NYC Luxury Travel Expo Report

[daninnyc]

Hi Everyone -

 

Being Bored, I walked over to the Luxury Travel Expo yesterday here in the city. Many hotels, cruise lines and products were there and of course most of the cruise lines were represented. Of course a Seadream rep and table were set up, with the photo album they sell for all to see. While I was looking through the book (nice, but just larger pics mostly of what's in the brochure) I noticed the rep did not have a moment to rest. People were coming up and enthusiastically asking about the product. Statements of "No dressing up wow!" and "I can swim from the ship?" where common responses. There were several other cruise lines present, but honestly Windstar and Seadream were the most busy during my visit. It was interesting to see the kinds of people that indeed wanted more info - many younger urban professionals. SEADREAM was positioned across from Holland America and it made for a very funny photo op as the difference in interest was obvious.

 

A few tables down was this company called shoretrips.com that gave out boxes of cookies and advertised a private shore excursion service in most ports. I don't know these folks, but they do advertise many shore exursions (often private) and will pick you up from the ship. If the ship skips your port or is late, they refund your money (so they say). I bring this up because one of the criticisms of SEADREAM is often the shore excursions are weak and many times there simply is not enough interest to generate a tour from the ship. Folks on Seardeam or other lines may want to investigate this option if they want a shore excursion.

 

I then walked over to the piers to see the Crystal Symphony, Carnival Triumph and that thing called the Golden Princess. They all looked like messes - the Triumph is screaming for a good cleaning and a paint job and the Crystal, while in better shape, seemed sterile. The Golden is just plain UGLY and made me realize a small ship is definitly the way I want to experience the sea. It was just horrible to see all those decks and balconies pushed up and stacked against one another. There is truly no way someone is going to convince me that thing is not crowded.

 

Regards,

Dan

[DisneyJen]

Thanks for the report Dan!

 

I can only imagine the scene with HAL and SD with the two very different target audiences.

 

I am going to check out shoretrips just to see what they offer.