Excursion Postings

I know there have been recent comments about Regent's lack of excursion information but can't seem to find the thread.

I'm currently 18 days out to being able to book excursions and of 14 ports (with 2 days in Bordeaux) 8 ports only show private car/van options available. This has never been my experience in the past. Regent is not providing passengers the opportunity to review and research any of the excursions. Really annoying.

Would like to hear from Jason or someone at Regent about what is going on.

When reviewing the list of excursions, select the "Free" option next to the Filter. I know there was a bug previously where using a Filter of "All" only showed the Regent Choice excursions. Not sure if that bug still exists, but worth a try.

You're correct that was a bug. However, there is no "Free" tab so not the issue now.

It is long past time for them to be up. I'd suggest you call Regent at the customer service number. It's likely a new site rollout glitch, and they may not be aware of it.

That's great that you'll have an overnight in Bordeaux. I am taking a river cruise with my brother and SIL there in October, so will love to hear about what you wind up doing. My river cruise line and Regent offer many similar excursions there.

-Crystal

One would think calling Regent would provide an answer. Alas, no such luck. Was informed "they would be posted before selections open."

Very frustrating.

I can understand your frustration. Aren't you sailing in a couple of weeks? Selections should have been open some time ago.

Unless I am reading the TS' post incorrectly, they are 18 days out from when excursion bookings will be available rather than being a couple of weeks before the cruise.

Unfortunately, excursions have been late getting loaded into the system for a while now. Hope that this is corrected soon.

I can understand your frustration. Aren't you sailing in a couple of weeks? Selections should have been open some time ago.

No, date for bookings opening is 18 days out.

Ah! I thought from our discussion elsewhere that you were on the sailing coming up. I guess I'll be able to fill you in on Bordeaux and on the Explorer, rather than vice versa.

Looking at the site, the excursion info seems to be missing from a lot of cruises. However, they do have it up on that cruise I mentioned to you that we're doing next year that has a lot of the ports you will be visiting. Regent uses many of the same excursions for all its sailings on all its ships, so you can get a good idea of what may be on tap on your ports from here (most of the overlapping ports are in August): https://www.rssc.com/cruises/NAV180621E/summary

Thanks, wishIwercruisin'. Seems crazy that Regent has listings for next September ports but nothing for May sailing.

What is really odd is that, if you call up some of the segments of that cruise, the excursions are not there (other than, like yours, the private cars). Yet, they are part of the same cruise.

A Regent representative gave an answer to this issue in the following thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?p=53096800#post53096800 (post 40)

........... and said they would look at suggestions:

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?p=53364773#post53364773 (post 10)

Thank you, flossie. They really need to bring back the historic listings--they can, as in the past, note that they are historic and some may be added or subtracted. Those of us who like to plan like to research the ports and the offerings to be prepared when registration opens. Clearly LoonCall is one such person, and my travel buddy and I are two more.

Thank you' date=' flossie. They really need to bring back the historic listings--they can, as in the past, note that they are historic and some may be added or subtracted. Those of us who like to plan like to research the ports and the offerings to be prepared when registration opens. Clearly LoonCall is one such person, and my travel buddy and I are two more.[/quote']

Agree 100%. We also review the excursions in each port to help decide on which cruise to book.

Flossie, that is the thread I remembered thank you for finding and posting.

In one of Jason O'Keefe's postings he said: "In the past, we used to have the PDF available earlier, but it was not technically finalized. These were the historical offering of tours, but never reflected the new additions that may have been added for the season until the official 240 day mark or by the time they technically opened up for booking selection. Now we've created consistency across all voyages and officially open up one final version at the 240 day threshold."

I fail to see "consistency" on Regent's part when some itineraries have excursion postings, some do not and some have only a few ports listed. This is really a mess.

And how do you reach someone in management at Regent?? I just had the most circular conversation ever with a customer service rep.

"There is no supervisor." "There is no other department to handle shore excursions." "There is no pdf of excursions."

I know there have been recent comments about Regent's lack of excursion information but can't seem to find the thread.

I'm currently 18 days out to being able to book excursions and of 14 ports (with 2 days in Bordeaux) 8 ports only show private car/van options available. This has never been my experience in the past. Regent is not providing passengers the opportunity to review and research any of the excursions. Really annoying.

 

Would like to hear from Jason or someone at Regent about what is going on.

LoonCall,

I'm definitely listening and happy to explain further details.

You've noted that we announce available shore excursions at 240 days prior to the voyage, and I confirm this remains accurate. I think we may be one of the few lines that publishes this information so far in advance and as you can imagine, it requires a huge undertaking to secure these plans and space requirements from all of the individual tour operators we work with around the world that far out. There are usually a few ports that we end up having to wait on for finalization but for the majority, we are able to confidently release at 240 days prior. There are occasions where additional options may be added, so it's important to check back once in a while too.

A couple of months prior to the 240 day mark, the historical shore excursion listing is suppressed intentionally from the voyage information page. We do this for a couple of reasons... to clear the shore excursion listing to be able to populate the available options accurately at the 240 day mark and also to avoid any disappointment from guests that may assume that the historical offering will be offered verbatim on their voyage.

I offer the following suggestion to assist you in researching the historical shore excursion listing, particularly when we're a few weeks away from the 240 day mark and when you may not see everything detailed.

From our home page, click on FREE Unlimited Shore Excursions in the main toolbar.

Click on Destination and select your sailing region. (You may have to look at two regions to see all options for your particular voyage.)

Once you've reached your sailing region, all of the ports in the region are listed at the bottom of the page and you may click on any to view the previously offered shore excursion options. You may also click on Ports & Excursions link at the top of the sailing region page to reach the port selection options more quickly.

Lastly, we recognize how important the shore excursion information is in your planning process. We are actively working on additional features and tools to better assist in your vacation planning. There is more to come in this area and your feedback has been tremendously helpful in our development of these future enhancements.

Thank you very much for the response, Jason. I followed the process you described to access the historical listings and have to say while it works it's an incredibly awkward process to go through, particularly when dealing with many ports. There really has to be a better way to handle this.

One further question: You say that "the historical shore excursion listing is suppressed intentionally from the voyage information page."If that is the case, why are some ports showing offerings and others are not?

Jason, may I make a suggestion? Since many of us jump on our choices as soon as they are available for reservation, either post them 250 days out or open reservations at 230 days out. The issue is that we want to print out the list, discuss our options over a bottle of wine, and savor the anticipation!

"The issue is that we want to print out the list, discuss our options over a bottle of wine, and savor the anticipation!"

You nailed it, forgap!

7 days out from booking for a 10 day cruise and still no finalized list for excursions

Jason, may I make a suggestion? Since many of us jump on our choices as soon as they are available for reservation, either post them 250 days out or open reservations at 230 days out. The issue is that we want to print out the list, discuss our options over a bottle of wine, and savor the anticipation!

Perfect solution (y)

I am reposting this question in the hopes that Jason will respond:

Thank you very much for the response, Jason. I followed the process you described to access the historical listings and have to say while it works it's an incredibly awkward process to go through, particularly when dealing with many ports. There really has to be a better way to handle this.

One further question: You say that "the historical shore excursion listing is suppressed intentionally from the voyage information page."If that is the case, why are some ports showing offerings and others are not?

I expect the issue is with all cruises, but I'll add another peg point: our Alaska cruise next May opens for excursion booking this Friday (2 days from now). I double-checked to see that this is the date shown under My Bookings. Only the generic (or possibly specific) list of tours shown with no times or costs (for the Choice excursions). I'll also add my "vote" for the previous listing of excursions which expanded the details only when clicked.

We are on the same cruise. At 9PM PST tonight we can book our cruises but still have no finalized list.