Seabourn Pursuit Review

[calm down dear]

On 5/4/2024 at 1:06 AM, Catlover54 said:

 

Thank you for your review.  I understand you booked another cruise, so it was more than 'good enough' for you, but it was disappointing to read about the issues you reported, especially given the prices charged (even with adjustments for a lot of inflation).

 

Punta Arenas and Puerto Montt are set up so that usually regular tenders from cruise lines can dock there.  So why did the Pursuit have to use Zodiaks to get pax to shore there?  Do they simply not have a regular tender available in addition to their Zodiaks (like some expedition ships do, and those ships use tenders for "normal" ports and Zodiaks for more "expedition" oriented landings).

It isn't a deal breaker for me if one is primarily interested in the expedition destination that one reaches by Zodiak, but logistically, it is a bit of a pain to have to put on the whole open air Zodiak costume just to then get into a hot bus or van that takes you on a regular excursion after docking.  

Did you also embark and disembark using Zodiaks?

We did not embark or disembark by zodiac, we were docked. We were also docked in Punta Arenas. You are right tenders not used even though on a couple of occasions they would have been a better option for the reasons you mention. 

[stan01]

I suspect if they had used the tenders not the zodiacs there would be other people complaining that the zodiacs sat unused on an expedition cruise.  Seabourn seems to be pretty coy about where the zodiacs and submarine can be used; they know upfront where they are not legally allowed or the conditions generally are not conducive.  I'm not surprised to hear the submarines were not used on a repositioning cruise where they might be less familiar with the water conditions in each location.

[Mahogany]

48 minutes ago, stan01 said:

I suspect if they had used the tenders not the zodiacs there would be other people complaining that the zodiacs sat unused on an expedition cruise.  Seabourn seems to be pretty coy about where the zodiacs and submarine can be used; they know upfront where they are not legally allowed or the conditions generally are not conducive.  I'm not surprised to hear the submarines were not used on a repositioning cruise where they might be less familiar with the water conditions in each location.

My cruise was not a repositioning or "expedition" itinerary, just an expedition ship. See Post #24. I didn't expect the zodiacs to be used on that itinerary but was disappointed the submarines could not be used anywhere.

[calm down dear]

7 hours ago, stan01 said:

I suspect if they had used the tenders not the zodiacs there would be other people complaining that the zodiacs sat unused on an expedition cruise.  Seabourn seems to be pretty coy about where the zodiacs and submarine can be used; they know upfront where they are not legally allowed or the conditions generally are not conducive.  I'm not surprised to hear the submarines were not used on a repositioning cruise where they might be less familiar with the water conditions in each location.

I can assure you that if you are being transferred to a bus for a long all day excursion a tender would be far less faff. Agree zodiac for true expedition landings but not all ports are “expedition”. On submarine I think they are conscious of cost v what you will see and also the time, on our trip we “moved” location sometimes many times in the day to follow whales or out of wind or for a different perspective, you can’t do that with submarines deployed.

[markandjie]

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I hope they sunset the submarine program at some point. The subs are largely gimmicky IMO (and I say that having been on them once and had a great time), and operating them is a big burden on the expedition team which takes away from other expedition activities, especially kayaking. Generally speaking they also seem to cancel as often as they're used, which I think puts a bad taste in guests' mouth. Not sure what not having subs would do to competitive positioning, but the reality is that it's a suboptimal program, no pun intended.