number of them were extremely enjoyable, with excellent guides. What was not good, were those working in destination services onboard. They were mostly rude, unfriendly and not helpful. They denied information about closed destinations that we pointed them to online. They tried to get everyone off the ship at the same time. They posted themselves along the stairs to the lounge meeting area, and back to the departure area, and yelled at everyone to go one way only. Once off the ship, your bus may or may not be there, and the one person outside couldn't keep up with handling the boarding of the buses. We had no one from the ship on any of our excursions, unless they were just taking the bus for their own day ashore. There seemed to be way more crew exploring the local towns, and taking up a lot of space on the tenders in the few tender ports we stopped at. We did complain about the destination services crew on our cruises. No one replied so I doubt it will change on Splendor. We have a Navigator cruise coming up soon. We'll see how that goes. We had 4 previous Regent cruises prior to Splendor (Alaska, Med, SE Asia, Australia), and very often had a destination services rep on included excursions, and had much better service at the desk.

The only time we were offered an upgrade on Regent was on our very first cruise, Vancouver to Alaska. We had booked a Deluxe Veranda in a spot midship (same problem with seasickness) on Mariner. We paid for our own transfers and hotel the night before embarkation. After arriving in Vancouver, our TA called and told us that we had a free upgrade to Concierge, no cabin assigned until arrival at the ship. Since we had already paid for the transfers and hotel that Concierge provided for free, had a cabin in a spot that we wanted, and had already filled out our Regent luggage tags with our cabin number, we said "no thanks". We've never been offered an upgrade again on 5 addtional cruises we've taken, nor on an upcoming cruise in April, not even for an upcharge. Personally, on Voyager, I love the Penthouse A and B layout and would pay for that upgrade. We stayed in a Penthouse B for back to back cruises on Voyager in late 2019- early 2020, from Singapore to Singapore, then Singapore to Sydney, with over a month onboard. I loved the cabin, and didn't want to leave the ship. Little did I know at the time that it would be a 2022 before my next cruise.

And that's exactly what I was saying. We had booked a number of cruises before Covid hit, and we were held to those original payment dates while those who booked later were given much more flexible dates; as little as 2 months when we were given 5 months after complaining instead of our original 6 when no Regent cruises had sailed. nor were scheduled to sail in 6 months. We ended up having the only option of postponing (twice) since our final payment dates were held at a much longer date, while others were catered to who booked very recently. At this point, I would like my early booking to be held to my original contract when I booked, where my Regent air date reservations are the same as when I booked, and not 2 months less than when I booked. If the contract always applies, it should cover all of what I was told when I booked. Let the more recent bookings be held to a new contract, with less lead time for flights. That's not what I signed up for when I made my down payment a long time ago. And, as always, I expect to pay a deviation to not have to wait until the last 60 days. I always have paid the deviation, and in the future, I will pay even more if I want to select flights that have a chance of making connections, since we haven't had much luck on making connections this past year that we were assured by the airlines would not be a problem. We're not taking a downgrade to coach again on long flights due to missed connections that were scheduled for less than an hour. We then had to fight with the airline to get the money back that we had paid to the cruise line for our business class flight, and then had to prove to the cruise line that the airline had given money back to them, so they would give us back the extra we had paid to the cruise line. This cruise was not Regent, and it took 6 months to get a much smaller upgrade to business than we had made from the offending cruise line. We would not take that cruise lines air again, but included air is something we really want, and it's why we'ver used Regent much more than any other cruise line. "The price of the cruise might go up or down, but the pay by dates does not change." Really? Did the price of your cruise go up or down after you made your down payment? Maybe it was different 40+ years ago, but my parents did not have the money to take the whole family on cruises way back then. How it's worked since we started cruising in early 2017 (booked a year in advance) is that once you make your down payment on a cruise, your price never goes up or down unless you rebook. And rebooking changes everything, for better or worse. That's why I expect that everything will be the same as when I booked and made my down payment. I don't expect the rules for Regent air to be changed out from under me unless I rebook hoping for a 2 category upgrade or a smaller downpayment. We have checked into those offers a few times, but they were always for the worse since we would lose our preferred cabin location, or those traveling with us would lose go to 100 percent for a single supplement. I'm done with this discussion. Believe what you want.

Absolutely not based on the social media responses for those on this forum. But we have already cancelled a cruise on one of our other past favorite cruise lines when they did not ticket us on the flights we had paid extra to reserve before our final payment. And their final payment was much closer to departure than Regent. Our experience with Regent has been that the further out we make reservations, the further out we need to make the final payment. Offers are always made for rebookings, like 2 category upgrades, but they always have a bigger penalty than reward. Especially if you have 2 new Regent cruisers joining us for a first time cruise where they would need to pay more if they try to rebook for a cabin upgrade since their single supplements would be increased to 100 percent. That's not how a cruise line should encourage returning customers, especially if you then delay early booking of included airfare, when we're willing to pay extra for the flights we want.

After all of you guys on this forum (Rallydave, Portolan and Papaflamingo) have jumped all over me for wanting to feel comfortable with our Regent provided air reservations before we have to pay in full and have to pay a penalty to cancel after that, I'm seriously considering cancelling our 2024 cruise on Regent, and not booking anymore. You've done a really poor job of representing Regent to the rest of us. Regent has been our favorite cruise line since we started cruising back in 2017. Thank you for making me feel dumb to have stayed with Regent this long, and making me realize there are other cruise lines to check out in the future.

Did you not understand me when I said " We will deviate as soon as we can"? We have always paid the deviation fee on all of our cruises. Compared to the price of the cruise, it's trivial. We have never waited until Regent books us at 60 -70 days, and never will. We like Regent for its luxury. If we didn't care about the flights as part of the cruise, we would book elsewhere. We will not pay in full until we know we have an acceptable flight. We will cancel the cruise and ask for a refund. We did this recently on a Ponant Cruise (previously a PG cruise), but they don't force you to pay in full so far in advance the way that Regent does. The credit given for booking our own air fare has always been so little, even when they advertise business class. It's almost nothing. On our next Regent Cruise (we're already gold), we have a relative and a friend joining us as first time Regent guests, in their own separate single cabins. It's from Miami to Miami so we're driving from the west coast of Florida. For the the credit we were given, I doubt we could fly from anywhere to Miami, unless we took spirit, frontier or allegiant from an airport that would be an even longer drive than from Ft. Myers to Miami, and would definitely take much longer. If Regent keeps it's final payment date out further than their ability to book flights, even for those willing to pay for a deviation, and any upgrade fee they ask for to book the flights we want, then we won't be sailing on them again in the future.

It's absolutely not if you're flying to places like Thailand, or Abu Dhabi, from Florida. In fact, it's hard to get flights from South Florida to anywhere without booking well ahead of time, including the East Coast of the US, LAX, and Caribbean destinations. That's why I'm concerned. It's always been worth it to get flights as early as possible through Regent, because business flights are very hard to get, to and from Florida. Maybe we should move to Houston? We do have some good friends who live there when they're not living on their yacht in Florida.

Hmm. Can you point me to the start of the penalty phase being a minimum of 59 days. That has definitely not been our experience with Regent, especially during Covid where we had to decide whether to rebook much earlier than 59 days, or take a chance on what would happen. We've seen others give their dates for final payment, as well as penalties, on this forum, and they have not matched with what we've experienced. We always book very far in advance, and from what we experienced during Covid, we were not being offered what others were who were booking later as far as final payment and cancellation penalties.