Tours

One of the perks with Regent is that tours are included. If you cannot get the tours you want, do you often cancel the cruise?

Repeating what's been said on this subject a number of times, and I agree:

It usually happens that people gets pretty much all the tours they're interested in. Things really open up once one is onboard (especially if people have the courtesy to cancel tours they're no longer interested in). It often happens that excursions open up well before embarkation; numbers change all the time. Plus, maybe most important of all, Regent will often add an extra bus if the tour proves to be a very popular one.

I've never heard of anyone canceling a cruise because they can't get the tours that they want. We booked our cruise two months ago (departing next week) and are waitlisted on four excursions. As said above, if they can accommodate us, they will (by adding more buses). People do cancel once you are on board (generally because they are exhausted and booked too many tours) so if you are on the waitlist, you may get on. IMO, people tend to overbook excursions and, especially on port intensive cruises, find themselves with no time to relax on the ship or walk around the port. We haven't left on our cruise yet and are already thinking about canceling one:)

When you book your cruise far enough in advance and book your excursions online as soon as they open, you usually get the tours that you want. The few times we have been unable to get on an excursion, we just do our own thing.

Hope you enjoy your cruise and don't worry too much about tours.

One of the perks with Regent is that tours are included. If you cannot get the tours you want, do you often cancel the cruise?

Wondering why you call the included excursions perks?? They really are no different than food, pop, wine, beer, etc. The price of what you are getting is figured into the cruise fare so in reality you are paying for everything.

Maybe because it's a perk for Regent who make more money off these tours they force on you.

Maybe because it's a perk for Regent who make more money off these tours they force on you.

I kind of get the "perk" reference. Yes - we pay for everything included in our cruise fare, just as you do on other luxury lines. Up until recently, Regent was the only luxury cruise line offering quite a few included tours at each port. If this is something you want and cannot get on other luxury lines, it does appear to be a "perk" - a "perk" that is not offered on Seabourn, for instance - whether you pay for it or not.

Posters (including myself) have very strong feelings about included excursions/tours so, I'm trying to keep this subject as "light" as possible. I have stated many times that allowing an opt-out option (or buy-in option) for included tours might satisfy the majority of Regent cruisers.

Silversea now has some type of included excursions - not sure how they work. Oceania, while not luxury, has what I believe is a new "buy-in" option that may not work as well as it would on Regent as a high percentage of their passengers seem to prefer arranging their own excursions -- either private or with a group on their cruise.

For us, it has always been a real perk, since we appreciate not having to arrange our own excursions, or find a group to do that with; we're more comfortable simply choosing from the offered tours, despite the fact that of course they're not "free." (But, yes, they are a "perk" in that other sense.)

The thing that's bothered me is that so many (really quite a lot) of tours that used to be included are now not. It used to be that looking at the list of excursions for each port, there were many, many options that didn't require extra payment. In the past couple of years, it seems to me that in some cases the upcharge excursions actually outnumber the "free" ones. Not a happy camper about that.

I haven't ever heard of someone canceling a cruise because they couldn't get their desired excursion either. On our upcoming cruise, I already have one excursion booked that I am for sure canceling, and another that I am going to try to change.

People cancel and change excursions all the time. Most times we have gotten the excursions we wanted. In fact, the only time I can think of recently that we didn't was an extra charge excursion that was cancelled because not enough people signed up.