Seabourn Herald

[Mahogany]

For those of you who've sailed and reported not receiving a daily Herald, I have good news. I emailed Seabourn and received an answer 10 days later (frankly I was pleasantly surprised that they did). 

On my upcoming Odyssey voyage, the Herald will be left on the bed during evening turn-down (as in the past), and if not, I am to contact Seabourn Square. I know many of you primarily use digital means of communication, but I am pleased I will not have to sign into Source, and squint at the small print on my phone - yeah, I'm old! And there's a paper reminder of goings-on to keep if you wish.

[rucrazy]

Great news for these weak eyes!

[English Tim]

On our recent cruise, my wife enquired about its absence and from then on each night it was on the bed. Prior to this we had to wait until the following day before seeing what was on.

[Mahogany]

And I can understand their wish to reduce the paper flow. Why not dispense with those notices to scoop up those great deals on gems and watches in the Boutiques!!

[cruiseej]

If their new policy is to give passengers the choice of receiving a paper Herald upon request, while defaulting to online information, I'd be fine with that. They should just communicate to passengers that they can request the printed version. 

[rkacruiser]

Kiplinger's Washington Letter recently reported that because some paper mills have shifted from making paper to cardboard because of such an increase in e-commerce, a paper shortage may be in our future.  Time to stock up on TP again?  😀

[rucrazy]

3 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

Time to stock up on TP again?  

All my TP is tied up writing to my Congressman 🙂

[rkacruiser]

1 minute ago, rucrazy said:

All my TP is tied up writing to my Congressman 🙂

 

Perhaps what you have to say does more good than what I have to say?  

[rucrazy]

4 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

Perhaps what you have to say does more good than what I have to say?  

Considering we live in separate districts i will concede that what you have to say IS JUST AS important as what comment on. 😛

 

 

[markham]

I long ago stopped reading printed newspapers. It was senseless and wasteful. The Herald? You can find whatever that lists online, and a whole lot of information that it does not include. I haven’t missed missed seeing it at Seabourn Square where years ago piles would be stacked, many ignored and most thrown away. It is the “away” part that is just another blight on the planet.

 

Why not try going to you phone or iPad for the information. A cruise is an ideal time to try new things. It is thereby always handy and you are doing yourself and the environment a positive turn. Same for digital newspaper subscriptions which are cheaper and smarter as they are always available.

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

[2SailingNomads]

Seabourn Source has the Herald and also it is on the TV.  I was pleasantly surprised on our last cruise to not get a paper every other day from the future cruise specialist.  Now if I could stop getting snail mail brochures every other day from Seabourn along with some cruise lines I'd never consider cruising on, we could cut down on all the stuff I have to recycle. 

[cruiseej]

@markham I have no problem doing things online, and eliminating paper waste, but the lack of a printed Herald on our last cruise was limiting in a few ways. First the onboard TV system has some of the information that's in the Herald, but not all. the Season Source app/website has most or all or it, but it requires a bit of jumping around. Those are design/programming issues which hopefully they can improve over time. But the big thing for us is that keeping our daily Heralds was a way of documenting our cruises. I can pull out a folder from any prior Seabourn cruise we've been on and quickly see where all our port stops were, who the senior staff was, who the lecturers were. For our most recent cruise, we have none of that. And with the elimination of tour tickets, we also lost that paper record of our travels; I don't know of a way to generate a list of all our tours at the end of a cruise that I could print and keep for future reference. And we have no record of the menus we experienced onboard. 

 

I think these shortcomings can be solved in a few ways. First, they could make paper Heralds available upon request. (Apparently they do, although we were not made aware of this option on our cruise, and I'm not sure if this is on every ship and every cruise.) That wouldn't eliminate the paper entirely, but it would eliminate much of the waste, as people who don't want a paper version wouldn't get it. 

 

Perhaps the better green approach would be putting all this information in each cruiser's My Seabourn account. It would be great to look back at a cruise from years ago and access a PDF version of the Heralds or menus or other information. They apparently plan to do something along these lines with the new expedition ships, so hopefully they can broaden this digital archive to all cruises. 

[highplanesdrifters]

13 hours ago, 2SailingNomads said:

Seabourn Source has the Herald and also it is on the TV.  I was pleasantly surprised on our last cruise to not get a paper every other day from the future cruise specialist.  Now if I could stop getting snail mail brochures every other day from Seabourn along with some cruise lines I'd never consider cruising on, we could cut down on all the stuff I have to recycle. 

You can cut down on all the unwanted snail mail.  It takes a little effort. Whenever I get snail mail from an unwanted vendor I contact them via website or phone call and request to be taken off their list.  In the beginning I had at least a one foot pile of unwanted catalogs.  There is also a service similar to "do not call" that will take you off catalog mailing lists. You will still receive catalogs from companies you do business with.  If memory serves me they charged $1. Just ask the google machine. I did both.  It took a little time, but my mailbox is no long filled with junk.

 

I agree with @cruiseej. I like getting a paper copy of the Herald for similar reasons. When we get home we scan the Heralds into our trip file.  We all know how bad Seabourns technology is. Having all the info at your fingertips is so much easier than squinting, pinching, and scrolling at a phone screen. 

[rucrazy]

1 hour ago, highplanesdrifters said:

We all know how bad Seabourns technology is.

Dare we agree it is Carnival Corporation wide.. HAL used the same web format and their IT is terrible.. I assumed (shame on me) it was brand wide...

[Mahogany]

On 4/10/2022 at 2:41 AM, markham said:

I long ago stopped reading printed newspapers. It was senseless and wasteful. The Herald? You can find whatever that lists online, and a whole lot of information that it does not include. I haven’t missed missed seeing it at Seabourn Square where years ago piles would be stacked, many ignored and most thrown away. It is the “away” part that is just another blight on the planet.

 

Why not try going to you phone or iPad for the information. A cruise is an ideal time to try new things. It is thereby always handy and you are doing yourself and the environment a positive turn. Same for digital newspaper subscriptions which are cheaper and smarter as they are always available.

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

I also do not read the print edition of newspapers. But the digital subscriptions I have at home, I read on a 22" monitor. As I said in my original post, logging in/out of Source and squinting at my phone is not enjoyable. I'm glad that I can request a paper copy of the Herald.

Markham, you must have young eyes!

[rkacruiser]

I agree with cruiseej's reasons.  I read a daily printed newspaper.  I have tried to read that same paper on my computer.  It is awkward; it is cumbersome; it is unsatisfactory for me.  Trying to read it on my phone?  LOL!  The elimination (or the attempt to do so) of a printed daily activities sheet is all in the name of "going green".  I am environmentally supportive, but, if the cruise lines were really serious about "going green", the paper announcements of "sales" and "wonderful promotions" in the ship's gift shops would stop.  There practice is an excellent example of  hypocrisy.

[SLSD]

We read all of our  newspapers online now and the number of magazines I subscribe to is down to two.  However, I do like to have the Herald printed for convenience.  We receive something from Seabourn about three times a week in the mail.  That is a LOT of paper--much more than the Heralds we have actively used onboard ships.  I have an iPhone and I do use a weather app, but there are very few other apps I use on a regular basis.  Call me a Luddite!  

Edited April 11, 2022 by SLSD