Panama to San Juan, Jan 4th

Flygod & M.

Happy to say at least for the moment my post on another "string" here in the Seadream section was forwarded to Seadream VP Hotel Operations, Thomas Carlson....we keep you up to date with any response. By the way, your essay was spot on and in fact I was the 2am internet fellow and patiently watched your wife walk miles every morning - shame we were all not able to "rock n roll" at the Top of the Yacht. I am however, still waiting, for Gareth to book the Indian crossing that has been in the works for over 14 days.

J

My comment is in the following link:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=41353283#post41353283

I guess this is as good a spot as any to post a few thoughts. First, the SeaDream board used to be the most civil on Cruise Critic, in my opinion. People could pass ideas, post reviews, tell of shortcomings, etc. without the "flaming" that is rampant on the large cruise lines. In part I believe this is because a fair amount of us have sailed with each other. Here of late though things have tended to drift a bit toward the snarky. Let me say I am a SeaDream fan. That does not mean I turn a blind eye to negative changes or events. There are a few posters here lately who have been lucky enough to never have a bad SeaDream experience. Good for you. We have not been so fortunate having had three SD voyages marred by unruly children and large groups. Frequent Traveler was once a total cheerleader for SD until a few of these events happened to her. For those lucky souls that have had nothing but good from SD, it is unproductive and close minded to insist posters of bad events are just "negative people" or other such verbiage. To do so is the equivalent of me insisting no one can possibly pole vault 10' because I have never done so. SeaDream can and does have bad voyages. SeaDream management is abysmal of late. The trends and industry information are showing cracks in the SeaDream empire. Only time will tell but I, for one, believe the posters accounts of their voyages/concerns to be valid. Probably because I have had prior issues with SD myself but I like to think I can give all posters the benefit of the doubt. Especially when there is such corroboration going on. For those who only want to hear of a perfect SeaDream, I fear you will not be too happy in the coming months. I hope I am wrong. We all have to wait and see in our own way. All the best to the SeaDreamers with upcoming voyages.

Jim, well said and thoughtfully so.

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

Flygod, I have a question for you. Can you email me at averyjamesr at gmail dot com?

Thanks,

Jim

Hi Jim,

Message sent, but my email is fly&microlightscotland,com in case anyone else wants it.

You should know what to replace the & and , with!

Dear all,

Just to say:

Finally, this weekend we decided to write to SD about our concerns over this voyage.

To give SD their credit, we received a prompt response on the first working day back after the weekend which fully addressed our concerns and the points raised.

I must say, their quick and unconditional response has made me far more convinced that this was "the one-in-5,000" trip (as cruise director Gareth described it).

And it has left me happy to re-assure any non-SD regulars that the company will look after you and will deliver a service specially tailored to you.

As it is, we only have one big holiday a year and we are now booked to go to Burmah ( you have to book a year out with BA's frequent flyer programme!) for Jan 2015 and hope to hit Cuba in 2016 before it all changes. So when will be be back aboard....

Now, if only SD went to Cuba...... (Windstar does, so it can be done)

Best wishes to all

Interesting to know that Windstar goes to Cuba. Did not know that. Not sure you can get off the boat if you are an American though. It is on my Bucket List!

If you are interested in seeing a lot of Cuba, you might check out http://yourcubacruise.com/ Not the luxury of SeaDream, but looks like a fascinating week of ports.

For Americans, there are ways around the passport issue..... The cruise was recently reviewed on http://www.fromthedeckchair.com/ if you would like to read about the cruise.