We are at a travel agent meeting and it was announced today to hundreds of travel agents that in October they will definitely roll out details for society members regarding qualifying for the early booking for shore excursions and dining reservations. This will be available to society members Silver and up. That is all the detail I have at this time but with a major announcement to this many people it is certainly no secret or they would not have made this announcement. So I thought I would let you have tihs information.

Silver and above; ok, almost everyone in same boat [pun intended]. I guess they can talk newbies into Cat E and above for first 21 days of cruising then everyone is the same.

If you heard this Ngaire, then I believe it! any idea why the delay??

Thanks, Ngaire. It will be interesting to hear about the changes. Makes you wonder if some current benefits may be dropped to add these new ones.

Instead of a "pregnant pause," it's just a VERY LONG gestation period!

With many large Corporations it can take a long time to confirm changes and often more urgent situations arise causing delays. Itineraries for late 2012 and early 2013 may come out in October as well. Prossibly this is all timed to the beginning of a new quarter. I really have no idea about Regent's timing I am not privy to any inside information. I am just delighted with the announcement.

I, too, hope that the new tier benefits do not mean a downgrade of existing ones! I always shudder when I hear "new, improved" as that to me usually means "worse". BA did this a few years ago and seriously eroded their Executive CLub benefits!! I do hope Regent is different and can't wait to learn what they plan.

Agree about shuddering when something is new and improved, Gerry. We are getting a "New and Improved" computer system at work later this week. Happy I will gone for 2 weeks after its installation.

Changes have arrived!!!

Date for dining reservation and excursions on Nov 12 cruise shifted.

Any Silver want to confirm their dates have also changed.

I have been banned by CC so someone else will have to post the news there. :D

Interesting Marc about change info- banned means you have joined an elite group - we get accurate information on this board which is so refreshing and, of course, super nice people :app: :app: :lct: :lct: :hug: :hug:

Interesting Marc you are SO observant. We have no details yet but obviously they are starting to update their web accordingly. October is upon us and the sooner we get this all out and everyone knows the plans the better.

Ngaire, Wes posted that schedules would be out on the 16th. Do they always wait until you are at sea to post new schedules? ;)

Marc,

I'm silver, and booked on a December 16 cruise. The Regent site has been saying in the Booked Cruises that we can make dining reservations beginning October 2. Tonight, I happened to log onto the Regent site to look something up, and was surprised to see a change on my booked cruise. I no longer get the October 2 notice, and there's an active link for Dining Reservations. When I click the link, it goes to the dining reservations page -- which says "Welcome to Regent Seven Seas Cruises' Restaurant Reservations. You are currently not eligible to make a dining reservation online."

Well, if October 2 was the correct date for our dining reservations to open -- and that *is* 75 days before departure, so it seems correct -- then that would explain why I'm not eligible to make online reservations today. But it just seems weird that it went from a clear message that reservations would open October 2 to opening the link for reservations yet cryptically saying I'm not eligible with no explanation.

So maybe this is part of some of the forthcoming changes? I'm going to assume I'll be able to make reservations as expected on October 2, but if anyone else has a clue what's going on with the website now, let me know!

-- Eric

When new programs come in the technology to get it all correct does not happen in one perfect moment. I know it should but it does not as there are always hiccups. These changes show that they are working on the web site to make it work with the new changes and this is GOOD news. What you see today is most likely to continue to evolve and change every day. Remember the nightmares of the booking of excursions on line when that first came out. Better now for sure but still some improvements can be made. I have reached the conclusion a web site is NEVER done.

Remember the concierge program does not start on current 2011 cruises so your cruise in December will be the same as always for everyone. Below were the dates given originally.

Guests in categories E and above on Seven Seas Mariner (beginning April 2, 2012) and Seven Seas Voyager (beginning April 16, 2012) and category D and above on Seven Seas Navigator (beginning May 30, 2012)

I am just happy to see some progress being made

Greetings all.....forgive me for lurking! After reading posts from some of your members on CC i decided to hunt you all down and get info from the TA who really seems to have a step up when it comes to Regent!!! Took some time and lots of googling but found you all!!! Oh Ngaire I sure wish I had known about you from our first Regent cruise....
Anyhow to the subject at hand....here is what I found this morning at about 4:30am West Coast time (ya don't ask) after reading of changes on CC early this morning I logged into my account on the Regent site. DH and I are Silver and booked in a Cat F on Mariner sailing on 4/2/2012... Up until this morning the site always said Excursions available Oct 5... This morning at 4:30am the link was live and when I tried to get in and went to Rome or Ephesus to see what would happen it showed no excursions available fpr this port....
Then later this morning I went back and the link is now gone and it is back to saying I can book on Oct 5....
Soooo something is going on....maybe the IT folks at Regent are testing while most of the US is sleeping because by 7:15am that live link had disappeared.
Anyone else have this experience??

Hi Kathleen and welcome. Happy you found this site.

Yes, I had the same experience. I looked at a booked May cruise last night. The Book Excursions link was hot but when I went to each port no excursions were listed. Now it says Book Excursions on Nov 12, 2011. The IT people must have been pulling an all nighter.

Hi Kathleen and welcome!! :hello1:

They are working on it and that is the good news. With everyone checking this you can tell ME when it is good to go! I bet with all this web activity the announcement is not far behind and they are probably holding off until they get everything ready to work correctly. I know these things are not always simple to program.

Ngaire, it is not rocket science. They should have a "shadow" beta version that is tested and then switched over; they shouldn't have changes showing up and then going backwards. I was so pleased to see the changes on our booking but then it was changed back to the old dates :(

Tonight at midnight cental they will hit the switch on the new prices; the SSS could be at the same time but doesn't explain the unprofessional way they have been making changes and reversing them these last two days.

Always been this way Marc whether it is right or wrong they go through these trials and tribulations everytime something changes.

Maybe they need you on the job!!

As long as they get it right in the end. The other cruise lines we work with are SO FAR behind RSSC technically particularly for the agent details there is no comparison so I am not complaining.

Well, our dates for a June cruise hadn't changed...until today. They are now 240 days out for excursions and 90 for dining as expected (we're gold). The excursion date is 17 October so I'll know pretty soon if this is real. Several new ports on this cruise which have no tentative excursions listed, so no advance planning. Fingers crossed.

I'm silver and the excursion and dining reservation dates have also changed for my June 3rd cruise. The 240 day excursion booking date is now October 7th, so I'll report back in a few days.

Just received this email from Regent outlining the changes:

If I am reading that correctly, including silver tier in this seems very fair to me, since most past passengers will now be able to book at the same time. Pretty much only new cruisers in the lower level categories will be the only ones that will have to wait.

Much ado about nothing - ;) ;)

I have been told that if qualifying passengers invite a NON qualifying passenger on their dining reservations it will be honored. This is good for people that bring other family members or friends and they want to dine together.

That is good to hear and a very good move.

Yes makes it less complicated and, of course, nice to be able to be with friends/family who might be newbies.

A very good idea Ngaire. I was worried about my "silver" daughter, as I was thinking maybe only gold and above would get this early on. It's frustrating to try to book with friends you are bringing on maybe for the first time when you can't book a table for them. Nice to hear this is not an issue after May.

Another subtle change: when you check the excursion list for ports using the itinerary, it now says "[w]e make every effort to have excursions finalized at least 240 days in advance of sailing, and often sooner, so please check back regularly" whereas it used to say 180 days. Actually, pleasantly surprised that they followed the ramifications of the earlier bookings through the system. Now if they have the excursions finalized for our June cruise by 17 October when the booking window opens, it would be good.

Scott, I really don't think you will be disappointed, booking this early. Just my experience with two cruises in front of me, and many behind. I have never had an excursion I wanted that was denied. A friend had a close call once. Onboard, and had not booked, and it was full. They let her on. Hope for the best for you!

Good news, bad news. The good news: the Book Excursions link for SHAMROCK showed up for me (silver) today as promised. The PDF file showing all the excursions is available for download.

The bad news: I had to wait until 1 am to see the link. 10 pm on the west coast is much more civilized. :) . Regent may be having problems loading all the excursions into its system because, so far, only the Regent Choice excursions are available for booking. Not a big deal. I'm sure the other excursions will show up soon on the website.

I think you misunderstood my post. I will certainly book excursions just as soon as they are available. I was just noting that they have adjusted the lead time on announcing excursions to 240 days to match the booking window.

Where is the link for the PDF for excursions for SHAMROCK? Guess I"m just blind but I can't find it.

Jan,

Here you go: PDF

Thanks. It turns out that your 21 day cruise has our 12 day cruise as the second part so this is the first look I've had at the actual offerings for our cruise...though I have to wait until the 17th to book.

Hi all, Count me as one who is NOT happy about this change. We have only sailed Regent once, and we love it so are doing it again, but will only become Silver during our next Regent cruise in 2012. I'm very concerned about this new policy. It looks like we may be locked out of dining reservations and shore excursions totally, as it seems 90% of Regent passengers are repeats, and they are all Silver or above already. That leaves us 'newbies' out in the cold, really. I'm not very happy about that. It is really forcing us to fork out for E or above, and Regent is pricey enough as it is. It's got us thinking about cancelling and going back to our previous cruise line. :( Very disappointing, as we love Regent.

Nanook of the north; calm down. There are many folks on this site that have experience with making excursion and dining reservations AFTER (sometimes long after) they have come available and still get all that they request. If being first in line really matters; just book a Cat E for your next cruise and then go back to Cat H once you get to Silver.

This isn't that big a deal.... relax.

:lct:

Nanook, I hope you won't have any problem getting your first choices but I can tell you I have booked excursions while on the ship and have had no problem getting what I wanted. You would think by then that there wouldn't be any openings but that was not the case!

I agree with Karen - many do not book online so things are open when you get on ship - since we chat about booking ahead we assume majority do - has not been my experience - over 200 nights on Regent and only once did I not get an excursion but I waited till day before - never any problems with restaurants either -