SusieQft

I guess I was very lucky then.  Tuesday afternoon I upgraded a back to back booking in late 2022 from G to E, but did not get the confirmation until Wednesday at almost noon Pacific time because they were getting so many requests.  If B2Bs are no longer included, I sneaked in just under the wire.  🙂

After waiving the hotel, the total cost for E was $210 pp less than we had originally for G, even with the January price increase.  Since we are only Bronze until we board for this booking, the 4 wifi connections and early booking for excursions and dining will be very welcome.  It is a great promotion and it sounds like they are getting a good response.

22 hours ago, cerise638 said:

At the moment there is no evidence that you won't transmit the disease even when vaccinated.

9 hours ago, wcsdkqh said:

Nor is there any evidence that you can or will transmit the disease after being vaccinated. One of the questions that remains to be answered.

And we should hopefully have a lot more information on this by mid-2021, assuming that the vaccine program actually gets moving.  Answers to these questions will probably come before everyone even has a chance to get the vaccine.

5 hours ago, mrlevin said:

I hear that Crystal has fantastic lecturers but I can't believe anyone could be better than John Freedman.

I have not heard John Freedman or the others you named, so I can't compare.  But it sounds like Crystal definitely has many more lecturers and lectures.  There are usually three or four lectures on a typical sea day.  The quality also varies, but some are excellent and most of the others are very good.  On a crossing with several sea days, there will be numerous lecturers on board and usually only one of them is a destination speaker. 

I just did a quick count from the first segment of the 2019 Crystal World Cruise, and there were 14 lecturers who gave 57 lectures on 13 sea days, not counting additional lectures from the mixologist, guest chef, store representatives, and wine tasting.  Admittedly, this was a 21 night segment with 13 sea days, but the thought of such a segment with only two lecturers is worrying to me.  At least the Regent lecturers will probably be new to me, which is a plus since a few of the Crystal ones do come back and repeat essentially the same lectures we heard before.

Marc, I would love it if you would post some details about this specific topic on the Grand Arctic Adventure, once you are able to sail it.  I have a conflicting booking in 2022, but we have our eye on doing that particular Grand Voyage on Navigator in 2023.

Karen

I am wondering about the enrichment lectures aboard Navigator.  Is there about the same amount of this as on the larger Regent ships?  Does it depend more on itinerary or ship size?  We really like having at least two enrichment lectures on a sea day, and I am wondering if we would be disappointed in this aspect of Regent on a long voyage.

Specifically, I am most curious about the Grand Arctic Adventure on Navigator.  My assumption has been that there would be more enrichment lectures on a Grand Voyage or World Cruise than on a shorter more port intensive itinerary.  Is this true?  It would be great if some of you who have sailed such voyages could share your experience.

26 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Based on conversations with Steve, the owner of Tripinsurancestore.com who is an expert on insurance

I agree that Steve is an expert, and also the source of much of my information.  I have discussed this topic at length with him, because preexisting conditions coverage is important to me. 

The advice you are giving is true, as long as you don't mind if preexisting conditions are not covered.  If you want preexisting conditions coverage, you have to keep the insurance up to date with the total amount you have paid, whether it is still refundable or not. 

P.S.  There may be some companies that you can use your strategy with, but I have not purchased insurance from those companies.  This is why I said one needs to really make sure they know what they are doing here before assuming that buying the minimum amount will not cause problems.

9 hours ago, rallydave said:

No need to insure more dollars than at risk from the beginning so pehaps a couple of hundred dollars at risk for having 2 insurance policies. 

As I understand it, you have to insure the full deposit amount within a short time (~2 weeks, depending on the company) of making the deposit in order to preserve the pre-existing conditions coverage, and add insurance each time you make an additional payment.  You can't just buy the minimum level of insurance if the deposit amount is more than that.  Well, you can certainly buy it but then you will be disqualified to ever get the pre-existing conditions coverage for that booking, just as you would be if you waited until later to buy the insurance. 

If you use FCCs instead of cash for the deposit, it might get a bit murky.  But if the insurance will cover the 100% FCCs even that might cause this problem.  You can't use the 25% FCCs to make a deposit.   If you want to employ this strategy, make doubly sure that you fully understand the implications.

3 hours ago, jeb_bud said:

Maybe there is a complication I would discover if I tried

Yes, you would almost certainly see the extra fee if you got a quote from your TA.  I would be totally amazed if Regent discontinued this fee, especially in 2020.  The $249 fee for a non-gateway airport is not part of the cruise fare.  It showed up on a separate line (actually $124.50 each on two separate lines) when I got a quote, it was under "Additional Items," below the "Cruise Fare Total."

8 hours ago, jeb_bud said:

SusieQft, Las Vegas is a Regent gateway. Regent has some kind of tier structure for their gateway airports. Smaller market airports like Las Vegas or PDX incur an extra fee, while major market airports like SFO or LAX do not. 

I have not heard of any tier structure for gateways.  If so, perhaps there are some that Regent just flat refuses to book, or maybe has a higher fee for?  Our quote was for $249 per person for a round trip flight from LAS to LAX, more than the cost of the flight but would have been a good deal including the transfers.  Except that we got $300 per person to forgo the air, so the real cost was $549 per person, which was totally outrageous.  $1098 was more than enough to cover the rental car and hotel to drive there the day before.  The car rental company said they would provide the transfer, but sadly we did not get to check that out since our cruise was cancelled.

I would dearly love for LAS to be a gateway airport, but I think this is probably an issue of semantics.  Regent has a specific definition for gateway airports, and they are listed at Air Programs and Upgrades | Regent Seven Seas Cruises (rssc.com)   Neither Las Vegas nor Portland is on the list.

12 hours ago, mrlevin said:

Regent cancelling or significantly altering our 2021 cruise would sure make the decisions easier.

Of course, when they do get around to cancelling 2021 they are likely to offer you the opportunity to transfer your booking to the 2022 at the 2021 price.  Assuming you can still get a suite you want....

12 hours ago, tert333 said:

Is it normal they break the refund into two parts?

In my limited experience (2 cancellations on Crystal), the three payments I had made were all refunded separately, even though they were all to the same credit card.  The taxes were not separated out.  However, I had disputed all three charges so that may be why they resulted in separate refunds.

On another cancellation (on Regent) that I took FCCs for, the taxes were refunded separately pro rata for each of 3 separate payments that I had made.  In that case, however, I had used 3 separate credit cards.

Now I am wondering if anyone has had separate payments combined into one refund transaction?  I have assumed that would not happen, but perhaps it does.

BMI issues aside, including over 65 and all the other categories on the list makes it is a huge percentage of the population.  I can't find it now because it has changed again, but just a week or two ago the CDC guidelines had 4 groups.  The first group, happily too late to change now, was health care workers and congregant care residents, the second group was "essential workers," the third group was over 65 and those with medical conditions, and the fourth group was everyone else.  The graphic published at that time showed the 3rd group was bigger than the 1st, 2nd, and 4th groups combined.

54 minutes ago, wcsdkqh said:

One other question... Do you still put your luggage out the night before?

This may depend on the port, as well as the time.  You should check with the reception desk about this when you make your arrangements of when to debark.

11 hours ago, daetchief said:

Bottom Line, I don't think AIG knows whether I used FCCs for the new cruise.

I think any insurance company will be happy to take your money to purchase a policy in whatever amount you want.  When/if you make a claim, that is when the documentation will be required.  Then they will only pay out for the covered expenses that they consider valid.

9 minutes ago, Dolebludger said:

We have never heard of Regent booking flights from a non-gateway airport.

My first quote from Regent included (itemized separately) $124.50 per person per direction ($598 total for both of us) for flights from Las Vegas to LAX for a RT cruise out of LA.  That is because Las Vegas is not a gateway airport.  Since then we have said no thank you to included flights including that one, which we booked without air, but I assume that the same non-gateway fee would apply if we had made a connection at LAX, which is a gateway airport, or if we had flown directly from Las Vegas to embark somewhere else. 

Based on the T&Cs and what I have read, I would assume that the same non-gateway fee should apply for you out of Durango.  If you are at all interested in using Regent Air, you might want to discuss this with your TA.  If you are flying from Durango to a gateway airport, it seems to me it would be a lot easier to have the entire trip on one ticket unless you plan to overnight in the gateway city.

1 hour ago, Dolebludger said:

These routes from Durango aren't covered within Regent’s “included air” policy so we arrange and pay for those air legs anyway.

Are you saying that Regent will not allow you to designate Durango as your "non-Gateway" airport and book from there with the upcharge? 

We have pretty much decided that if/when we book anything with Regent Air we would save money by driving the ~300 miles to LAX (or especially to the Port of Los Angeles) in a one way rental car rather than flying out of Las Vegas.  And all things considered, it won't take much longer to get there, probably less time if going directly to the port.  I realize that the latter is not an option from Colorado.  🙂

3 hours ago, 1982CruzStart said:

on those days we couldn't get into one of the speciality restaurants for lunch. 

Why would this happen?  Do you need reservations for lunch?  Did you "not get in" because there was a wait time and you did not want to wait, or were you just turned away with no option to wait?  How often was it not possible to get into a specialty restaurant for lunch?

7 hours ago, HotRoot said:

They also have items from the other restaurants on the dining room lunch menu each day.

Do they identify these items as being from the other restaurants on the menu, or do you know this only because you have dined in the other restaurants before and recognize them that way?  I am curious because I am still awaiting my first Regent cruise, and it will probably be on the Mariner.  I have an earlier Navigator booking, but I will be very surprised if it is not cancelled.

1 hour ago, Cruise Wonderland said:

I have heard that some ships can even remotely and automatically close the curtains and lock the balcony door at night.

What if someone is out on the balcony when they lock the door?

Yes, that is what I thought.  But I did not realize you were talking as few as 4 cabins/8 people.  Still, a couple would need to find some similarly inclined friends or that $1,000/$1,500 per diem would be $4,000/$6,000.  That is well above my pain threshold.

7 hours ago, Pcardad said:

 

A private charter can be had for much less than that....it all depends on the size of the boat. You can actually get something in the range of $1,000 - $1,500 per night, per person. This is similar to a Regent cruise and certainly you all have this as an option. Don't think BELOW DECK, think more of a 60 - 80 footer.

I assume that besides meeting the per diem, this would also require the appropriate number of like minded people sailing at the same time to fill the ship?  Or can you participate in a "private charter" without being part of a large group of the appropriate size?

1 hour ago, mrlevin said:

 

So your government doesn't care about the six months of data that already exists.  

I think the Pfizer study monitored for symptomatic cases, and not for asymptomatic infections.  The data does not tell us if vaccinated people who do not get sick (but could still acquire an undetected low level asymptomatic infection) can spread Covid or not.

We still don't know if the vaccine prevents you from becoming an asymptomatic spreader.  For at least some of the trials, they only monitored symptoms.  This would not provide any data about what effect the vaccine had on the rate of asymptomatic infections.

9 minutes ago, rallydave said:

don't understand why it took until a week or so ago to cancel Jan-March cruises.

One very simple answer:  cash flow.

18 minutes ago, NCCruzQueen said:

Navigator's size and crew make her special.  She has had a notable vibration issue for years and it can't seem to be fixed.  I've spent over 200 nights aboard Navigator.  As many have said, do not book an aft suite.  Just be prepared for a little shake, rattle and roll.  

I have my eye on the Grand Arctic Adventure, sometime in the future.  We are booked on Navigator in May 2021 (before the Grand Arctic) to see how we like the ship before booking such a long voyage.  Unfortunately, I think Regent will probably cancel May, and even if they don't we might.  It is going to delay the Grand Arctic more than we would like to find something else on Navigator beforehand.  So I am very interested in the question of whether or not we would be among those who love it or those who don't.

@Pcardad, some people do need to travel in the aft suites, so it is good to hear that someone likes them.  😄  I do like the gentle rocking of the ship, but am not sure I want vibration like that wine glass if it lasts for any length of time.

23 minutes ago, NCCruzQueen said:

Self Swirling Wine Glass!

Impressive!  You say it was a bit rocky -- does that mean that this is a rare occurrence?

Since you have posted on another thread that Navigator is your favorite Regent ship, I assume this was just an interesting observation and nothing that would spoil the experience.