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What is status of SD’s Miami office now?

JES4845

By JES4845,
in SeaDream Yacht Club

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JES4845

JES4845

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Recall that back in March, SD cited the mandatory closure of non-essential offices in Miami for the delays in processing refund requests because any remaining SD employees would be working from home.

 

We live in South Florida and read in the paper today that Miami reopened non-essential offices yesterday,  May 20, with new safety rules.

 

Would welcome any information as to the status of the Miami office and employees there if anyone has such info to share.  Thanks.

 

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ExoticDestinations

ExoticDestinations

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On 5/21/2020 at 5:25 PM, Jim Avery said:

This screen shot shows the 601 Brickell office open at present and closing at 7pm.  Who knows if that is true?

seadream yacht club miami office - Google Search.webarchive 2.23 MB · 10 downloads

 

Ok, screen shot didn't work.  Good thing I don't work for Google.....🍸

 

Miami City is allowing non-retail to be open again as of last week and the Brickell Key building is open to all tenants.  But SD office is still closed and remaining employees have been warned not to attempt to go there.  Rumor is they are still not paying rent and not going to move back in anytime soon, if at all.

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JES4845

JES4845

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8 minutes ago, ExoticDestinations said:

 

Miami City is allowing non-retail to be open again as of last week and the Brickell Key building is open to all tenants.  But SD office is still closed and remaining employees have been warned not to attempt to go there.  Rumor is they are still not paying rent and not going to move back in anytime soon, if at all.

 

Thanks for the update.   We live north of Miami an hour or so and saw that about office buildings beginning to reopen.  Note that in the SD Captain’s Blog linked in another thread here today the Oslo office is referred to as the European office, implying there is still some kind of office in the USA or elsewhere, but who knows.  Note also yet a different series of postings including mine that SD’s president was switched to the owner’s son in Florida corporate records only last month (after lock down of the Miami office and furloughing of most staff).

 

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ExoticDestinations

ExoticDestinations

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Quick update from one of my FB Friends over in FL: The SD Office in Miami, which had been shuttered since March, was permanently abandoned in mid-June. Folks who had personal items were given same-day notice to grab what they could.  There are no plans to open another US office as they are still running a skeleton crew at about 20% normal staffing levels, all working from home.    

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cburger100

cburger100

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Quick update from one of my FB Friends over in FL: The SD Office in Miami, which had been shuttered since March, was permanently abandoned in mid-June. Folks who had personal items were given same-day notice to grab what they could.  There are no plans to open another US office as they are still running a skeleton crew at about 20% normal staffing levels, all working from home.    

[emoji22]


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andreas_seadream

andreas_seadream

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Andreas from SeaDream here. I would like to provide my perspectives on what is being written here:

 

We have an office in Miami. In the Courvoisier Center on Brickell Key where we have had our offices for the past 14 years. No one has been "given same-day notice to grab what they could". We are not running a "skeleton staff" or at a "20%" staffing level. In fact, we are fully staffed. We are fewer people now than we were when we were going to launch SeaDream Innovation, but we have more employees in the US now than we have been on average for the past 15 years. This is a staffing level we are planning on having during the pandemic - and after the pandemic. Even if we cannot operate our yachts. It is, in fact, the staffing level we are planning until we increase our fleet size (which we are very much interested in doing despite Covid). Some employees are working reduced hours due to unfortunate, but obvious, reasons (it is hard to visit travel agents when there is a pandemic going on) and all employees are working from home. Those of you living in Florida understand why we are not sending people to the office. We already have had employees getting Covid (even during the "home office" period), but we will continue to work from home as long as it is the right thing to do.

 

The US has been our most important market since day one, and there is no reason why that should change once the pandemic starts to ease. This summer we have had mostly guests from Norway since we moved our ships there, but we expect a typical distribution of where guests come from once the world returns to normal.

 

PS! We could have done a much better job at communcating during this initial stage of the pandemic and I fully understand that lack of communication from us is the best way to fuel rumors and speculations. Not going to excuse why we have done a bad job, other than to say that we are in the mist of the worst crisis the cruise industry has ever seen. We were prepared to handle a "normal" crisis like a hurricane or an onboard situation, but for the industry to shut down almost overnight, no, we were neither staffed nor prepared for that.

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jimdee3636

jimdee3636

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11 hours ago, andreas_seadream said:

Andreas from SeaDream here. I would like to provide my perspectives on what is being written here:

 

We have an office in Miami. In the Courvoisier Center on Brickell Key where we have had our offices for the past 14 years. No one has been "given same-day notice to grab what they could". We are not running a "skeleton staff" or at a "20%" staffing level. In fact, we are fully staffed. We are fewer people now than we were when we were going to launch SeaDream Innovation, but we have more employees in the US now than we have been on average for the past 15 years. This is a staffing level we are planning on having during the pandemic - and after the pandemic. Even if we cannot operate our yachts. It is, in fact, the staffing level we are planning until we increase our fleet size (which we are very much interested in doing despite Covid). Some employees are working reduced hours due to unfortunate, but obvious, reasons (it is hard to visit travel agents when there is a pandemic going on) and all employees are working from home. Those of you living in Florida understand why we are not sending people to the office. We already have had employees getting Covid (even during the "home office" period), but we will continue to work from home as long as it is the right thing to do.

 

The US has been our most important market since day one, and there is no reason why that should change once the pandemic starts to ease. This summer we have had mostly guests from Norway since we moved our ships there, but we expect a typical distribution of where guests come from once the world returns to normal.

 

PS! We could have done a much better job at communcating during this initial stage of the pandemic and I fully understand that lack of communication from us is the best way to fuel rumors and speculations. Not going to excuse why we have done a bad job, other than to say that we are in the mist of the worst crisis the cruise industry has ever seen. We were prepared to handle a "normal" crisis like a hurricane or an onboard situation, but for the industry to shut down almost overnight, no, we were neither staffed nor prepared for that.

Andreas:

 

Thanks!

 

I wish every cruise line had someone like you monitoring these boards and providing accurate and useful information.

 

Jim

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vandrefalk

vandrefalk

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Thank you Andreas for the reality check and contradicting the misinformation from other posters.  While we all wish SD were more forthcoming about things- that is perhaps a lesson learned.  Know we wish you all the best and we hope to return when we can!

vandrefalk

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YachtCruiser

YachtCruiser

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On 8/3/2020 at 4:31 AM, ExoticDestinations said:

Quick update from one of my FB Friends over in FL: The SD Office in Miami, which had been shuttered since March, was permanently abandoned in mid-June. Folks who had personal items were given same-day notice to grab what they could.  There are no plans to open another US office as they are still running a skeleton crew at about 20% normal staffing levels, all working from home.    

I have been watching your replies/posts for some time....and please dont bother us no more with false rumours and lies. 


 

Thanks Andreas for the update,

we wish you guys all the best going forward!! 

 

Hope to be onboard in the Med later this year or next ! 

 

:) 

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ExoticDestinations

ExoticDestinations

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On 8/11/2020 at 12:48 PM, YachtCruiser said:

I have been watching your replies/posts for some time....and please dont bother us no more with false rumours and lies. 


 

Thanks Andreas for the update,

I went back to my source with Andreas' posting to verify, and am satisfied nothing I posted was false, misinformation or a lie. 

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

 

These are the same word-games they played back in March when they changed the refund policy on a separate web page outside their Terms and Services page. Then say "Look at our terms" as justification for holding on to deposits.

 

He could be coming on here to instead answer questions or give updates, not spreading his own brand of misinformation on irrelevant minutia that can be easily fact-checked. 

 

K.

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