Emails from Seabourn this week

[SLSD]

I am a bit puzzled.  We embark on Sojourn in Mid May  at Kobe and thought we had everything  concerning our voyage with Sojourn taken care of.  We have a good travel agent who has been interfacing with Seabourn for us.  She booked the ship's excursions we wished to take and ordered our desired sizes for the complimentary SB jacket for the Alaskan portion of our cruise.  Then, last week, we began to receive emails directly to us.  First, there was an email urging us to book the ship's excursions that we wanted.  The email included our booking #, so it was personalized.  We had already booked (through our TA) our desired excursions.   We contacted our TA and she reconfirmed that our excursions were already booked.  Then, a couple of days ago, we received ANOTHER email from SB.  This one was about reserving our complimentary jackets for the Alaska portion of our cruise.  Once again, the email included our specific booking #.  Once again, our TA had already ordered our sizes through SB.  Both emails from SB necessitated us emailing our TA to RECONFIRM already confirmed issues.  WHY is Seabourn emailing passengers who are already booked on excursions and have already ordered their jackets by size?  The upshot has been concern, more emails, and more time doubling back to revisit already confirmed plans.  This doesn't seem right to me.  It hasn't happened to us on previous SB cruises.  Any ideas?  

Edited April 20, 2019 by SLSD

[Constanttravelers]

Hi SLSD, Yes, we are seeing the same proliferation of emails, which include our booking #. We are dealing with SB direct, ie no TA, so there always has been a significant stream of email. The Jacket order with sizing originally came thru in mid January and was responded to, and yesterday we received a second request for sizes, and also advice as to what other gear is available for purchase with free delivery to the ship, and reminders of all the excursions “still” available. Given that the Koroshio Cruise is now full, maybe it is the case that a significant number of new folks need to be advised and info is reposted to the whole list of travelers because it is the easiest and surest procedure. Or otherwise the marketing people at SB are just keen to remind everyone that there are lots of things to buy! Apparently there will be extra jackets available on board and it seems that there are lots of excursion possibilities open, so surely SB has everything under control  and it will be a wonderful cruise. The weather thru the Bering Strait has been a tad rough lately though.

[SLSD]

Hmmm....I'm sure it is probably a marketing email blast, but our TA had to first reconfirm our excursions and then our jackets.  Not the most efficient use of our time or hers.  

 

I know it is going to be a wonderful voyage and we are looking forward to it!  

[raphael360]

On 4/20/2019 at 1:33 PM, SLSD said:

WHY is Seabourn emailing passengers who are already booked on excursions and have already ordered their jackets by size?  The upshot has been concern, more emails, and more time doubling back to revisit already confirmed plans.  This doesn't seem right to me.  It hasn't happened to us on previous SB cruises.  Any ideas?  

This is normal. 

 

We've booked almost all of our Seabourn cruises through our TA.  Seabourn always sends some emails directly to us.  Some include visa notices and some include "hey book your shore excursions now" messages.  Any important info, like paid upgrade offers, are sent to your TA.  Feel free to delete them if you want.

[SLSD]

Ok then.  These are the FIRST emails about a specific booked cruise we have ever received from SB.  I won't be concerned  next time.  

[florisdekort]

We always get these generic emails too and just consider them to be a courtesy reminder. If we’ve already made arrangements, we just delete them.

 

Although we book all our cruises via our (excellent) travel agent, we always sort shore excursions and TKG reservations ourselves on Seabourn’s website. In the time it takes me to spell out to our travel agent what we want, I can easily sort it all myself. 

 

Floris 

[BasandSyb]

We are on the same trip and have received the barrage of emails which appears standard these days. However, not one was about a jacket. 

 

Seems a a bit hit and miss, but I’m sure it’s collateral we could well do without - will probably be overpacked as usual 😀

 

Hope the poor weather has exhausted itself.

[raphael360]

18 hours ago, SLSD said:

Ok then.  These are the FIRST emails about a specific booked cruise we have ever received from SB.  I won't be concerned  next time.  

In the beginning we booked several cruises directly with Seabourn but booked our last 9 via our TA.  The 2 or 3 emails we get from SB were pretty consistent cruise over cruise with the exception of the the (paid) upgrade offers which came through our TA.  I'm with Floris, I book the cruise through or TA but book our shore excursions through Seabourn's web site.