I just received this email from Regent. Anyone else receive this? Nice touch to the survey I participated in. I know many of you participated, as well -

We very much appreciate your participation in The Regent ExperienceSM Innovation Community. Your ideas and comments are invaluable in helping us further refine The Regent Experience.

It was extremely gratifying for us to see the enthusiasm that many of you have for contributing to this collaboration. We are currently in the process of thoroughly reviewing the feedback we’ve received from all of you.

As promised, below is a summary of the key themes that emerged from our initial survey:

You associate Regent most with the following attributes:
First Class Luxury
Intimate Experience
Casual Elegance
Personalized Service
Spacious Accommodations


The areas that you would most like Regent to continue to focus on in designing the ultimate luxury experience are:
Maintain the finest standards in accommodations, dining and service
Continue to provide opportunities for enrichment, enabling immersion in local cultures and access to unique experiences
Explore opportunities to link land and sea experiences
Provide travel services – before, during and after each trip
Minimize incremental charges, where possible
Offer unique gifts and benefits for loyal guests that go beyond the traditional
We are acting on customer feedback from this survey as well as previous input. We are implementing initiatives that are very consistent with the direction that you’ve provided. Some specific examples of our customer-driven enhancements underway include:

Expansion of our Circles of InterestSM enrichment programs, which facilitate immersion in local cultures based on your interests. We are focusing on the areas which you’ve told us you’re most interested in such as Food and Wine, History and the Arts.

Further focus on enhancing The Regent Travel Concierge program so that our concierges can suggest and arrange the most unique experiences available in different ports and fulfill requests our guests have for personalized travel and exploration.
Testing the suggestion of offering door-to-door luggage transfers to and from your home.
All-inclusive liquor package on our ships will begin with our New Year’s voyages in late December.

If your suggestion isn’t highlighted above, please be assured that these are just some illustrative examples of insights that were frequently mentioned. We are carefully reviewing and integrating all comments into our planning.


INNOVATION COMMUNITY EXCLUSIVE OFFER

To further express our gratitude, we are delighted to extend to you a special exclusive offer for participants of our Innovation Community.

We hope you can join the upcoming November 4th, 16-night Seven Seas Society Summit and Advisory Board. This is an exciting opportunity to continue to provide input and suggestions with key Regent executives on board.

As a contributor to the Innovation Community, we would like to offer you an incentive of a full category suite upgrade and a $250 per person (maximum $500 per suite) shipboard credit to join this special sailing. These upgrades will be available on a first come first served basis.

If you cannot join us on the November 4th voyage, we will extend a full category suite upgrade towards new bookings on any remaining 2006 sailing. To take advantage of these benefits ask for the Innovation Survey Offer when talking to your travel agent or call a Regent Seven Seas Cruises expert at 800-285-1835.

Again, we thank you for your participation and contributions to The Regent Experience Innovation Community. We look forward to continuing to innovate with your help and set the highest standards in luxury travel.

Warm Regards,

Mark Conroy
President


PS - If you have any additional ideas, comments or suggestions, please email them to innovationcommunity@regentexperience.com.

Yes, I got it! and I booked that 2006 today. Maybe I will get the 1 Category upgrade!

Yes just got it.
I also thought it a nice touch.

I got it too. Nice touch.

Yes, I got it. Makes me want to book something really badly!!! Maybe shoe viewing with Karen around Christmas time!!!!

Denise, where were you given the opportunity to participate in that survey? Don't you have to participate to get the upgrade?

Interesting that while one of the priorities was:
Minimize incremental charges, where possible

But most of the "enhancements and expansions" he spoke of all include services that include rather hefty extra charges.

Got it too! Cindy I agree - it gave me "itchy booking fingers"

Quote JHP:

But most of the "enhancements and expansions" he spoke of all include services that include rather hefty extra charges.

Yes, I noticed this as well.....hmmmmm

Received it also. It was a nice touch. Oh, the temptation.
Sandra

I got it also. wow- now looking for something in Dec. hmmm.... shall be looking.

Nice touch.
:)
Jan

Me too, very nice. If only 2006 wasn't already booked up for me. Sigh.

Olivia, are you referring to the November 4th, 16-night Seven Seas Society Summit and Advisory Board or the on-line survey many of us took a while ago?

I assume that everyone who received this email were invited on the Nov. 4th cruise. Correct?

Sure would love to be a part of this. Not in the financial cards for us to do so.

I participated in the survey, but haven't gotten that email. I don't know that we could book anything else in '06 since we'll be gone over two weeks this month, but I'd love to have that quandry.

why couldn't they make this upgrade valid for one year! :mad:

I wish they would have made the upgrade good for one year. We have a cruise booked for June 2007.

Likewise, I was disappointed that the upgrade is good for 4 months. Don't they get the fact that their most loyal cruisers are frequently booked a couple of cruises in advance and probably have long since made plans for the next few months!

I don't recall being asked to participate in any survey. I thought that was required to get either perk

We very much appreciate your participation in The Regent ExperienceSM Innovation Community. Your ideas and comments are invaluable in helping us further refine The Regent Experience.

It went on further to say:

As a contributor to the Innovation Community, we would like to offer you an incentive of a full category suite upgrade and a $250 per person (maximum $500 per suite) shipboard credit to join this special sailing. These upgrades will be available on a first come first served basis.

Guess that's why I was asking. I have not participated in any survey! No need to comment for my benefit as I cannot travel at the end of the year! I wish they would put something out there for Jan-Feb that would entice several of us, but it would have to be good!

For anyone interested in the survey I am referring to, here is the thread:
June 2006 Regent Survey

Very frustrating and disappointing that the upgrade has such a limited timeframe.

RSSC marketing strikes (out) again!!

For such a great cruiseline, they make too many dumb mistakes (in marketing;not cruising)

I just went to the link that Denise (thank you!) provided. Don't remember receiving it. But then, I can't travel then anyway!

This so-called deal doesn't seem to be useable for many of us.

I agree, Lauri. Not very good marketing strategy. It's so limited. Hopefully, someone from the Regent Experience Innovation Community is reading this thread to know how we feel.

The Email had this at the bottom -

"PS - If you have any additional ideas, comments or suggestions, please email them to innovationcommunity@regentexperience.com."

Maybe some comments/suggestions are in order.

Nothing about perks for number of cruises nor any perks for introducing new cruisers?? - or did I miss it???

I just sent an email off with comments and suggestions pertaining to their email/offer.

I do love Regent, but this letter is marketing double talk. The innovations being considered are things that were already in the works before the survey. As to who received the invitation, I did not, and am wondering if it is because the survey I filled out was posted on this site, so I was not officially sent a survey? No matter, because I couldn't go no matter what, but maybe the only ones to receive the invitation are the ones who personally got the survey.

I got the survey and the email. The email was in my SPAM folder.

I booked the B&K past passenger Carribbean special that is good for only 1 category - E so it could be much ado about nothing. We were originally booked on that Nov 4th but changed it to the same itinerary next year to add the Grand Crossing. It's also a spotlight on Photography.

We're booked on the Dec 29th sailing and I did take the survey, but if you read it, the upgrade doesn't apply to us either. Bold is mine:

:mad:

We got the letter also. There's no way we can book anything this fall. We're going on the PG in Jan.

Yeh, I got it too. Too bad we can't travel in the fall. And I've been working on David about SAND, but forgot about the category upgrade. It's just a tad early in December, because of the school term.

Oh Wendy -

It'd be terrific if you and David could go on it!

Adding my 2 cents, it was a very poor move to limit any incentive to new bookings for 2006 only. As previously mentioned, most cruisers plan trips more than 4 months in advance and most people are probably limited as to when they can travel. In effect, Regent has offered what looks like a nice thank you for participating in its survey, but in reality it is worthless to most people and is somewhat of a turnoff under the circumstances. Not a good way to build loyalty.

As I had stated, above, the email asked for comments and suggestions. I sent an email last night. I will be interested in seeing what, if any, response is received.

I think it would be a good idea for those who have expressed their opinions on this thread, to share those opinions with the Regent Experience Innovation Community

innovationcommunity@regentexperience.com

I did the survey but did not get the offer. I thought this phrase was interesting:

Offer unique gifts and benefits for loyal guests that go beyond the traditional

I think most of us requested the traditional past cruiser discount. Surely we can't be the only people who want that back! Unique gifts are all good and well, but discounts based on cruise history and/or referrals would be nicer than cocktails in the laundry room. ;)

I agree Sue...much better! I didn't do the survey, never received it in the mail nor hooked on to the link posted on LCT.

I'm not sure what suggestions I would have made? It seems pretty perfect to me right now. Maybe to add an additional tier level like Diamond where you can get a free cruise!!

Here is the response:

Thank you for your participation in The Regent Experience Innovation Community We fully appreciate all of your comments and suggestions, both during the survey and in your email last night. The survey was completed by more than 3,000 people, including Seven Seas Society members of all tier levels, recipients of our e-News, and other luxury travel enthusiasts. We have had a wonderful response, are still accumulating even more comments as we speak and look forward to continuing this collaborative relationship.

We understand that you may not be able to take advantage of this particular special offer, but we will continue sending you updates and additional promotional offers in the future. While we do realize that many of our guests plan their trips more in advance, we do also have many guests looking for last minute options and offers. Although you may not be able to benefit from this offer as many of our other participants are, hopefully in the future one of our offers will fit your travel needs better.

Once again, we thank you for your participation in the Innovation Community and look forward to seeing you on Seven Seas Voyager next June.

That was a quick response, Denise - and it is nice they acknowledged that you will be traveling next June - doesn't sound like just a "form letter" response.

Hi Leslie,

Yes, I was pleased to get such a prompt, personal reply.

Kathy, yes, I would love to do it, especially if it meant cruising with you and Frank again. I'll show David one more time, but I doubt it's in the cards.