Peggy, it's interesting how differently each of us sees things. While you see the pre-booking of excursions as a bad thing, I consider it an improvement. I've spent time before cruises wondering and worrying whether my advance excursion requests would be available or not, and not being able to find out until we board the ship; the new system removes that worrying months before we board by selling me a guaranteed seat on excursions. And if a desired excursion is sold out, I have time several months before the trip to look for an book an independent excursion on my own. I don't see it as mass market (although several of the mass market lines do things the same way), I see it as a better luxury experience. (I just wish the "unlimited free" excursions weren't restricted to one per port per day for advance booking, because that policy reintroduces all the doubt and worry on days where we hope to do something in the morning and something else in the afternoon.)

Regarding booking excursions when you have multiple segments, I believe Ngaire or Susan posted earlier this week that they had talked to Regent about it, and they acknowledged the problem and were working on it. Meanwhile, you can apparently call them and book your excursions by phone rather than waiting to see when they'll fix this aspect of the computer system.

Last point: although it's true that many excursions are now free, remember that people are booking them and therefore some will fill up. So even if you don't really like pre-booking this way, if you care about which excursions you go on, it probably pays to use the new system to get them booked rather than finding out after boarding that excursions you want are closed.

-- Eric