Anticipation

In just three weeks Nace and I will get to travel internationally since cancellation of our 2020 Regent cruise in the Mediterranean . We loved the 2019 Regent Alaska adventure and have patiently waited for the opportunity to return to the travel we hoped for in retirement. 

 Our first objective was to sail on the newest of the Regent Seven Seas fleet, SS Splendor. 

SS Splendor 

There is nothing like the Regent experience of a smaller ship, superb service and quality and the benefit of letting someone else make the arrangements. We initially booked the trip directly with Regent. I stumbled onto a very good YouTube tour of the ship by Mike Lukins, owner of Affluent Journeys which gave us a very detailed preview of this spectacular ship. Mike did a great job of giving a concise but detailed look at every facet of the Splendor. The video concluded with an invitation to bring our booking to his agency for some additional perks. I took the bait and we wound up with $400 in shipboard credits. 

 A few weeks ago we were notified of our air and pre-sailing accomodations in London. Our Regent deal gave us a 2 cabin upgrade which included an extra night on the front end of the trip at the Intercontinental in London. This gives us a nice cushion in the event of unforseen travel glitches. We have been to London so I am not booking any special tours or events. We will be grateful to get there, as scheduled, and do some off the beaten path activities as we adapt to the 5 hour time difference. 

 I paid a little more attention to the flight itinerary last week which revealed a less than stellar routing for our return to Naples from Stockholm. When I picked apart the return trip I discovered we would be spending 35 hours getting home including a 17 hour layover in Toronto. Canada is also considering return to COVID restrictions and that is a dealbreaker for us. I contacted Regent travel and the agent looked at our air routing and I heard a distinct "ugh". He gave the boilerplate advice that rebooking may cost us some money but a glimmer of hope that the air department probably let automation create this return routing without human review. So much for AI!  I checked the Regent website a few hours later and was pleased to see that there were updated postings for a new return trip, via Amsterdam and Atlanta with a total of only 7 hours of layovers in Amsterdam and Atlanta. Regent also includes business class for any international trips so we get to spend our layovers in the premium lounges.

Update: May 23

As promised, an email in my inbox indicated we could complete the final check-in process for our cruise.  We also received a final summary of the trip and everything is in order.  Now we can focus on packing.