Voyager is SCREWED in Athens - Cruise CANCELLED

[tallship]

Nice post JoAnn and Peteropny - thank you and wishing everyone and their loved ones well

[mrlevin]

We were also onboard, and although very disappointed that the cruise was cancelled, are relatively satisfied with Regent response. I agree with Peter that the air rebookings could have been handled a lot easier. If they had simply put us on the phone with the air deviation desk I think there would be more satisfied guests. I think they should have used our own return tickets from Venice. In many instances, I believe the changes would have been close to their contract airfare or maybe less. Also, they should have waived their requirement to use contract fares early when it became obvious that they were paying for a number of people for a number of days.

 

I am disappointed that there has been no press release. I am disappointed that we were never told the exact problem nor the timeline of discovery. I don't know if PCH or Apollo publish an annual report; if they do, we should learn then.

 

Still, I am very satisfied with Regent's response both on the ship and in FLL and Omaha. The non-cruise was a wonderful experience; but not that good that I would take those flights again.

 

Marc

[mw8811]

I will just put it like this - when you have luck like we have you always have a 'B' plan for every situation (or even a 'C' or 'D') and remember everything in life happens for a reason.

 

Just so long as a life isn't lost it really doesn't matter.

 

Mary

[ridolphi]

Mary - excellent point, and maybe for the future we will try to have at least a plan B.:eek::D

[mikeb384]

As previously posted, we were on the canceled Oct. 17th cruise Venice-Athens, which I learned on this board was canceled before our travel agent had any clue. I called RSSC in Omaha and confirmed the fact and then let her know.

 

For the next three days, we kind of stewed. We had the offer from RSSC to accept a full refund and future credits or choose another voyage. My wife really had her heart set on getting back to Athens (we were there in '99), so we ended up selecting the Oct. 27th trip from Athens to Barcelona, praying that the Voyager would be repaired in time.

 

Today, we got confirmation on our suite - we were previously in a Seven Seas suite and they were unable to give us that type, so they offered an upgrade for $600 apiece. We felt under the circumstances that there should not be any charge, so after some discussion, RSSC agreed.

 

So, at least for now, we're all set for another try on the Voyager, hoping that this time is a charm.

 

Mike

 

:)

[PSO123]

I am one of the passengers from the cancelled Voyager trip. All I have asked them for is a complete refund, including the Regent insurance they sold me. They refuse to refund me the cost of their own insurance. Somehow I am out the cruise, the cash to rebook something immediately, (they promise a refund after the 18th) and several thousand dollars because I bought their insurance.

 

Why should I lose money because their ship is impaired? I am not asking for any damages, just a complete refund.

 

They have a terrible situation here, but I should not pay for their problems. Shame on them. They have turned me off to their entire company. I will never cruise with them again. I do not trust them to respect their passengers.

[CruisinGerman]

Dear friends:

 

I am glad you are home safely. I notice you are from Belgium. Did you purchase your trip in the EU or in the United States?

 

If you purchased it in the EU and it qualifies as a package as per the EU Package Travel Directive, make sure that whatever Regent is offering you is better than what you are entitled to pursuant to the Directive.

 

Under EU law, you are entitled to a full cash refund or an immediate substitute trip of equal or better quality (at your choice), re-routing at Regent's expense to get you back home, including meals, hotel, surface transportation, phone calls, etc. along the way, PLUS compensation in CASH. If you choose to accept Regent's future cruise certificates you should make sure they are of a value that exceeds the extra CASH compensation to which you would be entitled.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Kind regards,

 

Gunther and Uta

Madrid

[CruisinGerman]

Dear friends:

 

Further to my above post, under these circumstances the EU Directive provides for a full cash refund, re-routing and assistance home as mentioned above, plus compensation in the amount of 25% of everything you paid (including air). This compensation must be paid in CASH, and not in the form of future cruise certificates, unless the certificates are in excess of the amount to which you are entitled and you choose to accept them.

 

If you purchased your cruise in the EU and not from a U.S. channel, make sure that whatever Regent is offering you meets or exceeds our laws here.

 

Kind regards,

 

Gunther and Uta

[Officer Onboard]

CrusinGerman

 

Thanks for the information.

 

We also believe under EU Legislation the compensation you refer to is correct i.e 25% in cash not credits. Do you by any chance know the appropriate legislation reference or where we can find it in print?

 

Like most who were on this Cruise we have not had anything official from Regent. The rumour is $1000 credit on next cruise which is not compensation-its a maximum of 10% discount for those willing to trust Regent again. No out of pocket expenses, we are out $1000 in taxi and Hotel accomodation from home to the journey to Athens.

A dissapointing experience badly handled by Regent.

[PaulaJK]

A quick question for Marc.....Weren't you 'allowed' to use/rebook you own tickets home? I am assuming that we are speaking about independently booked air. In our case on the WC, after we got past our brain freeze, we simply called our carrier, paid the change fee and changed our ticket. Regent then reimbursed us the change fee. It was much less chaotic for us and shouldn't have been more than record keeping for them.

 

There have been many post about what people should have done to move on & still have a vacation. As some have pointed out quite elegantly, many factor suddenly collide. One also needs to remember that not everyone is positioned to spend additional thousands of dollars at that point in time.

[peteropny]

Paula - they told us that they were taking care of booking our return air regardless of whether or not we "bought" the air through Regent - so not sure if we were "allowed" to rebook ourselves home or not (which would have been very difficult anyways due to the internet an phone being very spotty). What you did on the WC, we also did in 2006 when the Mariner was delayed one day due to its pod problems.

[CruisinGerman]

Dear friends:

 

The 25% compensation figure is taken specifically from Spain's version currently in force based on the EU Package Travel Directive (Spain's version was most recently updated at the end of 2007).

 

I am no expert in UK Law. However, the UK version of the Package Travel Directive appears to date from 1992. This law also clearly provides for a full refund PLUS compensation. I don't know if local laws have been developed in the UK over recent years to set out the amount of that compensation.

 

It is interesting to note that when you type in the UK version of the Regent Cruises website and pull up the contract of carriage, it is a word-for-word reprint of the U.S. contract which is not at all valid in the EU and blatantly contradicts EU law in several respects.

 

1. This contract says Regent owes you nothing more than a refund if your cruise is cancelled or interrupted. EU Law clearly states they must pay compensation as well.

 

2. This contract says Regent is not liable for cancellations or problems stemming from services rendered by their third party suppliers who are not Regent (hotels, transport, spa, beautician, etc.). EU Law clearly states otherwise.

 

I could go on and on.

 

As you may have read in my extensive posts concerning the Volcanic Ash incident, here in the EU we have extensive travel protections enacted by law that our American cousins do not have. So I would advise you to assess your rights under UK and EU law before you merely accept anything offered by the cruiseline in this incident.

 

Kind regards,

 

Gunther and Uta

Madrid

[WindrunnerII]

I am one of the passengers from the cancelled Voyager trip. All I have asked them for is a complete refund, including the Regent insurance they sold me. They refuse to refund me the cost of their own insurance. Somehow I am out the cruise, the cash to rebook something immediately, (they promise a refund after the 18th) and several thousand dollars because I bought their insurance.

 

Why should I lose money because their ship is impaired? I am not asking for any damages, just a complete refund.

 

They have a terrible situation here, but I should not pay for their problems. Shame on them. They have turned me off to their entire company. I will never cruise with them again. I do not trust them to respect their passengers.

 

If you bought and paid for the cruise on a credit card and bought your credit card's insurance, would THEY refund the cost of it because your trip is cancelled? I don't think so.

 

If you take a cruise, buy the insurance and never use it, will you get your money back for the insurance?

 

This point I do not understand.

[hondorner]

Do UK and EU laws pertain to a US company that specifically states they do not apply? Does the contract to which one agrees when purchasing a ticket supersede those laws?

 

I don't know the answers; I'm just speculating.

[CruisinGerman]

The UK and EU laws apply to a passenger who purchases his or her trip from the UK or other EU office of Regent Cruise Lines (or its general sales agent located in the UK or EU) or from a UK or other EU travel agency acting as the retailer in this case. If Regent does not have a UK or EU office or general sales agent located in the UK and EU but accepts and processes UK and EU bookings from its U.S. office, the UK and EU laws would still apply.

 

Whatever Regent wants to write in their contracts does not supersede the UK and EU protection laws unless the contract would offer BETTER protection than the laws (which is obviously not the case).

 

Please don't hesitate to ask any other questions.

 

Kind regards,

 

Gunther and Uta

[mrlevin]

A quick question for Marc.....Weren't you 'allowed' to use/rebook you own tickets home? I am assuming that we are speaking about independently booked air. In our case on the WC, after we got past our brain freeze, we simply called our carrier, paid the change fee and changed our ticket. Regent then reimbursed us the change fee. It was much less chaotic for us and shouldn't have been more than record keeping for them.

 

There have been many post about what people should have done to move on & still have a vacation. As some have pointed out quite elegantly, many factor suddenly collide. One also needs to remember that not everyone is positioned to spend additional thousands of dollars at that point in time.

 

We were allowed to use/rebook our own tickets home. The only concern would be getting them reimbursed by insurance company as Regent had volunteered to get us home. I think we would have needed something in writing from Regent that they could not get us home in a timely manner before I would have chanced that.

 

I bought my cruise in USA so no help from EU laws (actually have moved back to USA, too).

 

Marc

[Crazy Gramps]

I have friends on this cruise and haven't been able to contact them.

I don't know if they are wending their way home or what.

Any PAX know what Ron and Linda are up to?

 

Thanks,

 

Gramps

[jhp]

PaulaJK, I was one of those on an award ticket for the aborted cruise. I called the airline, hoping to rebook on my own, and was told that once the travel had commenced, no itinerary changes could be made. Regent did exactly what they said they would, brought me home in the class I came (First, on a 3-class plane) at no cost to me. Had they not offered that, I would have been in a stew as what to do as a solo traveler to get myself re-situated with plans to take my originally scheduled flight back from Venice on October 17, or lose my air award ticket and pay my way back home. In these circumstances, I was glad Regent stood up to the plate, and got me home at no charge to me. BUT, I am out all those points, which have no monetary value even though I had paid for a travel insurance policy. In hindsight, I would have been better off with Regent air and no air credit, and still having those points.

 

As a PS, Regent was carrying on activities each day for as long as we were on the ship and beyond. I had two nights in Athens, and they were still arranging free excursions for everyone who was left up to at least yesterday when I departed.

[PaulaJK]

Well, these air issues certainly are varied and convoluted!

 

jhp--Is there any possibility that you could re-deposit the points involved in the unused ticket? Sorry to say, for totally unrelated reasons, we once also had to forfeit our points so I realize that this hurts.

 

Marc, We weren't savvy enough to have these worries! Luckily, only a change fee was required by the airline and this was reimbursed by Regent, so it went well for us.

 

Paula

[ridolphi]

Olivia - you might be able to reinstate the unused points for a fee, and then apply to Regent for them to cover that fee. Worth a shot, nothing to lose.

[azgkrudi]

We were on this cruise-to-nowhere too. (I felt a ping of excitement with the motion of a wake from another departing ship - ha!) Like Peteropny, this is our third Regent cancellation or complete rerouting of our itinerary (which did not suit us), in 2 years. So Capt. Sanguinetti's announcement that morning honestly came as no surprise to us.

 

The promise (directly from the Capt's own mouth) of returning every passenger in their same class of service was broken, for more than a few of us.

 

We are taking the refund and HOPEFULLY Regent still honors all the future cruise credits we had applied to the Oct. 3rd voyage (earned from the prior mishaps) - and perhaps our onboard booking credits. If so, we'll use them up (if the ship actually sails ;)) and probably say goodbye. The luxury cruise market is competitive enough to move on.

[cruiseluv]

What happens to your original air , will they reimburse that to you?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Oh wow, dominoing FCC's! I hope this works out well for you. What bad luck that this has hit you 3 times, unbelievable.

[WesW]

Kristin, in baseball u get three strikes...you gave Regent a good shot....do hope your next Regent cruise (and u get all your credits applied) works out for Greg and you.

[jhp]

I met Kristen & Greg so briefly for a couple of days for something entirely UNrelated to cc way back last fall, it was a TA thing with Regent cruisers. I was SO glad she and Greg were on this cruise to get to spend time with them! We had two dinners together during that "cruise to nowhere"! They are truly a wonderful couple, just the kind of passengers Regent should WANT and NEED to hold onto in the long term. Always positive, but after 3, maybe Regent struck out this time. I surely hope not, because they are young, young, and have many years of travel ahead of them!

 

I guess I have so many good years (yes, some canceled and missed cruises, missed ports along the way, but I'm not giving up on them yet) I would hate to say goodbye to Regent. They've always come through for me. We shall see, as I've never been through something quite like this. To this point, it has been a great ride sticking with the line since Navigator's maiden year.