Cancelled Excursion

My excursion woes continue on the Barcelona/London sailing. I was in process of reviewing my schedule in order to plan for dining reservations when I discovered I had no excursion booked for one of our days in Bordeaux. A quick check back to my printout clearly shows a booked excursion. Call to Regent confirms that the excursion was cancelled and "my TA should have been notified" which never happened, nor was I contacted about the cancellation.

There is no comparable offering and many are showing waitlisted status. Had I not randomly been online I never would have noticed this. Anyone had this happen? I'm really appalled at the sloppy handling.

Our TA is always notified if changes/cancellations and lets us know immediately. Never had this happen!

We did have this occur on a Baltic cruise several years ago. We had an excursion to Peterhoff that was cancelled, I know not when. Our TA never got notice of this nor did we. It wasn't until we were on board the very first day, when I sorted thru the excursion tickets and I noticed we were missing something. I went begging to destination services for ANYTHING as we didn't want to sit on the ship in St. Petersburg..DS did manage to give us a half day overview tour. We were happy for that, but no one seemed to know why we were never contacted......stuff happens! Sometimes you need to make do....

Contacted my TA who immediately got in touch with Regent and was told by Regent that no notifications were sent.:mad:

We did have this occur on a Baltic cruise several years ago. We had an excursion to Peterhoff that was cancelled, I know not when. Our TA never got notice of this nor did we. It wasn't until we were on board the very first day, when I sorted thru the excursion tickets and I noticed we were missing something. I went begging to destination services for ANYTHING as we didn't want to sit on the ship in St. Petersburg..DS did manage to give us a half day overview tour. We were happy for that, but no one seemed to know why we were never contacted......stuff happens! Sometimes you need to make do....

This is really not acceptable in my opinion and another example of poor communication and inability to deliver on Regent's part.

For better or worse, Regent cannot give notification to every single TA that books a cruise with Regent. All benefits/offers that we are aware of go to TA's that book Regent regularly. This is why many of us strongly recommend using TA's tdhat "regularly book Regent cruises".

As Mudhen posted, "stuff happens". That seems to be the case here.

I disagree with TC's comment. In today's data processing world it is child's play to link e-mail notifications to all parties affected by any changes. In this case e-mails to all TA's and passengers who are affected by the cancellation should be part of the Regent database protocol. Anytime a cancellation is put into their 'excurison database' an automatic routine (cron job) should run generating the appropriate notifications. DB 101 skillset required.

I disagree with TC's comment. In today's data processing world it is child's play to link e-mail notifications to all parties affected by any changes. In this case e-mails to all TA's and passengers who are affected by the cancellation should be part of the Regent database protocol. Anytime a cancellation is put into their 'excurison database' an automatic routine (cron job) should run generating the appropriate notifications. DB 101 skillset required.

With all due respect, are you familiar with the problems that Regent has had with their database? This has gone on for years. It seems that Regent's policy is to contact TA's rather than passengers directly. While I do not want to attack any TA, generally the issue is that a TA received the notification and did not communicate it to their client (and they denied receiving it). IMO, too many TA's are one person offices and when that person is out of the office or sick, there is no one to take care of emails, phone calls or notifications.

Our TA has a staff of several people. When one person is not in, there is another person to take care of his/her emails and other communications. This makes a huge difference.

If that is the case then Regent or NCLH needs to hire a Database Administrator that has the requisite skillset to design and manage what is truly a very simple, routine, day to day e-mail processing subsystem inside their database. If you take all the ships in the NCLH inventory with every cruise scheduled for the next 5 years and add filing every cabin with passengers on every sailing it is a miniscule amount of data. The key is the design (relationship management).

I agree that Regent should have handled this. I was once with them and had four excursions cancelled. We were never able to rebook.

It would seem to me that once you book an excursion, and Regent cancels that excursion-Regent should book you automatically on the best available excursion to replace the cancelled excursion. Then inform you or your TA, at that time you have the option to take it or not. You should be protected at all times, period. I also agree with mdunne48 on this, it's the cost of doing business today. Rick

If that is the case then Regent or NCLH needs to hire a Database Administrator that has the requisite skillset to design and manage what is truly a very simple, routine, day to day e-mail processing subsystem inside their database. If you take all the ships in the NCLH inventory with every cruise scheduled for the next 5 years and add filing every cabin with passengers on every sailing it is a miniscule amount of data. The key is the design (relationship management).

Hi, Regent I’m a retired DBA that cruises with you, give me a call and I’m sure we can resolve this issue, as the person above mention this shouldn’t be that difficult. Actually to avoid the TA missed it issue - the cancellation needs to be sent the traveler and TA. - one of them should be paying attention.

If that is the case then Regent or NCLH needs to hire a Database Administrator that has the requisite skillset to design and manage what is truly a very simple, routine, day to day e-mail processing subsystem inside their database. If you take all the ships in the NCLH inventory with every cruise scheduled for the next 5 years and add filing every cabin with passengers on every sailing it is a miniscule amount of data. The key is the design (relationship management).

Very complex! The last thing Regent needs is to be tied in with NCL or Oceania. Regent only has 4 ships with a total passenger capacity of 2,640. I can mentally hear the protests from posters on this board when they don't receive the notifications. Regent customers can be difficult to reach. Sending to TA's makes a lot more sense.

Don't have a clue how Regent is suppose to guess what excursions 200 or so passengers would want. And, since the database currently does not permit cancelling and rebooking excursions, everyone would have to call Regent.

Everything sounds easy to us because we are not implementing it. Think that Regent needs to figure it out - especially because this is not something that happens frequently.

For better or worse, Regent cannot give notification to every single TA that books a cruise with Regent. All benefits/offers that we are aware of go to TA's that book Regent regularly. This is why many of us strongly recommend using TA's tdhat "regularly book Regent cruises".

 

As Mudhen posted, "stuff happens". That seems to be the case here.

Clearly, if your insider information is true, TAs should take note and, perhaps, steer their clients who are looking forward to the big "free, unlimited excursions" hook to a different company where they are not treated with disdain. This attitude is appalling.

For better or worse, Regent cannot give notification to every single TA that books a cruise with Regent. All benefits/offers that we are aware of go to TA's that book Regent regularly. This is why many of us strongly recommend using TA's tdhat "regularly book Regent cruises".

 

As Mudhen posted, "stuff happens". That seems to be the case here.

As I've mentioned before my TA is one who "regularly book Regent cruises" and was in fact recommended by a frequent Regent guest. My TA was told no notification was sent and that is the problem.

If that is the case then Regent or NCLH needs to hire a Database Administrator that has the requisite skillset to design and manage what is truly a very simple, routine, day to day e-mail processing subsystem inside their database. If you take all the ships in the NCLH inventory with every cruise scheduled for the next 5 years and add filing every cabin with passengers on every sailing it is a miniscule amount of data. The key is the design (relationship management).

Agree. There is no reason an email could not have been sent. Regents client website is an abomination if there internal system is different it's certainly no better.

With all due respect, are you familiar with the problems that Regent has had with their database? This has gone on for years. It seems that Regent's policy is to contact TA's rather than passengers directly. While I do not want to attack any TA, generally the issue is that a TA received the notification and did not communicate it to their client (and they denied receiving it). IMO, too many TA's are one person offices and when that person is out of the office or sick, there is no one to take care of emails, phone calls or notifications.

 

Our TA has a staff of several people. When one person is not in, there is another person to take care of his/her emails and other communications. This makes a huge difference.

Please see post#15

The individual books the excursions whether he/she has a TA or not. Regent should notify the individual of any cancellation regardless of TA or not. This is not brain surgery.

For better or worse, Regent cannot give notification to every single TA that books a cruise with Regent. All benefits/offers that we are aware of go to TA's that book Regent regularly. This is why many of us strongly recommend using TA's tdhat "regularly book Regent cruises".

 

As Mudhen posted, "stuff happens". That seems to be the case here.

Yes Regent can and should notify every customer and TA. They have all the contact info on the Booking file ( a data base taught in 8th grade). Your oft-given admonition to use a TA experienced with Regent is great advice BECAUSE once away from the 5-star onboard experience, one often deals with Regent's ineptness.

Let's remember that it is the customer that drives Regent not the other way around. It is Regent's obligation to hold the customer's schedule as one of its top priorities. Therefore when a change occurs that affects the customer's schedule this information must be transmitted to the customer. With our smart phone technology there are not too many instances where a Regent customer cannot receive e-mails. It is also a good business practice for Regent to transmit the information to the customer's TA as a backup. In database terms the customer is the parent record and the travel Agent is the child record or an attribute of the parent record depending upon the DB system you are working with. When there is an event (trigger) such as a excursion cancellation this invokes a stored procedure within the database that forces e-mails (canned with the inclusion of the reason) to all the affected parties, parents and children. You can have different messages for all your different audiences; customers, TAs, vendors, etc. With the proper design (simple) of the database these types of recurring actions are handled routinely and effortlessly.

As a lifelong IT guy, I have to agree that it's a fairly simple matter to maintain a database with customer and TA data and send notifications when things get cancelled. We've been fortunate in the past when we've had excursions cancel (usually due to the tour operator or failure to meet the minimum number of guests) that our TA was notified promptly and let us know the same day.

But c'mon - it's 2018. Maintaining the necessary data points isn't rocket surgery - sending notifications to both the TA and customer when an excursion changes or cancels is child's play. I'm a system admin on a financial system that sends a LOT of notifications to a LOT of people as part of the workflow processes. Guess what? Not that tough, once it's set up. For no more customers than Regent has, this shouldn't even be an issue. Change notices could be sent via email, SMS, or even a robocall.

I don't agree with this thought process because I know the risks, but there are people who book a cruise with the sole expectation of taking one excursion or visiting one port. We all know that things can change, and many of these things are beyond Regent's control. But not notifying a customer immediately when something changes is totally unacceptable in this day and age. I'd be happy to act as irishwitchy's assistant to help fix this...

Bill, if anyone could fix Regent's system, it would be you. I have suspected for a long time that there is not one database but more than that. Officers on the ship, for instance, do not have access to any part of the database in Florida. They have to send an email (or call) Miami in order to get questions answered. While I understand that Regent would not want passengers private information available to everyone, there is some information that would be helpful for onboard officers to be able to access. Wondering if this has something to do with wi-fi security while the ship is at sea. I still get very uncomfortable when messages appear on computers in the computer room telling us that our information is not protected.

Still think that having a good TA is very important. We don't worry about prices going down, cancellations of ports or excursions or anything else as we are always notified. Just about everything that we receive from Regent goes to our TA first and is then sent to us.

"Still think that having a good TA is very important. We don't worry about prices going down, cancellations of ports or excursions or anything else as we are always notified. Just about everything that we receive from Regent goes to our TA first and is then sent to us."

That is all well and good, but the point is that no one was notified - not my TA, not me - and Regent has no record of anyone being notified that the tour was cancelled.

"Still think that having a good TA is very important. We don't worry about prices going down, cancellations of ports or excursions or anything else as we are always notified. Just about everything that we receive from Regent goes to our TA first and is then sent to us."

 

That is all well and good, but the point is that no one was notified - not my TA, not me - and Regent has no record of anyone being notified that the tour was cancelled.

Okay - so Regent made a mistake - it likely isn't the first time nor will it be the last. If you feel that this particular excursion was very important, and no one on the Cruise Critic board has any influence on these type of things, contact Regent management and let them know what has transpired. Maybe they can help.

FYI I do believe the excursion was "important " as Bordeaux is imo an important port. Management has been contacted with no response received. And furthermore this is beyond a mistake. As others have noted it's a failing in their database management.