cudof

Greetings and thank you for the booking information.

 

Please give us 24-48 hours to follow-up. We're just waiting to hear back from our local tour operator for this port and we'll see what we can offer to round out your tour selections. Given the time difference, I expect we'll hear back by tomorrow hopefully.

 

Thanks, Jason

UPDATE: I just received a call from Regent, and shore excursions in São Tomé are still full and unavailable for booking. I am, however, now on a wait-list.

Cudot,

 

Upon reviewing your voyage, our Free Unlimited Shore Excursion options remain available in all 12 ports during your journey. We did have limited options in Walvis Bay, however, the team was able to secure additional tour space on several options for this port early last week.

 

Feel free to advise which port you may have trouble finding available options and we can attempt to assist in securing your choices if you're not able to find them.

Thank you for your response.

Initially, several ports had no excursions available and, according to two of your employees, no wait lists; however, all issues, with the exception of São Tomé, were eventually resolved with the assistance and persistence of my travel agent.

Shire excursions in São Tomé, according to your website and your employees, are still not available. Your website states today that they will be available 180 days prior to sailing - a date that obviously has already passed. In addition, on Saturday, your employees, including a supervisor, cited that port’s “poor tourism infrastructure” as a reason for the unavailability. It’s important to note that, on Saturday, Regent was offering Premium Choice shore excursions in São Tomé.

If you are able to determine that excursions are indeed available in São Tomé, I would appreciate it if you could add my husband and me to a walking tour or, if that is not offered, a highlights-type tour. I would also respectfully suggest that your website administrator updates the details for that port’s shore excursions.

Elaine and Gary

Booking #2182363

That's kinda what I was thinking. We are only 9 weeks out and just about all the excursions have room and same with the specialty restaurants (as long as we are willing to share a table EVERY time is available).

My cruise is 18 weeks out and no “free” shore excursions are available in São Tomé. (Website states that São Tomé shore excursions will be available 180 days prior to cruise.) Most confusing is that on Saturday, at least four “free” excursions were posted but all were sold out, except for premium tours. Other times I’ve checked the website and it has said that, due to poor tourism infrastructure, there will be no excursions offered in São Tomé. Obviously Regent can’t cite a port’s poor tourism infrastructure when it is trying to sell premium excursions!

I'm on this cruise as well and every single excursion we're interested in is open, and that's booking for 4 people.

What excursion do you have booked for São Tomé? I just checked and São Tomé shore excursions are still not available for me (and for my TA when she checked last week with Regent). Here’s my screen shot from last night:

1. Well, what does your travel agent say?

 

2. Given some of the ports, I'm not surprised at limited availability but I agree that all passengers should have an opportunity for an excursion.

 

3. No wait lists? When excursions are fully booked, there is always a wait list available because there are always some cancellations. I suspect there is a miscommunication here, you might want to ask again.

 

4. I'm sure you are annoyed and upset but posting the same exact cut n paste on at least three threads is probably a bit of overkill and may result in your posts being ignored by most. Just saying...

1. TA is as frustrated as I am.

2. Agreed.

3. There is no miscommunication here. I've spoken several times with 3 Regent CSRs and a supervisor, and they all told me, as recently as yesterday, that there are no waitlists, and that Regent has no plans to arrange for additional excursions in some ports.

4. I've sailed on Regent previously, and I wasn't aware of this interpretation of its "availability" policy, so my goal is to educate as many passengers as possible. In addition, other than my own thread, I've posted only on those that request information on Regent's shore excursions. If that is interpreted as overkill, so be it.

Hello everyone,

shore excursions are available to book in about 10 days. Can I see what is available before the actual booking time??

 

Thanks

Newbie, I hope you have a better experience than mine when booking shore excursions.

I'll be sailing on RSSC Explorer - Lisbon to Cape Town, 24 days, November 2018 - and I just learned that Regent will not be offering shore excursions for all passengers at all ports. In some cases, ALL excursions in some ports were sold out on the first date they were available to me, even though I was online and trying to book at midnight EDT.

When I called Regent, they informed me that they have no intention of adding additional excursions, nor will they even start wait-lists. I've spoken with two customer service agents and a supervisor, and I was directed to read the Terms and Conditions, which state "Free unlimited shore excursions are on a first-come, first-served basis and are subject to availability."

A common sense interpretation of those Terms and Conditions is that passengers may not receive their first choice of shore excursion, which is understandable. However, Regent claims that this condition means they are under NO obligation to provide excursions for all passengers. It's an absurd interpretation, in my opinion, particularly for a company that so aggressively promotes the "all inclusive experience." Most disturbing, it provides RSSC with justification to radically reduce the number of shore excursions available on all their cruises.

Wishing you the best of luck!

Is there a page or website that ranks excursions? To be honest on the few cruises we have done, we typically do our own thing. But since Regent throws them in with the price I'm thinking about signing up for a few.

Don't be misled by Regent's "free unlimited shore excursions" promise!

I am booked on Regent's Explorer - Lisbon to Cape Town, 24 days, November 28, 2018 - and just learned that Regent will not be offering shore excursions for all passengers in all ports. In some ports, ALL excursions were sold out on the first date they were available for booking, even though I was online at midnight EDT that day.

When I called Regent, they informed me that they have no intention of making waitlists, nor do they plan to arrange additional excursions. I've since spoken with two customer service agents and a supervisor, and I was directed to read the Terms and Conditions, which state "Free unlimited shore excursions are on a first-come, first-served basis and are subject to availability."

A common sense interpretation of those Terms and Conditions would be that passengers may not receive their first choice of shore excursion, which is understandable. However, Regent claims that this condition means they are under NO obligation to provide excursions for all passengers. It's an absurd interpretation, in my opinion, particularly for a company that so aggressively promotes the "all inclusive experience." Most disturbing, it provides Regent with justification to radically reduce the number of shore excursions available on all their cruises.

(To add insult to injury, Regent's agent told me that, even though they could not provide a shore excursion for me, I was welcome to leave the ship to explore on my own and/or make private tour arrangements.)

We have cruised Regent and Oceania. We take large suites - Owners/Vista/Oceania suites on O. Seven Seas Aft (Mariner) on Regent and now are booked in a Grand Suite for our next cruise. We don't do many excursions - actually on our last Oceania cruise we only used one of the Oceania excursions on the entire cruise. Might sound blasé to say so but we've been just about everywhere and know what we want to do in each port and then do it on our own. So paying Regent prices with included excursions is a bit wasted on us! But we do drink (!!) so to the Oceania fare we have to add the Premium beverage package which adds up to about $150/day for the two of us. We can't use either the Regent or Oceania included air because our TA is in the US and we live in Europe... we take the discount for non use and then book our own.

 

Food - I haven't been on Regent for about 5 years now. But I do find the Oceania food - all over the ship - better than my recollections of Regent food. I am interested to see how it will be on Splendour versus my recollections!

 

All in all - they are both good cruise lines. For us it is the itinerary that is important!

 

And all that said - I am really looking forward to hearing your reactions and comments as your cruise continues...

I've sailed with both Oceania and Regent, and I agree that the food is better on Oceania.

With Regent, you're obviously paying a premium for the all-inclusive experience; however, I just discovered the hard way that Regent is definitely cutting corners on that experience. I am booked on the Explorer - Lisbon to Cape Town, 24 days, November 28, 2018 - and have learned that Regent will not be offering shore excursions for all passengers at all ports. In some cases, ALL excursions in some ports were sold out on the first date they were available for booking, even though I was online at midnight EDT that day.

When I called Regent, they informed me that they have no intention of adding additional excursions. I've spoken with two customer service agents and a supervisor, and I was directed to read the Terms and Conditions, which state "Free unlimited shore excursions are on a first-come, first-served basis and are subject to availability."

A common sense interpretation of "availability" in those Terms and Conditions would be that passengers may not receive their first choice of shore excursion. However, Regent claims that this availability condition means they are under NO obligation to provide excursions for all passengers. It's an absurd interpretation, in my opinion, particularly for a company that so aggressively promotes the "all inclusive experience." Most disturbing, it provides Regent with justification to radically reduce the number of shore excursions available on all their cruises.

I am booked on Regent's Explorer - Lisbon to Cape Town, 24 days, November 28, 2018 - and I just learned that Regent will not be offering shore excursions for all passengers at all ports. In some cases, ALL excursions in some ports were sold out on the first date they were available to me, even though I was online at midnight EDT that day.

When I called Regent, they informed me that they have no intention of adding additional excursions. I've spoken with two customer service agents and a supervisor, and I was directed to read the Terms and Conditions, which state "Free unlimited shore excursions are on a first-come, first-served basis and are subject to availability."

A common sense interpretation of those Terms and Conditions would be that passengers may not receive their first choice of shore excursion. However, Regent claims that this condition means they are under NO obligation to provide excursions for all passengers. It's an absurd interpretation, in my opinion, particularly for a company that so aggressively promotes the "all inclusive experience." Most disturbing, it provides Regent with justification to radically reduce the number of shore excursions available on all their cruises.