Cuba Travel

[Randyk47]

28 minutes ago, BeeMinor said:

 

 

Try searching by ship. You can access one of them by looking at the Wind's sailings and then click around to see a couple others. 

 

 

 

 

That kind of works for me.  I can see the February 13 voyage but not the February 3 and 24 voyages.  Weird.  I may try my big PC later and see what I can see with it.  Searching by ship for Shadow Caribbean cruises still doesn’t show much, lots of blank time.  

[Tothesunset]

Our original booking was FLL-FLL 16-23 March. 

 

That has changed to FLL-Bridgetown 16-27 March. 

 

Haven't heard directly from SS but this is now showing on MySilversea. I am expecting some issues with flights as I have the LHR-FLL return flights for the original dates and will now need to change the return section - if there are any reward seats left! 

 

The new itinerary looks interesting though:

 

[jollyjones]

Montserrat is an absolute must see!!

What a change from the same old same old usual Caribbean itineraries.

[Randyk47]

47 minutes ago, Tothesunset said:

Our original booking was FLL-FLL 16-23 March. 

 

That has changed to FLL-Bridgetown 16-27 March. 

 

Haven't heard directly from SS but this is now showing on MySilversea. I am expecting some issues with flights as I have the LHR-FLL return flights for the original dates and will now need to change the return section - if there are any reward seats left! 

 

The new itinerary looks interesting though:

 

 

That itinerary looks interesting but still not readily available to see outside of MySilversea and an already booked cruise.   Encouraging and maybe we’ll see more soon.  Tried my big PC and still couldn't see a lot of Caribbean cruises.  I haven’t been up on the Silversea website with that machine and I even cleared the cookies and still big gaps.   I’ll keep trying...... 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Randyk47

[Tothesunset]

1 hour ago, jollyjones said:

Montserrat is an absolute must see!!

What a change from the same old same old usual Caribbean itineraries.

Very pleased with the itinerary changes but the different return airport may cause us some serious admin issues! 

[Randyk47]

7 minutes ago, Tothesunset said:

Very pleased with the itinerary changes but the different return airport may cause us some serious admin issues! 

 

Kind of what worries me about booking the first set of new itineraries.  You always run a certain amount of “subject to change” risks but this situation makes me a bit more uneasy.  

[Tothesunset]

If we were taking the SS air package I'm sure it would have worked out but we are, or have, booked our own. 

 

I shall wait to get official word from SS before rebooking, though. 

[BeeMinor]

The Feb 3 2020 sailing is now showing on the website for booking. San Juan, St. Kitts, BVI, USVI, St Barts--and a whopping four sea days. No word from Silversea on options for our revamped itinerary, nor any changes in My Silversea, although I can still see the revised itin for our timeframe (San Juan, Nevis, Antigua, St. Barts, BVI, also a whopping four sea days) by clicking "next voyage" from Feb 3.

 

Patience is a virtue but it's been a couple of weeks with barely a word from SS and I admit I am starting to feel less virtuous! This booking was our effort to let Silversea redeem itself after our experimental cruise with them last summer had serious issues, and while I don't blame Silversea for the administration's policy changes I'm not very impressed with the customer service aspect of the situation. They have to know that not everyone booked on a Cuba cruise is going to be okay with the mainstream ports instead. 

 

I'm feeling a little extra grumpy because this was a milestone birthday trip for me, so regardless of the outcome there are some tradeoffs involved that I'm not super thrilled about.

 

 

 

[Tothesunset]

Speaking to the SS office in London, they expect to have individual cruisers' options ready by the end of the week. 

 

The last time we had a cruise rescheduled we received a comprehensive email detailing all the options. 

 

Coincidentally, this cruise was already a rescheduled cruise so we are on our third itinerary for the same booking! 

[BeeMinor]

29 minutes ago, Tothesunset said:

Speaking to the SS office in London, they expect to have individual cruisers' options ready by the end of the week. 

 

Excellent news! I hope that is true for those of us on this side of the pond as well.

[Tothesunset]

11 minutes ago, BeeMinor said:

 

Excellent news! I hope that is true for those of us on this side of the pond as well.

I accept no responsibility for any accuracy in my previous statement! 

[BeeMinor]

5 minutes ago, Tothesunset said:

I accept no responsibility for any accuracy in my previous statement! 

 

Ha! Well, any signs of movement is reassuring, at least. I'll just go back to being jealous of your much more appealing provisional revised itinerary while we wait for updates. 

[Tothesunset]

As soon as I get any positive communication I'll post on this thread. 

[BeeMinor]

Just received the email with our change info. Our booking was bumped a full week (from Feb 17 --> Feb 24) to a Key West/Mexico/Guatemala/Belize routing. The email very graciously says that there is no additional cost to us for the additional days, which is odd as both our original sailing and the updated one are the same number of days! The incentive is a free shore excursion in each port. There is no mention of a credit for airfare change fees, etc., so anyone who had booked flights independently would be on their own, I guess.

 

Pricing isn't showing for the updated sailing yet on the website, but an identical sailing in January is several hundred dollars cheaper for the equivalent category than what we paid for the Cuba sailing and also eligible for the VS discount, which doesn't quite smell right.

 

Torn between canceling outright and attempting to switch over to a completely different sailing later in the year. 

[Tothesunset]

Got ours too. Same spiel as yours but we are content with that as far as the rescheduling goes except that our return is 4 days later from BGI instead of MIA. 

 

I've asked for them to provide flights from BGI but am not hopeful. 

 

Cancelling and rebooking the flight scenario (taking into account flight costs, arriving at LGW instead of LHR, car parking etc) puts me about £600 out of pocket. Its enough to be annoying but not so much to be a deal breaker particularly as we are getting 4 extra days and included shore excursions. 

 

On the whole, in a world where children are starving to death, we don't feel too hard done by. 

[BeeMinor]

34 minutes ago, Tothesunset said:

Got ours too. Same spiel as yours but we are content with that as far as the rescheduling goes except that our return is 4 days later from BGI instead of MIA. 

 

I've asked for them to provide flights from BGI but am not hopeful. 

 

Cancelling and rebooking the flight scenario (taking into account flight costs, arriving at LGW instead of LHR, car parking etc) puts me about £600 out of pocket. Its enough to be annoying but not so much to be a deal breaker particularly as we are getting 4 extra days and included shore excursions. 

 

On the whole, in a world where children are starving to death, we don't feel too hard done by. 

 

Excellent point! I must say your offer is more appealing than ours. Switching us an equal-length cruise with different start and end dates and ports that largely are on the mainstream routes--Carnival goes to 3 out of 4 of them--and I would speculate is going to have a lower fare doesn't seem like much of a consolation prize, shore excursions or no.

 

It is odd to me that Silversea is offering some folks a generous extension of the cruise and not others. On the other hand, this is the same line that booked about 75 hapless fare-payers onto a ship with 300 passengers spread across two charters, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

[Sweetpea711423]

As an update, we received our updated itinerary from Silversea with all of the Cuba stops removed.  It is now a cruise simply to various other places in the Caribbean (which I understand may be of interest to others but is not to us).  The cruise is the same number of days, starts and ends on the same dates and in the same place, as previously.  There were no offers of any kind with respect to any kind of "compensation" for the changes, such as included excursions which others have mentioned.  We have cancelled the cruise and received a refund of the total cruise cost (which we had paid long ago in order to get a discount) minus a $200 cancellation fee (which can be put towards a newly-booked cruise within the next year).  They were unwilling to waive the $200 cancellation fee.

[Tothesunset]

It appears, then, that some reschedulings have advantaged the customer and others not. 

 

I'm not surprised that you've cancelled. 

 

We have decided to accept the offer made to us although are still waiting to confirm that until we get a reply to our query re flight home. 

[les37b]

46 minutes ago, Tothesunset said:

It appears, then, that some reschedulings have advantaged the customer and others not. 

 

I'm not surprised that you've cancelled. 

 

We have decided to accept the offer made to us although are still waiting to confirm that until we get a reply to our query re flight home. 

 

TTS ..... Do not let the offer pass you by. The changes that have been made for you and the new ports of call make it one not to miss IMHO.

 

And you have the most awesome bonus (pricing aside)....... I had looked to see if SS had any cruises in St Barts for the Bucket regatta.... there werent any. They have now! You are soooooo lucky! Youve hit the jackpot ... and I would check your shoes!

 

Get yourself a couple of gopros and video these beasty super yachts sail around you!

 

https://bucketregatta.com/

 

 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by les37b

[Tothesunset]

Wow, that looks splendid.  And we will be there right in the middle of next year's regatta.  Awesome.

 

[Randyk47]

Seems like they’re slowly but surely publishing Caribbean replacement cruises.  Actually found one Friday on the Wind that looks attractive.  Mrs K has to check her work and school calendar and get her vacation leave approved but looks like we’ll be cruising next February.   👍😀

[Randyk47]

We’re booked.  Picked the January 23 Wind cruise (Voyage #2003).   Big hook for us was the Montserrat stop, never been there despite hundreds of days in the Caribbean.  Lots of sea days for a Caribbean cruise but I suspect that is at least partially due to the changes driven by the Cuba cruise destination ban.   

[Tothesunset]

Well, we are booked on the 16 Mar 2020 Fort Lauderdale to Bridgetown. Had to cancel our flights at a reasonable loss of £30 each and all air miles recredited but have had to pay for (I know!) flights LHR-MIA then BGI-LGW plus a car to get us from LGW-LHR. About £600 out of pocket but for that we get 4 nights extra plus shore excursions so not a bad deal at all. 

 

I must say I'd hoped that SS might throw in the BGI-LGW flights (I could have kept the LHR-MIA) but they weren't interested. I'm not too surprised because these reschedulings must be costing them a fortune. They wouldn't up the OBC either. But we aren't unhappy with our lot - quite the opposite. 

 

Shame to miss Cuba but we can go there anytime from UK I suppose, if we were that keen. 

[Master Echo]

In the same context, I was told that SS will not offer one way inbound flights as a matter of policy.  This meant that it was not cost effective for me to cancel my Cuba cruise on the Whisper in November.

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo