Excursion Selection Night

[pappy1022]

Thanks to the advice on this board, I did my research, had all of my 1st & 2nd excursion choices listed on a spreadsheet, prioritized my excursions and I was ready to roll last night at the stroke of midnight. All was going well. I was able to get into the system, select the port, select the excursion, check the boxes for my wife and I and finally add the excursion to the cart. Wonderful, easy as pie, except nothing was going into my cart. I tried 2 different computers, one a MAC and one an HP, with the same results. I was even patient, as many had advised. My friend in another city did the same process with the same results. Tried again early this morning with the same results so I will need to wait until 8:30 this morning to call the Reservations desk to hopefully get this done. 

My first taste of Regent "service" was very frustrating and not a good way to start this "dream" trip for our 50 year anniversary. I've been on Regent years ago but this is the first time with shore excursions included. My friend has been through this drill before and he had the same result last night (this morning) so I can't can't chalk it up to user error. 

Come on Regent, get this process fixed. I'm not the first one to experience this broken process.

[pappy1022]

All's well that ends well. I spoke to Regent this morning and the agent quickly got me booked on all of my top choices for the port excursions. It's amazing how fast she was able to book them. Regent ought to give it's customers this type of user interface - easy and fast. She did say that a lot of people were having the same issues that I experienced. 

[wishIweretravelling]

I was trying to do something else in My Account over the weekend, and it just went into an endless loop. It works now. I think the site was having problems over the weekend. But having problems is not an unusual thing on the Regent site, alas.

[1982CruzStart]

I had this problem on NYE when i was trying to book our shore excursions. We weren't as lucky to get all of our first choices when i had to wait until Jan 2nd to speak to an agent.  I still can't access the culinary class booking and have asked Regent to look into what is happening with my account as i want this fixed before restaurant reservations open up.  Haven't heard back from them yet and as of this morning still can't even look at the culinary class options. 

[GrJ Berkshire]

Don't get stressed on this, the way to do this is to phone, not online. When you speak with a human, rather than rely with the internet you usually get what you want. Especially when its the first day that excursions have opened on the cruise. In UK phoning Southampton is the best way to do this.

[Kwaj girl]

Strange....I've never had a problem booking dining or excursions online using Chrome.  Maybe some browsers are not compatible  ?

[pappy1022]

In today's business world, a reliable and functional online customer service interface is expected and indeed is a basic requirement to do business. The fact that many Regent customers are complaining about the availabilty, speed and functionality of their website should be an indicator to Regent that they have an opportunity to improve the web interface. I personally experienced the frustrations last night (early this AM) when nothing worked in an attempt to select port excursions. Everything appeared to be working but nothing would go into my cart. I tried multiple browsers and even multiple computers as did my friend in a different city. Reading these boards, it is apparent that it is more than just a few experiencing these issues. I did get my excursions booked this AM talking to a human but my friend was already waitlisted on a couple of his when he spoke with an agent minutes after I completed my requests. He is likely to get cleared since this was the first day of bookings but it doesn't take away from the poor experiences from earlier this morning. I hope Regent is taking notice. When I spoke to the human this morning, who was very pleasant and very helpful, she said that a lot of people were calling this morning so there must have been something wrong with the website. 

[1982CruzStart]

19 hours ago, Kwaj girl said:

Strange....I've never had a problem booking dining or excursions online using Chrome.  Maybe some browsers are not compatible  ?

I use Chrome as well and this is the first time i have ever had an issue and still have an issue. Supposedly Regent is looking into it but have not heard a word. 

[flossie009]

On 1/13/2020 at 10:48 AM, pappy1022 said:

My friend has been through this drill before and he had the same result last night (this morning) so I can't can't chalk it up to user error. 

Booked excursions on line this morning with no issues. Maybe W/E maintenance caused the glitches earlier this week.

 

@1982CruzStart, hope Regent sort out your account soon - very frustrating.

[Hambagahle]

I had no problem booking shore excursions via my Mac last summer and no problems booking dinner reservations in mid December.  I DID have huge problems in even being able to see what Cooking classes were to be offered though.  Finally I called Regent Customer Service in the US and the person there took care of the bookings.  (Some kind person on these boards also posted the list of classes so I could see it!)

 

I think they had forgotten to give people outside the US an interface with the Culinary Centre programme -- that has been fixed and it now works.

[1982CruzStart]

9 hours ago, flossie009 said:

Booked excursions on line this morning with no issues. Maybe W/E maintenance caused the glitches earlier this week.

 

@1982CruzStart, hope Regent sort out your account soon - very frustrating.

Thanks Susan. Still trying to get it fixed.

[snorkle lover]

I will be booking our excursions for our September cruise on the Splendor

in just a little under two weeks time.

Since I had a lot of difficulty booking our last excursions ( on line at the stroke

of midnight + one minute)for our April cruise, I am now anticipating this

frustration again. What time ( EST) can Regent be contacted by phone

for excursion reservations? Maybe I should just save myself the anxiety

and call first thing in the morning. I am an early to bed and early to rise person so

staying up until midnight and then being frustrated by the web site doesn't sit well.

[DeepFreeze63]

2 hours ago, snorkle lover said:

I will be booking our excursions for our September cruise on the Splendor

in just a little under two weeks time.

Since I had a lot of difficulty booking our last excursions ( on line at the stroke

of midnight + one minute)for our April cruise, I am now anticipating this

frustration again. What time ( EST) can Regent be contacted by phone

for excursion reservations? Maybe I should just save myself the anxiety

and call first thing in the morning. I am an early to bed and early to rise person so

staying up until midnight and then being frustrated by the web site doesn't sit well.

I've gotten through @ 8:30 EST Mon-Fri; I've never tried on a SAT.

[snorkle lover]

Thank you Deep Freeze. I am thinking that might be a better plan.

[Joanandjoe]

On several occasions, I wasn't able to book at midnight eastern time; but was able to do so about 10 minutes later.  If all excursions (or dining reservations) are shown as unavailable at 12:01, they might be available a few minutes later.

 

For one of my cruises, I was on a Regent ship; but in an internet dead zone when excursion bookings opened.  I know that was a possibility; so I asked my TA, who is in the central time zone, to book the excursions for me. She kindly did so.  {I good thing, too - we had no internet when I woke up,the next morning, since our dock in Iceland was surrounded by mountains.)

 

[pappy1022]

I tried for 1 hour and gave up and went to bed. All of the excursions showed up as being available and I was able to select them but when I tried to add them to my cart ............ nothing.