New to Regent

[PSU]

My husband and I just booked a Regent cruise Auckland to Bali for January 2020. We are longtime Celebrity and Royal Caribbean passengers.  We had a Celebrity cruise booked for New Zealand and Australia in February 2020, but the Regent cruise, although more expensive, covered anything including business air fare and three suite upgrade. Also the pre-cruise land tour in Auckland was included.

I am sure that all of you who regularly cruise Regent can give us some pointers. I already know that it is wise to pay the air deviation fee to get the flights that you want.

Thank you for any help that you can give us.

[msmillie]

Let me be the first to say you made an outstanding choice, the included air will make your cruise so much easier.  I know you will have a magnificent cruise.  Angie 

[ronrick1943]

Just be sure to open your manage your cruise account and book everything as soon as you can, tours, dining and if you have a Butler fill in the request form.

I think you'll have a great time---we just started Regent and will be starting our 3rd Regent cruise next week.  We like it was much we've got 3 more Regent cruises booked and looking forward to more. Enjoy! 

[Floridiana]

11 hours ago, ronrick1943 said:

 book everything as soon as you can, tours, dining 

 

Why so early? The cruise is a year from now. Don't they have enough space in the specialty dining rooms? Are all tours immediately booked and late comers are left out? That doesn't sound like a luxury ship.

 

Our cruise is in 2021 and we only booked the overland tours.

[rcandkc]

19 minutes ago, Floridiana said:

 

Why so early? The cruise is a year from now. Don't they have enough space in the specialty dining rooms? Are all tours immediately booked and late comers are left out? That doesn't sound like a luxury ship.

 

Our cruise is in 2021 and we only booked the overland tours.

You cannot book anything else yet for a 2021 cruise.  What Ronrick was saying was to book tours and restaurants as soon as they open for booking to get your first choice of time or tour.  When you can book is listed on your RSSC account. 

[ronrick1943]

51 minutes ago, rcandkc said:

You cannot book anything else yet for a 2021 cruise.  What Ronrick was saying was to book tours and restaurants as soon as they open for booking to get your first choice of time or tour.  When you can book is listed on your RSSC account. 

Sorry, that is what meant to say, I just didn't say it that way.  Thanks for making it right.

[Travelcat2]

2 hours ago, Floridiana said:

 

Why so early? The cruise is a year from now. Don't they have enough space in the specialty dining rooms? Are all tours immediately booked and late comers are left out? That doesn't sound like a luxury ship.

 

Our cruise is in 2021 and we only booked the overland tours.

 

Agree with last two posters but want to add that there are limits for seating in specialty restaurants.  There is enough seating for every passenger to have one visit to each specialty restaurant.  So, on longer cruises there is more availability.  If you do not book online as soon as reservations open, you will likely not get the time or table size that you prefer.

 

Excursions also have limits.  While on some excursions, Regent just has to add more buses to accommodate passengers (sometimes up to 6-8 buses for the same excursion), there are space limited excursions as well.   In most cases,  if an excursion is filled, you go on the waitlist and most waitlists clear.  It seems that at the beginning of a cruise, when people are excited and expect to do every possible excursion, by the 3rd or 4th day there are cancellations.  Long excursions are exhausting and, especially on port intensive cruises, there is little time to spend on the ship.

[Floridiana]

2 hours ago, Travelcat2 said:

There is enough seating for every passenger to have one visit to each specialty restaurant.

 

Thank you all  for your clarifications. As long as the food is very good to outstanding in the dining room and buffet, I am fine with one guarantee for specialties, hope for more on our loooong cruise. As to excursions, we usually book ahead of time, but we have never been on a ship where most excursions are included in the fare (except for the Aranui to the Marquesas). We have also changed excursions on the ship when the required fitness level was explained in detail. 50 steps versus 200 makes a difference. 

[DaveFr]

2 hours ago, Floridiana said:

 

Thank you all  for your clarifications. As long as the food is very good to outstanding in the dining room and buffet, I am fine with one guarantee for specialties, hope for more on our loooong cruise.

The World Cruise in 2021 consists of seven segments.  Unless things have changed recently, on each segment, you will be guaranteed one online precruise reservation in each specialty restaurant. So, at a minimum, you can eat seven times in Prime 7 and seven times in Chartreuse.  Considering the length of many of the segments, you should have no problem getting additional specialty restaurant reservations. 

 

 Hope this helps. 

 

Dave

[Floridiana]

Thank you DaveFr. We will not go hungry. 🙂

 

By the way, with "steps" I meant vertical steps.

[UUNetBill]

Just to add to this a bit - we've done about 10 Regent cruises in the past 10 years and I can count on one hand the number of excursions that I haven't been able to get.  As TC said, Regent will usually accommodate additional guests on extra buses but there are certain excursions that are capacity limited - and on rare occasions you might have one cancelled due to too few people (these are usually the Regent Choice, i.e. extra charge) selections.

 

We usually take 10-14 day cruises so we're fine with one visit to each specialty restaurant, but at times we've been able to get additional reservations.  Honestly, though, the selection in CR is fine for us most nights.  Between CR, Sette Mari, room service and 2 or 3 specialty restaurants, we've never felt like there's a lack of selection.  Might be an issue on a longer cruise, but for up to 2 weeks it's never been an issue for us.

 

And don't be afraid to call Regent directly to help set up excursions and dining reservations.  I've had times where the website showed no availability but one quick call to Regent got everything straightened up.  Don't stress about reservations - they'll make every effort to accommodate you.

[frankdp]

I booked my excursions earlier this week for a November crossing and a few were sold out.  Of that few, some gave the option to wait list, some did not.    Same thing for culinary classes.

Floridiana, the food is far superior to RC and Celebrity, even in the main dinning room.   The menu in the mdr is pretty darn extensive.

[PSU]

I am so impressed with the helpful suggestions from posters. If the people on our Jan 21 cruise to New Zealand, Australia and Bali are half as nice, I will be happy. We are in a Penthouse Suite and have a butler. We are used to a butler on Celebrity so we will see what is the same or different.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

On 4/21/2019 at 9:13 AM, Floridiana said:

 

Why so early? The cruise is a year from now. Don't they have enough space in the specialty dining rooms? Are all tours immediately booked and late comers are left out? That doesn't sound like a luxury ship.

 

Our cruise is in 2021 and we only booked the overland tours.

 

Glad someone explained what this meant.  It is true that we on the 2021 WC would be advised to book the excursions you think you want when they become available (for us that's early May 2020).  That doesn't mean everything gets booked up, no.  It's rare in my experience that you don't get what you want, even changing on board, unless it's an extremely popular excursion.  It just means that if you have your heart set on specific tours, you should book them early just to make sure.

 

In our case, it being a world cruise, I'm sure there will be lots of changes to be made as the cruise progresses.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Wendy The Wanderer

[SWFLAOK]

We've booked a 32 night cruise in December on the Voyager from Singapore to Sydney. It's a back to back cruise. Is that the same as a 2 segment cruise? If so, others have said that they can only book 1 reservation at each of the specialty restaurants until they end the first segment, and then can only get reservations left over at the start of the second segment since others have been allowed to book that cruise separately, while they were not allowed to prebook. Is this different than how the restaurant reservations work for the WC? On our first cruise on Regent, we prebooked a reservation at each restaurant, but were unable to get another one onboard. We're in a Penthouse on the 32 night back to back cruise, and if we can only prebook 1 reservation at each restaurant, and can't get any more I will not be happy. 

[DaveFr]

29 minutes ago, SWFLAOK said:

We've booked a 32 night cruise in December on the Voyager from Singapore to Sydney. It's a back to back cruise. Is that the same as a 2 segment cruise? If so, others have said that they can only book 1 reservation at each of the specialty restaurants until they end the first segment, and then can only get reservations left over at the start of the second segment since others have been allowed to book that cruise separately, while they were not allowed to prebook. Is this different than how the restaurant reservations work for the WC? On our first cruise on Regent, we prebooked a reservation at each restaurant, but were unable to get another one onboard. We're in a Penthouse on the 32 night back to back cruise, and if we can only prebook 1 reservation at each restaurant, and can't get any more I will not be happy. 

 I assume your 32 night cruise was booked as a single cruise with a single booking number. In that case, when you pre-book excursions for the first segment of the cruise, you will also be able to pre-book excursions for the second segment at the same time. 

 

 Even if each segment was booked under a separate booking number, you would be able to pre-book excursions for the second  segment at the normal time for pre-booking excursions. You would not have to wait until you had completed the first segment. Whoever told you otherwise was not correct. 

 

Dave

[SWFLAOK]

21 hours ago, DaveFr said:

 I assume your 32 night cruise was booked as a single cruise with a single booking number. In that case, when you pre-book excursions for the first segment of the cruise, you will also be able to pre-book excursions for the second segment at the same time. 

 

 Even if each segment was booked under a separate booking number, you would be able to pre-book excursions for the second  segment at the normal time for pre-booking excursions. You would not have to wait until you had completed the first segment. Whoever told you otherwise was not correct. 

 

Dave

It's booked as a single booking number, and I've already been able to book all of our excursions for the entire trip. They all became available on the same night. The question brought up in this thread is whether reservations for the specialty restaurants are also treated as a single cruise. It that's the case, I'll only be able to book 1 reservation for each restaurant, and will not be able to book a second reservation on the rest of the cruise until when? If it's not until the first segment is done, as suggested by others,  then everyone who is already booked on the second segment has already booked their restaurant reservations, and it will be difficult for us to have any additional specialty restaurant opportunities. We would be quite unhappy to have only 2 dinners in specialty restaurants on a 32 night Voyager cruise in a Penthouse suite. On our Regent Cruise to Alaska, we were unable to get any additional reservations after boarding for a 12 night cruise, but that was in a Deluxe Veranda on the Mariner. 

[Wendy The Wanderer]

It shouldn't matter if you're in a Deluxe or a PH, btw.

[DaveFr]

1 hour ago, SWFLAOK said:

It's booked as a single booking number, and I've already been able to book all of our excursions for the entire trip. They all became available on the same night. The question brought up in this thread is whether reservations for the specialty restaurants are also treated as a single cruise. It that's the case, I'll only be able to book 1 reservation for each restaurant, and will not be able to book a second reservation on the rest of the cruise until when? If it's not until the first segment is done, as suggested by others,  then everyone who is already booked on the second segment has already booked their restaurant reservations, and it will be difficult for us to have any additional specialty restaurant opportunities. We would be quite unhappy to have only 2 dinners in specialty restaurants on a 32 night Voyager cruise in a Penthouse suite. On our Regent Cruise to Alaska, we were unable to get any additional reservations after boarding for a 12 night cruise, but that was in a Deluxe Veranda on the Mariner. 

 Oops, I didn’t read carefully enough, sorry.   What I said above, applies equally to specialty restaurant reservations. You will be able to make all your specialty restaurant reservations at the same time. 

 

Dave

[papaflamingo]

12 hours ago, SWFLAOK said:

It's booked as a single booking number, and I've already been able to book all of our excursions for the entire trip. They all became available on the same night. The question brought up in this thread is whether reservations for the specialty restaurants are also treated as a single cruise. It that's the case, I'll only be able to book 1 reservation for each restaurant, and will not be able to book a second reservation on the rest of the cruise until when? If it's not until the first segment is done, as suggested by others,  then everyone who is already booked on the second segment has already booked their restaurant reservations, and it will be difficult for us to have any additional specialty restaurant opportunities. We would be quite unhappy to have only 2 dinners in specialty restaurants on a 32 night Voyager cruise in a Penthouse suite. On our Regent Cruise to Alaska, we were unable to get any additional reservations after boarding for a 12 night cruise, but that was in a Deluxe Veranda on the Mariner. 

I'm really new to this, only one Regent Cruise, so I can only speak from my personal experience.  We did 44 nights last Nov-Dec.  It was booked under a single reservation, and was part of a 66 night Grand Cruise.  Our's essentially was 3 cruises back to back.  So we were able to make dining reservations for each segment. For our Shore Excursions, we had to do it in 3 segments, but as I remember, we made dining reservations for each segment at one time, but you should get 1 reservation per restaurant for each segment of the cruise.  

Edited April 28, 2019 by papaflamingo