Here is what happens when excursions open

[Joanandjoe]

Excursions for my cruise next August opened at midnight this morning; and, as usual, it took a few minutes for the excursions to become available.  For those of you who are new to Regent, bear the following advice, taken from my roll call post this morning, in mind; and don't get frustrated if the process takes a while to begin:

 

"I should have warned everyone that the Regent site does odd things when excursions and dining become open.  At the stroke of midnight (9 pm the previous night Pacific time), you can click on the reserve excursions (or dining) link; but every excursion is shown as being full.  About 10 minutes later, at around 12:10 am, the excursions actually become available.  I simply kept hitting refresh until excursion availability magically appeared."    Joe 

[GrJ Berkshire]

So much better to do this in the UK by phone to Southampton HQ of Regent, that way you get what you want and can discuss with a human being if you have to amend plans.

[Travelcat2]

28 minutes ago, GrJ Berkshire said:

So much better to do this in the UK by phone to Southampton HQ of Regent, that way you get what you want and can discuss with a human being if you have to amend plans.

 

Agree but the number of UK passengers is so much less than passengers from North America.  It would be difficult for hundreds of passengers to call Regent every time they want to book an excursion.

[Eager2Travel]

We had a different experience last night.  When we went to our booking when excursions opened last night we were immediately able to see the excursions and book them.  None showed as full or waitlisted.  It all worked well for us at 9 pm PST.

 

We appreciated being able to use shipboard credit and not fool around with credit cards.  The exact amount of our shipboard credit appeared  on the booking. 

 

Entire operation went very smoothly.  Well done Regent!!

[Joanandjoe]

1 hour ago, Eager2Travel said:

We had a different experience last night.  When we went to our booking when excursions opened last night we were immediately able to see the excursions and book them.  None showed as full or waitlisted.  It all worked well for us at 9 pm PST.

 

Lucky you! That hasn't been our experience at Regent or its sister line, Oceania.  At 12:08, I was still getting every excursion as full.  Only at about 12:10 did the excursions show availability. As you'll see, someone on our roll call (also from CA) gave up at 9 pm Pacific time and booked early this morning. For someone who ordinarily goes to bed well before 11, the extra 10 minutes was a real hardship.  Joe

[flossie009]

11 hours ago, GrJ Berkshire said:

So much better to do this in the UK by phone to Southampton HQ of Regent, that way you get what you want and can discuss with a human being if you have to amend plans.

 

We have no problem booking Regent excursions on line in the UK, and the same facility to use ship board credit for paid excursions is also now available.

We agree that the Southampton office is always very helpful and efficient if we need to change an excursion or get onto a waitlist.

[RJ2002]

Just adding another datapoint.

 

We also recently booked excursions when our sailing opened up.  Shortly after the booking window opened, we were receiving similar "sold out" messages as others have reported.  We logged out, then logged back in to rssc.com, and the excursions then showed as available for booking.

[cAPS lOCK oN]

Also, be aware that for some cruises Regent has lately added a lot of small group tours (those with SG in the title) and Go Local tours, which have GL in the title. If you booked your excursions already, it might pay to take a 2nd look at what's offered on your cruise.

 

In our case lots of those tours were added just before our 180-day window, and everything was available for booking. I suspect that some 270-day bookers didn't know these new tours existed.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

How does it work with multi-segment cruises, Grand Voyages and World Cruises?  If you are doing the full voyage, can you book all your excursions at once, or do you have to wait until each segment opens up?

 

Our experience with booking online, btw, has been good in the past.  I welcome the upfront use of the OBC, and am looking forward to the SG's and GL's.

[xrvlcruiser]

Wendy,

You can book all your tours at once for the entire trip - not segment by segment.

Peggy