Kids on Seadream

[West Coast 1K]

My wife and I traveled on SD for the first time this past summer. There were 3 families with young children (under 8). I can say without reservation that the kids were incredibly well behaved and had absolutely no impact on our voyage. Indeed, what I noticed were adults who were much more likely to be loud and/or difficult. From my perspective, the problem is not children, but rather, with parents who either don't discipline their children and teach them manners as well as adults who feel entitled on the ship. I have no issues with traveling with children on board my next SD so long as they behave appropriately/respectfully (which I could say the same about adults as well). Also, parents need to use some common sense. Taking kids on a trip with many ports and activities might be fine whereas a crossing voyage...not so much. Just my 2 cents.

[knotheadusc]

This might be good reading for those looking for an adults only experience...

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/9148587/Travel-advice-adults-only-cruise-voyages.html

[frequent traveler]

My wife and I traveled on SD for the first time this past summer. There were 3 families with young children (under 8). I can say without reservation that the kids were incredibly well behaved and had absolutely no impact on our voyage. Indeed, what I noticed were adults who were much more likely to be loud and/or difficult. From my perspective, the problem is not children, but rather, with parents who either don't discipline their children and teach them manners as well as adults who feel entitled on the ship. I have no issues with traveling with children on board my next SD so long as they behave appropriately/respectfully (which I could say the same about adults as well). Also, parents need to use some common sense. Taking kids on a trip with many ports and activities might be fine whereas a crossing voyage...not so much. Just my 2 cents.

 

We have had most of our voyages with well behaved children so have never cringed when seeing them on board until our last voyage on SD, which will be our last until we can travel in non school holiday when you run less the risk of an "unruly pack of hellions"

 

Regent does not ban children but when heavily booked will sometimes run a children's program. We've booked but had to cancel AZAMARA and are trying out Silversea. None ban children, but all have balcony cabins which would give me the quiet outdoors space I would like to escape to but don't have on SD when overrun by undisciplined parents. As noted above in port intensive places such as Alaska where we are off the ship by 8 and not back on often until 8, the no of children isn't an issue. But on small Greek or Croatian ports where everyone is back aboard and you are even sailing in the afternoon as is the case with SD, there is no quiet outdoor space. I have often chided Jim Avery for continuing to bring up our first cruise from hell when almost 1/3 the passengers were teens or under thinking SD had changed its policies to the better. Sorry JA, I was wrong.

 

Now SD has clearly changed again, no longer marketing itself as directed to couples. We won't play the $10 k roll the dice gamble. If SD has to change its business model to stay in business, I hope it succeeds. But we won't be supporting the current business model. I have a limited no of vacation days - so we will be taking a European river cruise and land based trips. I used to compare SD to a 4 Seasons hotel. The service is still on par, but management at a 4 Seasons would never let a guest's experience be ruined like SD now does.

 

FT

[commander courageous]

Thanks for the update on competing line's policies, or lack of.

 

As I suspected, few have an outright prohibition of kids, though all do their

best to rein in the unruly little ones.

 

As West Coast I observed, they had experienced more problems with entitled

adults than children. We couldn't agree more!

 

In a nutshell, guess we'll continue to stick to SD until we are put off by the

experiences many have related in this thread. With that, we're off to

Asia.

[JES4845]

Commander you are indeed courageous! Agree the parents are as much if not more of the problem than kids themselves, but either way it is a problem and can be a major one at that. We are firmly in the camp that the high cost isn't worth the roll of the dice anymore after what we experienced last month, both onboard and as to how SD Miami dismissed and disregarded them. This forum has served its function of sharing views and information. Anyone going on SD is forewarned of the risks and what can happen when the roll of the dice comes up badly. Each can make their own decision to go or not to go. May your roll of the dice work out well. My only ask is that as folks travel they report back to keep the flow of accurate information up to date! Thanks to all whether we agree or not.

[wripro]

The big difference is that SD ships are 5000 tons, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL. If there are rowdy kids there is no place to get away from them. A Regent ship is ten times as large. Crystal ships up to 12 times as large. Even the new Seabourn ships are almost 7 times as large. This means there are places one can escape to. That said, imo children don't belong on any of these lines but on a 5000 ship the only place you can get away is in your cabin.

[lincslady]

The big difference is that SD ships are 5000 tons, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL. If there are rowdy kids there is no place to get away from them. A Regent ship is ten times as large. Crystal ships up to 12 times as large. Even the new Seabourn ships are almost 7 times as large. This means there are places one can escape to. That said, imo children don't belong on any of these lines but on a 5000 ship the only place you can get away is in your cabin.

 

And it is a cabin, not a suite - pretty small, with a minute bathroom, and sadly the bed under the window rather than the sitting area.

[commodoredave]

We will be doing our first SD cruise in mid-December and do not anticipate major issues with children in that timeframe. Having said that, we do not like rolling the dice on a luxury-priced cruise and will be more careful in future. Interestingly, while we deal with a major NA travel agency that sits on the advisory board of most luxury lines, our agent was not familiar with the issues SD has been experiencing with respect to children. We directed her to this CC thread and she was grateful for the info, and said she would now be more careful about booking her clients on SD during school holiday periods. So perhaps the best way to get our message across to SD is not directly, but through our respective travel agents who have much more clout than each of us do as individuals.

Edited October 4, 2013 by commodoredave

[JES4845]

Good point! Shows why Dave was promoted to commodore in the first place! We have always booked directly with SD Miami for better or worse as we don't use a TA for our other travels. Those who do can help implement the TA approach. We tried to direct SD Miami to this thread several times to show we aren't alone in our concerns. We haven't been invited to any parties so those of you who have should feel lucky!

[Jim Avery]

Good point! Shows why Dave was promoted to commodore in the first place! We have always booked directly with SD Miami for better or worse as we don't use a TA for our other travels. Those who do can help implement the TA approach. We tried to direct SD Miami to this thread several times to show we aren't alone in our concerns. We haven't been invited to any parties so those of you who have should feel lucky!

 

JES, don't feel bad, we have not received any invites either. Possibly our opinions preceded us? Heck, PC won't even respond to

My email.

[frequent traveler]

JES, don't feel bad, we have not received any invites either. Possibly our opinions preceded us? Heck, PC won't even respond to

My email.

 

Add us to the no invitation list also.

But we too have voiced concerns to 2 different TAs.. One who does nothing but luxury trips

 

FT

[vandrefalk]

Lodging complaints has nothing to do with invitations!:eek:

I've alerted Miami more than once about the "kid" threads and my TA (who also works for a MAJOR travel agency and specializes in luxury cruises). It just depends on one's location -- I happen to live in a place where folks do a lot of travel. Ms. Conover seems to be hitting some of the larger markets is all. Suprisingly, two SD/CC couples will be visiting us at the time and we plan to attend. We will faithfully report!

Vandrefalk

[cwaj45]

We haven't been invited to any of the parties or gotten any of the emails with the discounts. i don't really care about the parties but do care about not getting the emails with discounts. We are booked on the November 9, 2013 BCB going from Barbados to Panama and Costa Rica. They are now really discounting the 5 Costa Rica cruise since our final payment. That may have something to do with why we haven't gotten the discount emails. We have been probably on 6 or more Seadream cruises and a couple of Seagoddess cruises in the old days. We have another Seadream booked for January. I don't like the way they do their marketing at all. We cruise other lines and are tending to choose other lines more and more. You would think Seadream would do more for their loyal customers instead of making them feel like they are being taken advantage of.

[vandrefalk]

We are on the same cruise with you in November, cwag45! And it does look like they have lowered the price on the 5 day portion, which tells me they may be having trouble filling that one. They did this on the inaugural cruise to Norway in 2011 and I got the price reduction even after final payment. However, we booked this when it first came out -- then the price went up -- now it's back down. I don't think it's worth it to pursue this time as it's not significant from the first price.

 

I think you only get these price reduction emails/offers if you're not already booked -- which makes sense. I don't think it's uncommon for any line to discount a cruise if they are not filling it -- just like airlines, hotels, etc. It would be nice to get a price reduction, but it doesn't make much business sense and I don't know of anyone else who does it?

 

Vandrefalk

[whatnot]

I'm not booked and I did not get the email! Don't understand how they put together their email list!

[cwaj45]

I can totally understand the discounting and don't have a problem with that.we just have the bad luck of buying high. Seems to be The story of our lives. l don't like they way they target certain people for there emails. In the past I've read about email offers that I didn't get that might have influenced me to book a cruise. Who knows how they decide to target. From what I've learned There is a small group of 11 or so cabins on the Costa Rica cruise we're on. I hope it's a nice group! I look forward to meeting you onboard.

[CDreamer]

I'm not booked and I did not get the email! Don't understand how they put together their email list!

 

I HAVE been getting these rate reduction/promo emails from SD.... Most likely because several years ago I simply signed up on their website where it says: "Sign Up For Yacht Mail"! ;)

 

They don't send out a lot of these emails over the course of a year, but I do seem to get the same email notifications that a couple of posters here say they have also received.

 

So, unless someone here has found this not to be the case, not receiving these emails from SD has nothing to do with who has complained too much, booked the highest number of SD cruises in a year, consumed the most Painkillers during the Splash, or anything else! You just need to sign up on their website and get on their mailing list. :D

Edited October 7, 2013 by CDreamer

[cwaj45]

I'm signed up and get a lot of the emails just not all of them. I think it is a marketing thing that probably all cruise lines do to some extent.

[cwaj45]

Just for fun I added another email that I don't use as much. It will be interesting to see if one gets emails and the other doesn't.

[knotheadusc]

I'm signed up and get a lot of the emails just not all of them. I think it is a marketing thing that probably all cruise lines do to some extent.

 

I notice that sometimes I don't get the private sale emails either. I did this last time, but I do think SeaDream sometimes doesn't send the same one to everyone on the list.

[CDreamer]

Just for fun I added another email that I don't use as much. It will be interesting to see if one gets emails and the other doesn't.

 

That's a good test, cwaj45. Be sure to report back when/if you receive any SD email updates.

 

As I said, they don't send a lot of these emails... But some are certainly better than none! :p

[wripro]

Maybe they're sending the emails mostly to kids on Sea Dream since that is their new target demographic!!!!!

[Jim Avery]

Maybe they're sending the emails mostly to kids on Sea Dream since that is their new target demographic!!!!!

 

LOL. Bad Boy, BAD BAD Boy.:D Wish I had thought of it first.:eek:

[wripro]

Jim,

 

You can...next time!

[JES4845]

Catch this one! Was just thumbing through the November Travel+Leisure over a quick bite of lunch when I saw several annual surveys including the "2013 Winners For Family Travel." You guessed it, SeaDream was voted #2 under the small-ship cruise category. Unlike Avis, let's hope SD doesn't try harder to become #1. To be fair, the basis for the poll is unclear and the high ranking may be a reflection of relative ratings compared to other small ship cruises. For example, those in this category had scores in the 60s while other categories such as land-based hotels and resorts had scores in the 90s. That said, it remains disturbing in light of this thread and our recent experience for SD to be portrayed in this manner in a major travel publication. It will only encourage those who would subject the rest of us to their little chips off the old block!