Tour Questions

[smilingcruiser]

I know that this has been covered previously, but I do not recall the answers to my following 2 questions:

 

1. We are booked on the Navigator April 25, 2011 for the Panama Canal trip. October 27 i8s the date for booking our tours and, since we are on the east coast, I was wondering what time, our time, should I get on line to sigh up for the ones we have chosen?

 

2. We have selected 2 tours that have a charge attached. We will have a good deal of shipboard credit, but I do not think it is the kind that I can charge the tours to, so, what is the correct procedure? Do I cnarge them now, then when we are on board, cancel and rebook them to use or credit?

 

I greatly appreciate any assistance in this matter.

[toru]

The online booking of the tours doesn't seem to fill up fast. We're doing the 12/20 Panama Canal cruise and it was probably a month or so after they were available to book that we booked ours. Everything was still open. A month or so later, we decided to change one port from an included one to one with a surcharge. The "new" one, was still available but I couldn't figure out how to change it. I sent e-mail to my TA and she changed it and had Regent charge it to our credit card on file.

 

Regent is based in Miami / Ft. Lauderdale area so, as far as timing your time is probably the same as there's!;) We too are "east coasters"

Ruth

[rallydave]

Regent is based in Miami / Ft. Lauderdale area so, as far as timing your time is probably the same as there's!;) We too are "east coasters"

Ruth

 

Not true about east coast time. Regent has offices in Omaha Nebraska and that's where their servers are so bookings open at midnight central time. This is true for excursions and restaurant reservations.

 

There was a thread with this info about 4 months ago and I asked Host Dan to make this a sticky so that people would know and I guess he didn't think this deserved a sticky as he never made the change but, for sure it is Central time as I got this info from a Regent Director in charge of this portion of the business.

 

As to how your excursions will go, that is anyone's guess based on recent screwed up excursions. Hope yours are fine, expecially any you pay extra for.

[Travelcat2]

This is a confusing question because for the past two years it has worked on Eastern time and now apparently works on Central. You may want to try both.

 

In terms of excursions not filling up quickly, that has not been our experience. Popular excursions and those with limited space to begin with often fill up the first day. While it is possible to get a spot on the excursion once you are on board, I wouldn't count on it.

[DaveFr]

Actually there should not be any early logins since Regent settled on midnight central time as the start of the day for booking excursions and dinner reservations a few months ago. Now the computer system will not display the Book Excursions or Dining Reservations links until midnight central time on the appropriate day. The lockout problem occurred when those links would appear an hour early.

 

Dave

[Travelcat2]

Actually there should not be any early logins since Regent settled on midnight central time as the start of the day for booking excursions and dinner reservations a few months ago. Now the computer system will not display the Book Excursions or Dining Reservations links until midnight central time on the appropriate day. The lockout problem occurred when those links would appear an hour early.

 

Dave

 

While I have not seen a statement from Regent on this, your explanation is appreciated. I'll check it out tomorrow night when we book dining reservations for our January cruise. Hopefully people in other parts of the world can figure it out:-)

[I&J Cruisers]

I was told by a Regent Rep that you can't use on board credit until on are on the ship. We have a lot of onboard credit and wanted to use it to upgrade shore excursions. He said to wait until boarding, but based on things I've read on these boards I didn't think that was a good idea so I went ahead and booked 'included" excursions. Will they let me upgrade them to Regent Choice excursions if space is available when we board the ship?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Yes, you can change any excursions you like once you board, subject to them being available, except for the super-premium, book-in-advance ones like expensive plane flights.

 

But if there's a particular excursion that you really want badly, I would go ahead and pay for it.

 

Some have gone ahead and booked the premium ones in advance, and then rebooked them once on board so that they could use their OBC. I may try this in December, not guaranteed I have heard, but worth a try.

[I&J Cruisers]

Thanks Wendy. Since this is my first experience with Regent I'm kind of feeling my way.

Irene

[nana541]

We did the Panama Canal last Christmas and New Years.....I would not wait for anything you really want....by the time we got on the ship things were really booked and I was so thankful I had booked ahead! You will love everything about this trip, we did.....Tikal National Park in Guatemala was one that will go down for us as the best ever....magical!

Oh and as for dinner reservations....make those at 12:01am and don't wait because by 7:30 in the morning they are really booked....IMHO that was our experience anyway.

Happy Cruising....