cruiseej

I think Antarctica cruises are a special category which have a much larger expedition staff. Alaska cruises are generally quite port-intensive, and as a result likely have fewer lectures. That's definitely strictly a Covid thing; they haven't resumed these activities to try to keep the crew safe from more contact with potentially risky passengers.

That does seem odd. I have ordered a pina colada on multiple Seabourn ships in the Observation lounge, and they have always been able to make them. Even if they were to have a mix of pineapple and coconut premed, they need to add the run and ice and blend it; the only alternative is a large frozen drink machine, which I don't believe the have at the Observation lounge bar. On the older triplets, at least, I they also have a back prep area (on the side of the piano, near the door to walk out on deck), and perhaps they keep a blender there to avoid the noise at the main bar?

That's what I was thinking… but this seems to be much longer than the typical charter for a week or so.

I'm sure they do it this way because it's better for them — but it's nice that it happens to be better for you as a customer as well. 😉

Well, the ship has to get to Seward for the summer Alaska seasons somehow, so I wouldn't write off what will happen in April just yet. Silversea is not working on flights that far in the future. We have had an Antarctica cruise scheduled the past two years; last year, they booked out air 282 days before the cruise (which was subsequently canceled). This year, for our rebooked cruise, I contacted our travel agent 9 months in advance, and she said Silversea's air department responded: "Please advise guests Silversea does not book air until 170 days prior to sailing." I guess with (a) the rapid pace of changes in flight schedules, (b) the volume of air re-bookings they are constantly needing to do as cruises are canceled and rerouted, and (c) staff shortages, they made a decision not to address air bookings as early as they used to. They then ended up doing our booking at about 210 days prior to the cruise. So in your case, I'd suggest reaching out to your TA or SS consultant about 7 months in advance of the cruise to get them to reach out to the air department about your flights. I think they will book air even though it may be unknown if the cruise will sail or not; they can't wait until 6-8 weeks before the cruise to try to book everyone's air.

The flashing light is activated by water, so unless someone threw a drink at him, it probably wasn't on. 😉

All refunds and credits, once you board, go into your shipboard account, which is then settled to your credit card as a charge or credit at the end of the cruise. It reduces the number of credit card transactions they make, each of which costs them money. And it avoids any problems constantly processing credit card transactions via satellite Internet connections which can be spotty.

I don't think you can call them. Even our travel agent can't call them; she can only email them. I don't know if you can communicate with them directly at all; I think you have to go through your TA or SS consultant.

The Venture is docked in Tromso now, ready to begin her official cruising days tomorrow — bringing to an end this thread about her delays. Best wishes to the passengers aboard the inaugural sailing; we'll be (jealously) awaiting your reports!

Yikes!

@kjbacon So sorry to hear you have Covid. I'm hoping you have only the mildest of symptoms and a quick recovery, and can stay positive so this dampens but does not ruin your vacation. Of course there's something fundamentally wrong. 😉 There's a highly-transmissible disease which is still with us, more infectious than ever, and at moderately high levels. Meanwhile, most people are tired of dealing with it, don't want to have restrictions imposed on them, and want to "just get on with their lives". Unfortunately, those two things mean the virus continues to spread and be prevalent. Unless the virus mutates into something even more benign, or we get a shock/wake-up call and take the necessary steps to drastically curtail infections, this is the world we are living in, and will remain living in for the foreseeable future. You're free to travel in many parts of the world, but doing so comes with not insignificant risks.

I don't know if he's considered "part of the expedition team" per se, since he is now a senior executive with Seabourn: VP General Manager, Expeditions. Here's an interview with him about the Venture from just three months ago.

But how many people will pay the astronomical price they would need to charge for helicopter excursions? Seabourn's new excursion ship has the 6-passenger submarines, and they've already charged the rate from $500 to $1,000 per person for an excursion. It looks super-cool, but $2,000 for us to take a single submarine excursion?! I'm sure some people will pay it, but that's above my price point. I suspect the helicopter aboard the Endeavor would be something similar.

If your original booking was prior to the introduction of Door-to-Door pricing last year, you may not have it on your booking. When our travel agent worked to get our December 2021 Antarctica cruise — which Silversea cancelled because the Wind was not ready — rolled over to the 2022 cruise, she was able to get them to include the home-to-airport transfers even though we had paid for the cruise back in 2019 before this option existed. Here's what I see on My Silversea: Do you have the Private Executive Transfer? If not, the "transfer" you're seeing might be something else.

Long gap? Venture is scheduled to arrive on the 26th, and the first embarkation is on the 27th.

I'm not sure I understand. They had two sets of itineraries with booked passengers. If one ship isn't available, then they have to cancel one set of itineraries because they only have one ship. They obviously can't do the northeast passage because of Russia, so they keep the itineraries including the northwest passage. But I'm not sure how this equates to screwing the Venture passengers for profit margin. Do you think they should have canceled all the Pursuit voyages because the ship isn't ready, and also canceled a significant chunk of the Venture's summer voyages because it can't travel in that region? That would have resulted in even more canceled trips than we have now. No matter what, a lot of booked passengers would have had their cruises canceled with one ship instead of two; this way it's 50% canceled, the other way would have been perhaps 70-75% canceled. What they did was better for more of their customers, and as a result, will produce more revenue. But the big error on Seabourn's part is that they weren't honest with their customers about exactly what happened. They mentioned Russia, which everyone understands, but they have not yet mentioned that the bigger issue is that Pursuit won't be ready on time. That's a BIG omission when they're telling thousands of people their trips have been canceled. And it's puzzling why they didn't offer people comparable itineraries (not including the northeast passage) the following year rather than just canceling them and offering a 10% credit.

If there is one passenger in isolation, it would tell me there hasn't been much spread on the ship currently and we can continue dining in restaurants, going to shows, etc. without much concern. If there are 25 passengers and 15 crew in isolation, it tells me that there's considerable community spread, and we need to mask going to every venue and to focus on distancing from others. (Oops, I stated typing this before the nearly identical reply from @whogo )

Well, I expected it to be delayed, but that would really be a massive delay! 😉

Correct about where Venture was to have gone, but the reason for the switch is because of an apparent delay in the completion of Pursuit. If Pursuit was ready on time, they could have had her sail the northwest passage, just as planned, while coming up with some alternate itineraries for the Venture. And there wouldn't have been need to cancel people booked on Venture itineraries to Norway and Svarlbad. No, it seems Pursuit won't be available for the summer of 2023, so they swapped the Venture to do those cruises, and dumped the people booked on the Venture's original cruises.

Venture is now steaming up the coast of Norway at a brisk 17 knots, with about 950 nautical miles to go to get to Tromso in two days.

It's also one of the pages of the Final Documents PDF you can download from the Seabourn website. I have dutifully printed the one for myself and the one for my wife before each cruise, and I don't think anyone from Seabourn has ever scanned it or even wanted to see it. 😉

Haha, when I saw the new post from @shark b8 that was the first thought that popped into my mind as well. 😉

@rallydave But wouldn't you concede that Seabourn was not very transparent with its customers, especially those who had eagerly booked the first season one cruises on its newest ship? Sure, I think everyone understands that the situation with Russia meant that the planned Venture northeast passage cruise wasn't going to happen. But no one expected that to disrupt other Venture cruises in Norway/Svarlbad. The real issue here is that the Pursuit is (apparently) delayed — and Seabourn still hasn't even said so publicly. So they tried to couch it in language about Russia and "redeployment", rather than being honest and straightforward about them replacing Pursuit with Venture, and being empathetic about disrupting some customers' plans while providing a smooth transition for others. And if Pursuit is delayed until September 2023, why have they also been switching customers on Antarctica trips in December-January from Pursuit to Venture? I don't know why they can't just be upfront and honest with their customers about the issue at play and how they have adjusted itineraries as a result. Instead, they unnecessarily piss off a lot of loyal customers.

@AndieSF Did you get a 5% booking discount on your cruise? If so, I think when you get any form of refund, the discount gets deducted from your refund.

Not that that I've ever heard of. It can happen when you arrive to check in and find you've been upgraded (which may or may not be an upgrade in your own opinion), but I don't think that happens often. (We experienced this last year when the ship was sailing pretty empty.) But I don't think there's an opportunity to swap cabins after you've already occupied one… unless there's a problem with your suite which can't be fixed. They'd need to completely clean the suite you first occupied, and deal with people hauling luggage between rooms, and they'd need to re-assign suite attendants if people were moving to new staterooms.