Booking shore excursions for Explorer

[Belfast Taxman]

I am led to believe that booking the free shore excursions can be something of a heartbreaking experience.

i don’t expect to get every excursion I want, but just how difficult is it. Might I end up with nothing even if I am online at “zero hour”?

is it better to get your TA to book them as they may have earlier access to Regent systems?

i suspect that on our 2020 Baltic cruise, there are some ports such as St Petersburg and Copenhagen where we will just stump up for either Regent Choice or fully private tours. Just how flexible can you be on such tours in terms of deciding where you go and for how long? 

For example, wifey and I love art and thus the Hermitage in St Petersburg is an absolute must and for as long as possible.

i am aware of the possibility for private tours, but also that there are visa issues, especially for UK passport holders. Do the private tour companies obtain a visa there for you?

Sorry, rather more than one query there but any help very gratefully received 

[poss]

I can't answer the question of whether it's best to have TA make excursion reservations, but I do want to jump right in and say something that I hope relieves your major concern.   (Btw, I guess I'd be surprised if TA's are permitted to make reservations before passengers can, though could be wrong I guess.)

 

Booking the free excursions has never — Never — been a heart-breaking experience for us, and I suspect not for others either.   Not even close.    Now and then a bit of a disappointment I suppose, but if you're really there at "zero hour," I'd imagine you'd readily get all you're after.    Very occasionally there's a glitch, so that everything shows already full, but that's just a glitch.

 

On the Baltic tours (esp. in St Pete), there've always been so many dandy tours offered by Regent that I've never felt the need to book a private tour.   Others certainly do, and will respond to that aspect of your query.

 

Mainly, rest assured: No Heartbreak!   (not even "something of")

Btw, Baltic was our first Regent (Radisson) cruise, about a dozen or so years ago.   Loved it, did it again — and love Regent.   May you as well.

Edited September 30, 2019 by poss

[Travelcat2]

For passengers in Concierge and above suites (and/or if you have status in the Seven Seas Society), you can book excursions earlier than passengers. This is the majority of passengers and they have an equal opportunity to book excursions the moment that they open (midnight on the date shown on the Regent website in your account which, hopefully, you have set up).  We have never failed to get an excursion if we booked as soon as they open.  However, once I forgot to book at "midnight" and tried 8 hours later and there were a couple of excursions already full.

 

I would not ask my TA to book for me.  Even if they were willing to do so, I want to be online as soon as excursions open and would not trust anyone else to watch the clock as closely as I do.  

 

In terms of private tour operators in St. Petersburg (been there twice), yes, they get the visa for you.  We did private tours the first trip and Regent excursions the second trip.  Of course, private (or semi-group) excursions are much better as you can ask for the places that you want to visit and stay there the length of time that you wish.  

 

St. Petersburg is an amazing place.  Due to crowds on our Regent excursion to the Hermitage, our favorite place to visit was Catherine's Palace.  We went before the crowds got there and our private tour guide did an amazing job.   

[taxare]

We have rarely not been able to get our first or second choices. On our Baltic cruise, there was sufficient capacity to provide us our first choice for everything. As TC indicated, since it is your first Regent cruise, the question will be whether you are in concierge level or higher to give you the best opportunity. I use a travel agent very experienced with Regent, but I am not aware that she is able to book early nor in my opinion should they be able to. If you don't get what you want, you can book another excursion and then get on the waitlist for what you want. That has worked for me as well. If you don't get what you want, you can almost always book something private at that point. We use the Regent excursions around 80% of the time. As a last resort you can always go "standby" on the ship when they are loading for that particular tour. We were successful with that on our recent cruise when we changed our mind at the last minute as to what tour we wanted to go on.  I think its great that you are excited about your upcoming voyage. You may want to consider consolidating some of your questions so you don't need to be monitoring so many different threads.

[flossie009]

1 hour ago, Belfast Taxman said:

I am led to believe that booking the free shore excursions can be something of a heartbreaking experience.

No heartbreak in our experience

 

1 hour ago, Belfast Taxman said:

is it better to get your TA to book them as they may have earlier access to Regent systems?

Certainly not

 

1 hour ago, Belfast Taxman said:

Do the private tour companies obtain a visa there for you?

I believe so, although we booked Regent excursions for all our tours in St Petersburg and were very happy with them.

Edited September 30, 2019 by flossie009

[rcandkc]

I don’t think a TA can do it any earlier and I wouldn’t expect them to stay up late or get up early to do so.  So, that’s my job as my husband is happily asleep in bed. 

No heartbreak either but I don’t wait days before booking either. 

[Sharle]

I always wait until morning to book and have never been disappointed in getting what I want for excursions. Even on a sold out cruise

[ClefsDor]

From what I can understand the caveat to all this is what suite category you're booked in. We have just booked our first Regent cruise on Splendor but we're not in a Concierge or above Suite so I'll be interested to see how many excursions are available by the time we're allowed to book. Fortunately it's a Caribbean cruise so the excursions, for us, aren't as important as a cruise to somewhere like the Baltics.

[Belfast Taxman]

Thanks to all your replies - mind now significantly more at ease, only 330 days to go!!!

[Gcto]

One more thing for St. Petersburg. 

The port has just recently changed their pickup times for private tours. A private tour operator (non regent organized tour) can now only pickup passengers one hour after the ship tours, to ensure that the "regular" passengers can get off in time and through the immigration process. On our recent visit we didn't see many private arrangements though and I'm not sure how exact they deal with the "one hour" limit. When we went through immigration aka passport scrutiny, there were private drivers waiting outside.

 

Plenty of Regent tours to pick from though 

[carolat]

If you do end up booking a private tour in St. Petersburg, I can highly recommned TJ Travel.  We went together with two other couples and we were able to set our own itinerary as to what to see and do.  They were outstanding.

[Travelcat2]

1 hour ago, Gcto said:

One more thing for St. Petersburg. 

The port has just recently changed their pickup times for private tours. A private tour operator (non regent organized tour) can now only pickup passengers one hour after the ship tours, to ensure that the "regular" passengers can get off in time and through the immigration process. On our recent visit we didn't see many private arrangements though and I'm not sure how exact they deal with the "one hour" limit. When we went through immigration aka passport scrutiny, there were private drivers waiting outside.

 

Plenty of Regent tours to pick from though 

 

Since Regent docks in St. Petersburg, how did Regent stop people from disembarking the ship for their private tours?  This sounds a bit strange (but am not doubting your post).  How does the "port" now when Regent tours will be disembarking?

[Mjflowers]

6 minutes ago, Travelcat2 said:

 

Since Regent docks in St. Petersburg, how did Regent stop people from disembarking the ship for their private tours?  This sounds a bit strange (but am not doubting your post).  How does the "port" now when Regent tours will be disembarking?

It's Russia. They know everything.😏😏😏

[Brownie54]

I will offer another suggestion. Book a private tour at the Hermitage through the Executive Concierge  on the ship once you board. We did this on an Explorer cruise during the summer of ‘18. Our guide (Maria) was excellent, and we spent as much time with each painting (suggest you spend time with the Impressionist collection) as we wanted. It was a terrific experience. 

[Gcto]

1 hour ago, Travelcat2 said:

 

Since Regent docks in St. Petersburg, how did Regent stop people from disembarking the ship for their private tours?  This sounds a bit strange (but am not doubting your post).  How does the "port" now when Regent tours will be disembarking?

well, I assume Regent doesn't sneak into the port in the dead of the night 🙂 and the authorities know the time, then the ship gets cleared by the port authorities and until this happens, nobody leaves.  So the authorities at the port know the timing and I assume (again) that Regent is communicating timing to them. Then you have the destination desk people managing the flow off the ship. Now if you are on a private tour and really want to leave the ship, you might be able to....but according to the letter we received in our cabin, your private tour operator is not allowed into the area until 1 hour after.  

 

[wishIweretravelling]

Even if the tour you want is full at the time you go online to book, have your TA ask to put you on the wait list for the excursion. Or call Regent yourself to do so.

 

The only time I've not gotten an excursion that I was wait-listed for was the one for Allhambra, which has very strict numerical limitations on the number of visitors per day/time slot. And even then, I got to go because a  friend I'd made onboard decided not to use his ticket and gave it to me.

[UUNetBill]

19 hours ago, Mjflowers said:

It's Russia. They know everything.😏😏😏

In Russia, you don’t take excursion - excursion take you.   🕵️‍♂️

[UUNetBill]

And let me add, in 10 years of Regent cruises I can count on one hand the number of excursions that didn’t clear waitlist, and I think two of those were capacity controlled and one was weather.

 

Don't stress excursion booking...have a first and second choice, if the first one is full you can waitlist it - there’s a very good chance it will clear.  Worst case you can call Regent and work with them directly.  

 

We've also had good luck changing tours on board on occasion.  Sometimes we get on board and look at our excursions and ask ourselves “ why the $&@%# did we book this?!?”  We just go to DS and change it...and they can usually recommend good options, too.

 

Last piece of advice:  If there’s something at a port you absolutely, positively want to see, book a private tour (if possible) just to be sure.  We’ve found, though, that sometimes Regent has tour options you can’t just get anywhere else...

[Travelcat2]

23 hours ago, Brownie54 said:

I will offer another suggestion. Book a private tour at the Hermitage through the Executive Concierge  on the ship once you board. We did this on an Explorer cruise during the summer of ‘18. Our guide (Maria) was excellent, and we spent as much time with each painting (suggest you spend time with the Impressionist collection) as we wanted. It was a terrific experience. 

 

In our experience, this cost more money than having a private tour guide (not Regent's) in St. Petersburg!