What's going to happen now the hurricanes have left a trail of destruction?

[RustyRollock]

Let's keep this in perspective. The inconveniences we might "endure" are nothing compared to the people who've lost their homes, businesses, everything in some cases. Although Seabourn isn't handling customer liaison very well (wouldn't be the first time) none of this is their fault so it's not fair to demand or even expect them to be able to produce something out of nothing. We still plan to have a great time and just maybe the experience will be a much needed reality check on what sometimes happens outside our privileged and protected first world bubble.

[MrCheeky]

...Although Seabourn isn't handling customer liaison very well (wouldn't be the first time) none of this is their fault so it's not fair to demand or even expect them to be able to produce something out of nothing...

 

Obviously none of this is Seaboard's fault, the event was entirely out of their control. What I do expect and what IS within their control is their response to it. They charge a premium price for a premium product. That extends to the experience off the ship as well. What is fair is that customers receive an experience commensurate with what they expected and paid for. In the end I fully expect it to be a non-issue and will greatly enjoy our first Seaboun cruise.

[Sunprince]

If I had a future booking for the Caribbean departing in 2018 I would cancel if not in penalty phase and book later when plans are firmed up. I am predicting a decrease in prices soon as existing bookings get nervous and cancel and the cruise line needs to fill ships.

 

 

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Edited September 24, 2017 by Sunprince

[Able Seaman H]

Honestly, I don't understand Seabourn on this. They are part of the larger Carnival umbrella and they have a whole infrastructure to deal with scheduling (and rescheduling) cruises. Any company in this day and age has Business Recovery Plans that should involve identifying upfront alternate plans for key operations. Seabourn should have alternate embarkation/disembarkation ports in the event of unforeseen events. Why Seabourn needs weeks to figure this out is beyond me. They should have already had alternate plans/options in place. Really, this is someone's full time job to do this type of work. Even worse is staying silent and not communicating with customers. And it's not exactly rocket science to realize that no one will be embarking out of St Martin this season.

 

 

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I think you're being a bit unreasonable.

 

The nature of this disaster means you don't know exactly what islands will be affected and to what extent. For that reason forward planning is just not possible. Add in the differing speed at which each island can recover and you have an ever changing situation.

 

Taking a moment to let the dust settle and initial recovery to take place is the right thing. Once the longer term situation is fully understood a cohesive plan can be drawn up that doesn't require constant change. We are cruising in December so will likely be affected, I have no problem in waiting a couple of weeks.

 

I would be upset if an island was struck off just to be on the safe side immediately after the hurricane when in fact it was able to recover in good time. That would be the case with a hastily arranged plan.

 

Henry :)

[marama]

Sunprince, I do agree. For some days now, Windstar have had a banner at the top of their website about the hurricanes, with updates. If you look on their forum you will see that many new Windstar itineraries have already been updated. We are fortunate as we have no carribean bookings at present and are not affected. Even if Seabourn do need a little more time to work things out they could at least put something up on the website to let people know they are working on it. If Windstar can manage this, there would seem to be no reason for others to drag their feet.

[travelwell]

We are booked on the Feb 3rd Barbados to Bardodos itinerary. We booked our plane and hotel reservations months ago. We are planning on going on this cruise. We are interested to see what the final itinerary will look like. I do feel for those people booked out of St Martin as that adds extra pre planning stress. Btw, Windstar was realitively easy to reschedule their itineraries, they go back and forth to same islands every week. I do hope this is not the action Seabourn takes.

[jongbj]

If the cruise would change a bit, I really wouldn’t be concerned, that happens all the time. Missing a few islands is not a problem, we’ve been to most. So I can understand people indicating that Seabourn will make the most of it.

 

My main concern is that our Embarkation / Disembarkation port is completely destroyed, including virtually all hotels on the island.

 

And if Seabourn suddenly decides to skip our Embarkation / Disembarkation port, that would be a serious problem for us.

 

And even if they decide to not skip our Embarkation / Disembarkation port, we need to arrive a few days early, to ensure any flight issues will not make us miss the ship, and if that is a location where most hotels are closed until further notice, that worries me.

 

 

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[sassyw]

We are sailing on the Odyssey Dec. 27 from Barbados back to back to Miami. We have been to the Caribbean and since this is a port intensive cruise we would be very happy to have some sea days. Whatever they do we are thankful we were spared in Boca where we live and are very happy to be cruising!!:cool:

[Sunprince]

If the cruise would change a bit, I really wouldn’t be concerned, that happens all the time. Missing a few islands is not a problem, we’ve been to most. So I can understand people indicating that Seabourn will make the most of it.

 

My main concern is that our Embarkation / Disembarkation port is completely destroyed, including virtually all hotels on the island.

 

And if Seabourn suddenly decides to skip our Embarkation / Disembarkation port, that would be a serious problem for us.

 

And even if they decide to not skip our Embarkation / Disembarkation port, we need to arrive a few days early, to ensure any flight issues will not make us miss the ship, and if that is a location where most hotels are closed until further notice, that worries me.

 

 

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I couldn't agree more. This is the point I have been trying to get everyone to understand. Changes to embarkation ports have serious impacts to travel plans (flights, hotels) and Seabourn should be proactive in making decisions where this will be the case. There are not many alternate ports to use in the Caribbean for embarkation (need a major international airport nearby, hotel capacity, port that can handle embarkation services etc).

 

 

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[jozi]

Agree. It looks like all 2017 itineraries are Miami or Barbados embark/debark, so St. Martin embark/debark isn't an issue until well after the new year. I hope, for their sakes, they can rebuild soon!

I think you're being a bit unreasonable.

 

The nature of this disaster means you don't know exactly what islands will be affected and to what extent. For that reason forward planning is just not possible. Add in the differing speed at which each island can recover and you have an ever changing situation.

 

Taking a moment to let the dust settle and initial recovery to take place is the right thing. Once the longer term situation is fully understood a cohesive plan can be drawn up that doesn't require constant change. We are cruising in December so will likely be affected, I have no problem in waiting a couple of weeks.

 

I would be upset if an island was struck off just to be on the safe side immediately after the hurricane when in fact it was able to recover in good time. That would be the case with a hastily arranged plan.

 

Henry :)

[jongbj]

Agree. It looks like all 2017 itineraries are Miami or Barbados embark/debark, so St. Martin embark/debark isn't an issue until well after the new year. I hope, for their sakes, they can rebuild soon!

 

So do I, but I'm not going to make final payment and just wait and see whether they can or not and maybe need to move embarkation/disembarkation ports.

So Yes, it is an issue, even if you don't understand that.

[SeaBands]

We are booked on Sojourn Dec. 11 in and out of Miami. Most of the islands listed have had significant damage fron St. Barts to San Juan. Will they move to the western Caribbean like other cruise lines?

[Able Seaman H]

The answer is we don't know. There are 9 weeks to until that cruise departs during which time a lot of clean up work can take place. Seabourn / Carnival are keen to try and support the affected islands and that includes not cutting off their livelihood.

 

St Martin embarkation / debarkation is a trickier one. It's further away time wise so longer to recover but the stakes are higher in terms of external arrangements, flights, hotels and so on. Would I be right in thinking most people with flights booked go via Miami then on to St Martin? That being the case the bulk of the journey say from Europe remains the same, it's just the last bit which needs changing. I presume insurance would cover any cancellations beyond your control.

 

Anyone with a start / finish in St Martin won't be making final payment at this stage. Unlike many cruise lines Seabourn only venture into the Caribbean towards the end of October / start of November and as has been mentioned the first planned disembarkation to St Martin is February 10th 2018.

 

As our cruise starts and ends in Miami we are at least assured that the cruise will go ahead. If islands change then so be it and being a smaller ship we have flexibility unlike the giants from RCI, Carnival & so on. It's those arrivals to and departures from St Martin which need looking at as a priority and I won't be contacting Seabourn to get in the way of that.

 

Henry :)

[Erica@cruisecritic]

Cruise Critic is covering the hurricanes in depth and constantly updating stories on the situation in the Caribbean, Florida and elsewhere. A few stories to watch:

 

Hurricane Season 2017: Which Caribbean Cruise Ports Are Open?

After the 2017 Hurricanes: Where Will Caribbean Cruise Ships Go?

[Fletcher]

I hope the islands affected by these hurricanes will set about restoring the housing and infrastructure of their people rather than hastily doing the necessary reconstruction to the cruise terminals. Personally I wouldn't be comfortable showing up at a gleaming new cruise terminal when everyone was still living among the ruins.

[brenecke]

We are also on the October 30th round trip Miami sailing. While I am curious to see what the new itinerary looks like, I would be just as content to sail in circles enjoying the on board hospitality. The one thing that would irritate me is if we end up at too many mass market ports surrounded by Carnival and MSC behemoths. I am hopeful that Seabourn is thoughtfully looking at what ports might be best suited to its clientele.

 

I do sympathize with those who need to book travel and don't know what the port of embarkation/disembarkation will be.

[jongbj]

This info is what I got from my TA:

 

I am hoping to hear more about the options Seabournwill be offering for you this week or next week. I can’t make any guarantees,but those working in reservations are expecting an announcement very soon. Ofcourse I will immediately pass along whatever I hear.

I have until the 26th of October to cancel without penalties, so I'll give it few more weeks.

[purpleally]

We are booked on Sojourn Dec. 11 in and out of Miami. Most of the islands listed have had significant damage fron St. Barts to San Juan. Will they move to the western Caribbean like other cruise lines?

I hope not. I'd rather have sea days and float around than do that!!

Of course I was talked into going to the western Caribbean, on another line, in February

[Able Seaman H]

Just to let everyone know that the revised schedules have now been published.

 

Go onto the Seabourn website and look at the:

 

Itineraries

Ignore the maps.

 

Henry :)

[oregon50]

Amazing......San Juan remains, St Barts is out.

[travelwell]

I am able to see the itinerary changes for the Oct sailing but nothing about the Feb 3rd sailing. Still planning on going but curious about final destinations...

[oregon50]

SB has sent notification for cruises through December.

[Able Seaman H]

San Juan remains but they are keeping an eye on things.

 

I think the assumption is that the recovery will be quicker in San Juan than some of the Islands, but it is liable to change if things still look bad there in a few weeks.

 

San Juan it's self shouldn't be the problem, the port already has a huge mountain of aid and supplies waiting to be distributed, the issue is distributing that around the larger island of Puerto Rico.

 

Henry

[Sunprince]

I see the new itineraries have more stops in St Kitts and Nevis. We love Nevis and will be there for several weeks over Christmas. Luckily they were spared major damage with both Irma and Maria. One went 100km north and the other 100km south. We were so thankful given the destruction in the other islands. I will look out for the Odyssey while we are on land...if we are lucky perhaps we will get an onboard invitation [emoji3]But we will be happy to chill out at our place down the road from the Montpelier Plantation. If anyone wants tips on what do do while in Nevis, please let me know.

 

 

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[1901Phil]

I am able to see the itinerary changes for the Oct sailing but nothing about the Feb 3rd sailing. Still planning on going but curious about final destinations...

 

We are booked on the 17 Feb cruise and today had a revised itinerary forwarded from Seabourn by our TA.

 

Now have 2 x Barbados/Barbados 7 day cruises.

 

As we were on a similar 14 day Barbados/St Maarten/Barbados cruise in December 2014 we are not too disappointed.