cruiseej

I think this is a key for tempering expectations, particularly on the expedition ships which spend a large part of their cruising year in the far north and far south of the planet, when're StarLink has limited (or no) exposure.

And this illustrates differences of perception as well as real differences from ship to ship and cruise to cruise which make absolute comparisons impossible. We were on a 100% full Sojourn in late May and early June. We traveled with 5 other couples. We had breakfast and lunch most days in the Colonnade. We never had trouble getting tables out back, there were never long lines in any of the buffet areas, and I absolutely wouldn't call our experiences "zoo like". Again, I'm not doubting other people's experiences; I'm only noting we have different experiences, and perceive experiences differently.

We traveled Silversea to Antarctica this past winter. Two notes… 1) Silversea no longer cruises out of Ushuaia; their flights and ships go into and out of Puerto Williams, Chile. It's only 20 minutes down the channel, but there's not much of a town there compared to Ushuaia. It makes for a seamless transfer onto the ship and back. There's no overnight involved: plane to minibus to ship and reverse. Very quick and smooth. The flights from Santiago are early afternoon, and returning from Puerto Williams after breakfast on the ship in the morning — no travel in the wee hours of the morning. But if you want to go to Ushuaia first, I'm not sure there's an easy way to get to Puerto Williams; I think you need to fly back to Punta Arenas and on from there, going through customs between Argentina and Chile. 2) Silversea really elevates their charter flights compared to Seabourn. The Antarctic Airways regional jets are 2-across seating, so there's no middle seat. The planes are in pristine shape. You fly from a private terminal at the Santiago airport. The alcohol flows, and they make a decent effort on the food (although it wasn't great).

We were on Silversea in December, and it was communicated what the luggage limits for checked and carry-on baggage were, via a letter from Seabourn in My Silversea > Documents. Here's a screenshot of part of it: It appeared that most people tried to live within the limits. I did see one family show up at the hotel on the day of embarkation with two suitcases per person; their bags were being weighed and they were having discussions with the SS ground representatives, who were in turn talking to the airline — but they were eventually able to get all their luggage on. Unless the plane was truly at space capacity or 100% weight limit for the weather conditions (and how do they determine that without weighing the passengers?), who would it have served to tell them "you should have known the rules, so we can't let you take all your luggage"? I had a duffel bag with our boots and a few loose things and I asked at the desk if they wanted me to carry it on — it met the weight limit, but with the boots it was a big large for a carry-on on a small plane with small overhead compartments — or if they'd prefer to check it, as some airlines to do conserve overhead space. They said it could be checked, so we checked three bags. That violated their policy, yet it made sense: it was the same total weight going aboard the plane, and it left more overhead space for others. Enforcing the rule strictly would have worked, but it would have helped no one. So yes, there should be a policy, it should be communicated to passengers before their trip, but then common sense should prevail where there are questions or problems.

Ah! I did start to use my imagination, and came up with some odd thoughts about expressive visas! 🤣 In hindsight, "expensive" should have been a logical mental substitution; it just wasn't apparent to me at the moment.

You wrote: “I miss the formal nights.” So I was simply saying to dress in the way that makes you happy, and not let the (more casual) dress of others take away from your enjoyment of the evening. 😀

@cwn "expressive" visas?

As someone who wears size 13 Wide shoes, I feel your pain! 🤣 (I often get to bring only one pair of evening shoes for the duration of our travel!) Unfortunately, the 23 kg/50 pound per person limit is what we've seen on both Silversea and Seabourn for charter flights to/from excursion cruises. It hasn't mattered if we were on a large plane (our flight from Kangerlussuaq to Reykjavik a few years ago was on a chartered 767, surprisingly) or a small plane (like the Avro regional jets we had this past year flying between Santiago and Puerto Williams).

I think all the cruise lines are doing some experimenting and testing around more stringent deposits. For a long time, they've made it very easy for people to hold a cruise with a modest and mostly refundable deposit, and then decide if they really want to go 120 or 90 days in advance. It's a trend throughout the hospitality industry. More high-end restaurants are now requiring a credit card to hold a reservation, witch a change for no-show or last-minute cancellation. More hotels and auto rentals are offering their best prices if you make a non-refundable prepayment. And I think cruise lines — which have a much higher-cost product — are inevitably going to try to cut down on the late cancellations they can't resell, leaving cabins empty without generating revenue. In some cases, it may be requiring larger deposits. Or earlier penalty periods for cancellation. Or better prices for full prepayment. Or partially non-refundable deposits. Silversea, for instance, has gone to a split pricing scheme for higher-priced "door-to-door" and lower priced "port-to-port" fares, with the latter having a non-refundable 25% deposit. I expect to see the cruise lines continue testing what customers will accept and what they will rise up against, as they try to boost revenues and whittle down their massive debt from the Covid shutdown.

Go back another decade or so earlier, and everyone traveling on a plane flight would be dressed, men with suits or sport jackets. Or move forward a decade, and you'd be challenged to find anyone (man or woman) not wearing a suit in a law office, accountant's office, or bank any day of the week. But times change, styles change, customs change. I think it's fine to have fond memories of the customs of the past, but it's futile to wish to roll back dress to other eras. It's not a travesty. It's not terrible. It's just the way clothing styles incontrovertibly change over time.

50 pounds (US)/23 kg has long been the standard for domestic flights in the US and most non-transcontinental aircraft. 70 pounds (US)/32 kg is the standard for business and first class among US and European airlines. I've never been aware of any airlines which allow 99 pounds/45 kg in a single bag. Or did you mean that was total weight for two bags? We just visited Antarctica last winter on Silversea, a 21-day trip, and we had the same 50-pound checked limit for their charter flights to the tip of South America. I think all the luxury cruise lines using charter flights for similar expedition trips use the same standard. For the international trip from the US to Chile in business class, we could take two 70-pound suitcases each, so if we were continuing our travels after the expedition, I would have looked into whether we could store a bag in Santiago during our expedition trip. I think the optimal solution in your case traveling for four months is to be able to ship some luggage from place to place: home to a hotel or cruise ship, or visa versa. For instance, can you ship a suitcase to Oslo to pick up/have delivered to your hotel after your expedition trip?

@johng75370 That makes sense — as a symbol of cutbacks and as a symbol of hoped-for improvements.I just hope the new leadership team views this as a start, not a major accomplishment.

I don't think I'd wish those job duties on anyone! 🤣

I think they are all contractors. Blacklane does not own and operate limousines; it books small- to medium-sized limo companies in cities where it operates. It's a booking operator. But the Blacklane trips included by Silversea are for trips from your home to your departing airport, and back upon your return. Presumably, all in the same time zone! If you used the included Blacklane offer for rides in your cruise boarding or disembarkation city, I guess that works, but it's not what's intended to be done wit the D2D service. We have used Blacklane services for just one trip so far. Both our pickup at home and our pickup at the airport upon return were flawless. The friends we traveled with had an equally good experience.

@DeepFreeze63 Can you inquire if Andy will still be the CD in about 6 weeks when the Splendor is cruising around Iceland? Thanks. We board on August 23, so I'm just curious.

Perhaps they were going to tag you in their database to limit your alcohol consumption onboard in case you were pregnant! 🤣

So why not dress up, glam-it-up, and wear the clothes you want to wear? Why let it detract from your experience if someone at another table is dressed more casually?

It amuses me the amount of interest there is in the return of a bar of high-end soap, considering all the complaints about corporate-driven cutbacks and declining quality of food and wines compared to "the old days*. (*Define "old days" as the original Seabourn ships back in the late 1980s or the week before Covid shut the world down in 2020, however you see fit! 😉) Is this really something most longtime Seabourn customers truly care about seeing upgraded? I'd like to see slightly better-quality included wines, less-packed excursion buses, more live musicians rather than a DJ, the return of the original breadsticks and grandma's cake and perhaps fluffier towels! (That's partly tongue-in-cheek, partly serious, if it doesn't come accross in text.)

@RyanJCanada Thanks for your excellent travelogue; I've really enjoyed reading it. Which July trip? We're booked on the July 6 cruise. It would be a pleasure to meet you and your family if we happen to be on the same one.

@Les Picantins As others have indicated, it's often possible to board starting around noon or 12:30, irrespective of what assigned time they send you. BUT you should be aware that sometimes it depends on the port terminal operations. On our recent cruise out of Barcelona, Seabourn sent an email that no boarding would be available prior to 1 pm. We arrived around that time, and had to wait a short time for all the people who had queued up earlier to board before us. The issue is that a lot of people have the same goal as you do: to arrive early, board early, and go to lunch in the Colonnade. So there can sometimes be a crush of people checking in at the same time, resulting in a wait to board. Since you mention getting cranky if you're hungry, you should weigh your desire to have that first lunch in Colonnade versus the possibility you may be waiting in a cruise terminal for some time waiting to board, and getting cranky. Perhaps have a larger/later breakfast? Or perhaps have lunch where you're staying and arrive after 2 pm, when it's likely there will be no wait to get onboard. And then head straight to the bar for a cold champagne!

Since 20,000 leagues is a distance of 80,000 km, or over 40,000 nautical miles* — nearly twice the circumference of the Earth! So Verne's title refers to the distance traveled under the sea, not the depth. 😀 * Actually, different measures were used for a league in various countries, and even in the same countries over time. Which is why it's not a unit of measure used anywhere any longer!

Splendor, for just an 8-day trip in late August. (Traveling with my 95 and 93 year-old parents, we needed something fairly short and, hopefully, simple.) We started our cruising life when they took us on a Radisson cruise (the Paul Gauguin, back when the pre-Regent Radisson ran it), and did a number of Radisson/Regent cruises with them before we moved on to Seabourn and a few Silversea expeditions. So this Regent trip will be our first in a decade and will complete the circle, back to our original cruise line. I'm looking forward to seeing how it compares to Seabourn, which has been our favorite in recent years. Sorry we'll miss you!

The city itself is small, or course, but the surrounding countryside offers a wealth of things to see (as confirmed by the follow-up post). We spent three days in Iceland prior to a cruise Greenland a few years ago, and just nibbled at the southwestern corner of the country. This August, we're returning to Iceland for a circumnavigation cruise (on Regent, non-expedition, as it's for my dad's 95th birthday!), but I don't expect to see all Iceland has to offer. Some day, we hope to return to do the circumnavigation drive, which will show use much more than the cruise which pops in and out at a few spots. But this is like all cruising: you get a small taste of the ports you visit, but land-based touring will always make more available to experience.

Well, I cam back to find that the conversation had drifted just a 🤣 bit from the submarines. Nothing says they have to dive to 1,000 feet; that's just their limit. I suspect many dives are actually far less than that — to go where there's, hopefully, something worth seeing. As for what's there, this is from the Smithsonian Institution: "The area of the ocean between 650 and 3,300 feet (200-1,000 m) is called the mesopelagic. Barely any light filters down to these depths, and yet still life thrives here. Squid, krill, jellies, and fish are super abundant in this zone."

@Lawre Frustrated? No, not at all — just trying to have a friendly conversation. I'm sorry you seem miffed, or think I am. I thought I shared substantive information above, but it seemed not to be what you were looking for, so I was just trying to understand how you thought Seabourn had failed. You're correct that the sub which failed had several years of history of dives to the Titanic. Since before its first dive, though, experts from inside and outside the company raised concerns about the experimental design and the company's unwillingness to put the vessel through normal testing and certification procedures. The subs Seabourn is using utilize a longstanding and fully certified design; the company has been delivering its subs for nearly 20 years, and the subs for cruise ships for 8 years. Here's a link to explore if you're interested in seeing more about the Seabourn subs from the manufacturer. As I mentioned higher in the thread, there's a massive difference in the challenges of survival at the depths the Seabourn subs dive versus the ill-fated Titan. At its maximum depth of 1,000 feet, the Seabourn subs experience about 30 times more atmospheric pressure than at the surface; at more than 10 times that depth (the Titanic rests at 12,500 feet), the pressure on the Titan was 400 times more than the surface. Your original question in this thread, though, was about the release passengers sign. I have not seen anyone share a copy of the release, but it's not hard to imagine what it likely contains. Any activity with any degree of risk typically requires some form of Release of Liability/Assumption of Risk/Non-agency Acknowledgement. The standard form for scuba diving, for instance, includes the following language, and I would expect that the sub excursion release contains similar language: "In consideration of being allowed to participate in this [activity], I hereby personally assume all risks of this program, whether foreseen or unforeseen, that may befall me while I am a participant in this program. I further release, exempt and hold harmless said program… from any claim or lawsuit by me, my family, estate, heirs or assigns, arising out of my enrollment and participation in this program… I further state that I am of lawful age and legally competent to sign this liability release, or that I have acquired the written consent of my parent or guardian. I understand the terms herein are contractual and not a mere recital, and that I have signed this Agreement of my own free act and with the knowledge that I hereby agree to waive my legal rights… I understand and agree that I am not only giving up my right to sue the Released Parties but also any rights my heirs, assigns, or benefi- ciaries may have to sue the Released Parties resulting from my death. I further represent I have the authority to do so and that my heirs, assigns, or beneficiaries will be estopped from claiming otherwise because of my representations to the Released Parties."