hkparadise

I appreciate many of your very kind sharing of your experiences while on, or your recitations of your diligent reading of their brochure’s descriptions of their many wonderful excursions. I may not have articulated my angst properly and, therefore add this clarification. It is the land-based Regent personnel responsible for excursions, and their parent corporate entity’s apparent decision to consolidate that department, that has diluted their ability to provide individual responsiveness to their luxury division’s passengers. In total, Norwegian Holdings, Inc. operates over 33 ships: Regent - 7; Oceania - 8 and Norwegian - 19. Their utter lack of responsiveness to my inquiries - no return calls, nor response to multiple e-mails, inabilities to reach supervisory personnel are inexcusable. Rest assured, I have no problem minimizing my land-based adventures due to my disabilities, and thoroughly enjoy maximizing my time sharing the total experience with my fellow passengers. I do not need to compare RSSC’s administrative protocols with other luxury lines we have sailed with, although I can. Standing alone, their on-land customer service is lip service at least, and willful disregard for passenger experience at best.

Thank you. I was directed to those icons and found that on my 14 day vanilla cruise (France, Spain, Portugal) almost no single/seated options. So I carefully questioned the customer service reps for details on the icons with 2 stick figures. Most contained admonitions that the passengers could expect 1.5-3 hours of walking/standing. Or warned that mobility challenged individuals carefully consider their personal endurance. Okay. Fair enough. I would consider my endurance, just provide me with sufficient information about the excursion so I may self-determine the difficulties I may face. (I.e. how much walking vs standing is involved; will there be many staircases, cobblestones). Last Spring Seabourn assured me I could go on an excursion that involved a truffle “hunt” in Croatia and, separately in October a Zodiac ride on a waterway in Canada. They had. Details and staff who knew details and offered guidance. Are these expectations unrealistic for the investment we are making? And to your point, I shouldn’t have to wait for this information until I am on the ship. A little too little-too late!

That's a reasonable question. I'm using AX Platinum Card Travel and she has had the same experience. She calls RSSC customer service and the rep tells her they can only internally message the excursion department, but not call them - and then wait for their response. At one point after requesting a supervisor we were promised a 48 hour turn around. It didnt happen. I directly emailed their executive in charge of guest relations and got no response.

As a frequent small ship luxury cruise traveler, I have been exceedingly impressed with the intimate knowledge of the excursions=planning personnel at Seabourn and Silversea cruise lines. Their intimate, often personal, knowledge of each offering (how far from ship to bus pick up point, surfaces that might be impediments to walking with a cane or rolling walker, best recommended tours to reserve, etc.). But I have been exasperated, frustrated and disappointed with Regent Seven Seas. We booked a 14-day cruise in January '24 and 6 weeks have elapsed without any information helping us determine which excursions to book for our May '24 sail. My impression is that the parent company. Norwegian Holdings (Norwegian, Oceania and Regent) have consolidated their excursion departments and have created firewalls actually impeding customer service reps from assisting their booked passengers from defining which excursions are most appropriate for mobility-challenged passengers. As the average age of a Regent passenger is 60+ they have misjudged the value of their efforts to consolidate their land operations in their quest for greater profitability. Six calls and an equal number of emails to senior management, and we have had no response. I'm sure it will be a luxury cruise - cabin, food, service. But my enjoyment, and return-on-investment drop significantly as we will enter each port of call not knowing whether the excursions we booked are navigable.