jeb_bud

It’s amazing to me to see so much greenery so far north!

I believe the binoculars start showing up in Concierge.

Thanks Eno-Bob. I’ll put your advice to use on 20 October when we board Mariner in Montreal. We have surplus OBC that I hope to spend on the wine lunch.

How do you get in touch with the sommelier on day one? I tried in May but couldn’t find anyone in the restaurant.

I’m in the 3 hours in FRA club. It’s a looong walk from gate to gate in FRA and especially for a first timer the signage is not great. The one time we flew SFO to BCN we used United via Newark. Transiting Newark was no problem for us and I think they now have a Polaris Lounge which is a very nice business class lounge. As others have noted when you book from departure to destination on the same airline the domestic USA leg(s) should be in First Class. You can confirm that with Regent before accepting their offer. We have found that codeshare flights also support the domestic First Class.

Although you can download a photo from your photos app or jut take a selfie from the check-in page. Taking a selfie is easier for me as long as I have a bland background available.

Since this is an airline-caused problem there should not be another deviation fee. However it is possible you could incur a surcharge. In 2019 we had a similar situation. I contacted out TA and suggested my preferred alternative and she took it to Regent. The flights were available but there would be a $1,000pp surcharge. They also suggested a no extra charge alternative. Regent’s suggestion was not as good as ours but not $2,000 worse so we took it. No extra deviation fees.

In addition to GoArmy’s great advice, if the sommelier for your table doesn’t seem to have the expertise to work with you just ask to talk to the head sommelier.

The dress code on embarkation day is the same as the other days. The only casual night is the night before disembarkation.

I suspect it depends to a certain extent which ship you are on. The newer ships have quite a few more seats in specialty restaurants and only a few more passengers. If you are flexible on dates and/or willing to share a table your odds improve. Our last cruise was on Voyager. We were able to get additional reservations in both P7 and Chartreuse later in the cruise. Both reservations were at 7:00, with shared tables.

There are several midnight or later flights out of Anchorage that could be decent connections from the train. The best boat excursion we had on our Alaska cruise was the Kenai Fjords cruise we booked ourselves in Seward. They guarantee that they will get you to the train on time.

We’re on the June 12 Vancouver to Seward cruise. The last time I checked there were still a lot of available suites, which should translate to good excursion availability. The cruises before and after also looked pretty open.

And Stockholm.

Our experience has been the same as Portolan’s. I have seen vans waiting at some ports but I don’t know if they were for Small Group excursions or Private Car.

I wonder if there’s some kind of big event going on the week you will be there. When does your cruise embark?

I like the change. I often take the hotel and/or air credit so it’s nice that you’ve done the math for me. I think if I had started researching a cruise before reading this thread I would probably be confused about what the two columns mean. I had to read the terms three times to be able to parse the paragraph and glean the meaning. I tend to skim through the Ts&Cs and burying the new info in the middle of a paragraph didn’t help. It would have helped me if the explanation was just above the fares grid.

It’s the one on the left with the frosted glass. Auberge if you request sparkling water for your room it will be the clear one? The bottles are big and heavy; definitely a two-handed pour.

If you fly out of SFO and connect at another North American airport before flying over the ocean you may wind up in a coach seat on the domestic flight, especially if you change airlines. When we flew SFO-EWR-BCN in 2019 I requested that routing with the proviso that I only wanted it if the domestic leg was in first or business class. It helped that both flight were on United. United-Lufthansa in May also got us the domestic first class. Other combinations I don’t know.

Planning to arrive a day early sounds like a great idea. Traveling to and from our Athens to Istanbul cruise in May I had booked flights with what I thought was ample connection times and still it was dumb luck that we didn’t get delayed. Late arrivals were thankfully matched with delayed departures. Until the air travel industry gets straightened out we will always add time before cruises with intercontinental flights.

That’s what we do too. I like to get some Euros from an 🏧 after I arrive in Europe for tips and bathroom money. If I run out of Euros I fall back on dollars. Turkish tour guides happily accept both.

My experience has been that if I search for flights on an open-jaw itinerary my selection for the first flight determines which flights are displayed for the return leg. I have selected from dozens of choices for the outbound trip and been presented as few as four choices for the return home. I now search each direction as a one-way trip to get the maximum number of options. I don’t think Regent Air cares one way or the other. When I was a young man a round trip was always cheaper than two one-ways. In today’s world it doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference.

I’ve noticed that too. I have changed my embarkation day routine to go through our excursion tickets and check the excursion flyer in the suite for changes in exertion levels. We do occasionally change our plans based on this new information.

Most, maybe all, of those items are for sale in the gift shop. Penthouse bathrooms have a men’s kit that I think includes shaving supplies.

In May on the Voyager dry cleaning ranged from $1.95 for a handkerchief to $19.95 for an evening dress or two-piece suit. A lot of items were in the $10.00 range.

I am under the impression that the lowest price guarantee expires after final payment. I seem to recall a live thread about a cruise post-COVID where there were a bunch of Brits who had booked a “bargain” cruise. The poster was not amused by their antics.