SeaDream are sailing in Norway

[commander courageous]

Not totally unsympathetic to your plight,  but don’t think it is SeaDream’s responsibility to

determine whether or not you comply with the various government edicts with respect

to Covid and entry.

The ship did presumably leave as per your contract.  Cannot put the onus on SD to

ferret out what conceivably could be 100+ different nationalities on board, and

the governs pertaining to each.

 

 

 

[JES4845]

On 6/26/2021 at 12:01 PM, commander courageous said:

Not totally unsympathetic to your plight,  but don’t think it is SeaDream’s responsibility to

determine whether or not you comply with the various government edicts with respect

to Covid and entry.

The ship did presumably leave as per your contract.  Cannot put the onus on SD to

ferret out what conceivably could be 100+ different nationalities on board, and

the governs pertaining to each.

 

 

 

 

Glad to clarify so others don’t get caught too.  To be VERY CLEAR … ours was NOT a case of SeaDream misinforming us about local rules that we should have learned for ourselves … INSTEAD (and I have NUMEROUS emails to prove it) … within a matter of days before departure, SD said is it was SD POLICY (not a government’s) that we get a certain type of test within a narrow window of ARRIVING at the port (NOT within x hours or days before departure from home - BIG DIFFERENCE) …

 

When we asked SD about this, they shifted from it was their policy to “it is a local port rule” in Greece … check the website under health protocols and you will see they admit they dropped it a few days after imposing it as THEIR POLICY …

 

but then a single day after we were forced to cancel because we couldn’t be sure to get the test in time before we departed home … SD said “ oops, we’ve changed our policy … no longer required” … they also refused to provide proof it was EVER ALSO a local port rule as they had claimed … when presented with evidence it was NOT a local port rule in Athens … they refused to respond.  

 

They then treated our forced cancellation as voluntary - as if we just woke up and changed our minds (when when were getting all ready to go), had paid business class tickets, hotels, airport transfers to the port etc. … meaning a credit not a refund … then we found out the credit has limitations so we would forfeit it if we canceled the new booking with the credit for any reason within 120 days of sailing (no Book with Confidence Policy applied).  

 

SD never apologized, NEVER took ownership for THEIR mistake … just said basically OH DARN TOO BAD … this after we have hundreds of nights … dozens of voyages since 2008  … so we did the only thing we could do, we canceled THREE other bookings we had on file through January 2022.  We were once on track for 2-3 voyages per year …

 

[DWhit]

10 hours ago, JES4845 said:

 

When we asked SD about this, they shifted from it was their policy to “it is a local port rule” in Greece … check the website under health protocols and you will see they admit they dropped it a few days after imposing it as THEIR POLICY …

 

We just got back from a cruise on another cruise line where they did the opposite.  The local government had dropped a testing requirement for vaccinated passengers several weeks prior to the cruise, but  a few days before the cruise, the cruiseline added the testing requirement back for no real reason.  We had some pre-cruise plans to stop in to see our daughter in Florida, so this threw a monkey wrench into our plans. Luckily for us, there was a lab at the airport where you could get a 2 hour turnaround, and we were able to get the testing and results prior to our departure flight.

 

I think that things are pretty fluid right now with regards to requirements, and I can certainly see why you  did not want to travel all the way to Greece without a good level of certainty of being able to board.  Hopefully things will settle out over the next few months and by the time you are ready to use your credit things will be more routine.

[commander courageous]

Thanks for the clarification.

As you are aware, the owner of Sea Dream monitors this site from time to time,

and am quite certain he will be interested in your comments as to the way 

your reservations were handled.

 

Hopefully, as the spread of Covid abates worldwide, cruising will return to

some normalcy making these various (and confusing) policies obsolete.

 

[JES4845]

Thanks for the comments recently posted.  Pleased to report that while the entire matter was stressful, costly and unfortunate … to its credit, SD did process the refunds on the future voyages we cancelled within days, so thanks much for that.  And to be clear, we cancelled these voyages largely out of concern that until things settle down as to travel rules, etc., we just aren’t comfortable especially going outside the country.

[Galaxy]

SeaDream I on her way out from Olden,Norway 13.07 after her first of four visits this season.