Billybob79

Just as a heads up for anybody who books their flights with Vantage, if you are a Presidents Club member (3 or more prior trips) you can work with the flight department (by far the best in Vantage) to arranage your flights once you have paid in full. I have had great experiences with the flight department, including having them hold seats on non-preferable itinerary until seats on Delta flights opened up to them. (We are from Atlanta). However, as someone pointed out Vantage does not always have the contracts for the most direct flights to your destination. The time to work out the flights is as early as possible and not to wait for Vantage to assign your flights close to the trip.

I totally agree that the Vantage ocean cruises are very overpriced. For example, their 11 day circumnavigation of Iceland in 2024 (with 2 days each pre and post cruise in Reykjavik), with at least 3 optional excursions and coach airfare is listed starting at $15000. There are 11 stops, which may be overkill. Regent Seven Seas, which provides business class air and includes all excursions, as well as all drinks, has a 10 night circumnavigation of Iceland (with 6 stops as well as 2 days in the Faroe Islands) for $16000 at the concierge level. There is also a one night pre cruise stay in Reykjavik.

We had problems on our Boston to Montreal cruise last October when Bar Harbor, Maine and Lunenburg NS were skipped and Portland, Maine was substituted. We were never given any explanation aqs to why the ports were skipped nor did Vantage offer any compensation to make up for the loss. On the other hand, on a Regent Seven cruise in the Baltic last august, a port was skipped, we were told why and each cabin received a $500 shipboard credit. While the Vantage ships are great, the company continues to fail to deliver. It could be because this is their first venture in Europe and it will take a few more trips to get matters right. We found that to be the case on Viking Ocean in Southeast Asia, where Viking stumbled more than once making it a less than satisfying cruise. It is too bad as Vantage has a great product with these 2 ships, but, they need to get their act together if they expect their customers to come back, and, of course bad reviews do Vantage no good for future cruisers. In the meantime enjoy what you can of the cruises you are on or will be on.

Just to be clear, with the exception of our Boston to Montreal cruise on the Ocean Explorer last October, where Vantage skipped 2 ports w/o explanation ever, the trips we have taken have been very good to excellent. We have been wanting to visit South Africa, especially Victoria Falls and Capetown so we were willing to do so with Vantage because of our past favorable experiences. We did not antciipate the flight fiasco of last week, but the the flights are paid for and Delta is expecting us. As for the Ocean Odyssey, we can only say that the Ocean Explorer (an identical ship) was great as a small ship, with the best crew and excellent food. I sincerely hope you find the same. When and where do you go?

MikieF: You are so right about Vantage' lack of communication. This has been an ongoing issue with them for probably 40 years. They have a great product and our upcoming trip to South Africa will be our 15th with Vantage, but we will think long and hard about another after the fiasco with our flights being cancelled last week and then reinstated 3 days later. We were convinced for those 3 days that the trip had been cancelled. I have emailed everyone I know at Vantage over the years about their lack of communication, most of which has fallen on deaf ears. Again. it will take some sort of unbelievable deal to somewhere we are desperate to get to for us to book Vantage in the future.

MOssyLedge: I am not sure which ship you will be on, but we did the Boston to Montreal cruise on the Ocean Explorer for 10 days and every day there was a different breakfast and lunch special which were outstanding (unlike Viking Ocean where the lunch buffet was the same every day). Our food comparison is to Regent Seven Seas and Oceania and the Ocean Explorer was very close to those lines' quality at all meals. There is one small "hot rocks" separate restaurant which was good but not exceptional. The wine selection was fine and once you found something you liked you can ask for it any time. People line up relatively early, even before the dining room opens (for dinner) so tables fill up. If you have more than 2 of you, you may either want to get there early or have one couple do so. Nothing wrong with sharing tables. We were 2 couples, but ultimately became 4 couples so we always had a table for 8 waiting fro us. Anything else, please do not not hesitate to ask.

What a roller coaster of a week. When the website and call center went down and stayed down for so long, we were sure our South Africa trip, scheduled for May 22 was not going to happen and that Vantage may well be out of business.Then, when I checked my Delta page for trips on Wednesday, the reservation was gone. I called Delta and was told the agency had cancelled the flight the day before. I immediately emailed everyone I knew at Vantage about the lack of ticketing but never heard back. HOWEVER, once the website came back today, I checked My Portfolio and the trip is still listed so I went back to Delta and lo and behold, the flights are not only relisted, but they have been ticketed and paid for. While I do not know the staus of other trips (except for the ones listed by Vantage as cancelled), I think the outage may well have been a ransomware attack and not a going out of business event. As someone who is going on his 15th Vantage trip, I can speak highly of the tours once you are on them. On the other hand, the PR from Vantage is as low as you can go, which is a shame since the product is very good and generally of very good value. Our Egypt trip last December was one of the best trips we have taken and the Ocean Explorer is a wonderful ship, with a fantastic crew and excellent food. I sincerely hope Vantage continues in business, but wakes up (after 40 years) to the fact that they lose customers every day becasue of poor PR and even worse customer service.

What a roller coaster. We are on the South Africa trip beginning May 22 and 2 days ago our flight from Atlanta to J-Burg on Delta had not yet been ticketed and had been cancelled. Now that the website is up, the trip was still listed on My Portfolio so I checked with Delta and the flights have now been ticketed and we are good to go. While the cancellations may seem iffy, it does appear that Vantage is not yet out of business. The Ocean Exp;orer is currently in Halifax, NS, a regulat stop on the itinerary. I wish everyone who is booked good luck in not having your trips cancelled and maybe now we can all rest more easily.

It will be really interesting when the full story comes out about how Henry Lewis finally met his end after so many close calls. Whether Vantage will survive in another form remains to be seen. In the meantime a lot of people are out a lot of money, which may never be seen.

The issue for the Ocean Explorer is whether it has passengers on board as Haifax is the first stop outside of the US.

While there is information about cancelled cruises, there is nothing being posted about land tours being cancelled. We have to assume that our South Africa tour beggining May 22 has been cancelled based on our plane tickets being cancelled. Nothing from Vantage.

It looks like our trip to South Africa beginning May 22 is not gping as our plane tickets were cancelled on April 25 by Vantage. So sorry to see the company go under as we had 14 great trips with them, the last being a great trip to Egypt in December. They probably overextended with the 2 ocean ships.

Something is up with Vantage and it cannot be good. We are scheduled to leave May 22 for South Africa and our tickets have not been paid for by Vantage. Even with insurance, unless Vantage declares bankrauptcy trip cancellation insurance will not cover the cost. The next scheduled departure for this tour is May 8 and it is not listed on the alternate website although another May 8 trip is listed as departing. Anybody else have an upcoming trip with Vantage?

Thanks for the replies. I totally agree that the only reason to use the spa services is to use up OBC.

It sppears that you need to use your mobile phone with headphones to hear the tour guides on Regent excursions via the Regent app. Is that how it works?

Interesting that you are at a different hotel, but I guess one hotel was probably not enough, We were in London in early June and saw both Dear Evan Hansen and Back to the Future. Loved them both. Enjoy and maybe we will bump into each other on the ship,

Parrotthd80: Thank you

Does anyone have a link or other information on the spa charges on the Splendor, especially for massages? Thanks.

Exlandlubber: Are you arriving in London the day before and staying at the Rosewood Hotel. My wife and I are thinking about going to Greenwich for the afternoon. We were in London in early June at the end of a Tauck tour and spent 3 days touring all over, but we did not get to Greenwich, which was on out to do list.

We are booked on the October 7, 2022 cruise from Boston to Montreal and expect to be a go as the Ocean Odyssey is doing its scheduled itineraries. The issue is how well the ship, crew and leaders are doing. A review on Cruise Critic (not this thread) about the Montreal to Boston cruise in April 2022 was devastating bad. Excursions were skipped, the tour leaders were clueless, etc. The ship itself seems to be very good. I certainly hope that between April and October, Vantage will have its act together. This will be our 13th Vantage trip and all the others have been either very good or outstanding.We are also booked on the Egypt trip in December on the Nebu and would like feedback from anyone who has taken that trip on the Nebu.

We are on this cruise and will arrive at the ship on August 7, probably around noon from the hotel in London where we are staying one night pre-cruise. After hopefully getting into our cabin and having lunch, we could be ready to leave the ship by 2:30 to do some sightseeing in the immediate area of the port if there is anything to see close by. i doubt there is time to go much beyond the port area since most places will close by 4 or 5. Does anybody have any suggestions if they are familiar with Southampton?