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Vitaly is still here in Seabourn square. I don’t know about Tino.  
 

I agree with you and your husband about the merchandise in the boutique. Although I did purchase a Seabourn hat that I didn’t love, but I felt it was ok. 

4 hours ago, SLSD said:

Is that the zodiac excursion to view Puffins?  I read on a facebook group today that an August Storstapphen zodiac tour has been cancelled due to "operational reasons".  I ask if this is the puffin excursions as friends on our cruise told us that they were told their zodiac could not approach the island due to rules by Norway.  They were disappointed.  

We are scheduled for the zodiac excursion around Storstappen islands August 12.  We received an email from Seabourn today that the departure time has been modified due to “operational considerations.” Rather than the previously stated departure time of 6 am, “the departure time will be assigned on board.  All other aspects of the tour will remain the same.” No other information was provided, and nothing about cancellation. 
This is one of the excursions I have been most excited about, I do hope it is still permitted.  

To  jondfk, as well as SLSD and the others who have posted, I will repeat what I said on the other thread: thank you so much for all of your comments!   As I have mentioned, my wife and I will be on Ovation in just over one month for 21 days, embarking in Reykjavik and continuing on to a repeat of your Norway itinerary. It has been very helpful to read about the ship, crew, atmosphere, ports and excursions and more.

We are very excited to be back on Seabourn particularly with such a great itinerary.  
Thanks again to all of you and travel safely home!

SLSD and jondfk, and the others on board who have been posting, thank you so much for all of your comments. As I have mentioned, my wife and I will be on Ovation in just over one month for 21 days, embarking in Reykjavik and continuing on to a repeat of your Norway itinerary. It has been very helpful to read about the ship, crew, atmosphere, ports and excursions and more.

We are very excited to be back on Seabourn soon, particularly with such a great itinerary.  
Thanks again to all of you and travel safely home!

22 hours ago, SLSD said:

Some of the passengers got up at 4:30am this morning to get on RIBS (Zodiacs) and motor around Storstoppen Island,  I took this short video of some of them returning to the ship a few minutes ago.  

My wife and I will be on one of these zodiacs in about 6 weeks and I’m very excited about it. And the trip to the North Cape. Thanks for your description and the pictures.  What perfect weather for you. My fingers are crossed!  
We read the posts from you and from jondfk each evening with anticipation!

13 minutes ago, SLSD said:

I've had a chance by now to sample the Seabourn water kept in large clear plastic bottles with screw on caps in suite.  It is Ok.  It does not taste brackish or anything like that.  Mr. SLSD says it is not the best water he has tasted.  I don't have a complaint.  We did ask for some bottled still water and two large bottles of Acqua Panna were delivered as well as two large bottles of Perrier.  We did bring on the ship one small bottle of water from our hotel room in Copenhagen--and we will be holding onto that bottle.  I don't know if the large plastic bottles we have in our suite as the kind taken on shore for excursions.  I guess we 'll find that out this morning when we disembark in Alesund.  

Thanks for these comments! 
I’ll be interested in what they provide for you to take along on shore excursions. 

Thanks for your commentary, my wife and I are enjoying hearing your perspectives.

When you have a chance, perhaps you can comment about the drinking water. We embark in Reykjavik in 47 days (just checked Source for that tidbit). This will be our 6th Seabourn cruise but the first since they stopped using regular bottled water in large and small sizes. 
Thanks.

We will be on Ovation embarking July 30 in Reykjavik, continuing on to Copenhagen and a repeat of your itinerary in Norway. Looking forward to your posts from your cruise! Particularly your impressions of the ship, the weather, and comments regarding shore excursions. Enjoy!

7 hours ago, Jimmycruiser said:

I hope you can post the highlights of each port that you visit. We leave on July 30 on Ovation from Reykjavik to Copenhagen then August 6 Copenhagen around the coast of Norway returning to Copenhagen on the 20th and would welcome recommendations from those that have done this itinerary for not to miss excursions that are light to moderate activity level.

We are on the July 30 21 day sailing as well. We had the equivalent cruise booked for July 2020 and as SLSD says, we have been waiting for this for over three years. 
I very much look forward to your postings, particularly regarding weather, the ship, and shore excursions. Thanks in advance!

I enjoy caviar on a special occasion or at a nice party. On our prior Seabourn cruises, we have enjoyed the caviar at the special parties where they serve it on deck, near the end of the cruise. I hadn't realized we could order it for a certain time in the bar or lounge, or brought to the suite. May do it once or twice on our upcoming cruise to Iceland and Norway this summer (not every day though!).

I do love champagne, and definitely enjoy a glass each day of a cruise, particularly at the sailaway parties on deck. 
 

In fact, I thought we were treated quite fairly by Seabourn in another respect as well. Part of our payment for the cancelled cruise was refunded, but part stayed in our account as future cruise credit, FCC. The FCC had the restriction that we needed to book by 12/31/21 and sail by 12/31/22. In 2021, we weren’t yet comfortable committing to sail in 2022 and we assumed we would lose the FCC. 

Some time in early 2022, I randomly logged into my Seabourn account, and was quite pleasantly surprised to say the least: the FCC was still there and the terms had changed, to book by 12/31/22 and sail by 12/31/23. I immediately checked my wife’s account and of course it showed the same thing. It would have been nice for them to tell us this was happening, but we felt they had done the right thing and treated us fairly.

I put down a FCD in 2017.  We applied it to a Norway and Baltics cruise in 2020 that was obviously cancelled due to covid and the FCD sat in our account for over a year. 
In 2021 I was talking to Seabourn and the representative said we could have the deposit refunded, but that we could also extend it for a year or even two years if we wished to do so. This would also extend the 5% discount benefit. All it took was my verbal request on the phone and our FCD with the discount was extended for two years. So last fall, when we booked a cruise for July ‘23, we used the FCD and received the discount. 
I got the feeling that this was a standing policy, not just because of covid, but I’m not 100% certain. So extending the FCD expiration date might be an option for others who are coming up to the 4 year mark but don’t want to lose the future benefit yet. 

15 minutes ago, zelker said:

 

Correct - you're 2 FCDs should be sitting on your Seabourn Club accounts and you can ask to have them reimbursed to your CC between now and October 2021, or let them sit and use them against a deposit on another cruise between now and October, your choice.  

 

As for the FCCs they gave you, I'm about 99.9% sure that they are not counted as FCDs and can't be refunded BUT since the cruise was subsequently cancelled, it can't hurt to ask if it's now an option to have that money refunded.  (sorry, I don't know the answer for sure since our cruise was cancelled by SB before we would have gotten around to cancelling)

 

Thanks, this makes sense!   I will definitely check with my TA/Seabourn.  I'll post a f/u if I hear anything that might help others in similar situation.

12 minutes ago, zelker said:

To be clear, we’re talking about a Future Cruise Deposit, not.Future Cruise Credit that you may have received from Seabourn.  Any unused FCDs are good for 4 years from date of purchase.  If they are unused at the end of the 4 years, they will automatically be refunded to your cc OR at any tIme during the 4 years you decide that you want them refunded, you call Seabourn and let them know.   We purchase FCDs and bank them any time we cruise so they’re available when we decide to book something.  In this case, we had purchased 2 each back in 2017, had one each applied to the cruise we should be on right now when we booked it in December, and still had 1 each available for future use until 2021 if we booked something else.  When the cruise industry fell apart while we were on a ship in March, we chose not to leave even a dime with any of them so requested refunds of any outstanding FCDs we had with both Seabourn and HAL.

 

So in answer to your question, yes, you can call Seabourn and tell them you want your FCDs refunded but not FCCs.

Thank you, I believe I became somewhat confused when I was dealing with Seabourn and our TA during all the uncertainty about  the possibility of summer travel.  

My wife and I had each purchased a FCD back in Oct. 2017, which we applied to the June 2020 cruise.

So with the cruise cancellation, our FCD x 2 should be reinstated, and it would be my option to request a refund of this $1000? When I was told that our 15% penalty (about $4500) would be put to our accounts I guess this meant FCC.  Back in March I thought they were telling me it would be added to our FCD somehow.  

Since they later canceled the cruise, is it conceivable they will refund this $4500 now?

JPH814, if you would like to add it to the spreadsheet, I am in the US. And for those who have wondered how many refunds may be related to opening a credit card dispute, we did not initiate a dispute.

I am puzzled by those who have had the FCD refunded as well.  We used an FCD when we booked our June 27 cruise; when we canceled in late March, we were in the 15% penalty phase and a few days from getting to the 50% penalty.  Seabourn didn't cancel the cruise completely until a few weeks later.  We were told by both Seabourn and our TA that our FCD would go back to our Seabourn accounts, and that the 15% penalty would be applied to our accounts as well rather than being completely forfeited.  That sounded ok at the time but now I wonder if we have the option to request a refund??  Has anybody been in a similar situation yet?

Update to my entry in the spreadsheet:

Received an email today from AmEx, Seabourn has credited $2681 back to my card. This is for the nonpenalty portion of our deposits. We made the booking using FCD, and we were in the partial penalty phase when we canceled (Seabourn hadn't canceled the cruise yet).  They are supposed to be putting the approx $3000 "penalty" plus our original FCD back in our account as approx. $4000 FCD. I guess I should check on this with Seabourn at some point. 

So about 72 days for our refund to show up.

Our cruise date was 6/27/20

Cancelled by us 3/25/20 before final payment due, and well before Seabourn cancelled the cruise

The cruise had been booked with a FCD initiated on our last cruise; about 1/2 of what we had already paid is to go back to FCD and 1/2 refunded to Am Express

Received two emails 4/16/20 confirming cancellation of paid shore excursions. Two of our excursions were not listed but I later called Seabourn excursion dept. and was told all of the excursions were awaiting refund

All of the excursions were credited to Am Express today 5/14 with posting date of 4/16

No word yet on the refund for the 1/2 of the cruise deposit