JSOL1

We will be sailing from Seward to Vancouver in July. Trying to determine appropriate footwear for excursions. We are definitely bringing waterproof trail runner/hiking shoes but trying to determine if proper hiking boots are necessary. We obviously want to minimize bulk packing wise, but don’t want to risk being under prepared either.

Thanks in advance!

We’re on the July 3rd sailing Seward to Vancouver. Would love more feedback from those who’ve sailed this itinerary.

We’ve been on the Explorer twice so know the ship well, but the itinerary is a first for us…

2 hours ago, jeb_bud said:

I agree with @papaflamingoon this. If I could only book one extra dinner it would probably be at Pacific Rim but if I want a special dining experience I would choose Chartreuse. And I would ask for a table by the aft windows. 

I would also agree with this. Chartreuse or Prime 7. Definitely let them know in advance as they will make it special. Happy early Birthday!

10 hours ago, SellaVee said:

We are fans of Oceania, and had a fantastic cruise on Marina last year.  Simply More caused me to jump ship, because I didn't want $1000 worth of excursion credit that I probably wouldn't be able to use.  Although Regent also provided included excursions, they advertised that they provided everything, including a pre cruise hotel and transfers, if you have the right kind of stateroom.  This was to be a "one click" experience, with nothing for me to book but the cruise package, provided we upgraded to concierge at a considerable cost.
 

Sadly, Regent has fallen at the first hurdle and let us down before the cruise has even started, by declining to provide the hotel and transfers, at fairly short notice, in the great scheme of things, leaving me to organise it myself, and providing an inadequate amount of refunded cash to cover the cost.
 

The good news is I’ve been able to book most of the excursions I wanted, apart from a few that are waitlisted, but of course, I’m now not completely confident that they won't be cancelled.  

A tip for waitlisted excursions. As soon as you get onboard go to the excursions desk and let them know even if you’re waitlisted. They will give you an idea of how long the waitlist is and suggest you go to the auditorium the morning of the excursion to check with them.

we got lucky on our last cruise because we got on 2 waitlisted excursions this way. It’s kind of a ripple effect as you get your waitlisted choice your alternate excursion will open up for someone else. Good luck!

On 5/15/2024 at 12:23 AM, drkitkat123 said:

I know they say that Oceania has the best food at sea but I did not realize that produced a noticeable change in passenger size!

Well done! Perhaps all lines suffer from this 😊

Well done!😂

We gave the laundry to them the same evening we boarded and had it the next day. On our most recent cruise over the past holidays we would put our laundry out before we went to bed and it was always back by the next afternoon.

I wished we asked like you. On our first Regent cruise we didn’t know what to expect so we planned on doing our own halfway through the cruise and unfortunately packed as such.

Upon arriving in Miami our luggage was left on the Tarmac in a deluge and some of our clothes got wet. We didn’t realize it until we got on board because we pack an overnight bag for the pre hotel stay.

We had no choice but to try Regent’s laundry service and it was fabulous. They also pressed some clothes for us for free. Ever since we haven’t hesitated to use their laundry services.

One word of caution though-they stick little tags on your clothes to identify and if you have delicate material be careful tearing it off.

Just to add our experience. We’ve been on 3 Regent cruises (Explorer, Granduer and Splendor) and tried Oceania in between. We wanted to try different options to compare.

We enjoyed Oceania overall with nothing bad to say at all. However, we do prefer Regent overall and have 4 more booked including a World Cruise.

When we returned from our Oceania cruise, we compared true cost as best as we could and found that although the Oceania cruise was roughly 20% cheaper, for us the premium is worth it on Regent. If for nothing else the room size comparison. Passenger size was somewhat noticeable on Oceania, but nothing terrible.

We also found little things annoying enough that we didn’t care for. For example the way they price internet (one device at a time for free tier), having to show a card every time for the upgraded drink package (we are not big drinkers but do like our preferred cocktails when we do).

Overall food, service and overall experience were wonderful on Oceania, but I guess we’re Regent fans at the end of the day.

We also use Blacklane and have always been pleased. It’s great to hear about alternatives though, so will keep Viotor in mind in the future.

2 minutes ago, ysolde said:

We travel a fair bit (we will have a total of three cruises and two other trips in 2024). so we purchase annual trip insurance with Allianz.  We have not had to use it, but it appears to be fairly comprehensive.  We also have a multi-annual MedJet assist policy.  We also have the Citi Advantage Executive Mastercard, which has a travel insurance feature.  It covers trip delay/cancelation, lost/damaged luggage, that sort of thing.  I would have to look up which insurance covers what first.

Thanks for this. I will have to look into the annual trip insurance options as we also do a fair bit of travel. I’ve never really included my CC card insurance as a factor for bigger $ trips but perhaps I should.

11 hours ago, papaflamingo said:

We have a Grand cruise coming up and I added 17 days prior!  Yes.. insurance is mind boggling!!! BUT, losing the cost of the trip is too.  We were booked on a trip last year and I woke up on "fly to the port" day with Covid.  Had I not been insured I would have been out a very significant amount.  I just factor it into the cost of the cruise.  

One idea though, and I don't know how it works, some credit card will cover up to $20,000 of a cruise for free if you charge the cruise on that card.  I'm looking at doing that but need to research it a bit.  But check with your credit card company and see if they cover some portion of the the cruise.  Would help. 

 

Completely agree! We’ve always insured our cruises and wouldn’t consider skimping on this.

we are also booked on a Grand Cruise in ‘26 in addition to the World Cruise in ‘27. Quite a different price point than insurance for our typical 2/3 week cruises, but unavoidable…

13 hours ago, -Lew- said:

InsureMyTrip.com, SquareMouth.com, and TripInsuranceStore.com are all good. However, Steve Dassos at TripInsuranceStore.com offers a lot of value added benefits in the way of information and advice.  I would recommend you call Steve for his recommendation.

Thanks. We have used SM to insure our previous cruises, but we will certainly touch base with Steve as it seems a lot of people here have had good experiences.

On 8/24/2023 at 9:21 AM, pappy1022 said:

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.

I know this is an older thread but we just got our preferred cabin for the ‘27 World Cruise and Insurance coverage just became a different ball game!

We always get comprehensive travel insurance for our cruises (cancel for any reason during Covid) and will certainly insure this cruise, but some preliminary quotes just to get an idea of what we’re talking about is a bit eye watering.

I will probably post a separate thread for insuring a WC but I appreciate another resource to reach out to.

Thank you!

Congratulations! We were fortunate to get our preferred cabin the morning they were released.

Like you, once we were notified the flood of questions/thoughts etc overwhelmed us. Just got a very early quote for trip cancellation and although we expected it to be pricey it was a bit of an eye opener.

We’re excited but still have a bit of trepidation…

Lots of great feedback and I wish I saw something like this before we started cruising with Regent.

one thing I’ll add from our personal experience is anything over 2 weeks we prefer a Penthouse-not for the amenities, but for the separate bedroom/living area. My wife tends to sleep in (more accurately I get up quite early) and it’s nice to be able to my coffee in the room without bothering her.

The butler service doesn’t do anything for us-nice to have for a few things but we could do without no problem.

We have only sailed on the Explorer class ships and really like all of them. I would say Granduer is our favorite though.

On 4/7/2024 at 7:45 PM, loriva said:

 

We put it on our butler request form on Explorer and it was waiting in our fridge when we boarded in Sydney.  If not in a Penthouse, I've also emailed Regent Guest Services (GuestRelations@rssc.com) 90 days before sailing with special requests.

We do the same. My wife likes CFDC and we’ve requested it every time not expecting much, but it’s always been in our fridge.

There’s a particular Rum she enjoys and they went out of their way (not usually stocked in their bars) to get her a bottle.

We were on Granduer over the Holidays and I don’t remember music being piped in either. Perhaps we didn’t notice though.

The ship is beautiful and we really enjoyed it…

1 hour ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

When did the deposit become non-refundable? Is that the full, usual deposit for such a cruise, or a more token amount?

Sorry, I’m new this and meant to quote your question in my reply above…

A portion of the deposit became non-refundable about a month ago I believe. For most categories the NR portion is $1K for 2 people. They claim they will no longer allow you to move your deposit to another cruise, although depending on your TA they may be able to help.

My understanding is they did this partly to keep people from reserving a bunch of cruises and therefore keeping those cabins from being reserved by others until they are cancelled.

perhaps others know better, but this is what we were told by a Reservation director on a recent Granduer cruise.

I can say from personal experience that it’s been frustrating being wait listed and waiting for deposit dates to see if anything opens up so hopefully it does help.

I think you’ll find a lot of inventory changes on Monday. There are courtesy holds until Monday, so those who do not put a deposit down will open up.

Since we went through this with another cruise, we felt the exposure of $1K non-refundable was worth it. We have a Penthouse and find they go first.

Good luck!

We have done a few Regent cruises and spoke with our TA on the 27th about this one. We provided our top 3 cabin choices (and indicated we’re out if we don’t get what we want at this price point). They go through the priority requests and would let us know on the 10th whether we would get our preferences. We were notified that our preference was available so put down the deposit today.

We have never done anything longer than 18 days and will be doing Grand Asia in ‘26 so we’re a bit apprehensive, but I guess we’ll find out.

A few things convinced us to reserve-it’s on an Explorer class ship, it embarks/disembarks from the US, and of course the itinerary appealed to us.
We’re anxious to hear others’ experiences on these lengthy cruises!

we have learned from past experience that if you don’t jump on a preferred class cabin early, they disappear and we’ve never had luck with the wait list.