SWFLAOK

We have had posts in the past but no pre's until our upcoming cruise. We're in a Penthouse and would have had one night included. We did not have a credit for the unused hotel night on our invoice. On our cruise last year, we could drive to the port and back, and didn't need flights. We did receive air credits on our invoice. For international flights, we have always asked what the credit would be, and only once was it enough to book a flight on our own. But that wasn't on Regent. Taking the credit works if you are near the port, or if you have a lot of miles for a particular airline that can get you there and/or back.

That's always a hard decision to make. On our first Regent cruise from Vancouver to Seward on Mariner, we were encouraged by our cruise TA book a Veranda suite instead of a Concierge Suite because they were the same size, and cost less. We were told it wasn't worth the transfers from the airport to the port, and the overnight hotel, and arriving the day before, and that we could do that on our own for less. Then we found out that if we wanted to arrive the day before the cruise boarded, we had to pay the deviation fee. And when we booked a hotel room near the port in Vancouver, we had to pay 450 US dollars for a room overnight, an included breakfast, and having out bags taken downstairs to meet us at the port for cruise check in. When we arrived in Vancouver, we had to pay 40 US dollars plus tip to get to the hotel from the airport. At that point, we had spent more than if we booked Concierge, and I would not have a coffeemaker in our cabin. On the morning of our embarkation, we were contacted by our TA as we were headed to check in, which was connected to the ground floor of our hotel. She told us we were being offered a free upgrade to a penthouse suite. Since we had already lost most of the benefits of a higher cabin level, and our luggage was already on it's way to the cabin we had booked, we declined. Everything went well from there. Since then, we have always booked Concierge or Penthouse so that Regent will fly us in the day before, and have transfers and hotel included. The hotels have always been acceptable. We always pay the deviation fee for our flights, because we want them booked as soon as flights are available Getting a flight assigned a few months ahead of time makes me nervous. We have never again been offered an upgrade after booking, neither free nor for an additional charge, and we've spent more than 100 nights onboard since our first cruise.

We were told we had seats already, and told the seat numbers by Regent. However, when we checked our reservations on the Qatar Airways website a few days later we had no tickets. Our TA checked with Regent, and they said to wait a week after we were booked, and to check again. When we checked again, we had tickets on the Qatar Airways website, but we had no seats assigned. We contacted our TA who spoke to Regent and they said that we should just wait. She spoke to Qatar Airways, and they said they were now charging for seat assignments. We then contacted Qatar Airways ourselves, and they said that seat assignments in Business class required an additional payment on 3 of the 4 flights we were booked on. We passed this on to our TA and she talked to Regent and they said that we just had to wait for seat assignments, and they couldn't tell us when they would be available. We decided we didn't want to wait and our TA contacted Qatar Airways. That's when we found out that only the least desirable seats were for Regent. We booked the best of what was left, and are happy with that. Hope you get the seats you're expecting, but we don't like surprises.

Until you are ticketed, you're basically ignored by the airline. From our experience, you're just put on the list for seats that Regent has access to for the flight. Once you're ticketed, you have an assigned seat, and if you see the seat and your ff numbers on the airline's website, you're good to go.

Back in the 60's, we lived in upstate NY, and had access to a TV station in NYC using our giant TV antenna, that broadcasted BBC shows. Mom was a huge fan, and we were introduced to Doctor Who at an early age. We all became fans of Monty Python, and I still remember how much I enjoyed "Doctor in the House" which was cancelled way too soon, I only recently stopped watching Doctor Who, because I always cried when the Doctor regenerated (especially David Tennant). But I couldn't handle Peter Capaldi regenerating into a women who required too many companions. Now that she's gone, I might try again. But back to your post, my brother is a big fan of "The Goes Wrong Show", and whenever we get together for dinner at his house, he shows us a few episodes. I have found it very funny, but my husband usually falls asleep, which he normally does after a big meal unless there's a Formula 1 or MotoGP race to watch.

We tried booking Scenic a few times in the past, but our first booking was what we thought would be a trip was a Myanmar River cruise, and we were able to book a wonderful cabin at the front of the ship. After making a substantial down payment, the president of Myanmar was arrested. I then read that China was sending mining companies to Myanmar to mine minerals and that they were polluting the rivers that we would be traveling on. We rebooked our Scenic cruise to Europe, starting with 3 nights in Paris, and an included fast train ride to Bordeaux to board a river cruise boat north and south from there, followed by a train back to Paris for our return home. As we came closer to our travel date, Scenic notified us that our cruise would only include the River cruise, and not 3 nights in Paris, and transportation there and back. And there was almost no decrease in cost. We cancelled and actually got our deposit back. We would not trust them again. I've never looked at Emerald, and Ritz Carlton is too new to trust. While everyone is charging more, that doesn't mean that everyone accepts that. We used to eat at our local restaurants once or twice a week, with most being upscale with good food and great service. We stopped doing that during Covid, and we don't miss it. We enjoy cooking, and it's much cheaper. We won't return to restaurants we used to frequent because of poor service, and food that is no longer up to what we expect. For us, cruising in the future might end if we have to pay more for poor service and food. We really haven't missed eating at local restaurants at all. There are alternatives in travel, just as we have found alternatives to local restaurants.

We were really looking forward to that excursion. We love to see and learn about history. If we were younger, we might have gone for the excursion from the new port, but after a long flight, and our pre excursions, our long ride to the new part, and boarding, unpacking etc, we didn't feel up to the long trip to Ayutthaya.

Why are is there so much demand from people booking cruises that are almost certainly to have significantly changed itineraries before their cruise embarks? We have 2 cruises that we booked long ago, and would not be surprised to have changes to the one in April. For the cruise early next year, we expect that it will not be the cruise we wanted because of the problems in the middle east, and we don't expect to learn that until its too late to get our large deposit back, and definitely not long before we actually embark. This cruise was fully booked a very long time ago, but there have been many cabins available lately. But there are people booking it as fast as people canceling it. We only like small ships, and have been willing to pay for good food and service for an itinerary that we like. But at this point, we're reluctant to book any future cruises.

We have always paid to deviate, and we have always pushed for as early as possible. We know which airlines and connections are not acceptable, and don't let them push us toward them by saying they won't be a problem. On our upcoming fights in April, Regent told us we had seats assigned. When we looked at the airline's website, we didn't have seats. We complained through our TA, and Regent said we had to pay extra for seat assignments. We agreed to that, and it was several hundred dollars for each seat on each flight, so 8 seats altogether for the 2 of us. This was late November for our April flights. We had a choice of the few remaining available seats in business class. There were only a few that were together, and all the least desirable seats. We felt that they had mislead us when they told us they had assigned seats which were all good seats in business class, and found out later that they hadn't. We were told it would be a while before our seat assignments would show up on the airline website, but ended up not being true.

We're on the same cruise as Flossie009. For our updated "Bangkok" port, we chose the Sanctuary of Truth excursion. The excursion to Ayutthaya which we had paid for with a cruise credit was cancelled for us by Regent, even though it's still offered from the new port. We would have cancelled it anyway since it now leaves the ship at 6 AM and gets back to the ship very close to when the ship sails. It would have been nice if they had given us back our cruise credit, but they don't seem to understand what our problem is. We have a 3 night pre in Bangkok that was free when we booked this cruise a few years ago. We will be visiting a few places we went to previously, and enjoyed, when we paid for an overnight excursion in Bangkok at the Royal Orchid Sheraton. This time we visit the Jim Thompson house, and the Royal Barge museum which we didn't have time for in 2019. In September 2019, we were originally told we would be docking in Bangkok, but were told shortly before the cruise the water was too low so it was Laem Chabang. That made our overnight excursion in Bangkok about 3 times the cost that we expected to pay since many people cancelled. We ended up with a private van with driver and guide for 2 days, and it was worth it.

We live near a small city called Miami in Florida. We're wondering why Regent has an easier time booking flights to Europe from Austin through LHR to Copenhagen than from here. Is it the airlines, or Regent selection of flights?

Unless you don't mind missing your flight at LHR and making other arrangements to get home, I would tell Silversea that you can't make that flight. I would not count on being able to disembark at 7 AM unless you are taking private transportation, provided by Silversea, from Southampton to LHR. It's often a long slow ride from Southampton to LHR, and I would not trust any cruise line's bus to get you there in time. I would ask if Silversea can provide a later flight with an upcharge. We begged Viking to put us on a flight from Miami to Amsterdam that had more than an hour between the Delta flight they booked us on with a connection through Atlanta. We complained 3 times, and they didn't budge, but we didn't say we would pay more since we had already paid a considerable amount for the upgrade to business class. As expected, the Delta flight from Miami to Atlanta left nearly an hour late, and they told us to run as fast as we could to get to our flight to Amsterdam before it took off. We, and one other person on our flight did that, and Delta slammed the door to the flight when the the other person was standing in front of the door. We were slower (being older), but we were close enough to see that happen. We looked online, and they had already given our seats away, and we had to wait 3 hours for crappy seats on Delta in "premium economy" with all of the college students enjoying free drinks. We lived through it, but we didn't sleep at all, and eventually, we had to work very hard to get our business class upgrade payment back from the cruise line. And they only gave us half of it back since they said the one hour flight on Delta from Miami to Atlanta was first class (there was no first class or business class on that flight), We learned that you can't trust the cruise lines to book flights that will make it likely that you will arrive on time with a connection. We will only accept that from them if it's on the way home, and we don't mind spending another day on our way home. We also no longer allow them to book us on Delta since this was the second time that has happened to us through Atlanta with 2 different cruise lines.

Our experience in the Emirates business class lounge in Dubai was completely different. We were on a connecting flights both ways, and had to pass through security both ways between flights, but not customs or immigration. The lounge was the biggest we had ever seen, with our previous best lounge experience being the Admiral's Club in MIA. There was a very long central walkway, with many places to sit and eat along the way. There was even at least one sit down restaurant with wait staff service. It wasn't crowded at all compared to any lounge in the US. We would rather sit in an airport bar and pay for food and drinks rather than enter a Delta lounge where there are never any seats, and many kids running wild. We boarded our Emirates flight from the end of the lounge, and went directly onboard. We never saw any of those who weren't business class after we left the previous flight, since we disembarked and boarded separately from them. It wasn't the same on Emirates in FLL where there are no lounges, but Emirates did give us 50 dollars each to spend in an airport restaurant. After that, we've always flown out of MIA instead of FLL for our cruises, which takes us 15 minutes longer to get to the airport, but the choice of available flights are much better, and they do have lounges.

I've never had a desire to go to Antarctica, and I've often wondered why other people want to go there since visiting it just for a vacation, rather than research, seems like it might harm a delicate environment. And I'm not normally an environmentalist. But seeing what's required for cruisers makes me feel a little better about attempts to balance cruises and the environment. At the same time, I wonder where the treated gray water and sewage goes. Is it a no discharge zone like the Panama Canal? And, I would not want to go through all of the apparel and footwear cleaning required. We have done some footwear cleaning for parks in certain areas, but cleaning parkas isn't for me (nor is wearing them).

We had local tenders come aside of Voyager in Ko Samui, but our captain thought it was too dangerous for us to go aboard. We didn't agree since we had done worse on the small tenders of Paul Gauguin in the Marquessas. But instead of going ashore, we had to sit for 6 hours off the shore of Ko Samui, bouncing up and down while officials came aboard from one of the large local tenders and cleared the ship. I suspect it would have taken much less time to clear us if the passengers had been going ashore to spend money in the port. We also had to use local tenders in some of the small ports on the South coast of Peurto Rico when we were on Sea Dream. At the first port, they sent a dive boat to pick up passengers. The first person in line to disembark was a very elderly woman who shuffled rather than walk. She had to be lifted by the crew to board the dive boat. When they tried to disembark at the dock, she fell and was injured. Unfortunately for the rest of us, our shore excursion was cancelled at that port and the next 2 stops were cancelled. And even worse, she was treated at the local walk-in clinic, and brought back to our ship. After that, she fell near the pool, but still went in and bled in the water, causing the pool to be drained and disinfected. In some places, there are no other ports available that can be quickly booked. But I guess Regent is solving that problem with its port intensive cruises where there are only a few large ports on each cruise. Having seen the ports being used for those cruises, we don't plan to book any more Regent cruises, and hope our upcoming cruise will not be affected by that any more than it has. We cruise to see other parts of the world by going ashore, and large commercial ports, and those far from anything interesting don't work for us.

And why does anyone want any of those? I just went through my large storage closet in our condo since it was almost full. I came close to throwing away the Gold Glitter Tote Bag we received in our Concierge cabin on Regent Navigator last spring. I know I won't ever use it since it's very gaudy, and not practical. I do use a few of the older navy bags which are much sturdier, with plenty of zippers, and they're right up front where I can easily find them to use again.

We had Emirates in the past from FLL to Singapore and back from Sydney back to FLL just before Covid in early 2020. The flight experience was excellent on Emirates, and the lounge in Dubai was very comfortable. For our next cruise, Regent booked on Qatar Airways from MIA to Bangkok through Doha, and back from Abu Dhabi through Doha to MIA at the end of the cruise. We only paid the deviation fee when they first booked us. But our assigned seats in business class disappeared on the way back which we were not notified about, and we had to pay a seat charge to book new seats. It was a significant amount extra, and there were only a few seats available. Now we check our flights often to see if it happens again since Regent never notified us about the seat assignments disappearing.

Last April, we had my brother, and our best friend (a woman), take a 2 week Caribbean cruise on Regent with us. It was the first Regent cruise for both of them, but they have both cruised on other cruise lines in the past. They both enjoyed the cruise, but each of them having to pay as much for their cabin as we did as a couple didn't sit well with them. We tried to convince each of them to join us on our April cruise from Bangkok to Abu Dhabit, which had a 0 percent single suppplement last month, but went to 25 percent this month. But neither of them wanted to fly that far, even if it was business class.

I think the people who consider leather sneakers appropriate for elegant casual, and wear them with suits at work are not part of "this age group often having foot issues". It's the younger people who would rather not wear leather dress shoes under any circumstance, and certainly don't want to bring them on a cruise. And even though I'm in the older age group, I agree with them. If your shoes don't attract everyone's attention in the dining room, then they should be acceptable. A pair of dark leather sneakers will blend in nicely with elegant casual attire on the cruise. There are, however, always a few old men that wear old white sneakers to dinner, and I don't think it has anything to do with foot issues. They usually also wear a hat. White leather sneakers work well for walking excursions, as well as on flights. But, there's only so much room in your luggage for more shoes, and as you get older, it's harder to manage a lot of luggage. We haven't gotten to that point yet.

On Grandeur there are 3 specialty restaurants. You can make a reservation for each of them before the cruise. If you want another reservation while onboard, you can ask your butler to make those reservations. Also, if you decide to eat dinner in your cabin with room service, your butler can arrange that, and will serve it to you in your cabin, course by course if that's what you want. They will also shine your shows, have a few items pressed on boarding, and even unpack and pack for you if you want that. We really haven't asked much of our butler in the past, but one time we asked him to look into the excursion we had already booked the next day since we would be off the ship that day, and he found out what we needed to know. If there's any way they can help you, they will.

Regent doesn't assign GTY until a week or 2 before sailing. I can't imagine any cruise line assigning a guaranteed cabin at the time of booking. If you want an assigned cabin, then you have to pay for it at the time of booking. GTY gives you a chance to be upgraded at no cost, but the downside is that you have to wait until the last minute to find out where and what your cabin is. My brother is not fussy about his cabin being anywhere on the ship since he doesn't get seasick, and noise in his cabin doesn't bother him. He still is bothered by not knowing what cabin he's been assigned until the last minute, but so far he has gotten a veranda cabin when he paid for a window cabin. It doesn't make up for paying a 100 percent single supplement, and I'm sure all solo travelers feel the same way.

I was thinking the same thing. We have been on Voyager a number of times, but I would not take that South American cruise on it. It's not the right ship for it. We did have a problem with the Captain of Voyager a few years ago in Southeast Asia, who would not allow us to tender to shore when numerous large tenders were brought out to us for tendering in to Ko Samui. We had previously tendered into ports in the Marquesas and Cook Islands from the Paul Gauguin on much smaller tenders, in much rougher seas. Instead, we sat for 6 hours, rocking and rolling, enduring seasickness, until it was time to sail to our next port. This was the Captain's decision, and he never communicated well on the entire cruise, nor did he interact with the passengers. I don't know if it's still the same Captain or not.

That's not what we found on Regent cruises in the summer when there have been plenty of kids. Both a Mariner Alaska cruise in August, and a Voyager July cruise of the Med had enough kids that they traveled in groups, taking over areas that they enjoyed (the pool in July for example). They were mostly from big family groups (which Regent started marketing to a few years ago, apparently with discounts offered). There were no adults from their family groups keeping them in check. They also disrupted excursions, chasing each other and pushing their way through the tour groups. After the second cruise, we stopped taking cruises during the summer since that limits kids to those less than 5, and those that are home schooled.

Cruise mapper has shown plenty of cruises coming out of if ports in Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai, going through the Strait of Hormuz to Muscat, making a stop and returning back through the strait to the Persian Gulf ports. There are 3 currently in progress; MSC Aida and Costa. We're on the last Navigator cruise before they head around Africa. We could end up with a few extra nights in Mumbai at the end of the cruise. Silver Moon is adding hotel nights in Mumbai to start their next cruise since their around Africa cruise from the Med without passengers is taking extra days. Our problem would be that we're flying Qatar Airways via Doha to Bangkok to start the cruise, and flying back from Abu Dhabi to Doha to MIA. If Qatar Airways could get us a flight from Mumbai to Doha to catch our already booked Regent flight, that could still work, but might be hard if Regent decides to do this at the last minute. I remember when I used to look forward to our cruises, but every since Covid, there have been too many things to worry about. Driving vacations, even with all of the traffic, has become less stressful.

We did a 2 week Caribbean cruise from Miami to Miami on the little, old ship, Navigator. I don't mind the older smaller ships, but this cruise was considerably above the normal max passengers. We had 3 cabins for the 4 of us, and we are SSS gold members. Both of our Regent newbies in their own cabins (paying 100 percent single supplement) asked for bourbon in their rooms, and did not get it. At the bars, the best they had was Woodford, but it only lasted for the first week of the cruise. One of our newbies was able to get a bottle of Woodford in her Concierge level cabin, but the other, in a Veranda suite, had to settle for something other than bourbon. For our 2 bottles in our cabin, we hadn't asked for bourbon (we already knew they wouldn't give us Blanton's), and got what we ordered online before the cruise. Our newbies were tempted to buy something more to their liking when stopped in ports, but since they had already paid the 100 percent single supplement, and there are other drinks that they enjoy, they went with other options. We did, however, buy some small bottles of curacao from the distillery, and had it for after dinner drinks a few times while onboard. And I loved the cronuts, and ate 1 every morning at the Coffee connection with my cappuccino. I gained 5 pounds on the cruise, and I blame the cronuts.