ysolde

I don't suppose people buy a whole lot while the ships are in Brazilian waters.

What to wear, what to wear? Don't forget the bathing suit, pack a nice dress (or five 😆) for dinners, make sure to make a hair appointment (or three) at the spa, make time to explore the library and the observation lounge . . . Oh how I love a transatlantic cruise!

We got our cruise documents yesterday! Our very first Regent cruise is fast approaching, and what should the mailman bring us yesterday but a package containing our cruise documents!!! DH's initial response was, "What is all this?" 🤣 We went through them together, and both agreed that it was so nice to receive written documents and not have to print out so much of this on our own. Now, when it is presented nicely, with a little bit of style? Even more points to Regent. This is telling us something about how Regent does things, and so far, we like it.

I know this is less than ideal but if Lisbon is going to be a madhouse due to the Papal visit, can Regent allow you to start your cruise from the first port rather than the embarkation port of Lisbon?

When I spoke to the Regent Air department, they said something about having "fewer contracts" than they used to, and this was the reason why some of the better flights with the less tight connections were not available to them, where they might have been available before.

A few more thoughts on having a mobility impairment and cruising these days. When we were booking our first Regent cruise (at this point, we have booked three), one of the things I asked the good and knowledgeable folks on this board whether we would be able to find excursions that are accessible. At the time (this was awhile ago), I was told that Regent always provides accessible excursions, and that Should book with confidence. Sadly, things have changed in the post-Covid world. The default in excursions seems to be that they are not offered to passengers who use wheelchairs or who have mobility impairments. This is true not only with Regent's excursions, but with NCL's, as well as other cruise lines. In the past, they would ask whether you could climb onto the bus with the assistance of your traveling companion, etc. Now, they simply will not allow you to consider excursions if you are a wheelchair user of have a mobility impairment. I''m not sure what has happened, but it is turning cruising, which used to be a great and relaxing way to travel for those of us with mobility impairments, into a bit of a mixed bag. I hope the cruise lines start to work on this issue with their excursion partners.

Mobility is an issue for me, too (I am a wheelchair user). On our upcoming cruise (in April), there were accessible excursions in two out of three ports. I did have to call Regent in order to make reservations for one of the excursions, because the system is glitchy and I wanted to be sure that we reserved on the one excursion that is wheelchair accessible in that port of call. That having been said, once I got through to Regent on the phone, the agent was lovely, he confirmed that the excursion is wheelchair accessible, and he made the reservations for us. Now, that does mean that one port of call (the Azores) does not have a wheelchair accessible excursion, but we will probably just make private arrangements for that day..

If I understand it correctly, furries dress this way for group events, as well as for intimate activity. Not sure how it works for the latter, but I assume there is air conditioning involved.

We love TA voyages. The pace is just right for us. And we like sea days, when we can sleep in, explore the ship, play some trivia, sit and read, have a cup of tea on our balcony, enjoy the ocean air on deck, nap, spend a little time in the spa, play board games, explore the specialty restaurants, talk to fellow passengers and staff, all at an unhurried pace. It's a calm, friendly, unhurried vibe. We enjoy it so much that, now that we have a TA out of Europe scheduled for late November 2024, my DH suggested finding a cheap TA to get us to Europe by mid November, so that we can spend a couple of weeks there before our voyage. I have been doing a little research, and it is doable. He finds traveling by ship so much more comfortable than air travel. Can't say I disagree.

Question: Are you planning on continuing with the traditional muster drills? Is this set in stone? As someone who uses a wheelchair, I have always wondered whether the traditional muster drills, with their one-size-fits-all format, are optimal, and whether they can be tweaked to improve safety for all.

I hope so. When it's just my DH and me, we are leaning increasingly towards Regent (though we have booked a very late season crossing on NCL Viva in 2024 that is a really lovely itinerary (starts in Lisbon, includes Morocco and the Canaries, crosses the Atlantic and then goes to the Caribbean, all in late November, early December)). We are curious about the new class of NCL ships, and would like to check it out when it is less likely to be crowded. I do get the appeal of the big ships when there are teens around, though. Heaven help us all.

And one more thing (I really wish we had an edit function here), as I wrote in an earlier post, there was a woman in the waiting room who had tested positive in her cabin. When she was informed of the protocol (two positive tests in Medical, then isolation in her cabin for five days), she checked herself out of Medical AMA. Apparently, she had only come to Medical because she felt sick and wanted medicine. She did not want to spend money on two tests when she already knew she was positive, and she most certainly was not going to subject herself to isolation in her cabin. So the self-testing is a double-edged sword (as is the testing in Medical). There really is no solution when some passengers think Covid is no big deal. Anyhow . . .

ETA: Medical does one Covid test if you test negative, two if you test positive. I had tested negative in my cabin.

I did, but Medical still insists on doing two Covid tests. At that point I didn't mind the certainty. Heaven only knows if I did the test properly.

I am taking my nephew (18) and 80-something mother on RCCL this summer. They have all the fun activities for the teens, and the spa, the cool and relative tranquility of Central Park, and traditional Broadway shows for my mother. It works.

Update: Let me not bury the lede, everything worked out better than we could have expected. I called a little after lunch today our time (Mountain Time). I was on hold for almost two hours before the call was answered, with no option for them to take my phone number and call back. So I put the call on speaker, drank my tea, and fiddled around on my computer. When the agent answered, I told her we wanted to change our flight back to April 19 (when the cruise gets back to BCN). She put us on the UA flight from BCN to EWR, EWR to PHX. Our dream flight. We only had to pay the $175 deviation fee. Nothing else. And she had us pick our seats (which are great seats). And she took our FF numbers. Wow. I'm amazed. This is just wonderful!

Thanks. The Miami thing is really bothering me, because when I called, I gave them the specific flight number. It's the red-eye, leaving on April 3 at 11:57 pm, arriving in Miami at 6:00 am on April 4. I gave her the flight number. Instead, she booked us on the flight leaving on April 3 at 11:50 am. We have a hotel booked for April 4, with the cruise leaving April 5. Again, I gave her the flight number. As to the flight going back on the 19th, if it can't be done, it can't be done. Sigh. I am very disappointed in Regent's air department at this point. We have two more cruises booked with Regent. One of them is fully paid off. After this experience, I think we need to think long and hard about whether to go through with our third Regent cruise, which is out of Rio and to Lisbon in a concierge cabin. I expect our flight experience on that cruise will be . . . less than ideal.

Lord, they are going to hate us. They put us on the wrong flight from PHX-MIA, so I need to call them back tomorrow to get that sorted. I gave them the flight number, and they still put us on the wrong flight. Meanwhile, DH and I were talking, and can't figure out why we are going through this whole rigamarole on the day after our cruise arrives in BCN. We are going to find out if they can just put us back on our original flights on the day the cruise arrives in BCN. If we get stuck in Montreal or Chicago, we'll pay for a hotel there, and take it up with our travel insurance. But why pay for a hotel in Barcelona and then have a stressful day of travel the next day, when we may miss connections anyway? The whole point was to have fewer connections, and more time to make them. That's not happening.

We booked the one on Brickell. It seems convenient.

We are never going to make these connections. I had originally requested the air customization because I the flights Regent had provided for us (flying us in overnight the day of our TA cruise and then flying us out of BCN to Montreal (huh?), then on a tight connection to O'Hare, then on another tight connection to PHX seemed like a recipe for disaster. So we decided to book hotels at our own expense and find better flights. No problem with the flight the night before (and we can spend the day resting in a hotel in Miami). Regent booked us on the flight without issue. But we found a flight back from BCN-EWR-PHX (on UA) the day after our cruise. We figured we would stay at a hotel in BCN for the night. Again no problem. The problem with that is that the cost of that deviation is almost $2,000 p.p. Or we can let Regent book us: BCN- FRA (arr FRA 4:00 pm). FRA-ORD (departing 5:20 pm, arriving 8:00 pm) ORD-PHX (departing 9:46 pm). Well, I am in a wheelchair. No, not, I need a wheelchair at the airport. I am in a wheelchair. Which means my wheelchair gets loaded into the cargo of the plane each and every time. Which means I have to wait for every passenger to deplane before they offload me. This can take a good twenty, twenty-five minutes. After the time it takes to get the plane to the gate (ten minutes? twenty minutes?). If we land in the European gates and have to get to the international gates, that's quite a sprint before our gate closes at FRA. Oh, well, no matter. Surely LH will put us on another flight headed somewhere to the US. And who knows, maybe we'll make it. To ORD. One of the most pleasant airports in the US. But, as the RSSC rep told us on the phone, the airlines have been advised that you "need a wheelchair," so there's nothing else that the air department can do.

Our PCC recommended the JW Marriott. We went with that.

We went to Guest Services and let them know that the Garden Cafe had run out of Diet Pepsi a couple of days before, Cagney's was unable to serve us Diet Pepsi the night before because, "Something was wrong with their Diet Pepsi dispenser," and that morning, they had told just at O'Sheehan's that the ship was out of Diet Pepsi. The woman at Guest Services told us we were misinformed but the man standing behind us in line said, "No, it's true, and my wife is upset about it, too." We wanted to find out if we could get a partial reimbursement on our soda package. She told us to wait at the couches across from GS as she went to the bar nearby to confirm. She came back about fifteen minutes later, asked us for our cabin number, and assured us that we would be served Diet Pepsi. And she was right. There must have been a bar with a semi-functioning Diet Pepsi dispenser somewhere, because we got watery Diet Pepsi when we went to the specialty restaurants after that. Not in the Garden Cafe. Not in O'Sheehan's. It was something. Sort of. They were not going to give us that partial refund. Not happening.

This kind of stuff. Over and over again on NCL. But, I know. I know. What's the complaint? As long as there's alcohol and tap water on board, what's the problem?

Under Roundtrip Airfare, there was a Customize button. When I pressed it, I kept getting an error message. The button is no longer there. Apparently, now they just want us to call the air reservations department that Regent uses ourselves. The PCC gave me the phone number. Very limited hours, but I guess that's the system now.

Well that is just awful. I am sorry people died. I had no idea. But the fact is that those of us who don't drink alcohol get diminished constantly when we complain that our drinks of choice are increasingly unavailable on cruises. Want a nice bottled still water? Sorry, that is no longer served. Interested in a decent tea? NCL will provide the boiling water, but you had best bring your own stash. Want an espresso or a cappuccino? Those things are not included in the non-alcoholic drinks package. The ship ran out of sodas? No biggie. Who cares? We are supposed to grin and bear it, because these are just frilly extras, not essential to the enjoyment of life. But heaven forbid they should run out of rum or vodka. You would not hear the end of it. After all, you paid big bucks for a drinks package, and you should be able to drink alcohol to your heart's content from the moment you board until the moment you leave the ship.