Globalia

From what I have learnt from the cruise marketplace, RC cruises is particularly targetting (amongst the general market) (a) affluent new-to-cruise customers in the c. 35-50 year age bracket and happy to add kids to the mix and (b) where knowingly such a demographic, especially from the US, only get and take shorter holiday breaks than say Europeans and Aust/NZ and so many 7 day attractively designed cruise programs have particular appeal.

Totally agree and totally at odds with SB's frequent marketing (as though yet another SB product benefit) that 'gratuities are neither required nor expected'. That this 'initiative' appears permitted by on-board management (it's on SB letterhead for goodness sakes) and blatantly contradicts a SB notable marketing promise may highlight deeper problems with this cruise line that I have observed in other areas of SB product delivery.

Thank you! Re the submarine: FWIW SB Sydney told me that the Pursuit would definitely not be using it for the Kimberley programs.

@BBGrace273, yes, if you’ve paid in full it’s harder but still not impossible in my experience, depends upon circumstances of a particular cruise and/or period when SS want to ensure pax don’t feel justly upset when in effect way over-charged when they see a much-reduced fare arrive for their cruise. The core economics of cruise companies in their most compelling form is their certain knowledge that they must get cruisers coming back for multiple more cruises - every year finding many ‘new to cruise’ customers is just too expensive for them, repetitive business is crucial. Also the possible opportunity I mentioned frankly depends upon the depth of your TA’s links in with key SS local staff - these relationships where strong can produce wonders to our benefit at times.

Hey kej1 Just wanted to shout out gratitude for your terrific, wonderfully helpful journey posts. You’re the type of balanced, articulate, observant contributor here that adds real experiential value to others and, just as much, enjoyment in the receiving. Your generous communication as to your time and effort has helped and enlivened me in numerous ways but more particularly in thinking forward to our forthcoming Australian Kimberley-on-Pursuit cruise in July 2024 upcoming. My wife and I are seasoned cruisers, especially with SB. Your not-complimentary notations re the alleged SB ‘expeditions planning and expertise’ have ringed very true for me as SB Australia have consistently mucked about in the most confusing manner re what type and number of unpaid and paid expeditions will or will not be available on this forthcoming cruise. The date when ‘all will be explained’ in this regard has changed and been postponed endless times and we still have…zero. This despite SB’s constant promo marketing hype re its supposed global capability in long range expeditions planning and execution. You’d think they were the modern day Christopher Columbuses the way they self-boast in this area of competence whilst taking on the business risk of not one but two high end expedition cruise ships (btw they’re having trouble filling both). Adding this to your recent comments re mixed food quality and an on board chefs’ declarations re ‘not a priority on expedition ships’…well, yikes, what can one say given SB has no compunction in charging serious $ premiums for these types of cruises and big time hyping up just about every aspect of the related ‘expedition’ product. Noting as one does that SB has now had no less than 3 changes of Presidents in 4 years, one increasingly wonders why, and its consequences. No business’ quality ever exceeds the calibre of its leadership. On the positives, great that you’ve enjoyed generally good service, quality of staff, and the continuing joys of the stunning geography of the Sth Pacific region. Isn’t it just another confirmation of the love we deserve to have for this wondrous planet and the vast pleasure of exploring it.

Hi BBG 1. Yes, you can book the restaurants for multiple numbers, to what upper numerical extent I’m not sure as I booked only up to 4 persons in each case. The system is pretty user-friendly, I’m sure you’ll quickly figure it out! 2. I think the pool is at least ‘moderately’ heated. Not 100% certain on this as we only swam in hot weather. But I recall one or two persons who swam in the colder periods of our cruise commenting they were very happy with it. 3. A general point. At present it’s looking like this cruise sector will certainly not be 100% occupied, 70% or so more likely which is quite typical of most trans ocean cruises. The following sector - round trip Tokyo from 1 October - which we are also on is presently 100% booked. If my assessment as above holds, subject to the $ fare and type you have today, do go back and check online with SS or your TA as you may be able to get a cheaper fare on this sailing either now or closer to Sept 12. With a ship of Nova’s size, its economics as such require SS to max out the the total $ revenue yield on board so ‘late flexible price reductions’ are not at all uncommon to incentive price-sensitive cruisers to commit late in the pre-sail months. Any other questions - happy to help where I can!

Hi BBG Yes, by day. Also, having been on the Nova for 31 days late last year, I can endorse the Silver Note as one of the best dining/entertainment venues on the ship - we went 3 times and loved it. The food, wines, service and entertainers were all excellent! Once on board, it is as you infer much harder to get into (it's quite small, part of its charm and success) vs booking well in advance. We booked other Nova venues in advance but generally, other than the Note, in practice found no need when on board but I'd still suggest booking up all you want when bookings open (on May 15 for the Alaska-Japan depart Sept 12 Nova trip which we are on, is this your cruise too?). (In our opinion, the upcharge restaurants are ridiculously over-hyped and over-priced, not so the Chef's Table though which we thought was excellent and well worth it once per cruise.) Re all the Alaska top deck. open air doom-mongering here. Our cruise as above was ex NYC in mid-November and then onto Sth America, etc. So our early days were often cold and windy. Please recall: cold and windy days will negatively affect _all_ cruise ships' pool and open-air restaurants and so on. On the Nova, the semi open-air Marquee is a terrific venue in our experience, in all of food, service, wines. Re the 'cold and rain' issues: approximately 30% of the Marquee is more or less enclosed (just one open side) with excellent overhead heaters that work very well. For the open areas, there is no doubt SS erroneously neglected to install something like the 'Vergola' technology within the open-slatted roof so that rain could be prevented from entering that large 50+% of the Marquee's covered area that is exposed to rain. This simply means that with rain this large section cannot be used at all and such creates service disruptions obviously either pre-seating commencing or during it. (NB: As a 'competitive' reference, the Seabourn pool deck open-air restaurants are equally affected by cold and rain.) However, when just cold and not rainy we found that with the excellent supplied blankets we could often enjoy certainly lunch in the exposed areas (in fact the bracing atmosphere was something we liked overall), and ditto an early dinner. We often enjoyed dinner on cold days in the above-noted semi-enclosed Marquee space and occasionally completely in the open space with blankets. Of course, this will not be for everyone and, yes, on cold and/or rainy days a bit more pressure is placed on the main enclosed lower-down restaurants but we never found this in any way a serious problem or inconvenience and our first (colder) cruise sector was 100% occupied. Re the Nova - I can promise you that 80++% of persons who cruise on her will love the ship as we did and have just a wonderful time.

From this article, I could not help but notice this gem of revelation from SB's latest President (they have rotated through 3 different Presidents in almost as many years). My emphasis: "Quizzed how the inaugural Kimberley program this year was selling, Leahy said the biggest opportunity today was for the Seabourn sales team to “drive pricing up,” It's clear both Silversea and SB are in fact driving prices (average net USD per suite per day) up big time on all but the most unpopular itineraries. Time will tell if this is a wise commercial decision or merely commercial over self-confidence in cruising's revival post-pandemic.

Just to add a bit to all this: in conversation with APT today, it was confirmed that if a cruise passenger chooses 'Seabourn chartered by APT' then zero standard SB Club benefits of any kind accrue via this route to an SB Club member whose Club rank entitles them to certain Club-level benefits, eg discounted premium wines, FOC laundry etc., and no SB Club points for future benefits and level enhancement are earned on this type of SB-supplied APT cruise. One positive though seems to be that, when booking this type of chartered SB cruise via APT the deposit required pre c. 120 days pre the cruise departure date is only $A1,000 pp (though this is non-refundable except via a 'deposit protection' option of $95 pp which converts a not-used deposit to a later FCC on APT offerings).

Friends and I - all regular SB travellers over many SB ships and years - said at the time when SB decided to launch not one but two new high-cost-per-suite expedition ships, this very likely was one too many in financial and competitive terms and they would likely find the two combo at best not covering the cost of capital and, at worst, cash flow loss-making especially given the high $ price per night per suite they wanted to charge, or simply had to charge, coupled with the newly large number of 'expedition' suite nights they had to sell at these price points. If this scenario had not eventuated, there is no way SB would revenue share with a mid-market company like APT, no way they would need to cede that material $ yield share and further risk brand damage/market confusion in the process. Almost certainly the APT deal is a financial damage limitation exercise as SB/Carnival acts to mitigate the financial downside they are almost certainly experiencing with an over-exposure to the high-end 'expeditions' market. This has no doubt been made somewhat worse by the now highly competitive and over-supplied Antarctica market that is core to the annual itineraries of the SB expedition ships.

Me too. Hope to see you all onboard.

Have to say - greatly appreciate your efforts in posting so quickly and usefully. TA's inputs are nice to have, but factual and observational reports from paying passengers so much more valuable.

Hi - I note you're booked Nova in November and so are we. I respond solely with what might be relevant input for you. Namely, to my immense annoyance and disappointment I have discovered that our 11/18 Nova cruise NYC -> Lima has, with zero communication from SS to us, had numerous port call times significantly truncated or partly truncated, all at variance to what we had as committed port call times in March 2023 when we booked and paid for this cruise. And these timings were one ingredient in us choosing this particular cruise. Just for example - San Juan was to be an 11 pm departure, it is now 8 pm. A special dinner with guests we had planned (and venue booked) there onshore that night will now have to be canceled. Numerous other port calls have been reduced from, say, a 7 pm departure to a 6 pm or 5 pm. A couple more 11 pms are cut back to 8pms. This of course means that any desires for an onshore dinner or just further local exploring in the evening are out. As above, what is especially galling regarding all this is that there has been zero communication from SS HQ or otherwise informing us of and explaining this material change. I found out about these changes largely by accident. Imagine if I boarded the Nova - and with numerous onshore bookings made on the basis of the original itinerary - only to then discover these changes! The communication absence from SS regarding all this is simply appalling. My local SS customer service person 'has no idea why this has happened' which is additionally poor. Finally, I am now learning that many other Nova pre-booked cruise itineraries may be being similarly cut down in various ways as to port call time - and surely this is a pervasive cost reduction measure, there is no other credible explanation for changes of this size.

Hello, I have just tried to book again multiple La Dame reservations within the first Nova voyage period of our two November B2B Nova voyages and, yes, it certainly seems I can book La Dame as many times as desired in both periods, with no limit at all. (As others here have pointed out, this is a potentially unfair system as passengers can just block reserve to suit their whims, then cancel only when onboard, and others could thus miss out entirely. However, it is likely SS could care less as clearly with the new Nova upcharge pricing the company's and RCG's goal is onboard sales revenue maximization even on our - cough, cough - 'all inclusive' cruise programs.) Just wondering, did you log out and then back into MySilversea? This may assist, not sure. Otherwise, perhaps contact SS directly to fix it for your booking.

Just a passing update regarding the Nova 'booking upcharge restaurants' glitch whereby even if a booked Nova passenger is within the 120 Nova restaurant booking window on MySilversea many guests were/are finding that these two bookable venues could only be booked in the first 4-5 days of their cruise and subsequent to that period the opportunity to book them would entirely vanish. Well, at least for me and some others I know that glitch has today (August 3) been repaired and we can now book these two restaurants for the entire voyage duration, day by day. Though with the exorbitant new (Nova only?) upcharges, it might well be surmised that there will be no rush to secure seats in these venues.