SusieQft

Thank you for the documents, flossie009.  That helps immensely. 

The fine print says, "In the event of cancellation, $200 per suite will be withheld from deposit refund plus standard administrative fee...."  I assume that would be the $100 cancellation penalty applicable to bookings in most suite categories.  If so, it is clearly not "100% Refundable for up to 2 years" as stated in the "large print," only 85% refundable.  Even if I concede that $200 of shipboard credit is equal in value to cash (which I don't), it is only 100% refundable for 30 days.  Sounds like you would need to be 100% certain you want to book another Regent cruise within 2 years to make this worthwhile.

I am a Regent newbie trying to figure out the included air.  Since we are in Las Vegas, we will be subject to the $249 per person round trip add-on fee.  This also will put us at much higher risk for two plane changes, as John G described using air deviation to avoid in flying from St. Louis.

My questions are:

If we wait and let Regent select our flights, and especially if we end up with two plane changes, we are at very high risk of either an overnight connection or a red-eye segment.  Will Regent be more likely to book us on a red-eye or an overnight connection?

If we do have an overnight connection, it is my understanding that Regent will provide a hotel for that night.  Is that right?  Would Regent still include the hotel in this situation if we use the air deviation?

I know that if we decline the Regent air altogether, we will also lose the transfers.  If we use air deviation, are the transfers still included?

21 minutes ago, rcandkc said:

 I don’t really understand how future cruise certificates save you money.

I would really like to know this also.  Perhaps they preserve the on board booking discount without a choosing a specific voyage while on board?  

On 9/27/2019 at 1:06 PM, rallydave said:

Hopefully Regent will follow their own contract.

 

f. If the Cruise is shortened or terminated, (for reasons other than mechanical failures of the Ship), We will, at Our option, either make a proportionate refund of the Cruise Fare or We will transfer You to another Ship or the port of final destination by other means. If the scheduled length of the Cruise is increased, You will have no responsibility for the cost of the additional Cruise Fare and We will have no responsibility to pay or compensate You in any manner, including any direct or consequential damages. In either of the above circumstances, Our responsibility ends once We return You to the point of origination as booked and ticketed by Us.

I am a Regent newbie with my first voyage booked on Mariner for a year from now.  And I am really looking forward to experiencing Regent.  Needless to say, I find this situation very disturbing, and I agree with the majority here that Regent should give the passengers losing a day their per diem back as a fare reduction, or at a minimum as a future cruise credit.  The on board credit just does not cut it.  IMHO

I really hate to bring this up, but as I read the quoted paragraph from the contract, to me (I am not a lawyer) it says that the two options said to be irrelevant are that Regent will transfer you to another ship OR that Regent will transfer you to the port of final destination by other means.  So the question is would transferring you to the port a day early count as "other means."  To me it is ambiguous, and Regent could argue that they are meeting the terms of the contract.  What if Regent added a post-cruise hotel night in Vancouver?  Did they offer this in addition to the OBC?

Regardless of what the contract says or how it is interpreted, offering a refund of the per diem as an option is clearly the fair thing to do, as evidenced by the many passionate comments on this thread.  It takes a lot of "Wows" to make up for one "Oops."

30 minutes ago, Roland4 said:

You will get a credit if you decline the air, but in 14 years as a TA I have never seen a credit that comes anywhere near what it will cost you to book the air separately.

You are probably right in many cases, but I currently have my first Regent booking on hold (still debating pros and cons), and since I live in Las Vegas (a non-gateway city), so they added an extra $249 pp fee for Air Arrangements.  By declining air I avoid this and get a $300 pp Air Credit instead.  I can fly roundtrip to LA and arrange my own transfers for about half of the $549 pp I will save by declining the air.  Or I can drive, arrange my own hotel, and pay to park my car at the hotel near the port for about a quarter of what I save by declining both air and the pre-cruise hotel night.

Thank you, Terry, for sharing your Amazon cruise experience. My husband and I are going there on Crystal Serenity this October, stopping at mostly the same ports, and it was a great preview and orientation for us. I am looking forward to reading your other cruise blogs, as we are also planning future trips to Australia, New Zealand, etc.

Our past cruising experience is through the Panama Canal on Crystal and Alaska with Holland America. I had been wondering how Silver Seas would compare with Crystal, and your stories helped give me a better idea of that. We are really enjoying Crystal, but it sounds like we might like to try Silver Seas sometime also.

Karen