loriva

16 hours ago, Pcardad said:

With over 5000 nights booked, I have never seen Regent fail to take care of their clients. BTW, did you know that you can fly in 30 days early and fly home 30 days post-cruise with Regent?

From your experience, could you provide additional details on what "taking responsibility" means, please?  Does Regent hold the ship (if so, for how long?)  Take care of making reservations to join the ship at the next port?  What if that next port is several sea days away--does Regent compensate you for the missed days if you have their air program?

Not trying to be argumentative, but as a new (hope to be new--two cruises cancelled by COVID-19 and thinking the third is iffy) cruiser with Regent, I'm also debating the merits of using Regent Air vice the potential savings of booking independently.  We have always booked our air for cruises independently, always arriving at least a day prior to the cruise's departure.  Waiting now to see what Regent Air offers for our Papeete to Auckland cruise in January 2022 when we reach the 270-day mark prior to departure.  (We plan to pay the deviation fee and still arrive early.)  Your experience on how Regent takes care of its clients will help inform this decision.

Many thanks,

15 hours ago, Pcardad said:

They will add an additional ship every 6+ weeks or so.

 

What does your crystal ball say about Voyager's 10-day, round-trip sailings out of Athens in mid-September?  They seem to fit all of the criteria--out/into Athens, 10 days, and six weeks after Splendor re-start.

On 3/27/2021 at 12:38 PM, mrlevin said:

Hopefully they will announce the new Splendor itineraries round trip out of Piraeus (Athens) at the same time they announce July cancellations.

I missed previous discussion on this topic.  We are scheduled on Voyager round trip out of Piraeus in September.  How certain is the news of Splendor taking over these itineraries?  Will Regent offer a "lift and shift" to those already booked on similar itineraries?

What are we to make of no Regent ship having completed progress toward crew transfer as mandated by the CDC--here's the link to the chart as provided in the Cruise Critic article:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/crew-disembarkations-commercial-travel.html

NCL seems to have many fewer ships making progress than the other two large groups, Carnaval or RCG.

8 hours ago, Caroldoll said:

I correspond with one of the crew, entertainment and he was on the way back to the Voyager today.  I don't know where it is going.

 

I was intrigued to see Caroldoll's post as we are scheduled to be on Voyager in September.  While I've been hopeful as Voyager's schedule had it outside U.S. waters and, thus, not needing to meet CDC's Conditional Sail Order conditions, many of its sailings in July and August touch the United Kingdom--and I think those are now "no goes" under British rulings.

Circling back to the original topic, yesterday we booked one of the new Crystal sailings in the Bahamas.  It will be our back-up plan if Regent cancels the Voyager sailing.

We are booked on Voyager for a Med cruise in mid-September 2021.  We also booked an optional land package with Regent prior to the cruise.  The land package notes it has a minimum passenger count to run.

So--hoping that the cruise goes to make this question valid--what has been people's experience with Regent land packages meeting minimum numbers of guests to run?  Has anyone had one cancelled due to not having enough signed up?  If so, at what point were you notified of the cancellation?  Sixty days prior?

We have made alternative plans in case the pre-cruise land package is cancelled, but wondering at what point we can feel certain--as certain as anything can be these days--the land tour will go and can let go of our other reservations.  Of course, this question may be moot if Regent cancels the cruise (in July if current patterns hold, I believe.)

Many thanks,

On 2/20/2021 at 10:43 AM, mrlevin said:

I have often used points to get gifts for room stewards; always been appreciated.

Newbie question--what are "Regent points"?

Thanks to all for insight into tipping on Regent.  Hoping DH and I can put ideas into practice on our scheduled Voyager Med in Sep.

Regent told us there needed to be 90 minutes between the scheduled end of an excursion and the scheduled start of another to book multiple excursions in a port.  We have never been able to book two excursions in a port on Regent's on-line portal even when we met the 90-minute criteria.  A call to Regent Guest Services--the one listed on the shorex portal for any changes to excursions--has resulted in being able to book a second excursion in a port.  We have not tried to book three.

This has likely also been addressed somewhere, but you can also call Regent to book a "back-up" excursion if you are waitlisted for the one you really want.  Part of me feels that is not quite fair to fellow cruisers, but the practical side of me thinks that may help Regent gauge the interest in the various excursions to determine where they need to add capacity.

On 1/10/2021 at 10:31 PM, Pcardad said:

I am adding that I expect european cruises to run this summer but it will be a while before the US opens up.

We are still hoping the Voyager 10-night Greek and Turkey sailing in mid-September will be a go (after having what should have been our first two Regent cruises in 2020 cancelled.)  Voyager does not touch the United States under its current schedule and, maybe, we here and those in the EU and area will have had vaccinations by then.  (DH received his first dose last Friday.  I fall square into Phase II, but still hope I will have had mine by September.)

Of course, we just mainly want this vaccine to get out and to help all out of this horrible virus.

20 hours ago, wcsdkqh said:

Another reason to use Regent Air is due to changes that may occur with the cruise itinerary or flights. In today's environment I would not take a chance on my own arrangements if there is a chance they may change, and leave last minute changes to me. I just don't want to have that possibility hanging over me.  Regent will handle required changes for you if they are Regent Air arrangements. In the past, I generally booked my own air if I could save a few dollars, but for the next year or so, I will let Regent deal with air.  By the way, it has been a couple years since I was able to beat Regent Air prices, even with the deviation charge.

As they say "your mileage may vary."  I've read reviews here where folks reported getting very little assistance from Regent Air when they had flight problems.  Nothing is ever perfect, but I just found dealing with Regent Air and my TA to add extra layers without a huge gain.  It is nice to have the option, however, and to be able to decide going forward which option looks best.

First, thanks to all for their posts and insights into how this process works.  This is our first sailing with Regent (well, we hope it will be--track record of two cancelled cruises in 2020) and our first time booking air through a cruise line.  (We've sailed plenty of time with other lines, both from domestic and international ports, but always booked our air independently.)

--Based on info here, I called the Regent Air Concierge a couple of weeks prior to the date we could make our flight reservations to ask who are the contract carriers out of Orlando (MCO) and Miami (MIA), the two closest gateways to our home, to our destination of Athens (ATH).  Regent uses Delta, United, Air Canada, Lufthansa, American Airlines,  and British Airways for these routes.

--I used this information to focus our flight search.  (I'd already been tracking flights via Google Flights, determining that the flight credit from Regent would not cover the price of flights booked independently--Regent provided greater value, in other words.)  My priorities were minimizing stops (no non-stops to Athens from either gateway), shortest flight duration (while allowing time for transfers--the routing with 37 minutes between flights in O'Hare did not make the cut), and timing (MCO is an hour's drive away, MIA three.)

--I called the Regent Air Concierge department at 877-722-7772 (I think they are in Miami and open at 0900 hours Eastern Time).  I thought maybe we could book 270 days out from the start of the Regent pre-cruise land package we purchases, but as others have noted it is 270 days from the day you actually BOARD the ship.  I learned in the call with the Concierge that many of the return flights I had hoped to use were non-starters as Regent would not allow any flights departing prior to 1300 hours--a full EIGHT hours after the ship is scheduled to dock.  They did say they would allow a 15-minute waiver (departure at 1245 hours in our case), but nothing more.  That eliminated my preferred return on United, which departs at 1215 hours and would have had us into MCO at 2015 hours, a decent time for the drive home.  We had to accept a flight that departed an hour later--1315 hours--but that does not arrive at MCO until THREE hours later due to a longer layover en route (again, no non-stop options).

--They emailed the itinerary for my review--but to our TA, not us.  Likely because we use the "big box" TA, it took a full two days to receive the proposed itinerary.  On the day we had to accept or reject the itinerary, I called our TA to make some changes (changing outbound airline to same as inbound, Air Canada both ways instead of American for outbound.)

--The itinerary showed up in my account on RSSC.com after booking, but the information is bare boned--no seating or class information, for example.  I was able to use the airline booking code (RLN), however, to find that information on the airline's website.  What you can do on the latter is limited, however, since the booking is from a third party--for example, I cannot add our frequent flyer numbers.  I will have to call the Regent Air Concierge again to try to do that.  This appears to vary by airline as I was able to link the initial Regent itinerary to my AA frequent flyer account and make changes to seating, fill in passenger information, etc.

Overall, while the experience was okay in the end, we will likely not take the air through Regent without compelling reasons to do so (a remote location for departure or return, or a significant difference in fares).  The booking conditions are too restrictive (and we are conservative on departure and connection times) and having to work through two other parties (Regent and TA) is time consuming.  We used Regent's air as the price is about $1,000 less per person than we could buy independently for the same routing and class and because we had a bunch of FCCs to use up from our cancelled cruises (inclusive air counts as cruise fare to use with bonus FCCs).  Maybe because our connections are through Canada, we did receive Business class the entire routing.  (The first leg on the initially proposed itinerary on American, through Philadelphia, was also in First.)  

1 hour ago, snorkle lover said:

Hi Loriva,

I just happened to come across your post as I was scrolling through CC. We are also booked on a September cruise on Regent after having two Regent cruises canceled in 2020. With all that is going on with Covid, I didn't even think about the 270 day mark for booking flights. I really want  to be positive about our cruise going ( London to Barcelona) but the longer this nasty virus is around the more doubtful I am becoming that September 2021 will be a go. Our balance is due in May and I sure hope that by then we will have a much clearer picture of how things will go in September....thoughts?

Pat

 

 

Hi Pat.  I'm probably an unreformed optimist, but I'm pretty confident our sailing in September will go.  Our ship, Voyager, is sailing only European itineraries prior to our cruise and does not touch the United States until February 2022--three months after the CDC's Conditional Sail Order is due to expire.  So, it may not be covered by the limitations of that order.  I'm also cognizant that the Europeans figured out how to do some sailing in 2020,  Most of all, of course, I'm hopeful most of us in the United States and Europe will have received vaccinations by mid-2021, a couple of months prior to our sailing.  I'd also hope the cruise lines would work to obtain doses for their officers and crews who do not have access in their home countries.  (And hope we can figure out how to make enough vaccine for all of the world.)

All that said, you should also know multiple airlines and multiple cruise lines owe me a lot of money for cancelled travel in 2020.  So perhaps you should take caution from the "unreformed" bit!

Another oddity on the initial itinerary provided.  They booked us on American into Athens and Air Canada out.  The latter is one of the few departing after 1300 hours.  But AA and AC belong to different airline alliances and it seems odd to mix them.  Planning to ask for the AC outbound as well as inbound and hope they have contracted routes with the airline for both directions.  (It's a simple MCO-ATH R/T, not a multi-city itinerary.)

We are looking forward to our first cruise with Regent (after having two booked end up cancelled) with a Med on Voyager R/T from Athens in September 2021.  We reached the 270-day mark prior to embarkation (true embarkation--we are on a three-night pre-cruise tour with Regent but that does not count in the 270 calculation) on Thursday and I contacted Regent about flight options.  We had several preferred options, but learned they would not book us on a flight leaving prior to 1300 hours from Athens on the day of our disembarkation.  This eliminates almost all the flights out with reasonable connections and arrival times in the U.S.  The only one with just one stop, will not put us into our arrival airport at 2315 hours, which will make for a very long day once you factor in picking up bags, retrieving the car, and making the 50-mile drive from the airport to home.

Question:  Is this rule due to Regent's ground transfer connections?  The ship is scheduled to dock at 0500 hours in Piraeus and Google estimates the drive time to the airport in Athens (ATH) to be between 34-46 minutes.  So disallowing a flight connection prior to 1300 seems excessive.  Has anyone been able to book an earlier flight through Regent Air if you agree to forego their transfer?

Sail date -- 20 Dec 2020 (Explorer Singapore to Sydney) -- cancelled by Regent on 02 Nov

Requested FCCs -- 03 Nov

FCCs created -- 25 Nov

FCCs applied -- 04 Dec

Getting the FCCs applied turned out to be a laborious process, requiring five phone calls to TA each averaging about an hour with back and forth with Regent.  We have two cruises booked with Regent and they ADDED all of the FCCs (100 percent fully paid plus 25 percent bonus) to the 2022 Mariner cruise, leaving a substantial amount remaining (which I could see on my account on RSSC.com).  In a subsequent call, Regent agreed to split the 100 percent (which had a remaining balance after zeroing out the 2022 cruise) and ADD it to our 2021 Voyager cruise as well ADDING the 25 percent bonus to that cruise.  Regent did that, but did not APPLY it to the booking.  (ADDing and APPLYing are two different things for Regent--hence the emphasis.) 

Since the remaining balance of FCCs exceeded what we owed on the 2021 cruise (we'd already had FCC from our cancelled Navigator cruise applied) we added air and a land package.  In a call on 03 Dec, Regent finally APPLIED the FCCs to the 2021 cruise.  We still showed a remaining balance to be paid to Regent AND a remaining FCC balance.  The remaining FCCs turned out to be from the 25 percent bonus and can only be applied to the cruise fare (including air).  Despite requests from our TA, Regent would not apply the FCCs in an order to pay off the land package from the remaining 100 percent and then apply the 25 percent.  (The TA said Regent has been inconsistent on this--sometimes agreeing and sometimes not.)  We were told any unused FCCs would disappear after the cruise and could not be applied to a new booking.  Our only option was to upgrade on this cruise--in our case, the upgrade is in name only as the cabin size and layout doesn't change, only a "better" location.)  Using the 100 percent to pay off the 2022 cruise before the 2021 cruise seems an odd choice, but since the 100 percent paid it off in full Regent will be refunding our deposit on that cruise in addition to the port fees and taxes on the cancelled cruise.  We still have a few hundred in bonus FCCs remaining that will go "poof," but remembering it is all Monopoly money anyway.  Just hoping these cruises (in Sep 2021 and Jan 2022) will go!

The FCC process seemed to be a lot more complicated than it needed to be and required a lot of higher math skills and interventions on my part.  We are settled with Regent in just over 30 days versus 45 days for the Navigator cancellation so they are speeding up, however.

25 minutes ago, flossie009 said:

Prior to the cruise (75 or 90 days depending on SSS status and or suite grade) each guest can make one reservation for each speciality restaurant per cruise segment. I believe the 32 day Aukland to Bali comprises two segments - 14 day + 18 day.

So Regent considers a shorter cruise--17 nights as we were supposed to be on or 10 nights as the Med cruise we hope to be on next Sep--as just a single segment and allows advance reservations only once for each restaurant, not once per 7-night period.  Good to know.  And we'll try asking the butler for others!  As you said, we're just taking our joy of cruising through planning at this point and hoping, like all others, we can get a vaccine out to as many as possible and everyone can move forward.

8 minutes ago, rallydave said:

And second should any cruise line take the CDC to court win or lose the CDC would probably make life miserable with other issues the CDC does have the authority to control plus the time dragging thru appeals would be a disaster. 

While I appreciate all the great insight I've gained from reading posts about Regent from rallydave, as a former U.S. Government employee I have to take exception to the above supposition.  USG employees swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution to serve the U.S. public.  While there are some bad apples in any group of people, the overwhelming majority of my former fellow Feds took their responsibilities very seriously.  Our job is never to undermine the work of individual U.S. citizens, including corporations.  Even if an individual employee wanted to try to make things miserable for a cruise line, oversight from the legislative branch would reveal such actions very quickly in my experience.

10 hours ago, JMARINER said:

More or less. You should be able to get in 3 times in each for your 32 days. If you are very flexible on your dining times, then possibly more. 

How exactly does this work?  We were able to make dining reservations in late September on our (now-cancelled) 17-night cruise on Explorer.  We thought we would be able to make reservations at least twice in each of the specialty restaurants--but the booking reservation system on RSSC.com only let us make one each.  Is this normal?  Do you make remaining reservations (if any are available, of course) on board?  Calling Regent Customer Service?

Many thanks,

Princess Cruises just cancelled all their cruises departing out of a U.S. port until November 2021.  Here's the language we received from our TA.  We were on a 16-day Canada and Greenland R/T New York.

In response to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "Framework for Conditional Sailing Order" pertaining to resumption of U.S. cruise operations, Princess Cruises is extending its pause in global operations to allow time for the estimated preparation needed for completing required activities prior to sailing and in consideration of the temporary seven-day cap on itineraries that call at a U.S. port.  Unfortunately, this means your sailing will be cancelled.

Alternatively, could it be for this reason?  "The CDC may also require post-day disembarkation testing of all passengers and crew -- something that could end the days of those seeking to fly home immediately after the voyage has concluded."  (Quote copied from Cruise Critic article unpacking the CDC's Conditional Sail order.)  This could be an indication Regent plans to make Splendor its first ship out of the starting gate.

Not sure how many others following these boards are in this situation, but since I've learned so much from those who generously share their experience and knowledge, I'm passing this along.

We had a Navigator cruise (we should have been on it now) cancelled by Regent.  That would have been our first cruise with Regent and it was cancelled during the period when Regent offered Seven Seas Society nights for cancelled sailings.  So, a few weeks ago, Regent awarded us Bronze status in the SS Society.  A cruise we have booked for the future has a SSS savings associated with it.  We had our TA ask Regent about this and Regent applied a "retroactive SSS Savings" to our booked cruise, resulting in a $350/pp discount.  Passing this along for anyone it could benefit.  And kudos to Regent for offering this consideration.

Take care,

On 11/4/2020 at 8:26 PM, tert333 said:

Did they give you any option to do a "lift and shift" similar to other cruiselines, so that you can protect you benefits and get a cruise of the same number of days/ship at the same price you paid for the cruise cancelled?

Yes, they did.  We received an email from Regent the day following the latest round of cancellations noting their decision to cancel our cruise and offering an "Exclusive Price Match Offer."  The language on this is:  "And if you book a suggested voyage below, we'll honor the lower fare you paid for your suite on your canceled voyage*.  *For full pricing Terms & Conditions and Guest Ticket Contract, visit RSSC.com/legal."

In our case--a cancelled Singapore to Sydney cruise on Explorer from 20 Dec 2020-06 January 2021, we were offered a Singapore to Sydney sailing departing 02 Dec or a holiday Sydney to Auckland cruise departing 20 December, both on Explorer.  We'd already considered both itineraries when it became apparent several months ago that our sailing would not go.  We opted not to take either as the Singapore to Sydney itinerary left out Komodo Island, which was the highlight of that itinerary for us, and the holiday option was a completely different itinerary--so neither option ticked all the boxes the cancelled itinerary did.  Thus, we had already opted for and booked a leg on the World Cruise on Mariner in January 2022 from Papeete to Auckland to which we'll apply our FCCs when they are available.  My sister, her husband, his brother, and the latter's wife were also booked on the cancelled sailing and they are opting for the reverse Sydney to Bali itinerary in January 2022, which includes Komodo but drops a couple of port calls in Indonesia in favor of additional stops in Australia.  Her TA told her yesterday Regent had already created their FCCs from the cancelled cruise, while Regent told us it would take up to 60 days.

Since none of us opted for one of the official "lift and shift" cruises, I cannot answer the question of whether benefits would have been protected.  The language in the Regent email only cited "cruise fare."  My sister's new booking is under the current Regent promotion--two-category upgrade--not the $500/pp OBC on offer when we booked our alternative booking.

Thanks to all for your insight.

TA spoke to Regent yesterday, who said we could split our FCCs.  Regent is projecting 60 days for the FCCs to be created (it was slightly less than that for the creation of the FCCs from our other Regent cruise, about 45 days).  Will hope the answer is still the same when the FCCs are created--the TA did note Regent's response in our reservation records.

The new FAQs for cruises cancelled today say "Q) Can Future Cruise Credits be applied to multiple reservations?
A) No, Future Cruise Credits earned off one booking may only be applied against another singular booking."  I believe this is a change from previous iterations of cancellations, where the 100 percent from the cancelled cruise could be split, but the 25 percent bonus FCC could not.  At least this is a change if I'm expressing correctly what I remember Pcardad stating.

So, the cruise Regent just cancelled would actually leave us FCC left over after paying for either of the two cruises we have booked for Sep 2021 and Jan 2022.  We'd actually have FCCs left over if we paid off BOTH from the FCC from the newly cancelled cruise.  Does anyone think there is any flexibility on this?  The Jan 2022 cruise is already waitlisted for all of the categories above us, so upgrading does not appear to be an option.  What about adding air?  Can FCC be applied to it?  (That would increase the price to equal out the 125 percent FCC.)  And, yes, I know we could just ask for a refund instead.

Many thanks for your insights.

Thanks for posting the news, mrlevin.  Regent's website still shows cruises (albeit all waitlisted) for December, the Travel Health Advisory has not been updated since 05 Oct, and my reservation on Explorer on 20 Dec is still showing as current.  All in good time, presumably.  At least the public announcement allows me to cancel flights and start moving forward.

1 hour ago, zak477 said:

Although Regent Seven Seas has cancelled all November 2020 sailing, why have they now "waitlisted" all December & January 2021 sailings? For the past many months they waitlist a month then just cancel all sailings.  So will all December & January 2021 sailings be cancelled?   

Many people are expecting Regent will cancel sailings for December at the end of October (or beginning of November as they slipped a month with the most-recent round of cancellations.)  That includes a sailing we are booked on, Explorer out of Singapore to Sydney on 20 December.  Singapore, Bali, and Australia are all closed to tourists, so there is no way this itinerary is sailing.  NCLH sister line Oceania already cancelled a very similar itinerary for December, but Regent is making us wait.  (Regent is also still showing the follow-on sailing on Explorer--Sydney to Auckland---as still available to book, but unless they can figure out a way to limit it to those in the Australia-NZ "bubble" that is also impossible.  Not sure they could even get crew who could be approved by those governments.)