Visiting Regent ships when in hometown

[grapejuice]

Does anybody know if you are able to board any of the Regent ships if they are in your home town, just to show family/friends just how wonderful these ships are? And get them to come along on your next cruise.
If you can how do you go about it?

[OrpingtonT]

Originally Posted by grapejuice

Does anybody know if you are able to board any of the Regent ships if they are in your home town, just to show family/friends just how wonderful these ships are? And get them to come along on your next cruise.
If you can how do you go about it?

Here in the UK, it is possible but can be quite complex. Some Travel Agents liaise with Regent and arrange for a party of their clients to tour. They include a neal at a cost ( they would say nominal!) and this cost is refunded if you look a cruise with them. Regent themselves also arrange a tour, usually for favoured clients, and you would have to write to their marketing department to try to get on their list.

Whether all this is done in Australia I do not know but an approach to Regent wouldn't come amiss. The worse that can happen is that they say "No"

[grapejuice]

Thanks Orpington T I will give it a try

[Island Cruiser]

One way to do it is to have a passenger who is booked on the ship arrange for friends to come on board for lunch (or dinner if the ship is in port overnight). We will be boarding the Voyager in Rio on 12/4. The ship overnights in Rio so we have invited three Brazilian friends on board for dinner as our guests. The price of their dinners will be billed to our shipboard account. Here is how we did it. Contacted our wonderful TA. She referred us to a staff member in her office who handles such requests. We needed to secure the full names and passport numbers of each potential guest and submit a request on a form Regent uses for such purposes through our travel agent. We were advised there were no guarantees. Sometimes approvals are granted sometimes not. It depends on the particular circumstances prevailing at each port. We were also advised responses come from Regent about three weeks before sailing. Our guests were approved as advised. Their names will be available to the Security Desk. They will be welcome to board as early as 2:00 pm and must depart the ship by 11:00 pm. In our case, we'll meet them on the dock at 6:00 pm, give them a tour of the ship, host them for cocktails and dinner, and bid them farewell before 11:00 pm. They are delighted. We are delighted. What a great policy! Pat

[grapejuice]

Wow, thanks Island Cruiser,
Unfortunately we will not know anyone on the cruise coming into little old Brisbane, Queensland Australia.

I think this is the first time a Regent Ship has been in Australia,
Am I correct?
Most Australians that I talk to have never heard of Regent Seven Seas
I think we basically do the Pacific Islands on P and O
But it looks like according to the itinerary, things are looking good for little old Aussie cities and the luxury ships are coming to town

[xrvlcruiser]

Grapejuice . . speak to your travel agent or call the Regent office in Austraia . . . someone should be able to set something up for you. Or if that does not work, email/contact the office in FL.

And Regent has been coming to Australia for some time - I know we've been there on their ships since 2003. Brisbane is not ususally on the itinerary though.

[OrpingtonT]

Regent ships have included Australia in their itineraries. In fact Mariner is on her way at the moment to the West coast, Freemantle,Albany, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. But I know Voyager was in Cairns and Newcastle earlier this year Perhaps The visit to Brisbane next year will be a first?

[grapejuice]

Wow, thanks guys and gals, thats great

[clarky]

WE were invited to view Regent's ship in our home town port of Fremantle, Western Australia just recently. Our travel agent in Queensland who we have book our previous cruises with arranged this. There were a group of about 40 people and we were broken up into two groups and given a tour of the ship and then enjoyed drinks and nibbles.

This was done while most passengers were on shore excursions and a cabin was made available for us to view. Very worthwhile marketing tool as far as I'm concerned as we have 97 days on another luxury cruise line and would now consider cruising Regent.

[grapejuice]

Thanks Clarky,
Would love to know your travel agent in Queensland.
Both times I have sailed on Regent, it was a conference, so the whole ship was booked, so we never went through a travel agent. I still might contact them (the organizers of the conference) and see what they can muster up.
I have looked up the Regent site and found accredited travel agents for Regent in Australia and (based in Sydney) and will try them as well
I really want to show my friends who we want to cruise with in 2011 and my family what an absolutely fantastic setup Regent has and try and convince them to come with us in 2011

[OrpingtonT]

Originally Posted by grapejuice

I really want to show my friends who we want to cruise with in 2011 and my family what an absolutely fantastic setup Regent has and try and convince them to come with us in 2011

Try saying just that directly to Regent and see what they come up with.

[grapejuice]

Thanks again Orpington T
I will try that approach,
Navigator will be in town late 2010, so I have some time.
I will try everything everyone has mentioned!!!
Cheers

[xrvlcruiser]

The Voyager will be in Brisbane on February 9, 2010.

[clarky]

Grapejuice,

I understand we can not post travel agents on this web page but if you are interested in contacting this travel agent to see if he can arrange a tour for you I can e-mail you directly with their e-mail address.

[grapejuice]

Clarky
How do I give you my email address
Thanks

[clarky]

send your e-mail address to me at karen_clark@iinet.net.au and I will forward you the travel agents details.