Seabourn Pursuit delay?

[captsrl]

We received an email from Seabourn yesterday (07/18/2022) that our booking on the Seabourn Pursuit to Antarctica in January 2024 will be transferred to the Seabourn Venture.  No reason for the ship transfer was offered in the email but like everything else in life these days it is probably due to delays in the ship building process 

 

Cruise Happy and Well

[cruiseej]

On the Seabourn website, there are no listed cruises for the Pursuit. Website glitch or changing plans?

 

I also see there are no cruises listed for the Venture beyond May 2023, let alone the winter 2023-2024 Antarctica season — even though the summer 2023 voyages were previously listed. I believe they are not going to do the northeast passage trip because it travels through Russia, so I guess that throws the plans for both ships into flux? But it's odd that they're making changes to the schedule into 2024. If there is a construction delay with the Pursuit, then it's a massive one, since construction began in 2020 and it was scheduled to enter service in April 2023.

[flyerstef]

uh oh, we are booked on the xmas cruise to Antartica on Pursuit 23-24 which is also gone from the website. I still see it when I log in, but that's all. And of course for the first time in my life we paid the full amount early in order to get the early bird discount... 

[Catlover54]

16 minutes ago, flyerstef said:

uh oh, we are booked on the xmas cruise to Antartica on Pursuit 23-24 which is also gone from the website. I still see it when I log in, but that's all. And of course for the first time in my life we paid the full amount early in order to get the early bird discount... 

 

They will likely shift you to Venture, if you accept.

But the consolation is that at least right now, it's not as if you would be making a killing in the markets with the big chunk of money you paid . . . 😲

[flyerstef]

lol @catlover!! We definitely thought the same, the discount on the cruise was worth more than any possible interest!

 

And as you suspected, our travel agent just let us know that we have been moved to the Antartica xmas cruise on Venture.

 

No paperwork yet, I imagine Seabourn has their hands full at the moment and we must be low on the list given how far away our sailing is. So still waiting to find out what will happen to the specific room we selected, along with this being the first time we paid in full in this far advance, it's also the first time we selected a room in advance 😛 

 

 

 

[Hlitner]

2 hours ago, cruiseej said:

On the Seabourn website, there are no listed cruises for the Pursuit. Website glitch or changing plans?

 

I also see there are no cruises listed for the Venture beyond May 2023, let alone the winter 2023-2024 Antarctica season — even though the summer 2023 voyages were previously listed. I believe they are not going to do the northeast passage trip because it travels through Russia, so I guess that throws the plans for both ships into flux? But it's odd that they're making changes to the schedule into 2024. If there is a construction delay with the Pursuit, then it's a massive one, since construction began in 2020 and it was scheduled to enter service in April 2023.

I am confused.  When I look on Seabourn's website (just now) all the winter Venture Antarctic cruises are listed and open for bookings.  My cruise agency's web site shows 19 Venture voyages from Oct 2022 - April 2023.   That same site also lists Venture cruises (open for booking if not sold out) through the summer of 2023!   As to the Pursuit it shows 21 Pursuit voyages starting in March 2023 through the summer.    What am I doing wrong?

 

Hank

[rallydave]

This is of interest to us as we were scheduled on Pursuit June 17 and will now be on Venture once the dust settles.   Read about this on Facebook before coming here with a person being cancelled on her June 4 cruise out of Tromsok reason being no Russian stops.  This is affecting the NE Passage cruse as it had Russian stops.

 

Believe this significant cancellation is having a waterfall affect on both Expedition Ships.  Believe Seabourn is protecting the NW Passage cruise that was scheduled for Pursuit after our cruise and they reached the decision to switch ships in case Pursuit is delayed and not lose the NW Passage cruise.  This will cause numerous changes as ships are switched and new itineraries are created..  We are probably in the minority and happy to be on Venture which will be a year in service rather than Pursuit which at best will have sailed a few months and delays could cancel our cruise.

 

As in all itinerary changes thee are winners and losers and glad for once to be on the winning side.

[cruiseej]

1 hour ago, Hlitner said:

I am confused.  When I look on Seabourn's website (just now) all the winter Venture Antarctic cruises are listed and open for bookings.  My cruise agency's web site shows 19 Venture voyages from Oct 2022 - April 2023.   That same site also lists Venture cruises (open for booking if not sold out) through the summer of 2023!   As to the Pursuit it shows 21 Pursuit voyages starting in March 2023 through the summer.    What am I doing wrong?

 

Hank

 

Hank, what I posted above was that there are no cruises listed on the Seabourn site for Venture beyond May 2023. So yes, all the Antarctic cruises this winter are listed.

 

I don't know who your TA is, or where they are pulling their data from. But on the Seabourn website, if you set no filters and pull down the Ship menu, you'll see that Pursuit is there but grayed out -- there are no voyages you can view for the Pursuit. If you instead select Cruise Type and select Expedition, you will see 23 voyages: all on Venture, none on Pursuit, with the last one on Venture ending in May 2023.  

 

I'm sure from the posts were seeing that they are juggling basically everything past next May. They're certainly scrapping the northeast passage cruise, so it makes sense that summer 2023 schedules are being changed. Is Pursuit delayed? Then it would make sense if they moved that trip to the Venture. If Pursuit is delayed, for how long? And why would the summer reshuffling affect the winter 2023-2024 Antarctica cruises, unless Pursuit's delay is a full year?

[Hlitner]

4 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 

Hank, what I posted above was that there are no cruises listed on the Seabourn site for Venture beyond May 2023. So yes, all the Antarctic cruises this winter are listed.

 

I don't know who your TA is, or where they are pulling their data from. But on the Seabourn website, if you set no filters and pull down the Ship menu, you'll see that Pursuit is there but grayed out -- there are no voyages you can view for the Pursuit. If you instead select Cruise Type and select Expedition, you will see 23 voyages: all on Venture, none on Pursuit, with the last one on Venture ending in May 2023.  

 

I'm sure from the posts were seeing that they are juggling basically everything past next May. They're certainly scrapping the northeast passage cruise, so it makes sense that summer 2023 schedules are being changed. Is Pursuit delayed? Then it would make sense if they moved that trip to the Venture. If Pursuit is delayed, for how long? And why would the summer reshuffling affect the winter 2023-2024 Antarctica cruises, unless Pursuit's delay is a full year?

I just went into the cruise agency's site and tried to do a booking for a Pursuit cruise its lists for next July.   It is only at that point that it comes up "sailing is no longer available" so that seems to be consistent to what you are seeing on SBs website.  It is the same with the Venture.  The cruise agency booking engine (which are directly linked into SB's system) do list itineraries but say the "sailing is no longer available."

 

I am thinking your hunch about the Russia issue might explain what we see for the Venture.  As to the Pursuit, I guess we can all speculate as SB seems to think that "transparency" is a 4 letter word to be avoided.  To be blunt, we are seeing issues with other cruise lines in the "HAL Group."  For example, HAL still has a serious of Westerdam cruises (starting next March) which involve many ports in Japan.  Most (not all) cruise lines have already cancelled Japan itineraries because there is no indication that Japan will open up to cruise ships or even independent tourism.  But for whatever reason, HAL continues to wait to make changes.  Perhaps Jan Swartz has a philosophy of keeping everyone in the dark as long as possible.  Guess we shall need to "stay tuned."

 

Hank

[DC Traveler244]

We are booked on the Pursuit for an August 2023 Northwest Passage cruise.  Today, we received emails from Seabourn advising:

 

"We are writing to advise you that due to deployment changes, your voyage will now take place on Seabourn Venture rather than Seabourn Pursuit. Your voyage itinerary and sailing date will remain unchanged." 

 

When we booked the cruise early last month (while aboard the Sojourn) the cruise specialist informed us that there was very high interest in the NW Passage cruise.  Even then, there were only two suites available in the category we wanted.

 

So, perhaps SB was aware of possible delays with the Pursuit and decided to shift the NW Passage cruises to the Venture rather than risking having to cancel them at the last minute if the Pursuit was delayed?

 

 

[Fletcher]

I think the Venture was to have done the NE Passage, now cancelled because of Putin-22, hence the switch.

[cruiseej]

10 hours ago, Fletcher said:

I think the Venture was to have done the NE Passage, now cancelled because of Putin-22, hence the switch.

 

Correct about where Venture was to have gone, but the reason for the switch is because of an apparent delay in the completion of Pursuit. If Pursuit was ready on time, they could have had her sail the northwest passage, just as planned, while coming up with some alternate itineraries for the Venture. And there wouldn't have been need to cancel people booked on Venture itineraries to Norway and Svarlbad. No, it seems Pursuit won't be available for the summer of 2023, so they swapped the Venture to do those cruises, and dumped the people booked on the Venture's original cruises. 

[sfvoyage]

26 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 

Correct about where Venture was to have gone, but the reason for the switch is because of an apparent delay in the completion of Pursuit. If Pursuit was ready on time, they could have had her sail the northwest passage, just as planned, while coming up with some alternate itineraries for the Venture. And there wouldn't have been need to cancel people booked on Venture itineraries to Norway and Svarlbad. No, it seems Pursuit won't be available for the summer of 2023, so they swapped the Venture to do those cruises, and dumped the people booked on the Venture's original cruises. 

 

Exactly.  Hence my earlier comment about protecting Pursuit voyages and guests by screwing Venture ones.  It all boils down to profit margin. 

[cruiseej]

38 minutes ago, sfvoyage said:

Hence my earlier comment about protecting Pursuit voyages and guests by screwing Venture ones.  It all boils down to profit margin.

 

I'm not sure I understand. They had two sets of itineraries with booked passengers. If one ship isn't available, then they have to cancel one set of itineraries because they only have one ship. They obviously can't do the northeast passage because of Russia, so they keep the itineraries including the northwest passage. But I'm not sure how this equates to screwing the Venture passengers for profit margin.

 

Do you think they should have canceled all the Pursuit voyages because the ship isn't ready, and also canceled a significant chunk of the Venture's summer voyages because it can't travel in that region? That would have resulted in even more canceled trips than we have now. No matter what, a lot of booked passengers would have had their cruises canceled with one ship instead of two; this way it's 50% canceled, the other way would have been perhaps 70-75% canceled. What they did was better for more of their customers, and as a result, will produce more revenue. 

 

But the big error on Seabourn's part is that they weren't honest with their customers about exactly what happened. They mentioned Russia, which everyone understands, but they have not yet mentioned that the bigger issue is that Pursuit won't be ready on time. That's a BIG omission when they're telling thousands of people their trips have been canceled. And it's puzzling why they didn't offer people comparable itineraries (not including the northeast passage) the following year rather than just canceling them and offering a 10% credit. 

[rallydave]

Exactly!!

[2SailingNomads]

Unfortunately "But the big error on Seabourn's part is that they weren't honest with their customers about exactly what happened" is the problem.  Not the old Sebourn.  Meet the new boss, not the same as the old boss.

[commodoredave]

I checked the Seabourn website last week as part of their Black Friday Sail event, and they now have cruises for the Seabourn Pursuit starting October 10 with a 14-day Barbados to Manaus voyage. Will this be the ship's inaugural voyage? It's not being marketed as such. 

[florisdekort]

4 hours ago, commodoredave said:

I checked the Seabourn website last week as part of their Black Friday Sail event, and they now have cruises for the Seabourn Pursuit starting October 10 with a 14-day Barbados to Manaus voyage. Will this be the ship's inaugural voyage? It's not being marketed as such. 

That one plus a handful of other Pursuit sailings have been open for bookings for 3+ months now. I think they’re holding off labeling any sailing “inaugural” until they have more certainty around the delivery date. 

[Fletcher]

I called Seabourn the other day.  They said Barbados-Manaus will (currently) be the Pursuit's inaugural voyage which is interesting considering cruise lines usually choose less challenging itineraries to begin with.  However, I really fancy this cruise as it visits the three Guianas.  Or does it? If you look on the website the map shows all those ports of calls but the printed itinerary doesn't.  Guyana and Surinam are missing.  Seabourn says this is because those two countries currently have a ban in force on cruise ships.

 

 I seem to remember some months back I got a lavish brochure for the Pursuit and Venture which listed all sorts of mouth-watering trips across Micronesia and Polynesia but these appear now to have been dropped.  

 

I think this is a fluid situation.  

Edited November 23, 2022 by Fletcher

[commodoredave]

I like that itinerary as well. However, is it worth taking a chance at this point that the ship will be ready and the cruise will actually take place? I’d hate to have it canceled after booking air flights.

[highplanesdrifters]

7 hours ago, Fletcher said:

 

 I seem to remember some months back I got a lavish brochure for the Pursuit and Venture which listed all sorts of mouth-watering trips across Micronesia and Polynesia but these appear now to have been dropped.  

Yes there were, and we were booked on one which was sadly canceled.  Our TA participated in a recent Seabourn expedition zoom seminar. One agent queried about more exotic itineraries like the one you mentioned.  The response was sad news. Seabourn are going to concentrate on the polar regions as that is what the ships were built for. One can only hope that they consider some interesting routes during repositioning. 

[Fletcher]

3 hours ago, commodoredave said:

I like that itinerary as well. However, is it worth taking a chance at this point that the ship will be ready and the cruise will actually take place? I’d hate to have it canceled after booking air flights.

This is one reason I tend to go with Seabourn's flight programme on this sort of cruise.  To somewhere easy like the Med I probably wouldn't but the uncertainty of this cruise makes going with Seabourn air a no-brainer. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Fletcher

[purpleally]

On 11/23/2022 at 11:02 AM, Fletcher said:

This is one reason I tend to go with Seabourn's flight programme on this sort of cruise.  To somewhere easy like the Med I probably wouldn't but the uncertainty of this cruise makes going with Seabourn air a no-brainer. 

That’s a good point. Ours would probably be London round trip with creative one way within Europe flights

[commodoredave]

On 11/23/2022 at 2:44 AM, Fletcher said:

However, I really fancy this cruise as it visits the three Guianas.  Or does it? If you look on the website the map shows all those ports of calls but the printed itinerary doesn't.  Guyana and Surinam are missing.  Seabourn says this is because those two countries currently have a ban in force on cruise ships.

Received an updated itinerary for this cruise from Seabourn yesterday and it now shows stops at Georgetown, Guyana and Paramaribo, Suriname. In addition, additional calls in Brazil and more information about them provided. Itin looking better than ever!

[Fletcher]

There are now several Mediterranean cruises scheduled for the Pursuit this summer, before it crosses the Atlantic.  I was struck by an offer from one cruise agency for Miami-Manaus on the Pursuit, calling at several Caribbean places, then the Guianas, then the Amazon.  However, after some research, I am advised that this is not an expedition cruise and passengers will have to pay extra for all the excursions, even including zodiac trips in the Amazon.  I thought the Venture and the Pursuit were expedition ships but it seems that is not the case at all.  Maybe just in the polar regions.  Disappointing.  Seabourn has yet to fully embrace the expedition ethic.