Excursions

[davidandsusan-nj]

Last week we received our cruise documents for our upcoming cruise on Voyager December 1. There was no confirmation included for the excursions we booked on line. The only excursion documentation/voucher we received was for our special trip to Tikal in Guatemala that needed to be pre-booked and pre-paid through reservations. When will we receive "vouchers" for the remaining excursions? Are they in our cabin when we arrive or do they deliver them a day in advance during the cruise as other lines do?
Thanks,Susan

[Wendy The Wanderer]

They'll be most likely in an envelope on your cabin door when you board, or shortly afterwards, all at once.

[davidandsusan-nj]

Thanks Wendy. Appreciate the info.

[jmezmom]

I would reconfirm with Rc that you are on the tours...we reserve all of our tours online pretty early and the ones we have paid for are listed in our doc booklet.

[newlondon]

Regent will not confirm you on a tour until you receive your tickets on board. We tried very hard to find out if we made a concierge choice that only had 20 spots. They would not tell us until embarkation. (We did make it). I much prefer the SS method of e-mail confirmation.

[Travelcat2]

Remember, you can get non-Regent excursions confirmed in advance. We have deposits and confirmation on two excursions for February, 2009. I'm not saying that anything is wrong with Regent excursions -- there are, however, a lot reputable local tour companies that also do a great job (usually with less people and sometimes at a considerably better price):)

[Wendy The Wanderer]

The confusion is that if you pre-pay for a tour, like one of the special flying ones, yes, you get confirmation of that in your package. The others aren't confirmed until you board, but you will have gotten an email confirmation of your requests if you did it online.

[newlondon]

Absolutely right, Wendy, but that doesn't do you much good if you are trying for limited space and as an alternative have to take what is left if you don't make it. I really don't understand the reluctance to confirm in advance.
On our Venice to Istanbul many of the Regent tours sold out. I can understand why after pricing private services. NO COMPARISON.

[davidandsusan-nj]

I thought Wendy had given me a direct answer to a simple question. I never thought about Regent possibly overbooking tours. I did receive an email confirming the excursions we booked online but I knew I still needed some sort of voucher. How do they handle overbooking? If it is done on a first come first serve basis we will okay because we booked when they first became available online. If they use some other sort of criteria we could have a problem. There is only one that I would be upset with missing so I will check the port section and see if there is a tour operator that does a similar excursion. How often do people get bumped?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I believe they don't overbook. Sometimes an excursion will be cancelled, for example, or the time changed. I think that's mostly the reason why they don't confirm the booking. And of course, you don't pay for it until later either.

[CruiserPK]

Sometimes, like on our recent PG cruise, the excursion request gets lost in cyberspace. I booked online the day the bookings opened and had the email from Regent to confirm my "request" for excursions. We got onboard and there were no tour tickets in our cabin. Luckily, we were onboard before the masses and got what we wanted. However, there were some very unhappy passengers who had prebooked and then did not get their choices. Based on this experience, I think their system leads alot to be desired and that is why they only confirm your "request" not that you actually are on the excursion.
Cheers, Pam

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Hmm, interesting (and not in a good way). Did they have any kind of explanation for your lost bookings? Did you change cabins late, for example (as we will be, since we now have a GTY?) This has never happened to us, so crossing my fingers it doesn't this time!

[newlondon]

I was not suggesting that they overbook. When, however, you have a full ship of 700 passengers and a tour that takes 20 you can't be sure you have a spot. If confirmation is only on boarding it can leave you scrambling at the last minute.

[CruiserPK]

Wendy,
We were quite disappointed in the tour desk. I will not mention names, but it was an area that we thought was lacking in professional customer service. We noted this on our comment cards at the end of the cruise. They had no proper explanation and just shrugged their shoulders. It was disappointing for many and we felt fortunate that we had boarded early and taken care of the matter quickly. I always print my request for excursions and take that with me. Obviously, this was the time when it was really needed.
Cheers, Pam

PS I will now be uneasy about shore excursions for future cruises. If you receive a confirmation for a request and they lose it, what recourse do you have?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Wow, that's too bad. It was great in 2005, the last time we were aboard. At that time Raina was at the excursion desk and was always helpful. I heard she left some time back. She was the first Polynesian, I believe, to have that type of position.

Oh well, we'll take what we can get. It's still paradise!

[2manyplaces]

We were on the PG with CruiserPK. I had the same experience. I had requested excursions on the first day they were available, very early. We had no tickets when we boarded. I immediately went to the desk and, luckily, they had received my request and we got everything except 1 excursion for which we were able to substitute something similar. I had been planning that cruise for a very long time and did hours of research to determine my selections. I spoke to many people on board who had major problems with excursions and encountered a less than helpful attitude at the excursion desk. I am a big PG fan, but this seemed to me to be a very big glitch in their system.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Sorry, let me get this straight--you're disappointed because you didn't get *one* of the excursions that you had requested? And they were able to substitute something similar? Sounds pretty good to me!

[orchestrapal]

Just was informed that Regent is in the process of converting their Tour Reservation site to a more user friendly one similar to Oceania's. Hopefully future bookings will go through this new system with no or fewer problems.:)

[2manyplaces]

Wendy, sorry, I must not have been clear in my post. I was very happy that I got all except one of my requested excursions. The point I was trying to make was that many people on the shiphad difficulties with the excursions they requested online, like CruiserPK. Luckily, I was not one of them but if I had been I would have been extremely disappointed. The fact that many people's reservations were affected seemed to be a rather big problem. Sounds like they are trying to fix it.