Seabourn Club benefits and pre-booked excursions

[norm2002]

Happy New Year (and decade) to everyone!

 

One of the benefits offered by the Seabourn Club is a discount on shore excursions. I haven't decided yet whether I will select that as one of my benefit choices. I want to pre-book the Miami tour/transfer to airport at the end of our cruise in case it fills up but I assume I won't get the discount if I book it in advance.

 

It seems to me that the only way I can get the discount if I pre-book it is to cancel it as soon as we get on board and rebook it on the ship. The website says there may be a cancellation charge if we cancel later than 3 days before boarding.

 

Anyone experienced this issue? Is there any other solution?

 

TIA

[candylover]

Hi norm 2002,

Just completed 17 days on Encore and one of us selected the shore excursion discount as our benefit.  What happened was once you have selected this benefit when you are online looking at excursions the price you see is the discounted price.  From memory you see the full asking price, with a strike through it, and underneath the discounted price that would be applicable (I think this is less 10%).  So the few shore excursions we booked from home were definitely booked and paid by us at the lower rate.  Hope this helps.

[norm2002]

Thanks for the reply. That is very helpful. As a Platinum member, I can get 15% discount. We just need to decide if that is one of the benefits we choose.

[Chairsin]

Also I believe that since you are a platinum member but your wife will not be a club member until after her first cruise the 15% discount on excursions will only apply to your excursion pricing and not hers. 

[norm2002]

Sorry, another question. Another optional benefit is a complimentary bag of laundry. If I understand it correctly, that is one bag per week so on our 21 day cruise that should mean 3 bags. Did I read in a forum post somewhere that each bag normally costs $50 - so that would be worth $150 in total?

[candylover]

Yes, each bag is normally $50.  We found we could fit heaps in one bag and we used this service the entire cruise.  The bag rate comes with a 2 day turnaround.  Not sure if it is quicker if you pay by the piece but we were fine with the 2 day turnaround.  We didn't select the complimentary laundry benefit so can't comment on how that works.

[norm2002]

35 minutes ago, Chairsin said:

Also I believe that since you are a platinum member but your wife will not be a club member until after her first cruise the 15% discount on excursions will only apply to your excursion pricing and not hers. 

 

Hi Chairsin

 

That's what I thought at first but I looked at the Seabourn website and it says that the shore excursion and premium wines benefits are Suite Benefits applying to everyone in the reservation, unlike the other benefits which are described as Personal Benefits.

[Ka Honu]

As candylover says, if you select the excursion discount as a benefit and book excursions before boarding, you get the discounted price. If you decide not to take any Seabourn excursions you can always change your benefit selection at Seabourn Square. Usually one of us takes the excursion benefit when we register on line and if we decide otherwise, trade it in for a massage or something when we board.

 

Speaking of the "half massage" benefit, according to SWMBO it's not all that great in its own right. However, she combines it with a full (50-minute) massage and loves the resulting 75-minute session. Since the full massage is priced about 50% too high, the added "half massage" also makes the spa visit far more reasonable price-wise. That's my story, it's a good story, and I'm sticking to it.

 

Laundry is a great benefit - always our first choice. Some folks have reported bad experiences but we've never had a problem (knock wood). On a related note, I generally travel with a blazer for "dressier" occasions and find that Seabourn dry cleaning is as good as our local cleaner and much cheaper (and Seabourn picks up and delivers).

 

And that's all I know.

[tv24]

Love the laundry benefit and it is one bag per week.

[norm2002]

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I was thinking of the Day in the Spa Serene Area for my wife. I read somewhere that it is quite good. If I don't choose it as a Club benefit, is it something I can just buy for her? If so, what does it cost?

[Chairsin]

Hi Norm

Thanks for setting me straight on the excursions benefit. I must admit I have not focused too much on the details of the benefits as the last few years we have received all of them and have not had to pick and chose. I assumed from the online  Guest Registration where there was a checklist to select benefits for each person that the excursion benefit was only good for one passenger. Nice to know it is good for the other passenger in the suite. Anyway  I.was now curious so I  reviewed the detailed terms and conditions and was surprised by the inclusions and exceptions. For instance under excursions it says Seabourn journeys and transfer are exempt from the discount. This seems to make little sense to me. And I think it would be lovely for you to give your wife a day in the Serene area though I’m sorry I have no clue as to what is included as I’ve only been there for Diamond Cocktail parties. Though again you might want to check with Seabourn to see if it s transferable. As to phone minutes I’ve never used mine (nor my massage) but on a recent cruise someone I met had a family emergency and I was able to transfer my phone minutes to them with the blessing of the Guest Services Manager.

 

And most importantly there may have been a few cutbacks on Seabourn in the last few years but I’ve not noticed most of them. On the flip side there have also been some improvements. You may have read the thread “ch ch changes” where there was a discussion about this. To balance all of the negative criticism I posted a list of many improvements. Anyway, as to current life on Seabourn champagne and caviar still flow freely, the staff still delivers wonderful service 99% of the time and there are still no lines or up charges. Do we miss the small ships - absolutely. Hard to explain this to those who never sailed on them but the small number of passengers did create a different atmosphere. Nonetheless we have been quite happy on Odyssey class and just completed our first “big” ship cruise on the Ovation ( it will never be our first choice but will do if the itinerary is irresistible). With your long hiatus I will be very curious to read your impressions. I just suggest you go into the cruise with an open mind. 

[fudgbug]

On 1/1/2020 at 7:22 PM, norm2002 said:

Sorry, another question. Another optional benefit is a complimentary bag of laundry. If I understand it correctly, that is one bag per week so on our 21 day cruise that should mean 3 bags. Did I read in a forum post somewhere that each bag normally costs $50 - so that would be worth $150 in total?

The Seabourn Club brochure in light and small print at the bottom of the tier pages states "one bag every 7 days".  

[norm2002]

19 hours ago, Chairsin said:

Hi Norm

Thanks for setting me straight on the excursions benefit. I must admit I have not focused too much on the details of the benefits as the last few years we have received all of them and have not had to pick and chose. I assumed from the online  Guest Registration where there was a checklist to select benefits for each person that the excursion benefit was only good for one passenger. Nice to know it is good for the other passenger in the suite. Anyway  I.was now curious so I  reviewed the detailed terms and conditions and was surprised by the inclusions and exceptions. For instance under excursions it says Seabourn journeys and transfer are exempt from the discount. This seems to make little sense to me. And I think it would be lovely for you to give your wife a day in the Serene area though I’m sorry I have no clue as to what is included as I’ve only been there for Diamond Cocktail parties. Though again you might want to check with Seabourn to see if it s transferable. As to phone minutes I’ve never used mine (nor my massage) but on a recent cruise someone I met had a family emergency and I was able to transfer my phone minutes to them with the blessing of the Guest Services Manager.

 

And most importantly there may have been a few cutbacks on Seabourn in the last few years but I’ve not noticed most of them. On the flip side there have also been some improvements. You may have read the thread “ch ch changes” where there was a discussion about this. To balance all of the negative criticism I posted a list of many improvements. Anyway, as to current life on Seabourn champagne and caviar still flow freely, the staff still delivers wonderful service 99% of the time and there are still no lines or up charges. Do we miss the small ships - absolutely. Hard to explain this to those who never sailed on them but the small number of passengers did create a different atmosphere. Nonetheless we have been quite happy on Odyssey class and just completed our first “big” ship cruise on the Ovation ( it will never be our first choice but will do if the itinerary is irresistible). With your long hiatus I will be very curious to read your impressions. I just suggest you go into the cruise with an open mind. 

 

Hi Chairsin

 

I have read through that thread and thank you for adding some perspective to the discussion. I think it is going to be difficult for me to compare the new with the old. Although I do have recollection of occasional issues, I think a certain amount of 'rose-tinted' memories may affect my overall remembrances of the past. And, of course, all my previous cruises were on the three maximum capacity 208 ships and, in comparing those with the O class ship, size may matter.

 

For me, it is important that my wife is happy and she will not be affected by any recollections from the past as this will be her very first cruise on any ship. She is a very down to earth person but I know she liked the sound of champagne at any time and when I mentioned the availability of shrimp (which I cannot eat but she loves) ...!

[Thecat123]

We were on the Encore and I mentioned to one of the officers at The Colonnade I hadnt seen any prawns as I lived on them on the Quest at Antarctica. He said hang on a minute and came back with a large plate of prawns just for me.

So if you would like anything just ask and you should have plenty of shrimps

[cruiseej]

We just got off a 14-day cruise and selected the excursion discount and laundry bag as our club benefits. The excursion discount does apply on a transfer if it's a tour + transfer excursion, but does not apply if it's just a bus to the airport. (We originally booked a Miami tour with transfer, and received the discounted price, but due to a change in our flight time, needed to switch to a simple airport transfer, and there was no discount.)

 

As for the laundry bag, our benefit was stated as one laundry bag -- not one per 7 days. So we used it once on our 14-day trip. Nothing I saw led me to even question whether I could have used it a second time. Ah, looking now at the Club chart, I see that for lowly Silver members like us, the laundry benefit is one bag per cruise, while Gold and above get one bag per seven days. 😉

[lexus man]

On 1/2/2020 at 10:18 AM, norm2002 said:

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I was thinking of the Day in the Spa Serene Area for my wife. I read somewhere that it is quite good. If I don't choose it as a Club benefit, is it something I can just buy for her? If so, what does it cost?

        We recently preselected the Serene day for our Ovation cruise, only to be told at the spa that this was unavailable on the big ships because the serene areas were too small to accommodate the possible numbers.