Rare highplanesdrifters Posted July 18 #1 Share Posted July 18 Just heard Scuba was canceled on our 40 day Guam-Santiago in September. Anyone have any Intel other than the usual Bean Counters taking over? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlaviaOfTheMonth Posted July 20 #2 Share Posted July 20 Yikes. I would bail myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BasandSyb Posted July 20 #3 Share Posted July 20 Was also cancelled on our 24/8 - 27/9 2025 Broome to Lautoka cruise as notified today. I think it’s more of a case that local tourism companies are to be used (privately) in preference to on board. It’s becoming more common in thwarting cruise lines from controlling local markets in the south seas markets (and elsewhere). Snorkeling also, but to a lesser extent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare highplanesdrifters Posted July 20 Author #4 Share Posted July 20 8 hours ago, FlaviaOfTheMonth said: Yikes. I would bail myself. Just an avid snorkeler here. It is our friends who scuba who are seriously disappointed. I'm trying to think of this trip as a South Pacific vacation as opposed to an "expedition ". 2 hours ago, BasandSyb said: Was also cancelled on our 24/8 - 27/9 2025 Broome to Lautoka cruise as notified today. I think it’s more of a case that local tourism companies are to be used (privately) in preference to on board. It’s becoming more common in thwarting cruise lines from controlling local markets in the south seas markets (and elsewhere). Snorkeling also, but to a lesser extent. I was wondering if that was the case. If so will they offer scuba from local vendors at a charge? Also wondering how many snorkeling events will be sub contracted for a charge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stan01 Posted July 20 #5 Share Posted July 20 If scuba was high on my priority list I would not be booking on Seabourn. FInd a dive ship or resort. For the cost of this cruise one could find a lot of options and be able to keep expectations in line with business providing services. Scuba is not a high priority to Seabourn and never will be. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare highplanesdrifters Posted July 20 Author #6 Share Posted July 20 33 minutes ago, stan01 said: If scuba was high on my priority list I would not be booking on Seabourn. FInd a dive ship or resort. For the cost of this cruise one could find a lot of options and be able to keep expectations in line with business providing services. Scuba is not a high priority to Seabourn and never will be. Exactly!!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjcox9 Posted July 20 #7 Share Posted July 20 Interesting. I was telling friends who are avid divers that Seabourn had begun doing dives and was pointing them to a South Pacific cruise Seabourn one. They said they were surprised since so many ships that had been offering that were now discontinuing due to the risks/liability. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kej1 Posted July 20 #8 Share Posted July 20 This is not good news for the divers although doesn’t affect us. I was notified yesterday as well. On our trip last spring from Papeete to Guam there was complimentary scuba diving. It was limited to about 8 people but I know they enjoyed it. It wasn’t offered in every port but when it wasn’t offered a couple of times they found a local operator who took them for a fee. We are no longer divers so are fine with snorkeling which we really enjoy so it doesn’t impact us but I can assume it will impact others. We are also going from Broome to Lautoka in August of 2025. I know of at least one diving couple on our trip last April who also signed up for this trip who I’m expecting will likely cancel. Based on our last experience I would guess this will end up being a combination Ocean and expedition cruise with both some paid options and some complimentary. For snorkeling on our April -May 2024 cruise that was the case. Much of the first half of that cruise ( Papeete to Honaria consisted of paid tours including snorkeling). You can read my review of the trip here on cruise critic. I posted every couple of days. Although we were disappointed in some aspects of the expedition piece, we are signed up to go next summer primarily to experience the Kimberly’s and some remote parts of Indonesia. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covepointcruiser Posted July 20 #9 Share Posted July 20 Surprised that Scuba was ever offered at no additional cost! You are charged for kayaking but not Scuba? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kej1 Posted July 20 #10 Share Posted July 20 Yes we were charged for kayaks and the submarine but there was no charge for scuba on our cruise from Papeete to Guam. ( except when divers organized with a local operator which they did a couple of times). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Posted July 20 #11 Share Posted July 20 Just a question about scuba certification: Decades ago, I did a lot of scuba, was certified, and had my own equipment. Career basically brought this to an end. Got rid of my equipment and lost track of my certification card. The question is: How do the cruise lines handle the issue of certification in conjunction with scuba excursions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kej1 Posted July 20 #12 Share Posted July 20 On our cruise divers were required to bring all their own gear except tanks and weight belts. You had to be certified and have done two ocean dives in the last 6 months and have a letter from your dr stating you were in good health to dive. I think I’m remembering this correctly. There was information posted on the Seabourn website but it sounds like they won’t be offering it going forward. If you are interested I’d give them a call. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare highplanesdrifters Posted July 20 Author #13 Share Posted July 20 4 hours ago, kej1 said: It wasn’t offered in every port but when it wasn’t offered a couple of times they found a local operator who took them for a fee. Good to know. Hopefully they will do this again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Covepointcruiser Posted July 20 #14 Share Posted July 20 That is amazing that scuba was no charge, yet they charge $200 for half a kayak, that is not right so I will complain to Seabourn! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Globalia Posted July 23 #15 Share Posted July 23 Once we saw Seabourn chartering out quite a number of their expedition class ships to a mid-market Australian tour company, and not only in Australian waters but in European and other waters as well, the message was absolutely clear: the company was not making adequate revenue and ROI returns on this USD c. 520m+ investment in this vessel class and thus had to secure both operational cost savings and better revenue stability to stem the problem (main reason: one too many of this vessel class needing as it does very high cabin-days-sold utilisation and derived revenue yield per cabin to justify the investment). Scuba was a heavy loss-maker on board with too few opportunities and too few pax takers in relation to the carried costs of providing it and, likewise but even greater, the subs are a complete economic disaster zone for not dissimilar reasons. They can't be stopped as such as the capital and marketing commitment is just too great but I suspect they could become a curtailed service and sold off and the space reused for better revenue generation. Why do we think Seabourn has had no less than three CEO's in under seven years? The brand is not performing adequately. Barbara Muckerman at Silversea was by far the smartest CEO in this cruise segment. When she and her top team purchased (at a great price) the current SS Endeavour from Crystal (when bankrupt) she junked any notion of subs, choppers, and such like as she knew (a) they made no economic sense and never would and (b) further, they would risk alienating pax that did not want to pay the huge $ ride fees they would intrinsically require to pay off whilst the average pax watched the serious rich on board be largely the only ones to ever use them in the very few cases when they could be viably deployed. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare frantic36 Posted July 23 #16 Share Posted July 23 While I agree with much of what you say I do have some queries. With regards to Barbara Muckerman I have always wondered why she left Silversea so abruptly this year? Was she pushed or did she jump? As to your comment on junking things I do question that not having helicopters especially in places like the Kimberley is not good economic sense. I sailed on True North in the Kimberleys last year and the helicopter was heavily utilised and as far as I know the same can be said for Scenic's helicopters. So they seemed to be good revenue raisers. I would not classify most of the passengers on True North as seriously rich but comfortably off just like most of the passengers on Seabourn. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare highplanesdrifters Posted July 23 Author #17 Share Posted July 23 2 hours ago, frantic36 said: I sailed on True North in the Kimberleys last year We saw True North quite a bit when we were in the Kimberlys last year. Looked like a fun ship. Did you do a review? If not care to make a few comments? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Globalia Posted July 23 #18 Share Posted July 23 3 hours ago, frantic36 said: While I agree with much of what you say I do have some queries. With regards to Barbara Muckerman I have always wondered why she left Silversea so abruptly this year? Was she pushed or did she jump? As to your comment on junking things I do question that not having helicopters especially in places like the Kimberley is not good economic sense. I sailed on True North in the Kimberleys last year and the helicopter was heavily utilised and as far as I know the same can be said for Scenic's helicopters. So they seemed to be good revenue raisers. I would not classify most of the passengers on True North as seriously rich but comfortably off just like most of the passengers on Seabourn. re BM - we can all speculate but, importantly, what is not in doubt is that she left go to what is, by the looks of it, a terrific job (if you like this sort of work) as CEO of Kempinski hotels, the successful, global high end hotels group. Hardly a sign of an executive on the down or not highly regarded in the elite service industries. re choppers on cruise ships. Respectfully, the True North Australia-only operation is not a fitting example of a global cruise company viability case re these machines. There are many profit-constraining issues here: high fixed costs both capital and operational that can only be justified on the the basis of sustained high economic utilisation that is very hard to get on a global (as distinct to Australian only in isolated, calm conditions) cruising plan given issues with, inter alia, pilot licensing controls (eg in many countries chopper pilots must be legally licensed as such in that country and not outside it), rights to operate controls, weather impacts, time of day permits, air traffic control impositions, and so on. The highly isolated, low population Kimberley typically has great weather for choppers for c 5-6 months per year and choppers there have few operational or legal constraints, this is certainly not the case in many other cruising regions. Then on top US cruise companies incur high legally required insurance cost add ons once they operate ‘higher risk’ assets like subs, scuba, choppers as the litigation risks are huge once/if something sadly goes wrong for the ship and/or for passengers using these assets. re choppers, IMO SB was smart re this mode in their first Kimberley season and used reputable external chopper companies as service offerings to guests for well-planned outings whilst charging an obvious markup on the price per trip or hour they were paid. Thus no fixed cost at all to SB but probably good customer utilisation and a reasonable profit. (I just experienced all this on the SB Pursuit on a 10 day Kimberley cruise.) 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare markandjie Posted July 24 #19 Share Posted July 24 I was excited about the opportunity of diving in the remote locations that Pursuit will visit, but would gladly settle for well coordinated excursions run by local dive operators with a reasonable markup by Seabourn. We took our dive gear on our Greek cruise with SB and the stress it introduced to ensure we could off the ship and to the dive operation on time was not appreciated. Several times we were late to port and fortunately Security and the ground crew were nice enough to expedite us otherwise we would have missed the dive boat. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Globalia Posted July 24 #20 Share Posted July 24 6 minutes ago, markandjie said: I was excited about the opportunity of diving in the remote locations that Pursuit will visit, but would gladly settle for well coordinated excursions run by local dive operators with a reasonable markup by Seabourn. We took our dive gear on our Greek cruise with SB and the stress it introduced to ensure we could off the ship and to the dive operation on time was not appreciated. Several times we were late to port and fortunately Security and the ground crew were nice enough to expedite us otherwise we would have missed the dive boat. And good on you! This option - reputable and efficient outsourcing to competent external operators for dive etc - is sensible (or should be) for SB. They are also more likely to know the best local dive sites and how to best access them vs SB dive managers spending their lives mostly on the ship. Just a suggestion, I would consider emailing your most senior known SB contact and stressing the importance of SB's expedition ships ensuring good externally sourced scuba alternatives now that their from-on-board scuba offerings have been terminated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare frantic36 Posted July 24 #21 Share Posted July 24 14 hours ago, highplanesdrifters said: We saw True North quite a bit when we were in the Kimberlys last year. Looked like a fun ship. Did you do a review? If not care to make a few comments? Thanks. Away on a holiday at the moment so will do a overview in a few days 😊 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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