I'm resurrecting this topic because I finally got around to creating our complimentary softcover album (an inaugural season [for Regent] on the Voyager gift last year). It just arrived yesterday. Here are my impressions.
The Good:
- nicely printed, "perfect" bound (i.e., not stapled or spiral bound)document of about 40 pages...very reminiscent (size, weight, etc.) of a slim historic site guide book
- you can upload about 26 pictures that are placed, without caption but noting that you took them, in one section of the book
- many sections are preformatted with items like deck plans, a note from Mark Conroy, a recipe that sounds good, but I don’t recall seeing during the cruise
- you can substitute your photos for the pictures used in the itinerary section which has “canned” text for each port with a default picture; I replaced a couple of their nice quality photos because they depicted things we didn’t do at that port
- Front and back covers can be personalized with your photos and title
The Not Good:
- While nice enough, I’d never consider buying one of these albums (quoted as $54.95 for the softcopy version, $99.95 for hardcover); just not worth that much…(see my idea below)
- NO MAP. OK, that’s my profession, but how can you claim that this is a voyage memory without having a map? Even the same map that appears on their web site would be (minimally) satisfactory. Remember, they are already customizing the books to be ship specific and listing the Ports of Call, so this wouldn’t be difficult.
- Allow short, user-supplied captions for the photos the user supplies
- How about actual Compass Rose menus? With the wine selections? Same with the actual menus from Signatures and Latitudes for that voyage. Sometimes (twice, mostly we forget) we’ve asked for and received a complete set of Compass Rose menus for a voyage (they don’t reuse them since the have the date printed on them). In a digital world, getting that text into the Regent album wouldn’t be that hard. I think people would understand a caveat that indicates that there might have been changes that aren’t reflected correctly, but it would be close. I’d even settle for, say, one representative CR menu along with the Sig/Lat menus.
- Would also be nice to recap the shows from the actual voyage. Agin, they’ve got this one the web site so the general data could be captured there.
My Idea (which I plan to send in a letter to Rose Clarke):
Since I doubt they sell many of these albums (or maybe 1 and you realize that while not a huge cost, you could find better ways to spend the money), why not add it into the tier SSS program? As an addition, mind you, not in lieu of anything else currently in the program. As countless threads have noted, the current program isn’t that great, and actually represents a step backward from last year. Given that the Regent album process is highly (maybe completely) automated, their raw cost for the albums is probably $10-20 max. An SSS gift that was actually tied to your Regent cruising experience would be a good marketing tool since it would give you a tangible memento of how great the cruise was. They could still sell them and offer the upgrade to hard cover. Just add it into the SSS tier benefits. Maybe as:
Bronze – heavily discounted albums (maybe $20-25/softcover and $50 hardcover…might be worth that)
Silver – free softcover album (OK, we’re Silver so I’m biased) or discounted hardcover ($20 upgrade)
Gold – free softcover album with extra pages – maybe double the personal photos (you can upload more photos at $1 per 2 pages) or more discounted hardcover ($10 upgrade)
Platinum – free hardcover album

Sorry that this post got so long. I’ll be interested to hear others’ impressions of the albums and/or my idea for SSS.