Special events

[Ladriano]

We have been on 15 Windstar Cruises and we really enjoyed the special events put on by the cruise line. Will Windstar be bringing these back?  They were fantastic and brought all members of the ship together for a good time. We have great memories of our trips to the Gambino winery in Sicily and the dinners in Greece.  We would love to see these return.

[Windstar Cruises]

Hi Ladriano, Our Windstar Private Events you’re referencing were popular with many of our guests (glad you enjoyed them, and so pleased you’ve been on so many Windstar cruises -- we hope to welcome you back at some point in the future!). These events were on all of our cruises and “complimentary” to the guest, although built into the cruise price.

 

They were extremely difficult from a financial standpoint as well as an operations one, especially when many of our itineraries happen just once or twice in a season, meaning we don’t get much of a chance to fine-tune programming particularly on this scale. To pull off something special for the entire yacht (and do it well) just wasn’t working in all of our destinations, and many of our guests didn’t like being part of a yacht-wide event -- feeling like they were being made to purchase a shore excursion or an experience they didn’t want.  That’s why Windstar’s then-president made the decision to focus more on offering the best, small group shore excursions possible vs. coordinating these all-passenger events.

 

We do, however, still have two private events that remain because they were working so well operationally and our guests just LOVE them: the private Windstar beach party on one of Bora Bora’s tiny motus followed by a kinetic fire-dancing performance in Tahiti, as well as a romantic night at the Celsus Library in Ephesus in Turkey, with a private dinner in the moonlight and a classical string trio concert.

 

We are continuously looking at options of the same quality as these two in the current program.