TheRampantSnail

Just received the following email about our December 2020 cruise from San Juan to Miami

We have taken 125% FCC for a cruise in April cancelled by Regent. All details have been agree with our Travel Agent but I was wondering how long it takes Regent to issue the actual certificates. Does anyone have any experience?

Turning to Regent Reassurance (reduced deposit, $1000 onboard credit etc) we would like to use our FCC with this promotion. It is valid for all cruises before 31 December 2020 but bookings have to be made by 31 July 2020. Currently, only cruises up to the beginning of May 2022 are listed. Regent (UK) has told our travel agent that later cruises will be listed in August - which rather restricts the validity of the Reassurance programme. We have a travel schedule in place for 2021 (virus permitting) so would be looking to take our next Regent cruise in 2022 - but we have the dilemna of whether to take that cruise in early 2022 (where, for various reasons, none of the itineraries are ideal) or waiting and hoping later cruises are listed before the end of July.

Our May cruise was cancelled and we, perhaps foolishly, opted to take the FCC.

Om my profile I see that the cancelled cruise has been taken down but I now see what looks like a hyperlink entitled "Shipboard Credits Available".  It isn't a working hyperlink, however, so I am not sure what it actually means (there were no onboard credits with the cancelled cruise).

Previous cruises are showing OK.

Just another curiosity.

I also concur wholeheatedly on the farce that is checking in for Regent's shore excursions, as well as the inability to take more than one excursion on any particular day, despite their major advertising hyperbole of "up to x number of shore excursions on your cruise"!

We never had a problem booking morning and afternoon cruises in St Petersburg on our Baltic cruise.

Service on both lines are about the same but the officers on Regent are much friendlier and more approachable than on Silversea.

Our experience is that Silversea officers are more friendly and approachable - although I have to admit that the captain on one Regent cruise did nod at me (I think!)

We often ask to share a table. 6 is an ideal number as everyone can join in the discussion. 8 is too big for that as conversations are difficult to hear across the table.

By sharing we have met some very interesting people and, with smaller ships you often met up again during the cruise.

We have only ever had one bad experience - unfortunately on Regent Voyager in Compass Rose. As usual, we asked to share and were directed to a table where five other people were already sitting. They were deep in conversation and did not stop to welcome us our introduce themselves. For quite a while they continued the conversation about American Football, of which we have no knowledge or interest, and also about how much real estate they each owned.  At some point they did deign to stop talking, ask who we were and quickly established that we were not wealthy.  They then continued as though we were not there. At which point we told our waiter we were leaving.

We have not let that experience put us off sharing a table as it was such an unusual occurrence.

Earlier this year I booked another Regent cruise departing in March 2021, paying a not insubstantial deposit of about £2400.  A couple of weeks after that an event, which affected us personally, happened and we felt that we could no longer take that cruise.  I advised our travel agent of this fact.  The TA told me to hold back from cancelling the cruise (as final payment was not due until October 2020) and wait to see if we saw a different cruise we liked and then ask Regent to transfer the deposit.

Recently, we did find an alternative cruise and contacted our TA again, who in turn put our request to Regent UK.  This request was refused point blank. We have therefore lost our total deposit. The TA said there seemed to have been a change of policy by Regent which was behind the refusal.

There is no doubt that, legally, Regent are within their rights to apply the policy of losing a deposit if a cruise is cancelled.  However, I would have hoped that, given the long lead in time, the fact that we were not looking for a refund of our deposit but a transfer to another cruise and that fact that it was unlikely there would have been any loss of revenue to Regent, there could have been some flexibility (even if were not the full deposit amount) shown. I did find this intransigence very disappointing.

But, never mind, we did get an email from Regent wishing us the joy of exploration this festive season!!

Reservations are now open for our cruise next April.  On "My Silversea" it states that reservations will only be held for 15 minutes but the only time slots shown are "early 7pm/8pm", "regular 8pm/9pm" or "late 9pm/10pm".  There is no differentiation.  So does that mean that, for example, booking an early slot would mean we can turn up at any time between 7pm and (using the 15 minute leeway) 8.15pm?

As I will be booking for 5 people, ideally at 7.45pm, how does the system work?  I am sure it was not so unclear on previous cruises.

Greetings from South Beach, Everyone. What happened to the TS was certainly unfortunate. I assume that Regent will make it up to all involved. In our experience, the unexpected is part of travel. For Example, we were on a cruise from Seoul to Hong Kong on a small ship called Ocean Pearl, docked for the day at Dalian, Mongolia. Our morning tour was a visit with a Chinese family in their apartment. They offered hospitality and we enjoyed our experience. When we arrived back at the dock, the presence of carts, waiters, Champagne and caviar were a definite clue that something was amiss. The ship had been totally disabled by a fire while we were out, and our cruise was over. All 450 of us passengers and crew, spent the next three days in a partially finished hotel, dining on food delivered from the ship, After dinner every evening, we had a show. Since then, our off plan adventures haven't been too drastic. The point of all this is that stuff happens,

Mary

How did the captain manage to dock in Mongolia? The ship must be special.

I agree with much of what has been said. Azamara is our favourite cruise line for a whole host of reasons. We always look first at Azamara to see if there is an itinerary we want to do.

When we saw Azamara were doing a round Japan cruise next year we were very excited and looked to book. However, when we saw the prices we were put off.

We have now booked a Silversea cruise round Japan at the same time (April 2019) although the itinerary is a little different. For less than we were quoted on Azamara (flight and cruise, verandah cabin) we are getting flights, pre-cruise hotel, cruise, post-cruise hotel and shore excursions.

Admittedly we are getting a Vista Suite - no balcony but cabin is almost twice the size of an Azamara balcony cabin. It is a smaller ship and there are 8 different restaurants (two are extra charge). And, of course, the drinks included are much more comprehensive. It is also fair to say that we have had to pay in full to get the best discount (although the total package with Silversea would still work out as better value without it).

Much as we love Azamara, the pricing is now too expensive to be good value.

Interesting article, but I agree that the omission of various lines is odd.

We have only cruised on three lines (Azamara, Regent and Silversea) with the majority on Azamara. There is much to like about Azamara, hence why we have repeated, but I won't go onto the pros and cons now. But, as the article mentioned drinks I do have to say that what is included is nowhere near what is available on Silversea or Regent. There is no included brandy, for example, and the "selection of international beers" is just three, Budweiser, Budweiser Light and Beck's (and in my opinion the first two are for those who don't really like beer).

Now to my point. I was interested in an Azamara cruise around Japan in April 2019. The price I got for a verandah (including flights) cabin was astonishing. My travel agent said that Silversea were doing a similar cruise, the price of which, for a Vista Suite, was significantly less than for the Azamara cruise. Admittedly, there was a special promotion on the Silversea cruise, but the comparison does not favour Azamara.

The duration of both is 13 days and the itineraries are a bit different.

For the Azamara cruise we would get flights and a verandah cabin that is 16.3 sq with a balcony of an additional 3.8sq m.

For the Silver Muse cruise we are getting flights and a Vista Suite (GTY) of 31sq m, although no balcony of course. To this are added a pre-cruise and also a post-cruise hotel stay in Tokyo and an excursion in each port.

Naturally, we have chosen the Silversea cruise.

Azamara seem to be cashing in on their deserved popularity by charging prices comparable to true luxury lines.

I did not know you could do this on our previous Silversea cruises.

What can you request in this way? Is there a cut off point in price or do you pay for these requests anyway?

If I wanted a particular malt whisky or rum or beer that was not ordinarily stocked, would that be provided on request?

Many thanks for these replies - just what I wanted to hear!

I understand that there is no main dining room as such on Silver Muse and that Atlantide and Indochine are the two non-reservation restaurants.

One of the joys for us is to turn up at the main restaurant, as we have done on Silver Wind for example, and ask to share a table of 4 or 6. We find that is a great way of meeting people.

Is it possible to do this at Atlantide and Indochine?

We are thinking of an Alaska cruise. We are British and mainly cruise on Azamara where tipping and drinks are included. We enjoy wine with dinner and a cocktail or two in the evening.

What extra costs (tipping, drinks as above) apart from excursions, should we plan on for, say, a 7 day Vancouver to Vancouver cruise.

Many thanks.

We are thinking of an Alaska cruise. We are British and mainly cruise on Azamara where tipping and drinks are included. We enjoy wine with dinner and a cocktail or two in the evening.

What extra costs (tipping, drinks as above) apart from excursions, should we plan on for, say, a 7 day Vancouver to Vancouver cruise.

Many thanks.

We are thinking of an Alaska cruise. We are British and mainly cruise on Azamara where tipping and drinks are included. We enjoy wine with dinner and a cocktail or two in the evening.

What extra costs (tipping, drinks as above) apart from excursions, should we plan on for, say, a 7 day Vancouver to Vancouver cruise.

Many thanks.

Time to add some of my pet hates:

- people who fulminate, amongst other things, about the use of perfectly functional words in our rich English language.

- people who degrade the English language by not using perfectly good words - for example, using "one time" when the correct usage in "once" (one-time has a subtly different meaning"

- British people or companies who use American spellings whether through trendiness or ignorance

- greengrocers' apostrophes

- being addressed as "you guys"

- the disgusting habit of eating with only a fork - mash the food around, shovel it up and stuff it in

- people who keep their rucksacks when, for example, boarding a plane - especially when they turn around without due regard and the rucksack bashes you in the face

- people who use Ipads to take photographs whilst they block the view of other people

- people who leave trolleys in the middle of supermarket aisles whilst they wander off elsewhere

Just a small selection, you understand!

I would be interested to know views on sailing with Princess to Alaska. Is the line recommended for this itinerary? If so, is one ship particularly good?

Many thanks

Thank you all for your responses. I am very encouraged. I particularly welcomed the comment that we would find travellers rather than tourists on our cruise. We consider ourselves travellers, having roamed extensively in South America, India and South-East Asia in recent years. We are now looking at sub-Saharan Africa, starting with our forthcoming visit to Tanzania in September and chose this cruise as a taster for the west coast of Africa.

Thank you Lottie. That is very reassuring, particularly coming from an Azamara cruiser!

We have been considering cruising with Silversea for some time. We are largely itinerary driven, but good food, service and comfort are also very important, and all our previous sailings have been with Azamara and Regent.

When I spotted the Silver Wind cruise in February 2014 from CapeTown to Accra it seemed to me to be the ideal opportunity to try Silversea and so we duly booked.

I have been reading the recent posts on here and find that there is a lot of dissatisfaction from Silversea regulars about declining standards (although you will find such views expressed on the CC boards of many other lines, including Regent and Azamara - which we don't feel are justified) in many areas including food, service and the need for repeated muster drills.

The question I wish to pose is, simply, have we made a mistake in booking this Silversea cruise and should we bail out (pun intended) before it is too late? Or, are standards still high enough for us to continue?