Not quite ready for prime time

[stan01]

Cruise line IT needs work.  Seabourn has had a lot of problems, including sending out spurious emails for our upcoming cruise then quickly sending out an "ooops we didn't mean to send that".

 

Despite that, Cunard is much worse.  Seems like Carnival is still letting each name brand run their own websites rather than putting everything on a full featured and reliable platform.  

[Covepointcruiser]

I’ve not seen any spurious emails from Cunard.    We just receive emails about sales or new itineraries.   Hardly receive anything from Seabourn.

[commodoredave]

20 hours ago, Covepointcruiser said:

Hardly receive anything from Seabourn.

I can share some of mine if you'd like!🤪

[Khareef]

On 9/27/2023 at 9:39 PM, commodoredave said:

My experience with the Seabourn Expedition cruise people to date has been disappointing to the point where I have to say the expedition offering is not quite ready for prime time.

Our story begins a year ago when we booked an expedition cruise on the soon-to-be launched Seabourn Pursuit for October of this year. At the time, we had been on 7 regular Seabourn cruises, and decided to give their new Expedition cruises a try.

The launch date for the Pursuit kept getting pushed back to the point we thought our cruise would be cancelled. Troubling and worrying, but we stuck with and six months later the launch date was finally confirmed and we could relax.

Next, we started to get emails from Seabourn every 2 to 3 weeks telling us that we could submit our passenger information and preferences for our cruise on the “Seabourn Venture.” I wrote to our TA and Seabourn several times telling them we were on the Pursuit and not the Venture, but the emails telling us we were on the Venture continued to come.

Next, we were advised by Seabourn for several months that we could now book our shore excursions, but there were no excursions on the Seabourn website to book. A few months later, pre and post cruise excursions were listed, but nothing else.

The emails telling us that we could book our shore excursions continued weekly, and eventually one excursion was added for one of the ports. Several more weeks of prompting to book excursions brought one more port with excursion choices. The drip-feeding continued for months, but we now have 4 ports with excursion options with several still missing.

Then the confusion started about what the health requirements were for the cruise. Two weeks ago Seabourn sent out different and more detailed information about the requirement for a Yellow Fever vaccine or doctor’s certificate for a counter-indication. If one was off-side with these requirements, not much time to prepare.

Then, yesterday, Seabourn sent out health information that advised a Covid-19 booster received within 270 days of departure was required to board the ship. My DW and I both had Covid in May, so skipped the booster we would have normally had shortly after that. Now, apparently, we were off-side with that requirement.

However, an email sent to our TA a day later who checked with Seabourn determined that the Covid advisory was sent in error and is not required on our cruise. Now we could cancel the appointment we had made at the last minute to get a booster.

To ensure we fully realized that management of Seabourn Expeditions was not quite ready for prime time, we received an email today telling us that our boarding time was at 2:00 pm, 20 minutes after the boarding time provided to the couple we booked with and are travelling with. Oh yes, we are gold members in a Panorama Veranda Suite, while our friend are first-time Seabourn cruisers in a V2 Suite. Apparently, the more time and money one spends with Seabourn, the less value they place on you. We told our TA about this, and she immediately called Seabourn and had them change our boarding time to be the same as our friends with no status and in a lower category cabin. Is a complaint from a TA really necessary for Seabourn to do the right thing?

Fortunately, there are plenty of other cruise options out there clamoring for our business. So, after sailing on a SilverSea expedition cruise, and participating in a Ponant webinar with our travel agency yesterday, you may understand why this will likely be our last Expedition cruise with Seabourn.

If you have had any negative experinces with Seabourn Expeditions, feel free to weigh in with your comments.

 

Seabourn pre and post cruise customer service is a a disgrace. For Europeans it is even worse, you don't get assigned a single person in charge of your booking, they never reply or reply 3 weeks later to our emails and yes they do spam every guest with tons of identical emails about the upcoming cruise.

 

But once you book and pay just don't bother too much with all that....btw expeditions ships are so small that boarding time does not really matter, last time we embarked in Iceland we had 0 wait and since we only brought carry on luggage we went straight to our suite with everything we needed.

 

Even if 250 people showed up at the same time it would probably take 20 minutes to have everyone on board 🙂

 

So just relax and enjoy.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Khareef

[commodoredave]

On 9/27/2023 at 5:11 PM, Mr Luxury said:

I can't even remember my eighty first cruise it was so long ago.

As long as you can still remember the cruise that you are on, you're doing just fine! ☺️

[florisdekort]

Keep calm and carry on.

 

You‘ll have a wonderful cruise. Reviews from Venture and Pursuit and the many live reports on Seabourn Sailors have all been two thumbs up.

 

 

[whystayhome]

I always look forward to posts from Mr. Luxury.  What a card!

 

Linda

[SLSD]

31 minutes ago, whystayhome said:

I always look forward to posts from Mr. Luxury.  What a card!

 

Linda

I have come to appreciate his humor and his good will.  

[markham]

I have a couple of opinions about Mr L and they are grounded in my personal experience in dealing with him and his manner. And I note that we even have friends in common, odd as that may appear. Nonetheless, he is good value and a good sport, despite everything else. May he long continue to inform and amuse!

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

[Khareef]

What happened to Mr L.?

[commodoredave]

The Seabourn Gong Show continues. Today, just 4 days before our cruise departs, we received notice that a visa for Suriname is required and must be applied for by end of tomorrow for it to be processed in time for our arrival in Parimaribo on October 14. In addition, a large number of itinerary changes were announced last night. We are already in Barbados and now using vaction time to sort the mess out. Another Gong for Seabourn shoreside.

[Khareef]

35 minutes ago, commodoredave said:

The Seabourn Gong Show continues. Today, just 4 days before our cruise departs, we received notice that a visa for Suriname is required and must be applied for by end of tomorrow for it to be processed in time for our arrival in Parimaribo on October 14. In addition, a large number of itinerary changes were announced last night. We are already in Barbados and now using vaction time to sort the mess out. Another Gong for Seabourn shoreside.

 

I don't know the specifics, but in general it is our duty as fellow travellers to figure out if we need VISAs or not. And the foreign ministry is the one to be contacted for clarification. I wouldn't trust any travel agent or Cruise-line  for that.

 

Once one airline wanted to deny my boarding the plane because they thought I needed a return ticket to enter a certain country, I had to call the police and I had them force the idiotic employee to let me into the plance...quite funny actually. 

 

 

[skybluewaters]

2 hours ago, commodoredave said:

The Seabourn Gong Show continues. Today, just 4 days before our cruise departs, we received notice that a visa for Suriname is required and must be applied for by end of tomorrow for it to be processed in time for our arrival in Parimaribo on October 14.

 

After you booked this cruise, did you check to see if a visa (or in this case, a travel card) would be required?  Every single cruise line that I am aware of clearly indicates that it is the traveler's responsibility to do so. 

 

Sure, it would be helpful if the cruise lines helped with this, but it is our responsibility as cruisers to manage this. 

 

If anything, you should be very thankful that Seabourn sent you this notification. 

[commodoredave]

49 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

 

After you booked this cruise, did you check to see if a visa (or in this case, a travel card) would be required?  Every single cruise line that I am aware of clearly indicates that it is the traveler's responsibility to do so. 

 

Sure, it would be helpful if the cruise lines helped with this, but it is our responsibility as cruisers to manage this. 

 

If anything, you should be very thankful that Seabourn sent you this notification. 

I’m so grateful to Seabourn that I just booked my next cruise with Silversea. 😊 When we originally booked our Seabourn expedition cruise about 18 months ago, both the cruise line and our TA told us that no visas were needed in advance for Canadians and Americans. Then, about 9 months later, Seabourn advised that Brazil now required a visa. Then, 4 months after that Seabourn advised that Brazil no longer required a visa. And then last night, that Suriname now requires a visa. Actually, it’s just a $25 visitor entry fee that should have been easy for the ship to organize, as so many other cruise lines do, including parent HAL. But no, we have to do it last minute. In defence of Seabourn, they do state in the fine print that it is up to passengers to check on the entry requirements as they may change. If we cruise with Seabourn again, i will make a point of regularly checking entry requirements right up to departure. 
As for the multiple changes (again) to the itinerary last night, I guess that comes with a new ship doing its inaugural cruise a new place. Either that, or someone shoreside has a drinking problem 🤪.

[frantic36]

3 hours ago, commodoredave said:

Then, about 9 months later, Seabourn advised that Brazil now required a visa. Then, 4 months after that Seabourn advised that Brazil no longer required a visa.

Brazil has a been chopping and changing this so I am sure all cruise lines had the same issue. Brazil will still require a Visa in the future they have now pushed it back to January 2024 rather than October 2023 because they weren't set up in time to do on-line Visas. 

 

 

[commodoredave]

2 hours ago, frantic36 said:

Brazil has a been chopping and changing this so I am sure all cruise lines had the same issue. Brazil will still require a Visa in the future they have now pushed it back to January 2024 rather than October 2023 because they weren't set up in time to do on-line Visas. 

 

 

I’m sure they did. My point is that SB kept us up to date on Brazil but not Suriname, leaving us with a false sense of security.

[frantic36]

3 hours ago, commodoredave said:

I’m sure they did. My point is that SB kept us up to date on Brazil but not Suriname, leaving us with a false sense of security.

 

I have no idea but I will say Suriname is confusing as they seemed to change the rules again in May, 2023 saying they were making many countries Visa exempt including USA but that you had to apply for a US$25pp entrance fee prior to arrival. Then when you search to do this on the website it talks about getting an e-visa.

 

So yes Seabourn should have a handle on it but I always check before I travel and this one is very confusing. I have no idea why Seabourn can't get a blanket visa and HAL supposedly can.

 

Edited to add be careful re visa websites as some were looking to charge almost US$100.

Edited October 7, 2023 by frantic36

[commodoredave]

16 hours ago, frantic36 said:

 

Edited to add be careful re visa websites as some were looking to charge almost US$100.

Actually, one if the 2 companies (CBIT) recommended by Seabourn charges GBP 164 for the evisa, whereas the other recommended company (vfs global) charges US$65. I think the big price difference with CBIT is because Seabourn knows it is okay to charge Brits more than Americans for anything. 😃

Edited October 7, 2023 by commodoredave
Typo

[commodoredave]

2 minutes ago, commodoredave said:

Actually, one if the 2 companies (CBIT) recommended by Seabourn charges GBP 164 for the evisa, whereas the other recommended company (vfs global) charges US$65. I think the big price difference with CBIT is because Seabourn knows it is okay to charge Brits more than Americans for anything. 😃

For 2 people that is

[USN59-79]

21 hours ago, commodoredave said:

Actually, one if the 2 companies (CBIT) recommended by Seabourn charges GBP 164 for the evisa, whereas the other recommended company (vfs global) charges US$65. I think the big price difference with CBIT is because Seabourn knows it is okay to charge Brits more than Americans for anything. 😃

I think the reason all of the Carnival brands recommend CBIT is that they get a hefty kickback from them.