Sorry, meant to post earlier but the day after a holiday is always busy.

I am satisfied with the outcome. I didn't hear from REGENT directly, but my TA called me this morning (I had emailed her over the weekend, including the links to the message boards as well as my communication with Mr Conroy) with an update. By mid-day she reported back to me that "the bumping" was rescinded, that we are back on board and in the same suite as we had been before. As a "good will" gesture REGENT has posted a shipboard credit to our suite. As all I wanted was a reinstatement of what I had paid for, I am satisfied with this outcome.

I want to thank everyone again for their concern and their advice. I think I can say "literally", I couldn't have done this without you. Thank you.

bump

Great news, tryan. Hope you have a wonderful cruise.

I am so happy for you both. We will probably never have the reason for why this happened and that is frustrating but we are so glad that Regent and Mark Conroy did the right thing by you.

This is really good news and thank you for taking the time to share it with us, we were all holding our breath!

Hope you have a really wonderful cruise.

I've watched to see the outcome and am glad that all was corrected for you. I wouldn't be surprised if you get an email from Mr. Convoy.

Woo hoo! I am glad you are back on board! You will have to let us know how your cruise went.

Great news, tyran, and I know we all really hope you have a super cruise.

I am still more than a little curious as to what happened to get you "bumped" in the first place. In other words, I think Regent owes you and all of us as its rather loyal following an explanation. If the matter was simply the result of administrative error or computer glitch, I am sure all will be forgiving, for which of us has never made and error? But if Regent has mistakenly developed a position that it can rightfully bump a fully-paid guest off a cruise ten days before sailing and still be considered a "luxury line", I suspect that the reactions and opinions of those who post on the cruise boards will be much more negative. In other words, Regent has some explaining to do. Many people are in your position of not having time-flexibility for vacations. I think they and the rest of us have a right to know what Regent's policy is on over-booking and bumping.

Congratulations Tryan! The shipboard credit is the least they could do to compensate for your aggravation. Hope that you have a great cruise. Pls let us know how that goes.

Still, this incident has left me with a sense of unease. Why did it happen? And , more importantly, if Tryan had not been proactive about getting her cabin back, would she be going on that cruise?

Great news...now you better send us Sea Mail!

This is wonderful news! :bv:

Tryan 70....this is wonderful news! We're all excited to hear this good outcome. Now the next thing you need to do is send us seamail if possible so we can "virtually" cruise with you!

Have the BEST vacation ever....you deserve it!
:app: :app: :app:

So happy to hear about the positive outcome!!! Hope you have a wonderful cruise and that you will let us know how it is!!!!

Glad to hear that you are back on the ship! Have been following this and was hoping for this outcome. :banana:

As other's have said- seamail is next!

VERY happy for you!!!!! Have a great cruise on a great ship!!!!! Joanna

I, too, am totally delighted with this outcome. And I agree totally with Dolebludger's post. We really do need to know how and why this incident happened. It is SO unlike Regent to treat a client this way! I WANT to know this was an awful mistake. The posts on this subject have been interesting and enlightening. I can understand why the cruise lines want to sail full and even re-sell cabins that have been paid-in-full once. It keeps the prices down. I like that. And I'm pleased to learn the standard practice is to entice volunteer last minute cancellations with enticing incentives to adjust for overbooking. That's a win win policy. But, IMO, procedures should be in place to insure that no passenger gets the kind of call this passenger did.

Patrick

Great news! I hope you have a fabulous trip, you deserve it...

Tryan,

You've been on a rollercoaster of uncertainty for the last few days and rightly so. I was so happy to read of your positive outcome. I do hope that you can now look forward to a wonderful cruise and memorable experiences you are so deserving of. Wishing you a fantastic time!

Tryan, I have been very busy today, and couldn't get to the computer earlier, but I thought about you all day. The power of positive thinking. That is fabulous. Enjoy the shipboard credit and has been mentioned, send us sea mail and have a fantastic trip.
Lynn

We have been reading this thread all weekend
So glad that things worked out for you.
We lve the Voyager.
I would sure like to hear how this happened from Regent. I would hate to go through the experience that you went through.I am sure glad that we have a strong TA.She would come after them with a lamb bone.

Despite the "Happy Ending", there is something very strange here, very unlike the Radisson/ Regent cruise line we all know, and a big negative publicity foopa. Someone from Regent's executive, PR or SSS departments needs to find out just what went wrong, and post a logical explanation so we can all understand what happened and why. We leave for Tokyo in two weeks, with other plans in Japan before and China after the cruise, and this revolting development is very worrisome.

I can’t help but wonder just what has come over these people at Regent?!

Thanks for sharing the good news, Tryan. What an incredibly long 3 day weekend this must have been for you.

Very happy to hear the outcome! I agree with many of the others here and would have preferred to have heard an explanation as to how this had happened and what steps Regent was taking to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Enjoy your cruise, tryan! After all this, you'll need another cruise to recover from all these precruise jitters!

Masaki

Tryan I am delighted it all worked out. Personally I had no doubt that things would be fine. This just did not make sense to me I knew something was strange in the entire situation

I know we all like to have answers all the time but if the situation resolves itself that is what counts.

During this situation I have asked if any policies have changed in this regard and I have been told they have not. The policy IF there is a situation that requires someone to be bumped is to ask for volunteers. With this policy and the generous offer I cannot imagine they will not find people who will take them up on the offer. This is very important that we know no policy has changed.

I have quite a few people on that particular cruise that I KNEW would take a bump gladly and offered that to Regent. It was not necessary, and I was not taken up on that offer.

Obviously with no change in policy some sort of error was made. I have no knowledge of what happened, but a logical explanation would be if someone accepted a bump and then the wrong booking number was entered in the system that set this all in motion. Once people were back at work on Tuesday morning this was fixed. We all wanted it fixed sooner but there could be many steps in the process to figure out went wrong. With everyone off work it is pretty difficult to do that over a holiday weekend.

When Tryan called Regent the person contacted in the reservations center was just reading her computer screen and confirmed the bump. The reservation person has no way to understand the sequence of events or why that happened she can just see the bump on the screen.

Tryan, I must say reading your posts that you are a very logical and fair person and I wish you a wonderful cruise and I hope you will now post more often. It is like you have become part of the LCT family over this mess.

Tryan, I'm so happy to hear your wonderful news! I'm sure that Labor Day weekend 2007 is one holiday you hope to erase from your memory; or, at the very least, the stress of those 4 days. But the outcome is grand - you're back on your cruise and you have a whole new group of supportive friends. :bv:

Ngaire

I think your diagnosis is right on. Just wish that Regent would confirm - would help to calm troubled waters. (Was that Simon and Garfunkel?)

Ted

When we were on the Oceania Cruise, I looked up my booking on line and couldn't sign in so I called Oceania to find out why my booking didn't exist. That was Labor Day weekend. I think I was filling in the Guest Information Form. The TA that was handling the package left early for Memorial Day weekend. The reservations person on the phone told me my booking number didn't exist so the online system did not work. The reservations agent said without the number she couldn't tell me anything. The TA was the only person they were supposed to talk to. In the meantime, we chatted a minute and she found my reservation and said "Don't tell any one but here is your new booking number - I am not supposed to give this out". The TA called me on Tuesday to tell me the info - they never gave me the new paperwork with the new booking number. It got changed when we paid for the upgrade from what we won (Concierge Class) to Penthouse. All internal, but could have easily caused upheaval when I was planning on packing that weekend.

It is pretty obvious it was a unique and unusual glitch. Tryan even has her same cabin back. They did not need my offer to bump one of my guests. Someone must have volunteered.

Bumping is so rare with Regent that most TA's dont know the policy is to get volunteers. No fault with the TA here why would that TA know the policy. I know only because it has happened to me ONE time in all these years. If I had this call on a client I would have known instantly something was wrong.

If this had happened midweek this might have been solved right away and not even been an issue.

Computers are wonderful but when a mistake is made it can create such a problem in a huge data base and often difficult to track the source of a wrong entry. Once it was a work day this was figured out pretty quickly.

I really do not think anyone has anything to worry about here. Freaky mistakes do happen, we all have made them but the chance of the same freaky error happening twice are slim. So anyone booked and worrying about this happening to them I think it is a needless worry.

Ngaire,

That was great that you went out of your way to offer volunteers. It's also reassuring to know that this was a glitch and not established procedure.

While I’m so glad that this has been resolved, I’d just like to explain why I think Regent should have better handled this. I know some on this board have called this a mistake or an error or a computer glitch. But I think it is much more serious.

A mistake or glitch is when a wrong booking number is entered and the computer spits out that Tryan should be bumped. The fact that a process was not in place to catch and rectify that mistake immediately is a breakdown in procedure.

Some human being had to put some thought into the bump. Regent called Tryan’s TA and offered compensation which included a refund, reimbursement for air and expenses, and a free cruise. Regent had to realize what it was doing. Didn’t anyone know this was a violation of Regent’s own policy that bumps should first be voluntary? There didn’t seem to be any system of checks and balances applied to this dramatic decision to bump a couple 10 days before their cruise.

And when Regent acknowledged its error, a clerk called the TA to rectify it. I think that’s just incredible. Imagine the anxiety these two passengers were put through for three helpless days. The proper action would have been for an executive from Regent to personally call the couple, apologize to them, and offer an explanation.

When this happened on Oceania a couple of years ago, Frank del Rio took personal responsibility and admitted he blew it. No one from Regent has offered an explanation. Thanks. Tom.

My thoughts are that there are some facts missing that we aren't privledged to and it could even have been a TA error.

I really like Frank de Rio's style for certain. He regularly monitors the boards at CC and posts. I know Regent people lurk here and there but we don't get any acknoledgement of existing.

Hope this is not out of line, but there was a posting on this subject on the "other board" that I thought would be worth sharing here:

"After I read the initial "problem" post, I droped an email to Regent saying something along the lines of:
I read about an invulontary bump on cruisecritic.
We were considering a cruise with Regent, but the action taken b others me so much that we have decided to stay with Crystal.

It was quite a bit more polite, actually. <grin>

Today I recieved a response (which was a nice surprise as I neither asked for nor expected one). The person writing it admitted an error on Regent's part and informed me that the passenger is happy with the resolution. Furthermore, procedures are being changed to prevent a repeat.

I was quite impressed. NOt the least reason being how the person writing was clearly protecting the privacy of the passenger involved.

All in all, the entire affair left a very positve impression.

I wanted to give just a f/u that I think will put many worries to rest. This morning I received a call from Ken Watson. This call was followed by an email in which Mr Watson expressed an apology both personal and from the company for the manner in which the above events were handled. In particular he acknowledged that mistakes were made, but some good will come out of this event in that it pointed out a need for improvement in inventory control and the guest notification process. I again expressed I was quite satisfied with the ultimate outcome and very happy that he had called (I think I can finally breathe easy that there won't be any problems during embarkation). I just wanted to share, that in the end, REGENT got it right. Looking forward to a stress free cruise.

HAPPY ENDING - SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!! I know you are relieved and Regent is aware there was a big snafu - we all can dissect and analyze but problem resolved with lessons learned! have a great trip!!!!! Joanna

tryan,
I am sooo glad that, Regent did, finally, get it right! I am not surprised!
I know you will have a wonderful cruise! ENJOY!!!

Tryan, that's great. Thanks for letting us know, and for the smart and fair way you dealt with this.

Tryan, I'm glad you received a personal call. It was the right thing to do. Enjoy the cruise and please let us know how you liked it. Tom.

Everyone loves a happy ending! So good that this one turned out just that way!

Wonderful news Tryan, Your cruise may even be MORE special now....if that is possible! Safe travels, and memorable journeys.....

Wonderful outcome! Thanks Regent!!!