Back to back cruises

[charltonkerry]

Just in the process of booking a back to back cruise on voyager at the end of September this year. Just a couple of questions which hopefully you good people can help with.

 

1. What happens on change over day, we are in Rome, will they lay on the normal excursions etc?

2. Do we get to book 2 sets of specialised restaurants, ie 1 for each portion of the cruise, similar with the butler requests etc?

3. Do we undertake 2 safety drills and sail away parties.

4. Do we get extra luggage allowance on the flights?

5. Not to do with back to back but we are flying into Barcelona landing at 9:50 local time, if we are taken to the ship we will arrive earlier than the ship allows for embarkation. Anyone knows what happens.

Thanks in advance.

 

Regards

Marion and Kerry.

[charltonkerry]

6. Forgot to ask but its our 35th wedding anniversary prior to departure and I remember that there's a question I think in the butler request form about a special occasion, does this special occasion have to fall on the cruise or is there leeway? We booked these cruises as our anniversary treat and as Marion has had to put up with me for 35 years then I think see deserves to be spoilt! Understand if the occasion has to fall on the cruise, which is more than likely the answer.

Regards

Marion and Kerry

[OrpingtonT]

Just in the process of booking a back to back cruise on voyager at the end of September this year. Just a couple of questions which hopefully you good people can help with.

 

1. What happens on change over day, we are in Rome, will they lay on the normal excursions etc?

2. Do we get to book 2 sets of specialised restaurants, ie 1 for each portion of the cruise, similar with the butler requests etc?

3. Do we undertake 2 safety drills and sail away parties.

4. Do we get extra luggage allowance on the flights?

5. Not to do with back to back but we are flying into Barcelona landing at 9:50 local time, if we are taken to the ship we will arrive earlier than the ship allows for embarkation. Anyone knows what happens.

Thanks in advance.

 

Regards

Marion and Kerry.

 

Others who have done B to B will answer Q 1, but my belief is that the answers to Q 2 and 3 are yes. Q 4 would be no (luggage allowance is set by the airline).

 

Q 5 I can answer as we have done that twice. By the time you are off the plane and through the airport, waited for all the Regent group to get together taken to the coach and travelled to the ship, boarding is underway. If you are early you would only have to wait a very short time anyway.

 

Have a great cruise.

[charltonkerry]

Thanks for the reply OrpingtonT, hope you are well. Never booked a cruise this late and we are a little worried that the excursions may be booked.

 

I don't know if you remember us, but you where helpful in answering some questions early last year for us when we went on our first Regent cruise, I think especially re my request for English bitter, well this year I didn't even ask Regent offered to put some on board when I made the enquiry. That's what I call brilliant customer service. :D

[JMARINER]

Just in the process of booking a back to back cruise on voyager at the end of September this year. Just a couple of questions which hopefully you good people can help with.

 

1. What happens on change over day, we are in Rome, will they lay on the normal excursions etc?

Usually, you should be able to find the included tours on Regent's website.

2. Do we get to book 2 sets of specialised restaurants, ie 1 for each portion of the cruise, similar with the butler requests etc?

Yes

3. Do we undertake 2 safety drills and sail away parties.

No on the Drill. only when you embark - Yes on both Party

4. Do we get extra luggage allowance on the flights?

No

5. Not to do with back to back but we are flying into Barcelona landing at 9:50 local time, if we are taken to the ship we will arrive earlier than the ship allows for embarkation. Anyone knows what happens.

If you are landing at 9:30 am, by the time you clear customs, immigration and get you luggage it will probably be closer to 11:00; you will go right to the Port to to check in and embark

 

#6 Below.Have your travel agent make arrangements for you for your anniversary.

 

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As a side note, why didn't your agent have theses answers? If they didn't know, you have the WRONG agent.

 

j

[charltonkerry]

Thanks Jmariner, if you want the honest answer, I didn't even think of asking the travel agent! Should have done as they are personnel friends and we have mutual grand children, will certainly do re the special anniversary.

[OrpingtonT]

Thanks for the reply OrpingtonT, hope you are well. Never booked a cruise this late and we are a little worried that the excursions may be booked.

 

I don't know if you remember us, but you where helpful in answering some questions early last year for us when we went on our first Regent cruise, I think especially re my request for English bitter, well this year I didn't even ask Regent offered to put some on board when I made the enquiry. That's what I call brilliant customer service. :D

 

Hi, Marion & Kerry. Of course I remember you well and that is superb service with the English bitter. I suppose I see your posts before our friends over the pond wake up in the morning, though Travelcat, living on the West coast probably hasn't even gone to bed at 7 o'clock our time..

 

I saw your other query about special anniversaries later. You can celebrate your special day on any day you choose. Just specify the date. If you are away on your Birthday, they announce it on the TV.

[charltonkerry]

Cheers, as it turns out my birthday is 2 days after we return. Thanks for your help again, I think 35 years is a bit special but if I remember correctly you beat that by quiet a distance. Well just broke the bank managers heart and paid for both cruises so roll on the 26th September, 17 nights of pampering can't be bad.

 

Regent have just confirmed my bitter will be on board as well, can't get much better than this, can it :D unfortunately better get to work and earn some money to pay of the credit cards now, unusually no credit card charges where added by the travel agents, another bonus and totally unheard of by me.

Regards

Marion and Kerry

[xrvlcruiser]

drills . . .must be attended for every cruise- that includes b2b.

[JMARINER]

drills . . .must be attended for every cruise- that includes b2b.

Since when did they change the rules? We didn't have to my last B2B about a year ago on the NAV. But that was just before the Concordia.

 

j

29/403

[Patti22]

Last fall we did London to Barcelona and then Barcelona to Monte Carlo - b2b. We absolutely were told that we had to attend the safety drill for the second part of our cruise. They are treated as separate cruises and all passengers must attend. Not really a bad idea.

[Travelcat2]

Regent now has muster every 12 days and definitely for everyone at the beginning of each segment. This was quite new on our April sailing.

 

Regent will offer an excursion for passengers doing b2b cruises. I have not seen this on the Regent website. Instead, the information was given to us in our suite while onboard.

[charltonkerry]

Thanks everyone for your replies, really looking forward to it. Been confirmed that there will be a tour on change over day (Rome) but can only book on the ship. Interesting about the drill but makes sense.

 

Something that did make happy was the reduction in he overall cost of both cruises, the total saving was around 25% which i know some came out the travel agents portion, which I never heard of before in the UK as normally theres hardly any movement on Regent prices unlike America, could be a sign of the times and with only 3 months to go we where offered a lot of choice of cabins in both A and B grades, so must still be plenty of spaces. Out of interest will Regent sail at reduce passenger capacity or do they keep dropping their prices until they sail at 100%?

[Henk123]

It is not common that Regent will drop prices

That there is a lot of choise in room numbers will not say that there is lot of unused suites.

Maybe there are a lot of guaranty booked suites. For those customers they will shuffle them shortly before the shipping date.

[charltonkerry]

Good point Henk123, hadn't thought of that, although as I said I did get a 25% reduction which I agree is unusual, I actually email my travel agent to make certain he had quoted for the correct cruise / cabin as I was that shocked.:eek:

[newlondon]

Charltonkerry, TC gave you the straight story. RSSC now does drills every 12-14 days due to the Concordia disaster. May I recommend you show up when they schedule them or else you will be required to attend at a far less convenient time. They are adamant about this.

You definitely get two reservations in the specialty restaurants and actually if pro-active may get more.

No extra baggage, however.

Be careful, however, about tours on changeover days. There were none for us in Singapore, not that it mattered as we had scheduled our own. Can't understand why Regent is so squiffy about this, it should be a no-brainer.

All I can say, though is ENJOY.

[charltonkerry]

Newlondon, have no problem with the drill, as I said previously perfectly understandable considering what happened. Thanks for all the other tips much appreciated. Cruise is booked and really looking forward to it. Managed to book all the tours and looking forward to booking the restaurants in a couple of weeks.

[Travelcat2]

We received a fairly large discount on our b2b cruise last year (do not recall the percentage). At the time, Regent was having difficulty filling some of their European itineraries. It sounds like this may still be the case since you received a discount and they are dropping some European itineraries next year (to give Regent customers the itineraries they have been asking for:-)

[Mjflowers]

We received a fairly large discount on our b2b cruise last year (do not recall the percentage). At the time, Regent was having difficulty filling some of their European itineraries. It sounds like this may still be the case since you received a discount and they are dropping some European itineraries next year (to give Regent customers the itineraries they have been asking for:-)

 

Noticed your cruise in May on Silver Seas. Vancouver to Tokyo. How did that work out? DW and I want to try this line in the future. Any opinion appreciated.

[Travelcat2]

Noticed your cruise in May on Silver Seas. Vancouver to Tokyo. How did that work out? DW and I want to try this line in the future. Any opinion appreciated.

 

Actually, that was a typo in my signature. We are actually going in September. We have sailed on Silversea twice -- once on the newer ship - the Spirit and once on the Whisper. We also toured one of their smaller ships. Although it is a matter of personal preference, we find the Whisper/Shadow (almost twin ships) very comfortable. The smaller ships were too small and too old -- the Spirit was built during the downturn of the economy and it really shows.

 

We found the food in Compass Rose better than the main dining room on Silversea. However, the La Veranda equivalent was quite a bit better than La Veranda. Service on both Regent and Silversea is excellent. We fell in love with the Whisper -- just a gorgeous ship. She is the size of the Navigator but holds 100 less passengers. This leaves a lot of space for public areas.

 

The formality of Silversea is an issue but we learned to deal with it. On a two week cruise, it seemed like there were only 4 casual nights.

 

We are looking forward to our September cruise. We'll be cruising with CC members that we met on the Voyager a couple of years ago. We will hopefully be the trivia team to beat:-)

[charltonkerry]

Anyone know how to whip up interest in a roll call, started one about a week ago and only had 14 view, with the only comments by me! Any ideas or tips, about 3 months before we depart so thought it might be a good time, or is it that roll calls are not popular any longer. :p

Regards

Marion and Kerry