kjbacon

We love the wine lunches and have never heard of a wine dinner. How often do they happen? We will be on the Mariner in November.

And the real me was just about to respond that yes, there are delicious cheese boards on the Splendor! Our favorite dessert.

Not much of a follow up but here’s the last I heard. After waiting a couple of days, the connection my TA has at Regent reports that they are working on it. So, that’s that I guess lol the cruise is 7 months out and most or all of the shorex times are wrong.

I know it’s hard to picture this thing because regent is usually right on and so accurate. And of course we have had the occasional time adjustment on a tour but this is different. This is that the shorex times are all incorrect. You can’t differentiate and book a “morning” tour when all the tours are at 7:30 am and none of us can book two tours in a day (which we often do). I hear you. We are also trying to make sense out of this chaos but it’s so frustrating lol!! Now that we are at the 7 month mark, it’s more than frustrating. My TA, who specializes in Regent, has called them a couple times already and received no explanation other than it will be fixed soon. She hasn’t called lately so she tried again on Thursday and is still waiting to hear back from them. We have selected our excursions also and I’ve asked my TA to try yet again. Please let us know what your TA finds out and I’ll do the same.

You’re on the grandeur in early March 2025 and having similar shorex time issues as we are? We are navigator in late March 2025. Weird! I called my TA yesterday and she was surprised this is still going on. She called regent and asked again what’s up. Now she’s waiting to hear back from regent.

My travel agent, who specializes in regent cruises, has called and there’s no explanation to be had. They just keep saying “soon”. Exactly!! Our second port of call is two days in New Orleans so we are planning for two lunches and one dinner in port. We made reservations but we really dont know what our actual availability will be. The only thing we are sure of is that all the shore excursions don’t start at 7:00 in the morning! We don’t care which of the two days we do our tours so we would pick them based on the times, but we can’t. And all the ports are that way. And the question still begs … why? I don’t even have a good guess at this point lol! It’s not an inability to set things up with the operators. For example, when we called on Cozumel in January, the shore excursions were ready to book one year out but with this sailing, all the shore excursions in Cozumel start at the exact same time so we know they are wrong. With 100 nights on Regent, we’ve never seen anything like this.

I’m not sure what’s up so that’s why I posted the question on here. Most ports on this cruise have all the shorex starting at the same time, 7:30 in one, 8:30 in another, 10:30 in another, 7:00 in another. And some of these ports are ports that we just called on last January with no issues at all like this. Made our reservations 12 months out, no problem. Like I said earlier, we’ve done many regent cruises and have never experienced anything like this. Now we are less than 8 months from sailing and all the excursions are still a mish mosh.

This is part of the problem … you can’t select a time. For example, one day in New Orleans, all the excursions start at 8am and the second day, they all start at 7:30am. It’s impossible to book two shorex in a day, which we often do, or coordinate anything on land (like brunch reservations at the Court of Two Sisters). We did book all our shorex months ago but we know most, if not all, of them are wrong. We have sailed many times with Regent and have never experienced this so I’m curious why.

Three months later and no changes so the times for the shorex are still wrong in most ports. This doesn’t makes sense, does it?

Regent is set up to accommodate a low salt diet at dinner if requested ahead. Each day, you receive the next day’s menu in your cabin to make your selections. At breakfast, you can order your eggs to be prepared without salt at the grill station day of. The day before, I also request avocado in La Veranda.

In Reykjavik, we loved Thingveller National Park where the continents meet. It’s beautiful and so very different!

We did a similar itinerary on the Grandeur just a few months ago. In Cozumel, we did the Chefs Led Tequila Tasting and absolutely loved it. It’s a shorex with an up charge but we would highly recommend it. It was fun, delicious, and educational… what’s not to like! In Santo Tomas de Castillo, we did the Las Escabos tour. We enjoyed it and the scenery at the actual park is spectacular but note that there is more walking than you might expect with lots of steps. We were also unprepared for the level of sustained poverty as we traveled to and from the park. In Roatan, we went to gumbalinda (sp?) nature preserve and disliked it very much. Note that we were in odd step on that. We did not like the touristy feel, especially with the sense of being taken advantage of. For example, you are absolutely not permitted to carry anything into the park and are required to rent a locker for $5 or $10. So, you guessed it that they nabbed nearly everyone with that little surprise! We also were looking for a more natural setting with the animals but found it too staged for our taste. In Grand Cayman, we did the Reef and Wreck Snorkel and thought everything about it was great. You said no scuba but don’t know if you snorkel. If you do, this was one of the better snorkel tours and we would recommend it. Hope you enjoy your cruise as much as we did!

On our very first Regent cruise years ago, we stopped at that port with every intention of going to Florence. Long story short, we were exhausted so we switched gears and went to Lucca instead. It turned out to be one of our favorite days on our Med cruise and we still talk about how much we love Lucca!

Same here. We were going to switch to the ‘27 Splendor, our favorite ship, but the itinerary just could not compare to ‘26 for what we wanted. We will probably become well acquainted as we cruise the world together!

Yes, but I love the intensity into South America, Japan, and some other areas that are not the “usual”. We are booked on 2026 WC. For us, as much as we would prefer Splendor, ‘26 is a better itinerary than ‘27.

Thanks so much! Doing well and looking forward to getting back on the water.

No, we are on Mariner. Hopefully, another time!

Thank you @flossie009 for such a great blog. Safe travels home! Are you looking at a leg of the WC? Perhaps we will meet!

The good and bad news is that I didn’t realize that this was not isolated to my cruise. I’ve been wondering if we were going to hear that the ship has been chartered or is going in for a repair or something. When would you get concerned when most ports have the shorex listed incorrectly on your cruise?

Maybe, that’s as good as any explanation that I’ve come up with! Yes, definitely some similarities. I also wanted to book 2 shorex in a couple ports and can’t with everything starting at the same time.

We are booked on the Navigator for March 2025 and our shore excursions, for the most part, are still not listed correctly. For example, there are ports that have every excursion’s start time at 7:00 am or 8:30 am … and that includes a dinner excursion. Another port has every excursion at 12 noon, the time we pull into that port. My travel agent has called regent and was told that they are probably waiting for better info from the land operators? I’ve never had any experience with a situation like this, on regent or any other cruise line, so I’m hoping that someone here might have some insight!

Yes but usually we board in time for their delicious carved rib lunch and an afternoon of cocktails 🍷 lol instead of early evening. I prob have too much time on my hands right now, recovering from minor surgery!!

Yes, true, but i personally don’t think FCC’s are a substitute for actual reimbursement.

Totally agree that it’s best to find your way to have a good time and not dwell on the negatives on your vacation. However, coming from a Regent groupie, I’m going to throw this out there … I think that 10% off in this circumstance is too tight. It is a tad short on the actual time lost on the trip (one day short on a 10 day plus several hours and how many cocktails!) and I think some goodwill couldn’t have hurt for the inconvenience. Maybe 15% or 20%?

How many days in length is this cruise, specifically more or less than 10 days?