Complimentary wines

[Robisan]

8 hours ago, 2SailingNomads said:

The worst part was they ran our of so many of the wines.  ...  No cabernet after a week, no pinot nor Malbec.

"Complimentary premium spirits and fine wines available on board at all times"

 

At least the dishonesty is comprehensive.

 

I emailed the office of the president with two very specific, simple questions and received the same canned, generic response within a few hours. I replied asking again for answers to my specific questions and have as of now, several days later, received no reply.

[brittany12]

1 hour ago, Robisan said:

"Complimentary premium spirits and fine wines available on board at all times"

 

At least the dishonesty is comprehensive.

 

I emailed the office of the president with two very specific, simple questions and received the same canned, generic response within a few hours. I replied asking again for answers to my specific questions and have as of now, several days later, received no reply.

When will "false adverting" going on for years have some consequences? Does it reach the level of consumer fraud?  

[Vineyard View]

Does anyone have the email address of Natalya directly?  
I am wondering if people responded that the pat answer is not good enough, and request that it be escalated to her, if that would make any difference……maybe not…..but again, why not. 
Thinking tomorrow might be a good day to give that a try. Absolutely nothing to loose. 
 

[saminina]

3 hours ago, brittany12 said:

When will "false adverting" going on for years have some consequences? Does it reach the level of consumer fraud?  

I choose not to believe any of the fuss being made about the wines.

[Utopia1]

Recently I attempted to order two different wines-- each one was "expensive". They were out of both wines.  It isn't only the complimentary wines that are in short supply-- it is the premium wines as well.

[brittany12]

I can more easily understand certain  "expensive" premium wines being sometimes  out of stock since there are limited numbers for each on any given ship  but the complimentary wines they purchase for mass consumption are purchased by the many cartons or pallet-full..  Our issue is not so so much running out of them but the horrible choice of too many of the free "fine wines" on the complementary list to begin  with.  

[Vineyard View]

I have responded to the ‘scripted’ email I received in response. I have no problem pushing back on smoke and mirrors positioning. I channeled the current list on some ships, and felt that these changes were in the wrong direction. I suggested that Natalia, from what I have heard and read, would probably want to be made aware of the increased levels of dissatisfaction. 
who knows, might be a huge waste of time and energy. 

[Robisan]

19 hours ago, Vineyard View said:

Does anyone have the email address of Natalya directly?

A few places on the Internets suggest nleahy @ seabourn. com. Another old and maybe future option is natalya.leahy @ hagroup. com.

[highplanesdrifters]

On 9/13/2024 at 1:54 PM, saminina said:

I choose not to believe any of the fuss being made about the wines.

 

I'm not sure if you're joking.  In case you're serious please let me know if you find anything "fine" on the included list I have attached.

 

Currently on Pursuit.

 

We had a rude altercation with a waiter.  When I asked him what else he was pouring he said "what do you want?".  I expressed my desires and he didn't know what that was. Then he just walked away.  Came back 10 minutes later with more plonk. I asked if there were any "fine " wines like advertised. He snapped this is all we have - order from the revenue list. Then turned and disappeared. We have now been sitting for 20 minutes.  No one else was offered any wine.  Ultra luxury, I think not. We finally grabbed the restaurant manager who clearly was tired of the wine complaints.   Got some Champagne and placed a food order.

 

Eventually the Head Sommiler showed up. He was very kind, conciliatory and apologized for the problem with the included wines. He gave us a list, finally!  Agreed they were plonk.  Asked us to contact the head office. What a sad state of things.

 

We will be meeting with the HD about the rudeness.  The wine is a lost cause.

 

 

 

[brittany12]

Your treatments sounds just dreadful but not surprising. Very ordinary list of very bottom end wines. Louis Latour Grande Ardèche chardonnay retails for about $15. "Fine?, no, but we found it drinkable. On the other hand, I have to say I like the Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, also drinkable. Nine Hats cab retails for about $22 to $30 a bottle. Never tried it.The Cardwell Hill Willamette pinot noir might be nice at around $30 a bottle, because I am partial to  Willamette pinots. BUT, clearly nothing on this list remotely reaches even the loosest definition of "fine wines" they so proudly say they  serve on a complementary basis. False advertising...at its finest.

[saminina]

1 hour ago, highplanesdrifters said:

 

I'm not sure if you're joking.  In case you're serious please let me know if you find anything "fine" on the included list I have attached.

 

Currently on Pursuit.

Curious to familiar faces you recognize among crew.  Any, many, lots, few?

I've written all I care to write regarding SB in general, wine in particular.  I feel your pain.

Things will improve for you. 

 

[marazul]

19 Crimes? That's $7 a bottle in Costco.

[highplanesdrifters]

Just a quick post to say that other than the restaurant incident last night, things are excellent. Staff has been fantastic.  We will not starve or got thirsty.😁

 

However we may hit CareFour in Papeete and pick up some decent French wine.

Edited September 14 by highplanesdrifters

[Vineyard View]

Raymond Cab is not too bad. Out of that list I would go for that, and try the Pinot 

[diebroke]

Just saw this included wine list on Explora Journeys. Looks nicer.

[johng75370]

24 minutes ago, diebroke said:

Looks nicer.

How so?  The only Malbec they are currently pouring is the Borga from Italy that sells $15 for a 5 liter box.  All Explora choices are lower average retail price per bottle for similar category than on the SB Pursuit list recently posted.

Edited September 16 by johng75370

[AmateurGO]

I believe I was one of the first to complain about the "complimentary/included" wines after our 14 day Greece/Turkey cruise on the Encore back in April, 2023. At that time I felt it was not just the wines offered, but the attitude of the sommeliers/wine stewards.  The first night of our cruise, I was having beef on the main course.  Before I could ask for a wine list, the wine steward presented a bottle of Alamos Malbec.  Well, he got the Malbec part right, at least.  Alamos Malbec is typically $8. to $14 and not a wine I would choose at a restaurant.  (For a Tuesday night at home, maybe, but not dining out.)  I suggested that was not an especially good wine and asked what else was available and he quickly handed me the list of "optional" wines.  I recognized a couple of the wines and realized that the mark-ups were greater than at typical "fine dining" restaurants.  I asked to see a list of the other included wines and the wine steward told me they did not have such a list, saying it changed too frequently.  We made our way through most of the cruise, doing the best we could to find our way through the wine guessing game.  We did purchase wines from the optional list several times, but I always felt that we were being taken advantage of.  On the 11th or 12 evening, we were having dinner in the Colonnade for a change and mentioned the lack of an "included" wine list to an assistant wine steward and she quickly produced such a list, with a couple of the wines crossed out as being out of stock.  If I had been given this list on that first night. I would have been much happier.  That experience, and the somewhat bland food we experienced, rather soured us on Seabourn.  We have since spent 14 days on Oceania and have a 16 day cruise on Wind Star (our 8th cruise on WS) in November.  

[lincslady]

I hardly dare to comment here, but this list is very similar to those of earlier years.  Once you have cruised with Seabourn, and some of the other top lines , you realise that as has been stated many times on here, 'fine wines' is a complete fib.  If you are prepared to tolerate  that, then it depends on what you think of as an acceptable wine.  Obviously my DH and I were happy enough with fairly basic stuff;  Luckily for me I enjoy a sauvignon blanc  and find Oyster Bay for instance (about £9 UK retail) enjoyable. Some of you obviously have more sophisticated palates.  I doubt if things will change, as this is pretty much how it has been for years, and the only thing to push would be to tell SB they should just tell the truth, and staff admit to there being a list.    Where there does seem to have been a real downgrade seems to be in the cognac/single malts choices.

 

It looks as if either SB is getting staff to push people into the offered wine of the day, or possibly that some staff do not want to bother finding something else?  

[galeforce9]

Current list on Encore (recd today) 

[pyffii]

An absolute disgrace and an insult to the term 'fine wines"

[lincslady]

That is a very different list to the previous one shown here - and IMO just looking at the whites a pretty awful one.  If this is a standard list from now on, I take back my previous comments!

[Huggsy]

2 hours ago, galeforce9 said:

Current list on Encore (recd today) 

Looks grim

[hoosier74]

9 hours ago, lincslady said:

I hardly dare to comment here, but this list is very similar to those of earlier years.  Once you have cruised with Seabourn, and some of the other top lines , you realise that as has been stated many times on here, 'fine wines' is a complete fib.  If you are prepared to tolerate  that, then it depends on what you think of as an acceptable wine.  Obviously my DH and I were happy enough with fairly basic stuff;  Luckily for me I enjoy a sauvignon blanc  and find Oyster Bay for instance (about £9 UK retail) enjoyable. Some of you obviously have more sophisticated palates.  I doubt if things will change, as this is pretty much how it has been for years, and the only thing to push would be to tell SB they should just tell the truth, and staff admit to there being a list.    Where there does seem to have been a real downgrade seems to be in the cognac/single malts choices.

 

It looks as if either SB is getting staff to push people into the offered wine of the day, or possibly that some staff do not want to bother finding something else?  

I absolutely agree.  This list isn't appreciably different than the list from our first Seabourn cruise in 2011.  And the Beringer white zinfandel has been on it since we began then.  I noted it then because I knew the Beringer wine maker that had developed it.  I suspect it is on the list because people drink it.  I can usually find something I will drink.  And I also find the purchased wines to be priced below resturant prices which are typcially 3X discounted (Costco)  retail here.  I appreciate wine but also a good cocktail.  

[brittany12]

I partially agree. Maybe the Beringer while zin....which retails today at Total Wine on the internet at $4.49 a bottle.... made an earlier appearance on a cruise years ago, and my memory going back 15 years on my 20 cruises to when I first started sailing with Seabourn is being jogged a bit by what you just said. Maybe, now seeing what you wrote, I saw this embarrassment back then and complained, but it is decidedly true that the "free" list was never great, and the optional list was always overpriced. However, adding now Mateus to it and some of the other very cheap choices is a new low and an insult to us, its high-price paying passengers, who know a thing or two about wine. There was always a handful of good wines on the free list, stashed away somewhere, that I was able to sort out, with a little help from the F&B manager and the real sommeliers they used to have. Regardless of what it has served in the past, and gotten away with, it is in competition today with other new and legacy super luxury lines that do not  appear to serve this swill, and no one has the gall like Seabourn to label this bottom end stuff "fine wine." If what you surmise hoosier74 is true that they carry Beringer white zin because  people actually like that garbage, it is no wonder they keep pouring it and Mateus into our glasses and hope those who appreciate decent if not great wines opt for the upgraded cash wines, which they need to sell a lot of, at the highest prices possible, to help their really suffering bottom line. I believe  they keep the free list as boderline-bad as the market will allow to stimulate as much revenue as they can from premium wine sales.

[AmateurGO]

If Mateus had been on the list when we were on our cruise, I might have ordered it in memory of long ago when I was about 25 (or younger) and would sometimes "splurge" on Mateus (or Lancers).  In those days, when its primary competition was Boones Farm and Gallo Burgundy (in the half gallon jug),  it was considered one of the "upscale" wines.😉  In the 50 years since then, both my tastes and wine quality in the US have changed a bit.