cruiseej

Just because Florida is a huge citrus state, that doesn't translate to citrus being in a container loaded onto a ship during the day it's in port for turnaround. There are typically multiple levels of suppliers involved — e.g. Seabourn/HAL/Carnival contracts with a big conglomerate for certain provisions; the conglomerate contracts with a large citrus cooperative; the citrus cooperative contracts with a local wholesale supplier. Even though the "global supply chain" in this case may not need to reach around the world, all the companies need to execute, have the ordered provisions in stock, and have drivers to get them to their destination on time. It can be as simple as a driver being out sick, a truck breaking down, or being caught in a traffic accident, to prevent a load of provisions from making it onto a ship in the few-hour window that's available in the port. To me, it's actually remarkable that most provisions make it onboard most ships most of the time! 😉 (And while it's possible for someone on a ship to sometimes go ashore to a market to purchase a needed supply, if they're expecting a supply and it doesn't show up, there's generally not enough time to go shopping once it's discovered something was missing from a delivery.)

On the SS cruise with three days in Saudi Arabia, passengers reported that ALL alcohol was locked up and open bottles, sadly, poured out. Alcohol was not allowed in suites; it was truly a "dry" cruise until the ship left Saudi waters. (But as noted by others here, potential Saudi ownership does not necessarily equate to new operating standards as if the ships were operating in Saudi Arabia.)

@samanina I'm not questioning your recent experience at all, but I think it's important (especially for others booked on Seabourn cruises in the future who are concerned reading your report) to know that this has not been the universal experience for people traveling on Seabourn recently. We were on the Odyssey in late-February/early-March, and out experience was very different — in a positive way — than yours; we had a wonderful trip, and none of the issues you mentioned. (And the same when we sailed Odyssey back in October.) How can things change so much on a ship in a short period of time? I suspect Seabourn staffing up to resume cruising on the Sojourn and Quest, as well as launching the Venture, is a major culprit. If they haven't been able to hire and train all the staff they need in a short period of time, and they pulled a lot of experienced staff to ramp up the new and returning-to-service ships, it could account for a lot of staff problems. So my hope would be that your experience was more of a short-term aberration, and not in fact the new normal. Only time will tell.

While I agree that Cruise Saudi, the tourism organization devoted to cruising, has been building up their ports and tourism infrastructure, I'm not sure that's a reason for the Saudi Public Investment Fund (which is separate) would buy Seabourn. Are these the most attractive ships available (at a time when many cruise lines are looking to trim their holdings), and best suited for Saudi cruises? Surely not the two newest ships, which are built for expeditions and especially polar cruising. Again, this is all speculation, but I'd think if the PIF were to buy Seabourn, at the likely high valuation it would have, they would want to keep it running as (some version of) Seabourn. The ships are valuable, but so is the brand and the customer base. I'm not sure it would pay for them to buy the ships just for the ships while discarding the brand and customers. If they just want ships, there are Crystal ships which are doubtless available for a lower cost.

I think there are a few reasons some people are unhappy with the current pricing. (And since we're told SS executives read the comments on this site, the complaints about the pricing do serve a purpose, if that's true. 😉 ) Here's where the problems come about… If you don't need or can't use the included air and home/airport transfer — because you have airline points, because you don't travel from a gateway airport, because you live too far from the airport to the transfer, because the transfer service isn't available in your city, etc. — you have two options: (1) decline the D2D included air and transfer for a cost reduction, or (2) switch to a lower-cost P2P fare. The problem with #1 is that the credit/cost reduction for not using the air and transfer is often considerably less than the amount SS increased the based fare when moving to D2D pricing. The problems with #2 are that P2P fares aren't offered for many cruises, and for those where it is, you get the a la carte fare you've had in the past but now incur a 15% penalty should you cancel. If SS had lowered prices for P2P fares, in return for the cancellation penalty, that would be a plausible trade-off and there wouldn't be complaints. But of course, they didn't lower fares while implementing this penalty. If SS made the D2D price, after subtracting air and transfers, comparable to previous fares, there wouldn't be complaints. But of course, they raised prices by more than just the cost of the air and the transfer, and made the non-use credits less than the price increases. I think if they were able to be completely transparent, they might have said something like this: "After the losses we've incurred over the past two years due to Covid, combined with inflation's impact on everything from our staff salaries to fuel and food costs, we are raising our prices — and more than we typically have. Although the price to cruise is now higher, we do now give you the simplicity of included air and included transfers for one set price, as well as the option to decline these services if you prefer to make your own travel plans." Had they said that, some would have grumbled that the prices were too high, but it would have been pretty straightforward and most would have accepted it. Instead, they obfuscated with higher D2D prices in the name of luxury, and optional P2P prices which penalize longtime customers with cancellation penalties and smaller discounts. As @Caxe just wrote while I was typing this, it's marketing optics, and they chose smoke and mirrors and fare complexities rather than straightforward clarity and simplicity.

@les37b No, that's backwards. A quick antigen test is more prone to false negatives than a PCR test. So when your wife got a negative antigen test but then failed a PCR test, it was the antigen test which was incorrect with a false negative; the PCR test yielded the more accurate result, and thus your quarantine.

Rotation of staff can result in short-term changes (either good and bad). We've been on two Seabourn Odyssey cruises in the past year, the most recent less than three months ago, and we did not find things had slipped. To the contrary, food and service was wonderful, even magical because the ships were so much less than full. I'm not a cheerleader and I'm not contradicting the less-than-positive experiences some have shared here — I'm just noting people haven't been having uniformly negative experiences.

The airlines you mention are from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, two independent countries countries which are not the same as or part of Saudi Arabia. The UAE and Qatar are more modernized and considered much more progressive than Saudi Arabia. There are longstanding concerns with restrictive human rights policies in Saudi Arabia even before the assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by government agents in 2018. A purchase by the Saudi investment fund might provide capital to improve the cruise line. Or it might lead to measures to cost-cutting to improve profitability in their investment (fewer staff? no caviar? alcoholic beverages not included? who knows?) which would not make Seabourn loyalists happy. In any case, many people would not choose to spend money on a cruise line owned by the Saudi government.

I don't write a daily travelog, but I definitely have posted while aboard, and even communicated with fellow passengers via CC while aboard. I have never discussed posting on social media with any crew member. It's hard for me to imagine that a crew member on a ship hears that a passenger is posting on CC, goes to a manager or the Hotel Director, and gets their IT staff to temporarily block posting to this specific site due to one passenger aboard posting, and then the block is removed after the passenger has disembarked. I wonder if there's some coincidental different explanation for the occasional blockages several people have experienced.

I wonder how this factor gets built into the price valuation? Surely the Saudis would know that some existing Seabourn customers would turn away and not sail on a Saudi-owned Seabourn line — but how many? That has to figure into the valuation from their end. From Carnival's end, though, they shouldn't be willing to build in a reduction in price because the new ownership would alienate and drive away some customers. So how do they arrive at a mutually agreeable price? Unless CCL is just eager to get cash and willing to part with their luxury brand at a discounted price…

I am sure there are many more followers of the two Seabourn groups on Facebook than people who follow the Seabourn forum here on CC. I'm surprised they would bother to block a specific site on an ad hoc basis. I can only say I've posted to CC on every Seabourn cruise we've been on.

We were on two Odyssey cruises in the past year, the most recent ending in March, and I had no blockage with the CC website.

Seabourn generally offers a sightseeing tour ending at the airport on cruises which end in Barbados. You can see this on the Seabourn website or app where you select excursions. We've done the tour/transfer twice in the past year. There was no option for a day room offered. I think FlightEase includes only a direct airport transfer.

Hank, I think the distinction here is that there is a significant difference between having a company which is wholly owned by the Saudi investment fund and a company in which the Saudi fund has a small minority investment. You're correct that it would be difficult to boycott, let alone find out, every company in which the Saudi fund has investments, as it is known for not being very transparent. But that's different than if the Saudis outright purchase an entire cruise line. I'd also note that even if one wouldn't object to traveling on a Saudi-owned cruise line, the separation of Seabourn from CCL would have lots of impact, because many pieces of Seabourn's operations are currently integrated with the parent company and especially corporate sibling Holland America (with which it shares headquarters). From procurement to IT to HR, it would be a huge job to separate Seabourn from Carnival and Holland America, and it would take time to see how this might impact everything from reservations to onboard provisions and staff.

Well, I hope we get to meet on the third try for both of us. 🙂 Same here, although we got a good deal on the business class upgrade with our multiple cancellations. Last year, Silversea booked our air for December in March. When I asked our travel agent about booking our air this year, she told me that Silversea had shortened the timeframe for air bookings from 270 days out to 200-170 days out. I guess it's due to the turmoil with airlines frequently changing flight schedules as they fight ongoing changes in demand due to Covid as well as staffing shortages. We had our TA put in a deviation request in order to fly to Santiago a day early. (Flying from the east coast in mid-December is always at risk for weather, and we don't want a flight delay to make us miss this trip!) I noticed last week that, to my surprise, there were flights showing on MySilversea. And they were awful! Flying from Philadelphia to Atlanta to Miami to Santiago, instead of just Philadelphia to Miami to Santiago… with an 8 hour layover in Atlanta… and then a less-than-one-hour connection with a change of airlines, in Miami. Seriously? What algorithm decided that was a good plan? Fortunately, with help from our TA, as of yesterday our flights were changed to the ones we originally requested. Whew! If you haven't requested to pay for a deviation, I'd guess that your flights will be booked in the next month or so.

That's what I was thinking when I read this thread. 😉 On the Silversea website, the Antarctica Bridge trips are still listed as flying from Punta Arenas. But Silversea announced last month that they were using Puerto Williams as the turnaround location for all cruises on the Cloud and Wind as well as the flights to Antartica for the Explorer. We know that the cruise listings on the SS website can take a long time to be updated after changes have been made, and I think that's the case here.

And after shuttling around the Mediterranean for the past six weeks, the Wind docked today back in Piraeus, presumably preparing to board passengers in four days for her return to cruising after a 26 month pause for Covid and ice-class makeover. We were scheduled to be on the Wind in Antarctica in December 2020, and then again in December 2021, but both cruises were canceled. We're booked on the same cruise in December 2022 and hoping the third time will be the charm — but the holiday cruise to South Georgia Island was switched to the Cloud for this year, so after all my obsessive following of the Wind for the past several years, we won't even sail on her when we go to Antarctica this winter! Hopefully the changes Silversea made to the Wind's conversion, informed by what they learned from the Cloud's earlier conversion, will make for excellent expedition cruising for years to come. I look forward to reading reports from passengers on the Wind's first few cruises.

The Wind is docked today in Piraeus, presumably preparing to board passengers on Saturday for her return to cruising after a 26 month pause for Covid and ice-class makeover. We were scheduled to be on the Wind in Antarctica in December 2020, and then again in December 2021, but both cruises were canceled. We're booked on the same cruise in December 2022 and hoping the third time will be the charm — but the holiday cruise to South Georgia Island was switched to the Cloud for this year, so after all my obsessive following of the Wind for the past several years, we won't even sail on her when we go to Antarctica this winter! Hopefully the changes Silversea made to the Wind based on what they learned from the Cloud's earlier conversion will make for excellent expedition cruising for years to come.

Yes, of course, we need to wait to see what they come out with. I think the concern expressed here is a hope that they not repeat what many see as the problematic way Silversea has added included air to most of their prices. If Seabourn simply switches the default from cruise-only with optional air add-on to air-inclusive with optional removal of air, and the prices remain essentially the same, I don't see any problem with that. But if they raise the price of a cruise by, say, $3,000 per person for air-inclusive, and offer a $1,000 credit for removing air, that's where things would be problematic.

Thanks. And that makes sense. I was conflating the people being bussed to Ravenna and people being bussed over to the Marghera/Fusina dock on the mainland side of the Venetian lagoon; I think those use the Marittima cruise terminal for check-in because there aren't facilities at the industrial port.

@curmudgeon98 So do you check in and drop your bags at the Marittima cruise terminal, then walk to the Marittima People Mover station, and take the short train ride over to Tronchetto for the bus to Ravenna? Or is cruise check-in handled on Tronchetto?

Oh, you mean back when we couldn't ask questions and share information with friends and people we had never met via an online forum... I get it. 😉

It can do a "sail by" visit, but wouldn't be allowed to do any landings if the number of passengers was above 500. While Dawn can accommodate 596 guests, they could certainly limit it to under 500. However, since Dawn is not equipped with zodiacs for landings, I'm not sure whether it would be doing anything but scenic cruising in the region.

I quite agree! We've been turned off to Silversea's sometime-confusing and often-illogical new pricing. I think there's a simple vector for Seabourn to follow if they add air by default and make it easy to opt out of for a reasonable reduction in cost. Currently, they default to no air, and customers have to opt in to use Seabourn air; they could flip it to default to included air, and customers have to opt out to book their own air. As long as the credit for not using Seabourn air is reasonable, Seabourn would likely sell more air tickets (and make some profit in the process) while keeping it easy for travelers who want to book air on their own. Surely they understand some people want to use air miles or select their airline of choice, so if they make opting out of included air simple and logically-priced, I don't see this change as problematic. But if they go down the road Silversea has gone with their "door-to-door" pricing, baking in overall price increases and offering under-valued opt-outs, they will be repeating the mistakes that has some Silversea customers walking away and looking for alternatives.

I don't think it was a charter, since it had been sitting in Souda harbor for awhile, sailed to Kusadasi, and then sailed back to Souda. She's scheduled to arrive in Piraeus on the 24th, in advance of passengers boarding on the 28th. Looking forward to hearing reports from those aboard the first sailing.