First timer questions

[raphael360]

I am SO excited about Sushi. After 10 SB cruises on the Odyssey class ships, we have 2 cruises planned on the Ovation class ships and I Love Sushi.

[raphael360]

I've been told that sitting at the bar in TK is a great way to wait for one's Sushi table to open up.

[teamflames]

55 minutes ago, raphael360 said:

I've been told that sitting at the bar in TK is a great way to wait for one's Sushi table to open up.

Sounds like my style of waiting 

[raphael360]

On 8/14/2018 at 5:48 PM, SLSD said:

Our TA arranged our SB flights for our last voyage, so I don't know about doing that on the website.

 

 Hi Isklaar,

I have a Flight Ease question for you.  We've done 10 SB cruises and I get airfare  quotes through SB Flight Ease all the time but their prices always come up almost twice as expensive as what I can find on my own.  We almost always fly business class for flights over 3 hours.

 

As an experienced flyer with 2 million miles in the air I can find pretty good deals on my own.  With that said, I met a fellow passenger on our last cruise (with over 250 days on SB) who said he gets fantastic air prices through SB.  Can you comment on the prices you get from SB please?

[raphael360]

On 8/14/2018 at 6:37 PM, frantic36 said:

Hi James and Fleur,

 

I hope you enjoy your cruise on Seabourn. My answers are in red below.....

 

 

I hope this helps.

 

Julie

James and Fleur's advice is spot on.... especially the last part about when "things go wrong".  We've had a few issues on our 10 SB cruises but their customer service is excellent.  Any and all problems were immediately solved post haste. 

 

We take 2 - 3 SB cruises a year now that I'm retired.  Blissfully spending our children's inheritance.

[CLOU]

We always check Seabourn air. Many times we have been able to do better on are own but sometimes Seabourn’s pricing is the best avsilable. We are booked on an Iceland/Norway cruise next year and Seabourn’s business class fare was more than $1500 less per person than anything we could find for the same direct flights. Even my travel agent was amazed at how good a deal it was.

[Isklaar]

2 hours ago, raphael360 said:

 Hi Isklaar,

I have a Flight Ease question for you.  We've done 10 SB cruises and I get airfare  quotes through SB Flight Ease all the time but their prices always come up almost twice as expensive as what I can find on my own.  We almost always fly business class for flights over 3 hours.

 

As an experienced flyer with 2 million miles in the air I can find pretty good deals on my own.  With that said, I met a fellow passenger on our last cruise (with over 250 days on SB) who said he gets fantastic air prices through SB.  Can you comment on the prices you get from SB please?

 

 

Hi Raphael, it wasn't myself who posted that comment, it was SLSD.  Hopefully she will see your post and reply. 

 

I do know a little about prices from SB though, as we have often requested a quote at the time we book our cruise. We have certainly never been offered a 'fantastic' price, each time SB has quoted us a higher fare than the ones our TA has found or that we've found ourselves and the route offered by SB has often been more complex than necessary.

Should add though that we are in the UK and will only fly business class or first class on flights longer than 6 hours, so perhaps that could explain why we've been disappointed each time by SB prices. 

We will keep on asking for a quote from SB each time we book, perhaps one day we will be offered a good deal! 

[raphael360]

33 minutes ago, Isklaar said:

We will keep on asking for a quote from SB each time we book, perhaps one day we will be offered a good deal! 

Thanks for the quick reply.  We're going to Australia - New Zealand on SB this coming February, flying from the Miami.  Seabourn did offer an excellent price for business class at $6500pp which is almost half of the best business class pricing I could find.  I was able to find  comfort plus economy flights on AA for $2K pp rt so we decided to pocket the $9k difference and sausage our selves into economy (all be it comfort class).  With that said, I'm booking business class RT to Europe on Norwegian Air for $2100pp next fall for our Mediterranean cruise.  We took a Barbados to Iceland SB cruise this year and found Norwegian Air and Icelandic Air to offer exceptional pricing on their business class seats.

[teamflames]

10 hours ago, raphael360 said:

James and Fleur's advice is spot on.... especially the last part about when "things go wrong".  We've had a few issues on our 10 SB cruises but their customer service is excellent.  Any and all problems were immediately solved post haste. 

 

We take 2 - 3 SB cruises a year now that I'm retired.  Blissfully spending our children's inheritance.

Just to give credit where it is due that was Julies advice to us. We found on both our Regent cruise and our Viking cruise that a discreet word to management usually saw prompt improvement unlike the major lines where the ships are so big that change is more difficult to implement. One more day to go until caviar and sushi!

[teamflames]

6 hours ago, raphael360 said:

Thanks for the quick reply.  We're going to Australia - New Zealand on SB this coming February, flying from the Miami.  Seabourn did offer an excellent price for business class at $6500pp which is almost half of the best business class pricing I could find.  I was able to find  comfort plus economy flights on AA for $2K pp rt so we decided to pocket the $9k difference and sausage our selves into economy (all be it comfort class).  With that said, I'm booking business class RT to Europe on Norwegian Air for $2100pp next fall for our Mediterranean cruise.  We took a Barbados to Iceland SB cruise this year and found Norwegian Air and Icelandic Air to offer exceptional pricing on their business class seats.

We recently had “premium “ seats booked on Norwegian Air from Miami to Barcelona for only 300eur but didn’t get to try it as they cancelled the route just days out from flying. They wanted to change us to an airline called Wamos (a quick google ended that idea). Norwegian has been cancelling a lot of flights recently 

[raphael360]

1 hour ago, teamflames said:

Just to give credit where it is due that was Julies advice to us. We found on both our Regent cruise and our Viking cruise that a discreet word to management usually saw prompt improvement unlike the major lines where the ships are so big that change is more difficult to implement. One more day to go until caviar and sushi!

Julies gets 100% credit - good job Julies :)

[raphael360]

1 hour ago, teamflames said:

We recently had “premium “ seats booked on Norwegian Air from Miami to Barcelona for only 300eur but didn’t get to try it as they cancelled the route just days out from flying. They wanted to change us to an airline called Wamos (a quick google ended that idea). Norwegian has been cancelling a lot of flights recently 

We only flew on Norwegian one time this year and it was nice for the price.  We will, most likely cancel our cruise if you think Norwegian cancelling a lot of flights.  Sadly, they are our only non-stop option from Ft Lauderdale to Barcelona.   Thank you for the timely advise.

[teamflames]

5 minutes ago, raphael360 said:

We only flew on Norwegian one time this year and it was nice for the price.  We will, most likely cancel our cruise if you think Norwegian cancelling a lot of flights.  Sadly, they are our only non-stop option from Ft Lauderdale to Barcelona.   Thank you for the timely advise.

Yes make sure you double check I think they cancelled that route altogether. We had to change to TAP which was good but stopped in Lisbon and we had to go economy 

[raphael360]

12 hours ago, teamflames said:

Yes make sure you double check I think they cancelled that route altogether. We had to change to TAP which was good but stopped in Lisbon and we had to go economy 

Norwegian still runs a twice weekly non stop from FLL to Barcelona but after your comment, I went over to tripadviser.com sit and looked at the reviews for Norwegian.  Not good.  I did find a pretty good Delta flight all be it not a nonstop.  Everything Delta goes through Atlanta.

[Chairsin]

If you go over to the Cruise Air board there is a thread about their financial woes.

[bspill]

We, as any apparently many others travel business class on long flights.  Seabourn should offer business class at a reasonable price as do Silversea and Regent.  We've opted for one of the  other lines many times due to their business class offerings. 

[teamflames]

28 minutes ago, raphael360 said:

Norwegian still runs a twice weekly non stop from FLL to Barcelona but after your comment, I went over to tripadviser.com sit and looked at the reviews for Norwegian.  Not good.  I did find a pretty good Delta flight all be it not a nonstop.  Everything Delta goes through Atlanta.

We were informed they cancelled the direct flights as of nov 1. I just did a quick check for this month and their website says no direct flights (only via London). Where are you seeing it? Also be careful they are not using Wamos as an alternative, it rates lower than Moldavia Air.

[teamflames]

By the way everyone, what are the chances of the Ovation opening up the onboard marina at our 2 tender locations?

[raphael360]

8 hours ago, Chairsin said:

If you go over to the Cruise Air board there is a thread about their financial woes.

Thank you Chairsin... best advice ever!  There is even talk on that forum this airline my loose it's certificate to fly in and out of the US soon. 

[raphael360]

11 hours ago, teamflames said:

By the way everyone, what are the chances of the Ovation opening up the onboard marina at our 2 tender locations?

 

Honestly, most unlikely.  I've done 10 SB cruises on the Odyssey class ships (3 in the Caribbean) and I only remember the marina opened up one time.  I hope you get to see it on your cruise.

[SKP946]

QUOTE raphael360

”Thanks for the quick reply.  We're going to Australia - New Zealand on SB this coming February, flying from the Miami.  Seabourn did offer an excellent price for business class at $6500pp which is almost half of the best business class pricing I could find.  I was able to find  comfort plus economy flights on AA for $2K pp rt so we decided to pocket the $9k difference and sausage our selves into economy (all be it comfort class).“

 

We prefer to fly Business for both health and comfort reasons, especially the Full Flat seats, as a short flight for us is 8 hours (MEL - SIN.)

We have been flying with Qatar Air to Europe since 2011 to join Seabourn cruises.

In 2016 we did “Route of the Vikings” from Dover, but continuing on to Boston. I found that it was quicker (elapsed time) and less expensive to fly from Boston to Melbourne via Doha, than to fly across the US and the Pacific. MEL-LON: BOS-MEL cost about US$4,000pp and only one stop with a quick transit in probably one of the world’s best Business Class Lounges.

Worth some research if flying from Miami to Aus.

[teamflames]

Thanks everyone for your help in the lead up to our first Seabourn cruise. Unfortunately I was quite ill for a lot of the cruise (seemed a lot of people had respiratory issues on the leg before ours which carried over) but still had an enjoyable time.

Here is a link to my review for those interested.

thanks again

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=642634&et_cid=3167165&et_rid=94423284&et_referrer=Boards

[T^2]

I am looking at my first SB this summer.  Don't ask me why, but I was looking around the SB web site and visited their Careers page.  I KNOW who looks at the cruise line's career page when looking to go on a cruise???  I found it interesting that the bartender and sommelier both have a job description to the effect " down selling the complimentary program and up-selling the wine list/program" from sommelier listing.  Does the staff push customers to upgrade from the included beverages?  I guess I am not totally surprised by the upsell effort, but wonder how strong the push is.

Edited February 24, 2019 by T^2

[FlyingScotSailors]

Tim,

 

We have sailed 9 Seabourn cruises and we have never encountered an up-sell from bartenders or sommeliers. They have all been honest and sincere and dedicated to catering to their clientele. 

[SLSD]

We haven't encountered a strong upsell either.  In fact, we've encountered little upsell at all.  At most, we've been asked if we would like to hear about the premium wines.  I don't consider that an upsell.

Edited February 25, 2019 by SLSD