SWFLAOK

And that's exactly what I was saying. We had booked a number of cruises before Covid hit, and we were held to those original payment dates while those who booked later were given much more flexible dates; as little as 2 months when we were given 5 months after complaining instead of our original 6 when no Regent cruises had sailed. nor were scheduled to sail in 6 months. We ended up having the only option of postponing (twice) since our final payment dates were held at a much longer date, while others were catered to who booked very recently. At this point, I would like my early booking to be held to my original contract when I booked, where my Regent air date reservations are the same as when I booked, and not 2 months less than when I booked. If the contract always applies, it should cover all of what I was told when I booked. Let the more recent bookings be held to a new contract, with less lead time for flights. That's not what I signed up for when I made my down payment a long time ago. And, as always, I expect to pay a deviation to not have to wait until the last 60 days. I always have paid the deviation, and in the future, I will pay even more if I want to select flights that have a chance of making connections, since we haven't had much luck on making connections this past year that we were assured by the airlines would not be a problem. We're not taking a downgrade to coach again on long flights due to missed connections that were scheduled for less than an hour. We then had to fight with the airline to get the money back that we had paid to the cruise line for our business class flight, and then had to prove to the cruise line that the airline had given money back to them, so they would give us back the extra we had paid to the cruise line. This cruise was not Regent, and it took 6 months to get a much smaller upgrade to business than we had made from the offending cruise line. We would not take that cruise lines air again, but included air is something we really want, and it's why we'ver used Regent much more than any other cruise line. "The price of the cruise might go up or down, but the pay by dates does not change." Really? Did the price of your cruise go up or down after you made your down payment? Maybe it was different 40+ years ago, but my parents did not have the money to take the whole family on cruises way back then. How it's worked since we started cruising in early 2017 (booked a year in advance) is that once you make your down payment on a cruise, your price never goes up or down unless you rebook. And rebooking changes everything, for better or worse. That's why I expect that everything will be the same as when I booked and made my down payment. I don't expect the rules for Regent air to be changed out from under me unless I rebook hoping for a 2 category upgrade or a smaller downpayment. We have checked into those offers a few times, but they were always for the worse since we would lose our preferred cabin location, or those traveling with us would lose go to 100 percent for a single supplement. I'm done with this discussion. Believe what you want.

Absolutely not based on the social media responses for those on this forum. But we have already cancelled a cruise on one of our other past favorite cruise lines when they did not ticket us on the flights we had paid extra to reserve before our final payment. And their final payment was much closer to departure than Regent. Our experience with Regent has been that the further out we make reservations, the further out we need to make the final payment. Offers are always made for rebookings, like 2 category upgrades, but they always have a bigger penalty than reward. Especially if you have 2 new Regent cruisers joining us for a first time cruise where they would need to pay more if they try to rebook for a cabin upgrade since their single supplements would be increased to 100 percent. That's not how a cruise line should encourage returning customers, especially if you then delay early booking of included airfare, when we're willing to pay extra for the flights we want.

After all of you guys on this forum (Rallydave, Portolan and Papaflamingo) have jumped all over me for wanting to feel comfortable with our Regent provided air reservations before we have to pay in full and have to pay a penalty to cancel after that, I'm seriously considering cancelling our 2024 cruise on Regent, and not booking anymore. You've done a really poor job of representing Regent to the rest of us. Regent has been our favorite cruise line since we started cruising back in 2017. Thank you for making me feel dumb to have stayed with Regent this long, and making me realize there are other cruise lines to check out in the future.

Did you not understand me when I said " We will deviate as soon as we can"? We have always paid the deviation fee on all of our cruises. Compared to the price of the cruise, it's trivial. We have never waited until Regent books us at 60 -70 days, and never will. We like Regent for its luxury. If we didn't care about the flights as part of the cruise, we would book elsewhere. We will not pay in full until we know we have an acceptable flight. We will cancel the cruise and ask for a refund. We did this recently on a Ponant Cruise (previously a PG cruise), but they don't force you to pay in full so far in advance the way that Regent does. The credit given for booking our own air fare has always been so little, even when they advertise business class. It's almost nothing. On our next Regent Cruise (we're already gold), we have a relative and a friend joining us as first time Regent guests, in their own separate single cabins. It's from Miami to Miami so we're driving from the west coast of Florida. For the the credit we were given, I doubt we could fly from anywhere to Miami, unless we took spirit, frontier or allegiant from an airport that would be an even longer drive than from Ft. Myers to Miami, and would definitely take much longer. If Regent keeps it's final payment date out further than their ability to book flights, even for those willing to pay for a deviation, and any upgrade fee they ask for to book the flights we want, then we won't be sailing on them again in the future.

It's absolutely not if you're flying to places like Thailand, or Abu Dhabi, from Florida. In fact, it's hard to get flights from South Florida to anywhere without booking well ahead of time, including the East Coast of the US, LAX, and Caribbean destinations. That's why I'm concerned. It's always been worth it to get flights as early as possible through Regent, because business flights are very hard to get, to and from Florida. Maybe we should move to Houston? We do have some good friends who live there when they're not living on their yacht in Florida.

Hmm. Can you point me to the start of the penalty phase being a minimum of 59 days. That has definitely not been our experience with Regent, especially during Covid where we had to decide whether to rebook much earlier than 59 days, or take a chance on what would happen. We've seen others give their dates for final payment, as well as penalties, on this forum, and they have not matched with what we've experienced. We always book very far in advance, and from what we experienced during Covid, we were not being offered what others were who were booking later as far as final payment and cancellation penalties.

Our final payment date for April 2024 is November 2023. We will deviate as soon as we can, but we haven't always had luck in getting booked tickets soon after deviating. No booked tickets means to us that we don't want to pay in full.

Will they be delaying cruise payments by 60 days to make up for this? If I can't book a flight that's acceptable until 210 days out, then I need to be able to cancel without penalty until 60 days later than usual as well. We already have a cruise booked for April 2024, with a waitlist after that. which could be affected by this since they're long flights each way, and we're not going if they're not what we want. Changes in policy like this for those who already have reservations, and have made significant down payments well in advance, are really not acceptable to us.

We've used a good TA on all of our cruises after having problems booking on our first cruise directly through a cruise line. Since that first problem, we've booked on a number of cruise lines, all on ships less than 1000 passengers, and we haven't had a problem finding answers from our TA. Build a relationship with a good TA, and your problems will be solved.

Yep! And to both ronrick and Wendy, better late than never for my 12/23 reply: But that's my point. If someone has 400 nights onboard, why shouldn't they be given some consideration in that long line to eat at Setti Mare than someone who has been on their first cruise? There are plenty of other perks for those with that many nights onboard. As I've mentioned elsewhere, and maybe that was read recently in another thread, we would never stand in line for Setti Mare. It did not appeal to us at all. We're not big fans of Italian food, large portions and dessert buffets. That's not the way we eat. But what we tasted was good, and I'm sure that most people enjoy it. That's why it's always busy. We just prefer Compass Rose for the lighter dinners we prefer.

If we're going to fly, we like to take a long cruise, so we often do B2Bs. Our cruise TA takes care of booking this for us, and we have always had just one price, one cabin, and one deposit for the entire trip. I know that the cruise line will move you if you have a different cabin, but I would still find that to be a "lost day" on my cruise. I would rather move everything myself than have the crew do that since I'll need to stay out of their way in both cabins so we'll be "homeless" on board. And that day, I'll need to carry my safe items with us, which isn't very convenient.And I won't know for sure where all of my "things" are in the new cabin. I also don't necessarily like someone touching all of my things. I'd feel a need to pack many of them for the move. But maybe that's just me.

Our first Regent cruise was an Alaska cruise. There were quite a number of children and they seemed to be having a good time. We did see a group activities for them. We've also been on a Silvesea cruise, from Barbados to Manaus Brazil to Barbados. There were no children onboard, but that was a very different itinerary, and in November when many of them are in school. Silversea has a much more formal dress code for dinner than Regent. On the smaller Silversea ships, there are only a few restaurants, and they have quite a few formal nights (more than most of us want but we dress up). So, if your daughter likes to dress up for dinner, she might really enjoy Silversea. As mentioned, the destination and time of year will determine whether there are other children onboard. If she doesn't need other children onboard to have a good time with you, then don't worry about it. We have been on a number of cruises where there were only a few children who behaved well, and they fit in just fine with everyone else onboard.

I'm a meclizine fan. My brother has a prescription for it for vertigo, but it's sold OTC as Bonine, and there are store brands as well. It was offered free at reception on 2 different cruises we were on, on 2 different cruise lines, when we had high seas for the size of our ship. My husband needed to take it both times. It's the only 2 times he's ever been seasick in his life. We had boated on our own for just over 30 years, including offshore. I started my boating experience with Dramamine which I took for car sickness. As a passenger in a car, drowsiness isn't a bad side effect. But as the only other person onboard our boat, I switched to Bonine since it didn't make me drowsy. I take it on cruises any time the Captain announces bad weather is likely.

On our recent cruises, we've been shown our muster station on our way to our cabin. We've watched the video (twice each time), and located and put on our life jackets. Whenever we passed our muster station we pointed it out to each other to make sure we could quickly locate it from our cabin and the other places we frequented. We boated for 30 years, half of that time on larger boats where we traveled long distances by ourselves. For 7 years we spent 6 months in the Bahamas, living on our boat, and traveling back and forth from the US on our boat. We always had a ditch bag ready to go in case we had to abandon ship quickly. That was at the dock, as well as underway. Since selling our boat and replacing it with taking cruises back in early 2017, we bring a waterproof bag and have it ready as a ditch bag on all of the cruises we've taken. The clothes we hope to wear before going to the muster station are placed on top of the ditch bag. I still don't find the actual muster drills useful. While there are usually plenty of staff directing you to the muster station, there always seems to be someone who normally works in the boutique or as an entertainer near the end of the drill who is really interested in having a neat line before we can go out to the life boat, and they often have trouble figuring out if everyone is there once we get to the lifeboat.

On our Regent cruise last September, we had included a 3 night pre in London when we first booked the cruise long ago. We had a cancellation due to covid in 2020, and postponed again in 2021 when our final payment was due since it was likely we would be on the very first Splendor cruise post Covid, and didn't want to be. Since our 3 night pre at IC wasn't part of the current 2022 itinerary there was no one obvious to meet us in Heathrow when we arrived only slightly late. After wandering around the area after customs, we found the Regent representatives standing in a small circle with their signs not displayed only to each other. They seemed to be having a great conversation. We did, however, interrupt them, and ask about our transportation to the IC. Only one of the group knew what we were talking about, since the others were only familiar with the big bus that went to a different hotel. Luckily, the one who knew where we were going found our shy taxi driver who was standing in a corner with a small sign with our name written in something that was quite illegible. He told us to follow him to his taxi, which we did, and never spoke to us again on the way to the Intercontinental Hotel Park Lane. But it was a great hotel in very good location, despite being there between the Queen's wake nearby. From our Regent experience, if you take their flights, and stay in their hotels, you will most likely arrive at your hotel before your room is available. Only once, at the Fairmont in Barcelona, were we offered a room upgrade that allowed us to check in early. Since the room was bigger, with a better view, we paid for the upgrade. Otherwise, we've always had to wait until the normal check-in time of 3 or 4, but they've kept our luggage stored until then.

Ugh. I hate going to the muster drill. On our last cruise in September, we were shown our muster station on our way to our cabin, and then just reviewed it on the TV. We were also asked to do that online before boarding, and that was enough for us. Too bad they couldn't rely on people watching the E-muster, and reliably keep a record of that. Another bad experience added back to cruising.

We had one upgrade offer from Regent. It was on our first cruise. The offer was made on Mariner, and came after we were already in the hotel that we had to pay for ourselves. The transfers, hotel room and breakfast were no longer in play. And they couldn't tell us what cabin we would have until we boarded. There was no additional charge, and if I remember correctly it was only a slightly bigger cabin (penthouse vs deluxe veranda on Mariner) so we declined. On our next 5 cruises on Regent, we've always booked at concierge or penthouse, and have never been offered an upgrade at all. We have 2 more cruises booked, one concierge and one penthouse, both on Navigator, which has mostly small cabins. I'm sure we won't be offered an upgrade. We had trouble on our last cruise on Splendor getting them to acknowledge that we reached gold status. The TV in our room showed it. But we had to log into Regent on our phone, and show it to them at the desk, and then they had to check with a higher authority before they agreed. We got our 100 dollar cruise credit the day before we disembarked, but managed to spend it.

We currently have 79 nights onboard Regent ships. We went to Sette Mari once, and have never returned. Since it's always been the 2 of us, we did not find it worthwhile. Since no reservations are taken for this restaurant, we had a short wait, and after being seated, we were served a huge amount of appetizers that we were mostly not interested in, and not very good. The entrees were large portions, and not what I would normally order. We don't normally eat more than one dessert and most times we're happy with the selection of small bites in Compass Rose are enough to us, so the dessert buffet wasn't something we were interested in. We have an upcoming cruise where there will be 2 singles in their own cabins along with us. We'll see if they're interested in Sette Mari, but I think Compass Rose will have the choices that they are going to prefer, just as we have.

We were on Regent Splendor for B2B cruises for 24 nights from mid September to early October. We did have crab legs available, and I enjoyed them. They were smaller than in past years. But I think the problem going forward is the decrease in crab population, and harvesting restrictions going forward, which will make it even worse than it was when we were on board. Here is an something I found: "Why is there no king crab season 2022: In reaction to extremely low Alaskan snow and king crab populations, the state has decided to cancel the fall and winter harvest of the crustaceans for the first time in history.Oct 20, 2022." In our local grocery stores in Florida, we have trouble finding reasonably priced Florida fish and shrimp, and Maine lobster (as frozen tails only) are extremely expensive. We stopped buying rack of lamb in the grocery store at over 20 dollars a pound, and we rarely eat our anymore. Publix did, however, have a great bargain on prime rib over the holidays at 5.99 a pound and whole tenderloins at 14.99 a pound. We considered our meals on our recent Splendor cruise to be excellent, and weren't disappointed on our 6th cruise with them. Our only Viking cruise so far was a River cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest last May. It took us 3 years after we paid in full due to Covid cancellations. We enjoyed the cruise, but the food was not a highlight, nor was their dining experience. We have, however, booked a Viking Ocean cruise next December through the Panama canal, and the restaurants and cabins look like something we'll enjoy more for our onboard experience than the River cruise ship.

The properly made french toast with custard through the bread is why I never order French toast anymore on any cruise line. I think there are many people that just want a thin coating on each side of the bread, and that isn't what I want. From the "maple" syrup that we've had on cruise ships, it's not what we use at home. We no longer live in the maple syrup producing part of the US NE, but even in Florida we can buy real maple syrup produced from maple trees in the NE. While on a cruise, I can settle for eggs benedict for breakfast, and wait until I get home to make French toast with real maple syrup.

We have done a number of B2B's and for some reason, it never seemed to give us any significant savings. We've also looked at rebooking when there were new offers after we had booked (since we always book early). We have always found that the new offer was offset since there was something already given to us for early booking, that we lost if we rebooked. On an upcoming cruise, we could have rebooked and saved a few hundred dollars for our cabin. However, our 2 fellow travelers each had their own cabins with a 50 percent single supplement. If they had rebooked, the single supplement discount was lost, and they would have been charged much more than they had already paid. We didn't want to scare them away from the cruise by mentioning it, so we decided not to rebook.

Or any cruise ship.

Thank you cwn. We have been on many Regent cruises, but never on Navigator. We had already booked a 2024 cruise on Navigator from Bangkok to Abu Dhabi. since we like smaller ships. We recently booked the Navigator Miami to Miami in late April so I was following you all the way. My brother and one of our best friends will be joining us in their own cabins. We have all been to the Caribbean before, but for each of us, there will be new islands that we haven't visited. We are all looking forward to it, and your posts on this board helped us feel good about our upcoming cruise.

From the FAQs on RSSC, but we have gotten into our cabin earlier than 2:30 when in a penthouse or concierge cabin with Regent transfers from their included pre hotel: Category or Seven Seas Society Status Embark Time Suite Available Regent Suites, Master Suites, and Grand Suites 12:00PM 12:00PM Navigator Suites, Mariner Suites, Voyager Suites, Seven Seas Suites, Horizon Suites, and Titanium Seven Seas Society Members 12:00PM 1:00PM Remaining Suites 12:00PM 2:30PM

We were on Splendor for back to back cruises in mid September through the first week in October. We had Diet Coke in our frig throughout our cruises. I don't drink it every day, but any time I did, it was replaced the next day. We spoke to the bartenders, and they said that they had been unable to get certain beverages for a long time. They said that they requested the out of stock liquors and wines every time they submitted an order, but they were not receiving what they requested when their orders arrived. One of the bartenders was experimenting using combinations of other liquors to give the same flavor as those that weren't delivered to them. He did a very good job.