Rio to Barcelona?

Has anyone done this itinerary? Seems like a lot of cruising days but my husband is o.k. with just relaxing on those days. I'm wondering about whether in Barcelona in February and what my fellow cruise passengers insights or opinions of this itinerary are before we book. Thanking you in advance for any feedback!

See the following thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2522002

Posts #14 to 20

My wife and I are on this cruise Feb next year. Join us on the roll call page.

We still have not booked it yet but will probably make the decision tomorrow. Do you have any trepidations about the trip and its many days at sea? Thanks for your reply.

None at all, but we love sea days. This cruise has several great ports of call and a lot of sea days. Should be the best of all worlds, great ports at a relatively slow pace. Great new sights and plenty of rest. I hope you decide to book.

Thank you, we are currently hold a cabin until Friday. We will probably have to pay an air deviation as my TA said that Regent will book air 60 out and that we could possibly have two or more layovers. We will be able to pick the best flights if we pay the deviation fee. We were concerned that the flights would get us into Rio so late that we would basically miss most of the day when we got there. My brother was in Rio last year and gave us some good advice.

We just booked our air today, paid the 175 per for deviation. Flying from Tampa to Rio, one stop Miami on American. Going down on the 22nd, arriving 23rd at 9:30am. Spending two days pre cruise in Rio.

Returning from Barcelona to Tampa via JFK on Delta. Spending 3days post cruise in Barcelona.

Thank you frankdp, but would you be so kind as to tell me about how you booked the air?

We were told by our TA that there were no direct flights to Rio from Philly but would have to make a stop either in Houston or Atlanta. She told us that booking our flights with Regent wouldn't occur until 60 days before the trip which would mean that we would have to take whatever they give us which could include 3 stops. We said that we would be willing to pay the deviation charge to get flights more that would be more desirable. Do we have our TA do this? If the air is part of the Regent deal and we are paying the deviation fee, how do you go about booking the air this far in advance and how does it affect your original booking fees? My husband looked at airfare to Rio and it's ridiculously expensive so we want to make sure that if we book this cruise that includes Business class air, that we can get the best flights if we choose the deviation fee. I hope that you understand my questions and thank you, so much for your response and anything that you can do to help us determine if we should book this cruise.

We deviate all of our flights 270 days in advance of the cruise in order to get flights before they book up. It is best to do your own research by using an airline website like yapta.com. Pick a couple of itineraries that you like. We email our choices to our TA who contacts Regent. Since we have a TA that regularly books Regent cruises, they have a good idea of which airlines Regent contracts with (it varies by area).

Alternatively, you can call Regent Air and run your choices by them.

Unfortunately, we have found flights to and from Rio to be the most challenging. Hopefully you'll find flights with only one stop.

Phillygirl3, a couple of other considerations that haven't been mentioned. You have to have a booking before you begin the deviation process. The $175 pp deviation fee allows you to deviate either one way or both ways for your cruise so you could also stay a few days in Barcelona. Be aware that Regent air without deviation will get you to Rio the morning your tour departs so think of flying all nite then immediately beginning your cruise. Many people deviate to arrive early, see the city, and work off your jet lag. Also in your case, a winter flight to Rio weather can cause you to be late to Rio and miss your cruise.

The deviation fee is not payable until you and Regent have agreed on your flights and if later you want to change them another deviation fee. You can go back and forth thru your TA or direct with the Air Desk until you are happy with your flights. There is the possibility that the flights you are comfortable with involve a surcharge to your cruise fare in addition to the deviation fee. Lot's of if's but, remember, until you are happy, the deviation fee isn't paid.

The absolute best place to find your flights to propose to Regent is matrix.itasoftware.com You can't book there but, it will have ALL of the possible flights for you to view by airline. Other sites like yapta, orbitz, etc. absolutely do not have all of the available flights. Just checked and absolutely no non-stops for you to Rio. There are one stops and 2 stops with the 2 stops being less expensive so would probably expect Regent to book you on a 2 stop and deviating to a one stop is likely to cost you an additional charge which you will know before agreeing.

Suggestion based on where you live, if you can get to the New York area, there are several non-stops to Rio and more one stops than from Philadelphia. Take a train or an inexpensive flight to the New York area airport and have Regent book you from there. Just a thought. Good luck,

Phillygirl3, a couple of other considerations that haven't been mentioned. You have to have a booking before you begin the deviation process. The $175 pp deviation fee allows you to deviate either one way or both ways for your cruise so you could also stay a few days in Barcelona. Be aware that Regent air without deviation will get you to Rio the morning your tour departs so think of flying all nite then immediately beginning your cruise. Many people deviate to arrive early, see the city, and work off your jet lag. Also in your case, a winter flight to Rio weather can cause you to be late to Rio and miss your cruise.

 

The deviation fee is not payable until you and Regent have agreed on your flights and if later you want to change them another deviation fee. You can go back and forth thru your TA or direct with the Air Desk until you are happy with your flights. There is the possibility that the flights you are comfortable with involve a surcharge to your cruise fare in addition to the deviation fee. Lot's of if's but, remember, until you are happy, the deviation fee isn't paid.

 

The absolute best place to find your flights to propose to Regent is matrix.itasoftware.com You can't book there but, it will have ALL of the possible flights for you to view by airline. Other sites like yapta, orbitz, etc. absolutely do not have all of the available flights. Just checked and absolutely no non-stops for you to Rio. There are one stops and 2 stops with the 2 stops being less expensive so would probably expect Regent to book you on a 2 stop and deviating to a one stop is likely to cost you an additional charge which you will know before agreeing.

 

Suggestion based on where you live, if you can get to the New York area, there are several non-stops to Rio and more one stops than from Philadelphia. Take a train or an inexpensive flight to the New York area airport and have Regent book you from there. Just a thought. Good luck,

Thanks Dave - that link is great - have bookmarked it.

Wow, you guys are awesome--so much helpful information! Thanks to those who responded offering me such good advice. We could get to NY as we have done it before when we cruised in Vietnam/Cambodia. However, weather could be an issue trying to get there, so it really is a matter of luck. I'm going to rely on my TA to see what is best for us but using the suggested websites for checking flights will be useful. Again, many thanks my fellow cruisers--you are the best!:)

Just one more comment about connecting flights and Regent Air. Although international flights are in Business, domestic flights within the U.S. are often Economy seats. You can get lucky, as we did last winter and find that the domestic leg is booked as Domestic First, but I suspect that it's not that common.

So, if you can get a flight that connects somewhere other than the States, you might get a better class of travel. But then again, you might not have that choice. When we flew, about 10 years ago, we rolled our own, and flew from Miami through Panama City, then on to Rio. But Sao Paolo is probably the only common connection, which is almost a direct flight, with just a little hop to Rio.

Whenever I have deviated with Regent (or Oceania for that matter), I have always specified exactly what flights I want before starting the process.

To add to the confusion, my experience with Regent is that they do not book the lowest fare as a previous poster suggested (in this case ones with the most stops) but instead book flights with airlines that they have contracts with. The airlines Regent contracts with are definitely not the least expensive. Having said that, the closer you get to the time that you sail, the more likely it will be that Regent offers multiple stops since the better flights have been booked already. Keep in mind that Regent's contracts are for a certain amount of seats per fight so the flight can appear to have availability but Regent's allocation may be full.

In terms of Coach flights within the U.S., as long as you fly within the U.S. on the same airline that you will fly internationally, all of your flights should be Business/First. When we flew back from Rio, we flew from Rio to IAD (Washington, Dulles) Business Class. We then continued on the same airline across the country to Seattle in First Class.

A couple of comments on another post. As far as getting a first class seat on the domestic portion of an overseas flight when Regent books your flight or you book it yourself. First of all very few, if any International carriers operate domestic US flights so if you are on an International Airline Ticket for the international portion of your flight, highly unlikely you will be First Class on the domestic portion. It depends on which airline you are ticketed as with code sharing the metal of your airplane may differ from the airline your ticket is booked on. As far as being booked on a domestic airline, you will be booked in First Class for the domestic portion of your flight if seats are available based on your booked ticket. Not everyone booked in International Business will get First Class domestic depending on seat availability. If you are not initially booked Domestic First Class you can get on a wait list for a First Class seat domestic and will clear, if seats available before free upgrades.

As to booking the cheapest flight or the Contract. Imagine you are the air desk of the cruise line providing included air. Your find when you are booking passengers for a cruise the contract price for the person being booked is $1,000 on airline A who you have a contract with while airline B has seats available for the same origin and destination at $900. Who are you going to book the passenger with?? Think the answer is pretty easy. Don't blame the cruise line at all as the Contract Price may not always be the lowest depending on sales and other issues. While you will often be on a Contract carrier, not always be the case depending on the flight prices at that time.

Dave, it sounds as if you have a lot of travel knowledge but not particularly with Regent. To show one of my points, go to your website and look at a multi-city itinerary - YVR to DPS and then HKG to YVR - mid-March. It will be clear that there are plenty of flights that are considerably less expensive than Cathay Pacific -- the airline that Regent put us on once and we booked ourselves a couple of months ago. This has to do with contracts rather than the price that we all see on websites!

Second, I did not say that every domestic to international flight will be Business/First all the way. However, in our experience, it happens more times than not. As I said, it is very important to remember that the best seats/routing is available 240 days prior to your cruise. To add to that, First Class domestic seats are very limited, however, IMO (and only in my opinion), the airlines would rather sell a contract/discounted First Class seat that give them away to frequent flyers. Lastly, I am not familiar with anyone being put on a non-contracted flight without paying for it. Unless you personally know the cost of Regent's contracted flights, one must assume that they are dramatically lower in price that anything that can be booked on non-contracted flights.

Dave, it sounds as if you have a lot of travel knowledge but not particularly with Regent. To show one of my points, go to your website and look at a multi-city itinerary - YVR to DPS and then HKG to YVR - mid-March. It will be clear that there are plenty of flights that are considerably less expensive than Cathay Pacific -- the airline that Regent put us on once and we booked ourselves a couple of months ago. This has to do with contracts rather than the price that we all see on websites!

Second, I did not say that every domestic to international flight will be Business/First all the way. However, in our experience, it happens more times than not. As I said, it is very important to remember that the best seats/routing is available 240 days prior to your cruise. To add to that, First Class domestic seats are very limited, however, IMO (and only in my opinion), the airlines would rather sell a contract/discounted First Class seat that give them away to frequent flyers. Lastly, I am not familiar with anyone being put on a non-contracted flight without paying for it. Unless you personally know the cost of Regent's contracted flights, one must assume that they are dramatically lower in price that anything that can be booked on non-contracted flights.

Never know what the fares are at a particular point in time nor do any of us know the cruise line contract rates but, for a business to pay more for flights using a contract rate when there might be a special price out there would not be beneficial to the business. Have to remember, fares can change any second and what's there now may not be there now. And, specials come up all the time that are not on any websites. As to the itasoftware website, they have the actual airline prices and will even provide the booking codes for all of their fares. They are the software companies that the airlines use to fill their websites so extremely accurate. Other sites that sell tickets may or may not have the same rates and sometimes add costs since the airlines don't pay commissions.

Actually the best seats/routing are available with most airlines 330 prior to the flight so when booking with Regent, you have already lost 60 days of others booking. No way to know what the contracted prices are and as there are multiple sales going on for business as well as economy, no way to know which are lower at any given time and without knowing the contacts of the contracts which none of us know, no way to know the rates or to know who are the contracted airlines or to know who has gotten flights on non-contracted airlines. We can talk and talk all around this subject but, if we are not privy to the contracts, everything is a WAG (wild ass guess).

Dave, it sounds as if you have a lot of travel knowledge but not particularly with Regent. To show one of my points, go to your website and look at a multi-city itinerary - YVR to DPS and then HKG to YVR - mid-March. It will be clear that there are plenty of flights that are considerably less expensive than Cathay Pacific -- the airline that Regent put us on once and we booked ourselves a couple of months ago. This has to do with contracts rather than the price that we all see on websites!

 

Second, I did not say that every domestic to international flight will be Business/First all the way. However, in our experience, it happens more times than not. As I said, it is very important to remember that the best seats/routing is available 240 days prior to your cruise. To add to that, First Class domestic seats are very limited, however, IMO (and only in my opinion), the airlines would rather sell a contract/discounted First Class seat that give them away to frequent flyers. Lastly, I am not familiar with anyone being put on a non-contracted flight without paying for it. Unless you personally know the cost of Regent's contracted flights, one must assume that they are dramatically lower in price that anything that can be booked on non-contracted flights.

 

 

Never know what the fares are at a particular point in time nor do any of us know the cruise line contract rates but, for a business to pay more for flights using a contract rate when there might be a special price out there would not be beneficial to the business. Have to remember, fares can change any second and what's there now may not be there now. And, specials come up all the time that are not on any websites. As to the itasoftware website, they have the actual airline prices and will even provide the booking codes for all of their fares. They are the software companies that the airlines use to fill their websites so extremely accurate. Other sites that sell tickets may or may not have the same rates and sometimes add costs since the airlines don't pay commissions.

 

 

 

 

Actually the best seats/routing are available with most airlines 330 prior to the flight so when booking with Regent, you have already lost 60 days of others booking. No way to know what the contracted prices are and as there are multiple sales going on for business as well as economy, no way to know which are lower at any given time and without knowing the contacts of the contracts which none of us know, no way to know the rates or to know who are the contracted airlines or to know who has gotten flights on non-contracted airlines. We can talk and talk all around this subject but, if we are not privy to the contracts, everything is a WAG (wild ass guess).

It looks like you wrote your response inside of my quoted post making it look like I wrote the last paragraph. Just mentioning this for other readers.

Yes - we can discuss this endlessly (but do not want to derail this thread). Also, IMO, it is better to give our advice to posters asking questions based on fairly recent personal experiences with Regent. Regent changes their contracts and rules which is why I started the sticky regarding deviating flights. The bottom line is that Regent is not going to put their passengers on a random airline - no matter how cheap it is.

Hi Phillygirl! Lots of info here that should be helpful to you. I have traveled internationally but certainly not as extensively as some of the other posters. I will share with you what I know based upon THIS booking with Regent and their air concierge.

1. As said above, you must be officially booked on a cruise before you can book your flights. Once you are booked, you can make flight arrangements up to 270 in advance IF YOU ARE BOOKING A DEVIATION, and I believe you are.

2. If you book the cruise through a TA, you must make flight arrangements through that same TA.

3. My outbound flight is with American, from Tampa to Rio, with one stop in Miami. The return flight from Barcelona to Tampa, stopping at JFK, is on Delta. Both of the domestic legs are first class and the international legs are business class.

I hope this helps.

Hi Phillygirl! Lots of info here that should be helpful to you. I have traveled internationally but certainly not as extensively as some of the other posters. I will share with you what I know based upon THIS booking with Regent and their air concierge.

1. As said above, you must be officially booked on a cruise before you can book your flights. Once you are booked, you can make flight arrangements up to 270 in advance IF YOU ARE BOOKING A DEVIATION, and I believe you are.

2. If you book the cruise through a TA, you must make flight arrangements through that same TA.

3. My outbound flight is with American, from Tampa to Rio, with one stop in Miami. The return flight from Barcelona to Tampa, stopping at JFK, is on Delta. Both of the domestic legs are first class and the international legs are business class.

I hope this helps.

Just a comment about #2. Even if you use a TA, you can call Regent Air and work with them.

Just a comment about #2. Even if you use a TA, you can call Regent Air and work with them.

Regent's air concierge refused to deal with me directly. Not sure if the person I spoke with was wrong or if you are wrong, I just know that she would not deal with me directly.

Once again, thanks to all who responded to my post and to those who went above and beyond to provide me with invaluable information.

Regent's air concierge refused to deal with me directly. Not sure if the person I spoke with was wrong or if you are wrong, I just know that she would not deal with me directly.

Perhaps they changed their policy. I have spoken with Regent Air, Regent Excursions and Regent Air many times over the years and never had a problem (and we have a TA). Very strange!

Back to my previous post in which I responded to the idea that Regent may use less expensive airlines -- ones that Regent does not contract with to save money. In addition to Regent not wanting to put their passengers on a random airline, when Regent books flights for their passengers, even though they are not legally responsible to get them to the ship on time, they do whatever they can to assist their passengers. Part of assisting passengers is obviously contacting the airlines to get their passengers on another flight (probably at no charge to Regent). The contracted airlines likely have contact people that know Regent and can expedite Regent's requests. I don't think Regent would risk the hassle and time involved trying to work with a airline that they are not contracted with (or at least have at one time contracted with).

Thanks Rallydave for the link, it is very useful to me.

We want to book this cruise but have a serious flight problem. We need to fly from London to Rio direct. The only direct flight from London is BA and Regent have told us they do not have a contract for this with BA at least not in Business class. There are no seats available using aitmiles. Any suggestions?