How does one know the times of excursions?

[Swyre]

I have booked a boat trip with Regent to the Baltic in August and am able to book excursions in a few days time.

Regent's website doesn't give the times for the excursions so if I want to book two in a day in St. Petersburg I can't tell if the excursions overlap.

How can I find out the times for the excursions?

Thanks

Swyre

[Portolan]

Originally Posted by Swyre

I have booked a boat trip with Regent to the Baltic in August and am able to book excursions in a few days time.

Regent's website doesn't give the times for the excursions so if I want to book two in a day in St. Petersburg I can't tell if the excursions overlap.

How can I find out the times for the excursions?

Thanks

Swyre

When your access to book the excursions opens, the times will be posted. Our usual MO is to rank order the excursions we'd like at a given port and then give it a final look when access is open and times are posted. It also has been possible to book more than one on a single day if there is a reasonable gap between the tours. 75 minutes as I recall. Another hint is that sometimes additional offerings of tours will open up later. I don't ever recall a later offering of a totally new tour, but that might be possible as well. So, if you don't get exactly what you want (perhaps your #1 & #2 are at the same time), check periodically. Why is that important? If you are waitlisted for a tour you really want to do, say in the morning, and they add an afternoon offering, they won't automatically add you to the PM offering nor notify you of the new time available. I'm not suggesting I'd expect that to happen, but it doesn't. So, get in as early as you can and you'll likely get exactly what you'd like, but if not, check every week or two.

[captbuzz]

We are on the Oct. 3 Monreal - New York cruise and started booking our excursions but the times seem to be askew. Example all of the Quebec City excursions start at 9 AM including the "Romantic Dinner in Quebec" and there are no listings for afternoon excursions. This seems to hold for all ports. I intend to contact Regent tomorrow.

[nana541]

I have never been able to book 2 excursions in one day thru the online system and it never seemed to work out onboard either. The excursions on my 30 days of cruising on Regent all seemed to start at 9am and be full or half day tours.
I am sure there must have been afternoon tours but I do not recall any.

In St Petersburg we did 2 full days of private tours and would do that again if we were to go back, even with the "incl tours" that is on Regent. Sadly, in Russia you can't just get off the ship and wander on your own unless you have jumped thru the hoops and paid big bucks for a Russian visa. When touring with Regent or an "Authorized Russian Tour Co" they provide the visa and you don't need to get one on your own... It was amazing to me that some folks on our sailing did not know that they could not exit the ship unless they had a tour and papers to prove it.... The authorities were very "unforgiving" and strict about the rules!

This is a great itinerary we sailed Voyager when we did this one.

[Portolan]

We've booked (on-line) multiple tours on some days in the Baltic (specifically, 2 tours each day in St. Pete in 2010), Alaska and Iceland-Norway over the last 3 years. However, the truth changes (witness the apparent drop of pre-cruise hotels for lower categories).

[nana541]

Originally Posted by Portolan

We've booked (on-line) multiple tours on some days in the Baltic (specifically, 2 tours each day in St. Pete in 2010), Alaska and Iceland-Norway over the last 3 years. However, the truth changes (witness the apparent drop of pre-cruise hotels for lower categories).

Interesting .... Two experiences that are totally different! Wondering what others are seeing. I do believe some of the on-line issues are due to the IT department imputing tours incorrectly ( well its my suspicion anyway).

[DeepFreeze63]

Originally Posted by nana541

Interesting .... Two experiences that are totally different! Wondering what others are seeing. I do believe some of the on-line issues are due to the IT department imputing tours incorrectly ( well its my suspicion anyway).

We're on the London - London- Barcelona in September. We've reserved two Regent- included tours on the same day twice. Usually one tour per day with some extra strolling in the port city is enough more than enough for us. I also am not a fan of the Regent web-site but that is what we have to work with! Plan ahead and and reserve early. Once on board check with "Destination Services"; I've found them to be terrific at solving any of my excursion problems.
Having said the above, I admit it is really the on-board experiences that bring us back to Regent.

[Portolan]

Originally Posted by nana541

Interesting .... Two experiences that are totally different! Wondering what others are seeing. I do believe some of the on-line issues are due to the IT department imputing tours incorrectly ( well its my suspicion anyway).

Which is why anyone looking for advice on these boards needs to allow for a wide range of experiences and take the information as bounding conditions. And, at least once it was IT since the on-line booking showed a legal gap between a morning and afternoon tour but a call directly to Regent got the second tour added. Asking on-board is also worthwhile because they'll have better local knowledge of the tours, especially on repetitive itineraries and will know whether two tours are compatible. BTW, we've never missed the second tour in a day even with some unexpected delays during the first so the 75-90 minute gap works and usually allows for a Pool Grill lunch.

[Travelcat2]

Strongly agree with nana541 - St. Petersburg is one place we would only use private (or small group) tours. You can see so much more in a shorter period of time..... spend as little or as much time at each place, etc. If you get a group of 4 or 6 people, the cost comes down dramatically. There is so much to see in St. Petersburg -- being stuck in a bus can really affect the enjoyment (in my humble opinion).

[RachelG]

I have definitely been able to book two tours in one day when I wanted to. Most times, I don't want to, but in st. Petersburg, you can't wander about on your own if you don't have a visa. There I did 2 tours in a day twice. Also was able to do so in Rostock, just because the tours were ones I wanted to take. Definitely could have done so a couple of times on the New York to Montreal cruise too, but didn't want to.

[Mike073]

Because there is so much in St. Petersburg, we have booked three each of the first two days and two the third day. Some are pay and some are included, but having been there ten years ago, we did not want to miss anything. I like to think I am a much better photographer now!

There were a few tours that the website did not allow to be booked, but calling Regent solved it easily and everything is booked now.

Going on the August 4th trip.