Shore Excursions

[Pecoraro]

How do you know if you are actually confirmed on a shore excursion if you book it through the Regent web site. The e-mail confirmation you get says nothing about it actually being confirmed. Other cruises we have been on either say it is full or that you have been accepted. Anybody have any info on this.

[dfb]

Sadly, you will not find out until after you have boarded the ship. Usually you will find your excursion tickets in an envelope either in your cabin or on your cabin door upon arrival or within a day. You may also have a letter if you do not have tickets for the excursions you have requested. If nothing like this is in your cabin, go to the Tour Desk with your cofirmation and ask!

[jhp]

dfb is correct. Only problem I ever had was a tour I booked for Norway cruise, very early on. Got onto ship, and they said sold out. I said..."but I booked on-line at first day available!" They fit me in. Worst excursion I have ever had!

[Pecoraro]

Seems to be a rather archaic way of doing things. You risk not having gotten what you want if you have to wait until you get on board to find out if it is confirmed. I guess we will set up our own private excursion - they tend to be better anyways. Thanks for the info.

[dfb]

I perfectly understand your concerns. It does seems risky, but in our experience the Tour Desk aims to please the majority of the time and will work to get everyone accomodated for each excursion. We found once onboard that there were more excursions available to be booked that had not been offered online or that ones offered online were cancelled. So, while it does mean that you will not know for sure until you are onboard, the Tour Desk staff will work very hard to accomodate all requests even if it means adding new excursions. Also, in our experience the schedule was very fluid which would have caused problems with private arrangements made independently. It is just not a perfect world. Sorry. Good luck with your trip.

[cstrick]

Being a first time cruiser on Regent, I am a little confused about the shore excursions. It says that we can request by a certain date but do we pay then or is the cost added to our ship's account. If we book on the first day available do you usually get that tour. We really would like to get the Tracy Arm tour.

[traveller333]

I have been lucky and never been shut out for anything I signed up for online. Whatever I booked online had the tickets waiting in my cabin. It is billed to your shipboard account which you pay at the end of your cruise. If you change your mind once you're on board you can usually cancel 24 hours ahead and then you're not billed for what you don't take.

[Pecoraro]

We were only concerned as we really want to do the cave tubing in Belize and there are two other rather large ships in port the same day as us. If we get shut out it is doubtful we can find space on the dock for the same tour unless we pre-arrange it. Anybody done it before and is it worth it???

[Leejnd4]

We have a similar concern on our cruise coming up in Nov/Dec. My Mom really wants to do the Dolphin Watch excursion, but we've been told that it tends to book up early. We booked it as soon as we found out the online shore excursion booking was available, but I was on vacation when it opened up so I'm not even sure how long it has been open. So I booked that AND a different excursion for her in case the Dolphin Watch is full. It's several days into the cruise, so if we got the Dolphin Watch we'll just cancel the other one.

 

I'm not really comfortable doing this -- I feel like I'm breaking a rule -- but I'm going to be out on a scuba dive that morning, and Mom really wants to be one one or the other of those excursions.

 

I'm sure that there are valid reasons for Regent doing it this way, but I agree that it's not optimum for us. I'm leaving in a couple weeks on a Royal Caribbean cruise, and they give you an actual confirmation (and charge your credit card in advance!).