KenzSailing

13 hours ago, rafinmd said:

Today's sunrise is from my 2015 Prinsendam cruise.  June 4 was a sea day in the English channel from Ijmuiden to Portland.

 

 

Roy

Great post Roy. Here's a fascinating article in support:https://wapo.st/3x1T8M4

23 hours ago, Portolan said:

More often than not, the Culinary Kitchen classes aren't posted until after the excursions open for booking.  On many of our cruises, there isn't even a header for Culinary Kitchen...until there is.  Someone may have evidence to the contrary, but we've never been on, nor heard of, a cruise on an Explorer-class ship where there weren't Culinary Kitchen classes offered.  Just keep checking.

Thanks, that's reassuring.

On 5/31/2024 at 9:04 PM, TheKingD said:

It is sheer perfection in North Carolina too, on the

patio sitting in the pergola.  We had ribs and corn on the cob tonight and we will have lobster claws tomorrow night.  Maybe Key Lime Pie too.  No cicadas providing their chorus yet, though, but hummingbirds are here.

Yummy, but up here the ribs are served KC style(just monitor your blood sugar.)  And Key Lime, not Chess pie?  Hmmm...😁

Anyway, biscuits and gravy for breakfast tomorrow(it's the most important meal of the day!).  Gotta keep the Mizzou gal happy,

OK, has anyone had this happen?

We just booked a January 2026 cruise(MIA-LA, 22 nights, 7 sea days.)  I went into "my account," it shows up, all is well.  Here's the thing:

Just below the itinerary basics there's the "customize your voyage" section.  It's always a slightly different shade than the background.  It has three columns, left to right they are for: shorex, dining rezzies, cooking classes. They of course show it's too early to book anything.  Here's where it gets weird, or at least new to me:  the far right column for cooking classes has no content.  The lighter colored column is there, but there's no header nor description. To be clear, I'm not saying it's a matter of not being able to book classes, I'm saying the whole concept does not exist for this cruise.  I know this sounds trivial, but the CAaS classes are something we very much enjoy.   

To repeat: anyone else seen this?

PSA:

The patio is open for the season at the Chez.

And since it is Friday, yes, it's Burger night in America! (and wherever else you may be.)

Also, it was a great day to take the physical copy of the newspaper.

11 hours ago, Pcardad said:

It is definitely an age thing. I go to clubs and concerts and stay up until 3AM, etc.

 

I hear that, I'm up to 3 AM frequently.  Usually to go to the bathroom however. 😄

28 minutes ago, GMIAC said:

Why not? I hardly know everything there is to know, especially about different world cuisines, which are often the focus of these classes. If I took a painting class I wouldn’t want to be presented with a paint-by-numbers canvas. 

Oh, pleeze....

7 hours ago, GMIAC said:

Cooking classes in general appeal to me, but I'm a professionally-trained chef (CIA graduate), and the classes were just a bit too laid-out for me. It was just a matter of putting everything together at the individual stations, as all the prep work was already done. It's fun, but I didn't learn much. A little more depth would have gone a long way.

 

I'm sorry I don't know about the Anytime Brunch. 

Just a SWAG: you're not the target audience for a two hour cooking class on a cruise ship.

I want to clear something up.  I'm not saying changing our password fixed our  manage-this-booking problem.  As I said in post 17 above, we did that and nothing changed.  Then, Regent came back and told us they had changed our password, here was our new password, and try again.  So I went back in with the Regent assigned password, changed it, and my manage my booking button was back.  However, our deposit status had also mysteriously changed from "needed" to "received."  I suspect the solution to our little dilemma had much more to do with the deposit bit being flipped than anything with the password change.

To put it plainly: I thing Regent IT is either stumbling around a bit in the dark, or not being forthcoming with explanations of the band-aids they're applying to individual reservations, or both.  

I don't really care.  Our little situation is resolved and I do my best to judge a cruise line by the onboard experience.  With that, we have been very happy.

On 5/15/2024 at 5:07 PM, DarthCruiser said:

We're having the same issue.  Any reservation that has a "Deposit Received" status in MY TO-DO LIST (the right column) will have the Manage Reservation button.  Those that have "Deposit needed to confirm booking" do not have the Manage Reservation button.  In our case most of the onboard bookings get the "Deposit needed ..." status whenever a change has been made to the reservation.  About half our bookings are now unmanageable. 🙁

Just to close this out:

Well, our "manage this booking" button is back.  Here's how we got there:

Regent tells me to reset my password, apparently this will fix things(?!)  I do so, nothing changes.  I contact my TA.

Regent sends me an email saying their IT has changed my password and encloses new password in email.  I log in with new password, "manage this booking" is back.

I change password to one of my choosing.  Logout and back in, "manage this booking" is still there.  Yea!

One point of interest: this booking, when the manage button was gone, had been in the same status Darth described: it still showed "deposit needed" even though my deposit had long since been received.  Now, however, suddenly this booking read "deposit received."   

Huh, and double huh.

3 hours ago, BWIVince said:

 

I've been trying to use that mental justification for years...  The fatter I get, the more the displacement in the bathtub, the more water I'm conserving, the better for the environment.  😄 ...Or something like that. 😆 

 

Vince

Ah, but one's buoyancy increases over time.  Much safer that way.

3 hours ago, DarthCruiser said:

We're having the same issue.  Any reservation that has a "Deposit Received" status in MY TO-DO LIST (the right column) will have the Manage Reservation button.  Those that have "Deposit needed to confirm booking" do not have the Manage Reservation button.  In our case most of the onboard bookings get the "Deposit needed ..." status whenever a change has been made to the reservation.  About half our bookings are now unmanageable. 🙁

Oh, good work Holmes, I think you're on to something.  That's exactly what we're seeing.  My booking missing the manage button shows I still need to deposit, but my other cruise which I booked later, shows "deposit received" and all is well.  I never thought twice about it since Regent has always agreed they have our deposit for the first cruise, so I wrote it off as a glitch.

In the IT discipline there is a sub-discipline known as "change management."  I suspect Regent is strong on the "change" and weak on the "management."  

Has this happened to anyone?

We're booked on RSSC in December.  I've used the "My Account" page to sign up for shorex and cooking classes, the usual stuff.  Went back into it yesterday and wound up with a head scratcher.  The booking(one of two we currently hold) shows up just fine, but the hot button for "Manage this Booking" has disappeared(it typically is on the same line as the reservation number.)  To add to the mystery our other cruise(2nd half of a BTB with the cruise in question) does have the manage-this-booking button and everything is fine.  I've cleared my cache, used two different browsers, no luck.  Called my TA, she contacted Regent.    Regent asked me to call them directly.  Talked to a very nice lady at Regent.  She documented the anomaly for IT but the response at this time is basically "well, isn't that something."

I don't need to make any changes right now so I'll just let this perk, but specialty dining reservation are on the horizon and I'll need to do something.

You know, if Bram Stoker were alive today, and he came across any of these dress code threads, he would have thought "darn, now that's some eternal life right there."

On 5/10/2024 at 2:24 AM, Noggins said:

Just a little sheepishly I have to admit we have just booked a Virgin cruise.... (There, I have said it out loud now - no going back.)

 

 

Adrian 

I look forward to your review.  The way Virgin does dining really intrigues me, we are tempted...

4 hours ago, TheKingD said:

You are correct that the price includes the hotels, and it includes transportation between the hotels and the train.  Your luggage is transported separately to the hotels and it will be in your room when you arrive and you leave it there when you are leaving to board the train, and the train representatives hand out room keys as you leave the train.  All of that worked really well.

 

The guide we used for Arches was JG Outfitters, and they totally customized our tour, so we rode through the park in their nice Suburban and only got out for some photo-ops.  They offered plenty of other options if you want to take hikes - short or long.  We saw where other tour companies parked and let people out for short walks for those who wanted to walk some.  Their website was spotty and the way we communicated with them was texting or phone calls most of the time.

 

I had ordered a National Park pass in advance, and that came in handy for the tour because we were able to bypass the lines at the entrance.  You only need one pass for the vehicle, and I think the tour companies' pass does not include passengers. 

Thanks again.  I really appreciate the level of detail you included.

11 hours ago, TheKingD said:

We did the US route on Rocky Mountaineer in late October last year.  We had never been to Utah, so we started in Salt Lake City a couple of days early, and our trip included a flight-seeing trip from there to Moab.  The train segments were outstanding - service, food, scenery, logistics.  The hotels were fine, but definitely not top-tier.  We chose the eastbound route because the train schedules were more civilized, and since DH is more of a crack-of-noon guy, we wanted to avoid any 6AM departures.  We also arranged our own private excursion in Moab to Arches National Park, because the ones offered by Rocky Mountaineer were skimpy, and I think they were actually cancelled because not many people signed up.  The US route has single-level trains so the meals are served at your seat rather than downstairs in a dining car.  We were in the Silver-Plus, or whatever they call the upgraded experience, and I would recommend that.  I'm happy to answer questions if you have anything specific in mind.

Thank you for that.  The hotel was bundled into the price, correct?  Also, how much hiking does Arches National entail?

15 minutes ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

With 2770 passengers, I'd say Virgin wouldn't be an option for the Crystal demographic, for sure not THIS Crystal demographic. 🤪Patty

I appreciate that, and I'm certainly not saying that's it's anything close to a reverse image of the traditional lux lines.  They just seem to be doing a very good job at what they do.  Anyway, I was just originally replying that they are another 18+ cruise line.  

1 hour ago, BEAV said:

Both Canadian and US Rocky Mountaineer trips are bucket list items for me. The US route (Denver to Moab) is fairly new compared to the long-established Vancouver-Banff run. 

Agree those both look juicy.  Our neighbors did the Van-Banff run, must question them more closely.

16 minutes ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

Isn't that a line aimed at a much younger, party crowd, very different from the usual Crystal demographic?

 

Patty

That's their marketing image.  The reality, from everything I've researched,

is a lot of folks in their mid 40s to mid 50s, and older.  Take a look at their prices and that cuts into the (really)younger demo.

You know, kind like the photos of the "pax" in any lux cruise line's brochures. 

11 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

Thank you for giving us access.

 

Roy

You're welcome.  Roy, have you ridden any of the routes of the Rocky Mountaineer?

On 5/8/2024 at 1:21 PM, Texas Tillie said:

I think the answer is any line that doesn't allow children. Other than Viking, are there any?

 

Patty

 

 

 

 

Virgin.

Somehow I just knew that a former owner of a certain luxury cruise line was going to come up in this article:

https://wapo.st/3JZeEUs

2 hours ago, BWIVince said:

 

Fresh, free, locally sourced product for the Chez!  😉 

Well, locavore is all the rage!

On another local note for Vince, we just dined at the latest DC restaurant he won't get down here to: Pastis, Stephen Starr's new neo-bistro in Union Market.  We made the rez a couple weeks ago and we're glad we did because, two days before we went, Sietsema published an absolute rave in the Post.  OLoPP had the duck confit, chicken Kiev for me, both spectacular, and service was top notch.  Just be prepared for a room that, once it gets full, sounds like you're in the landing pattern at National. 

1 hour ago, BEAV said:

Happy cicada season to our beloved DC/Maryland/Southeast members.

 

@rafinmd @BWIVince @TheKingD @KenzSailing

 

 

Tastes just like chicken!