cruiseej

To quote former US Senator Everett Dirksen, updated to account for inflation: "50 billion here, 50 billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." 😉

It seems a little odd to re-launch the cruise line with only its two oldest ships. If Silversea does acquire the new expedition ship, as has been reported but not yet confirmed, it leaves the new Crystal starting out with a 28 year-old ship (Symphony) and a 20 year-old ship (Serenity). The competition — particularly Silversea, Seabourn and Regent — has many newer ships. And the river cruise ships — 4 out of 5 of which are less than 5 years old — seem like a valuable piece to one of the luxury cruise lines wanting to expand in that area. Aside from the metal, much of the Crystal staff has likely moved on with other cruise lines who have been struggling to staff up this year, so it's not as if the new Crystal will be able to magically pick up where the old company left off. It will be interesting to see how things develop.

@Randyk47 "Goodwill" in accounting has nothing to do with a nice "gesture" towards someone; it's a way of putting a specific value on the name or brand or value of its customer base or quality of management. (Technically, it's the value of the business that exceeds its assets minus the liabilities.)

I think the BIG difference is that people routinely book cruises 18, 24 or more months in advance, whereas the furthest in advance you can book air travel is 11 months. And the other Big difference is that a ail ticket might cost $60 or $100 and an airline flight might cost $600 or $1,000, whereas a cruise might cost $6,000 or $10,000 or more per person. Things change in life, and it's hard to be certain your plans or needs won't change 2+ years from now. People change jobs; people move; people see a third of their retirement fund evaporate (!); people have medical conditions which are non-life-threatening but alter the type of travel they are comfortable with; people have family commitments like weddings or birth of grandchildren come up which can't be anticipated 2+ years in advance; etc. The 15% non-refundable penalty will likely cause some customers not to book as far in advance, and take their chances with what's available closer to the time they want to cruise.

The federal support was so airlines could keep flying, and pay employees who would otherwise have been laid, off during 2020 when traffic dropped to about 10% of normal levels. It was not designed to, nor sufficient to, allow them to maintain 100% full employment over two years so they'd be fully staffed if/when travel demand ramped fully back up. And the aid to airlines didn't extend to other parties like airport workers, food suppliers, etc. who are all part of the airline ecosystem. Here's an article from the Washington Post from December which gives some of the financial background on the airline bailout.

Huh?? So MF is saying that the cruise lines all have variable rate loans tied to the Fed Funds rate? I don't think so. Did they all take out loans/sell notes at specific interest rates and durations? So this change in interest rates may change how much they'll pay in a year or two or longer if/when they need to borrow to pay off those loans or continue to fund operations — but it shouldn't affect their payments on their current loans. Right?

@ciaoYacht We've been on two Seabourn cruises which stopped at St. Lucia in the past year, both of which anchored in Rodney Bay — and the Piton excursion you mentioned was not available. I don't think you can ask them to add an excursion which isn't listed; there are myriad factors which go into their booking of tour operators. If you know what you want to do, and are willing to spring for the cost of the private vehicle, then that's probably the route to go. Or see if you can find out what company in Castries provides this tour, see if you can book directly with them, and if they'd pick up at Rodney Bay. I think most of the tour companies in Castries who offer that tour are likely to depart early in the morning, before you can be off the ship. So you might need to book a custom tour with someone. (If you can find others on your cruise who would sign on to do it with you, it might make it easier to find someone, or at least soften the price for the all-day outing.) The feasibility of doing this excursion largely depends on how much time you have ashore. Figure roughly four hours for the trip down the coast and back. I've read to allow two hours up and two hours down for the hike. (If you're in excellent shape, you might be able to do it a bit faster.) So that's 8 hours — not including a lunch stop — do you have 9 hours ashore to pull this off? On our trips there, we were listed as 8 am to 5 pm, which is 9 hours. But 8 am means the first excursions depart at 8 am, and you need to add at least 15 minutes for the tender ride ashore. And 5 pm generally means "all aboard" is at 4:30 pm. So our 9 hours in port really amounted to, at a maximum, just over 8 hours ashore. So this sounds very tight to me. And unlike if it's an excursion offered by Seabourn, if you get back too late, you will be stranded there! Also, while I'm a huge fan of Google Maps, I can tell you that you can't always judge travel time on St. Lucia by Google Maps! 😉 On our first stop there last fall, we did a rainforest tram excursion. The traffic on the 2-lane road around the Gros Islet area (between Rodney Bay and Castries) was awful, and it took us more than an hour to travel what should have been a 20-25 minute ride. Friends of ours did the same excursion on our second cruise, and they hit the traffic on the way back. Even if you don't hit that traffic, leaving from Rodney Bay instead of Castries adds at least 45 minutes round-trip, and that's likely enough difference why Seabourn doesn't offer this excursion when they anchor in Rodney Bay. Not that it's at all the same thing, but I'll mention that on our cruise in March, we departed Rodney Bay and the captain sailed down the coast of St. Lucia to the Pitons, where we sat and circled the bay for about half an hour as the sun went down. It was glorious seeing the Pitons at close range from the sea during that golden hour. I know, that's not the same as hiking up the mountain, but with champagne in one hand and my camera in the other, I was a very happy camper! (This all depends on the weather, the timing of sunset, and how far the ship has to travel that night, so you can't know in advance if you'll get such an opportunity.)

I agree, Hank. We were on Odyssey in October right before you, and again in March, and the cruises were pretty much excellent all around. The staff was wonderful, wines were good, meals were good — two great Seabourn experiences. I think the need to get crews up and running on two old ships and a new ship in a fairly short period of time this spring is where they ran into problems. Between former staff members not coming back after two years off and visa issues, they had a hard time getting enough staff, and some of that staff was new (new to Seabourn, if not new to cruising entirely). So they shuffled experience staff from the 3 ships which had been cruising to the 6 ships needing staff, and service suffered as they worked to get up to full staff capacity and fully-trained experienced staff. It should also be noted that some of the issues John complained about in his original post above have nothing to do with Seabourn staffing. The night lights next to the beds have been that way on Seabourn ships for years; I've always thought it was a clever idea which could be improved with lights which are less bright and which can be turned off. Ever-changing Covid testing requirements have been a challenge for all the cruise lines, and an annoyance for passengers on all cruise lines. (Read the Silversea board to hear an earful of the complaints on that subject. 😉 ) Keller nights in the Colonnade have always required reservations because they are popular. Earth and Ocean is always closed on nights when there is nighttime entertainment on the pool deck. A first-time Seabourn cruiser has no way to know those things in advance, of course, but they should be noted in the Herald/app/TV system the night before so it doesn't come as a last-minute surprise. Transfers to and from airports is always handled by a ground services company contracted by the cruise line, and they are often not as top-notch as the high-end cruise lines they serve. That all said, I absolutely understand how these experiences, on top of crew service issues and poor food coming out of the kitchen, can make for a less-than-satisfactory experience for a first-time Seabourn cruiser (and perhaps for overturn Seabourn cruisers as well).

You should ask your doctor for a Cover Recovery Letter for travel. In most cases, having such a letter stating you recovered from Covid within the past 90 days will exempt you from testing requirements, because of the chance a test may show positive from remnants of the virus in your system.

I think the disconnect here is that a contribution to the crew welfare fund is not the same as "a tip to the staff before a service." With a tip, you're putting money in a crew member's pocket, and yes, doing so at the start of a cruise, like sliding money to a maitre d', is essentially a bribe for better service. But crew members don't receive cash in their pockets from donations to the crew fund. The fund provides things to help crew members morale and experience, from buying bicycles crew members can use when they're off duty in ports to crew parties to helping a crew member fly home on short notice due to a family emergency. While crew members may see a lit of passengers who have contributed to the fund, and may thank a passenger for doing so, they haven't been paid in anticipation of special service. I respectfully disagree with that premise. Providing money to the crew fund, or even an individual tip (on a ship or otherwise), is an act of you thanking the staff member(s) for their service and hard work on your behalf. The giving of the tip/donation is what, hopefully, makes you feel good. I don't tip because I am paying to be thanked or praised. I hope my tip is appreciated, but I don't wait around for someone to thank me for my thank you, and I don't feel disappointed to not be thanked for my thank you. When I'm leaving a restaurant, I leave a tip and sometimes the server hasn't seen it by the time I leave; I don't feel disappointed not to be thanked have my generosity. I agree the cruise ship should acknowledge a contribution with a thank you note. (And perhaps things have changed since your experience in 2013, as many people have noted in recent years being acknowledged/thanked by that crew members who have seen that a contribution was made to the welfare fund.) But your satisfaction should come from knowing you did a good deed, not the payback you receive. Just my 2¢…

You may remember that the Wind had a major refurbishment in 2017, which included renovations of suites. The announced plans for the 2020 ice-class refurbishment stated that "all suites will undergo another full upgrade". Then the planned 2020 renovation was delayed multiple times due to Covid, and finally moved to a different shipyard in 2021; Silversea didn't make public pronouncements about which of the originally-planned upgrades got trimmed from the revamped 2021-22 renovations. It's certainly possible some suites updated in the first renovation were not updated a second time, or the updates were more minimal than originally planned.

It's annoying to have to pay for the extra test, especially if it may prove unnecessary, but now you can relax and not need to worry about testing logistics. That makes it worth the cost. And when you add it to the cost of the cruise, it's merely a small rounding error. 😉

Most Norway cruises travel both north and south along the coast, so both sides are viewing the coast at times. And you're generally too far off the coast for it to matter a great deal, anyway. When you're in one of the fjords, it's a dead end trip and you'll be sailing out the way you came in, so both sides of the ship will see both sides of the fjord (plus the captain may have the ship do a pirouette in the fjord). And of course, on a small ship, it's easy enough to get up on deck or to a lounge with a view. So I'd say it probably doesn't matter.

If Silversea wants to switch us from the Cloud to the Endeavor for our December Antarctica trip, I'd be fine with that. 😂

Well, if the shower head was a moveable mount, so you could direct the water towards the closed end — especially before getting in — they wouldn't be quite as bad. The decision to install a fixed shower head in the middle of the shower just seems like bad design. Also, in many bathrooms which use the half-open design, the controls are placed on the back wall or the wall nearest the open end, so it is easy to turn on without getting wet. But that requires more pipes in the walls, and they took the easy way out here. Having the controls low near the tub deck adds insult to injury if you're trying to get into the shower without getting blasted with cold water.

I think J.P. hit on the crux of this issue: the cruise line is caught between people who are cruising because they feel vax requirements and pre-cruise testing enable them to feel as safe as possible about spending prolonged time on a ship, and people who are not cruising because of the testing requirements and the chance of trip interruption with a negative test. I think the tide has been shifting towards more people wanting no testing, but there are a lot of people who booked in the past year feeling the cruise line would help protect them by maintaining testing requirements. Whichever way a cruise line decides right now will cost them passengers, and they are trying to thread the needle to make cruising feel plausible to the largest number of people.

This is one of those cases where I wish I had been wrong. 😉 Your vax status is fine. In the info SS has sent you, does that affect the need for a pre-cruise negative test? I thought they were different issues. In many locations, authorities are accepting PCR tests (which are more precise and more accurate overall) up to three days in advance, whereas an antigen test is good only two days (or sometimes one) in advance. In my reply above, I was just talking about PCR versus antigen tests.

I don't think it's concern about security in coastal Norway, but a larger adjustment of northern Europe cruises for next year. This year they scrambled to amend itineraries which had been scheduled to travel to Russia, but they likely looked at their planned 2023 season and decided it would make sense to make broader changes to itineraries. SS currently has Dawn, Moon, Wind and Cloud doing northern Europe itineraries in summer 2023; I wonder if they may have decided to reposition one of those ships elsewhere? St. Petersburg is a huge draw, and without it, they may be doing more than minor tweaks to the 2023 itineraries.

It's not Silversea's fault, as @natshala said. But it is a punitive penalty and it is unusual — so far, at least — in the cruise industry to require such a large non-refundable deposit. (And it's worth keeping in mind that a hypothetical 15% non-refundable deposit on a $1,000 5-day Princess cruise is in a different league than a 15% non-refundable deposit on a Silversea cruise, which typically starts around $10,000 per couple for a 7-day cruise to many times that for longer cruises and higher-level accommodations.) I respectfully disagree. Most travel insurance will not cover people changing their mind about future travel for reasons other than medical ones. And while there are so-called "cancel for any reason" policies, most people avoid them because they are both pricey and cover only a portion of the cost, not the entire amount. (Also, if one wasn't aware the deposit was non-refundable, one likely wouldn't have purchased insurance at the tine of booking; we generally wait until penalties kick in before paying for travel insurance.)

Here's a link to a brief news story about it. [Edit: Terry beat me with the link.] https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/27683-silversea-set-to-acquire-crystal-endeavor.html No price is mentioned, but it does say Silversea outbid several other cruise lines why tried to acquire the ship. It's not too surprising that this brand new ship is the first Crystal asset to be sold. Perhaps it's a little surprising that Manfredi Lefebvre D'Ovidio, who built Silversea before selling it, didn't emerge with the ship. He has offered to buy all or part of Crystal through his Heritage Group venture capital firm, which owns 90% of Abercrombie & Kent. Although the Endeavor is a smaller expedition ship, it's the gem among Crystal's otherwise older ships. This also probably dashes hopes some Crystal faithful had of someone buying and reviving the brand intact.

The wet landing I recall was on a gravel beach, and we were only in water up slightly above our ankles. The zodiac drivers and expedition crew are very good at getting you ashore; they will assist you stepping out of the zodiac and taking the couple of steps to dry land.

If you use a standard PCR testing facility which provides results in 3 days, then you risk not getting your results in time, or getting tested too early for them to get you on the ship. In the case of our two cruises in the past year, when a PCR test was required, we got a PCR test before leaving from a testing facility that guaranteed results within 24 hours. (The first trip, we paid $100 per person, but it was worth it for the peace of mind. The second trip, we found a place which billed it through our insurance, and we didn't pay anything! In both cases, we had our test results in under 24 hours.) If you get the test on the day before you leave, you can have the results that night or the following morning, and the results are good long enough for you to board the ship.

Whatever was true last week ain't necessarily so this week. 😉 Lois, I'd try to check directly with SS about this. While they originally said through June 30, the fact that they removed that language from your letter may indicate they aren't doing it at the end of June. Also, I dob't know if just staying in a hotel pre-cruise counts as a "pre-cruise land program"; I thought a "land program" referred to a 3-5 travel excursion before or after a cruise.

@jimdee3636 The cruise we did started in Reykjavik and cruised around the southern portion of Greenland. We ended in Kangerlussuaq. There was another segment which sailed farther up the west coast of Greenland and then crossed over to Canada and sailed south back along the Canadian side of Baffin Bay, and we were really sorry we didn't have the time or budget to do that second segment. We hope to go back in the future. Due to the oddities of the Silversea website (sigh!), I can't locate your cruise. But I think I can figure it out based on the 38 day Kangerlussuaq to Fort Lauderdale cruise, of which what you describe appears to be a 15-day segment (Sept 8-20) in the middle. Your Greenland portion is the same as our cruise, we turned north from the Southern tip of Greenland, where you head west over to Canada. If my memory is correct, only one of the excursions was a wet landing, as most of the small towns you'll visit have small docks where the zodiacs pull in and let you off on dry land. So you sort of do need the boots, but you won't really use them much. 😉

Jim, we did a Silver Cloud cruise to Greenland (from Iceland) pre-Covid. (So I don't know if anything has changed.) They didn't provide the boots for free; you could rent them or bring your own. We decided that since Antartica was on our near-future list, we'd buy our boots to make sure we had ones which fit (I wear a 13W and didn't want to chance not having boots which fit well) and which we'd be able to use at least a second time. But they are a challenge to pack, so I understand why many people choose to rent them.