LIVE From the Seabourn Encore with PHOTOs, Sydney-Sydney 3/8-3/22/20

[Mr Luxury]

Patience is a virtue

[Paulchili]

5 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Patience is a virtue

I guess some of us are less virtuous than others.🙂

[Mr Luxury]

Money does funny things to people 

[cruiseej]

12 hours ago, SLSD said:

To me, this sounds like an organization which is very short of cash at the moment.  

 

To me, this sounds like an organization which is very short of people for processing a mountain of refund requests. 😉

[SLSD]

43 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 

To me, this sounds like an organization which is very short of people for processing a mountain of refund requests. 😉

Shortage of cash AND shortage of people for processing.  

[whystayhome]

Finally got organized enough to submit a claim to my travel insurance.  That ought to be another instance of waiting for Godot

 

Linda

[Thecat123]

Paulchilli out of curiosity I wonder if you would have gone on the cruise if Seabourn hadnt  stopped the second part of the cruise going to Bali which you were looking forward to and making your long flight worth while?

We felt that this virus hadnt got down to this part of the world yet when we left to join the Encore at Sydney. Also knowing the ship had been sailing "locally" for several weeks we felt we should be okay

I know when we arrived at Sydney airport the staff there rushed us through saying hurry before the bad people arrived

Before we boarded at Sydney Seabourn asked everybody lots of questions of from were they had come from etc etc. The Aussies and Kiwis seemed to go through easier than some others. I also believe some were also given temperature tests

[Paulchili]

10 minutes ago, Thecat123 said:

Paulchilli out of curiosity I wonder if you would have gone on the cruise if Seabourn hadnt  stopped the second part of the cruise going to Bali which you were looking forward to and making your long flight worth while?

We felt that this virus hadnt got down to this part of the world yet when we left to join the Encore at Sydney. Also knowing the ship had been sailing "locally" for several weeks we felt we should be okay

I know when we arrived at Sydney airport the staff there rushed us through saying hurry before the bad people arrived

Before we boarded at Sydney Seabourn asked everybody lots of questions of from were they had come from etc etc. The Aussies and Kiwis seemed to go through easier than some others. I also believe some were also given temperature tests

We had booked the cruise as a single 30 day cruise from March 8 to April 7. Some of the highlights and reasons for booking were East Timor (who else goes there?), Komodo and a few days in Bali afterwards. When they changed the itinerary to end in Darwin and leave the last part out, we decided we didn't want to go.

Even though we ended up with only FCC I feel good about our decision not to go given all that has happened since.

[Thecat123]

What I was really asking was that if your cruise was still going to East Timor etc would you have still boarded the ship at Sydney?

[Paulchili]

9 minutes ago, Thecat123 said:

What I was really asking was that if your cruise was still going to East Timor etc would you have still boarded the ship at Sydney?

Tough call as I don't recall when exactly we became so concerned with COVID as for that being THE decision maker.

I know we definitely planned to go because our original flight to Sydney was on Cathay via HKG and when we were informed by SB that this was a no-no (hence COVID was already a "problem") we changed it to go from San Francisco to BNE to SYD at a considerable expense.

[Thecat123]

Why I was asking was that a lot of people were suggesting that anybody who boarded a ship on March 8th or around that time were silly

As I mentioned earlier the COVID hadnt really got down this way yet as far as most people were aware of and with the Encore being already here for a few weeks we would be okay

Seabourn did check to see nobody had been through those "bad" areas

I think we were at Tassi when the big announcement came with the shutting down of all cruises is when everybody knew how serious this COVID was. We did wonder if we should bail at Adelaide and fly home from there at our cost which of coarse that option was taken out of our control by Seabourn  cancelling the rest of the cruise

I think Seabourn handled the whole situation very well as everything was changing minute by minute as Catlover mentioned earlier we wondered if we would be allowed ashore at Adelaide even though all the tour buses  were parked at the wharf. My thoughts at the time why would the buses be there if we werent allowed to go ashore. It took an hour or so I think to get clearance to clear the ship so even the tour coaches didnt know what was happening otherwise they wouldnt have been there if there was going to be a problem

Its this type of thing that I mean about everything changing minute by minute

I am glad we only had about 540 passengers as compared to other cruise ships

 

[Catlover54]

Update: My TA updated me three days ago about her and her company (travel consortium) efforts to secure my refund (she started working on it five weeks ago, but SB was not answering repeated calls).

 

She stated her company president was told that for us , they offer the following, which as far as I can tell is the same as what we got on board in the letter, but with the 6/1 deadline for refund requests added:

 

[our names and booking #]

"

Compensation

As a result of our shortened cruise, all guests will have two options for their compensation. You can receive a refund of the base cruise fare pro-rated for the cancelled days of your voyage plus a Future Cruise Credit for 50% of that amount (100% refund + 50% FCC for the cancelled days). Alternatively, you can choose to defer your refund and receive a higher value: a 150% Future Cruise Credit plus a 25% bonus, totaling 175% FCC of the prorated amount. 

 

For guests who were scheduled to depart in Sydney on March 22, your pro-rated compensation will be based on 6 cancelled days.

 

Please visit https://book2.seabourn.com/cp/ to select the option you prefer. Guests who do not select an option prior to June 1, 2020, will be automatically default to the Future Cruise Credit (which provides greater overall value)."

 

.

She said I was supposed to get an email from SB about the submission, (not just the TA) but it is over 72 hours and have not. She said it will take up to 60 days (not counting the days already passed) for a refund.

 

So, I wait.
 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Catlover54
add

[Thecat123]

Thanks for that Catlover. I havent done anything about it yet as I figured there were a lot more people who have outlaid a lot of money for cruises they never got.  Where as we have only lost a few days of our cruise  which we never got

[Catlover54]

I still have not received an email from SB, and neither has my TA.  She said last week when I asked for a copy of what she had that  all she got was a “submitted” indication from the website, but it did not say what was submitted and she did not think to take a screen shot as she assumed I would get a direct confirming email.  
 

When DH and I were at the airport, after being prematurely disembarked, I saw this book for sale in the airport bookstore:

 

 

[Thecat123]

I filled it out but havent heard anything back from TA even though I asked him very early on what was going to happen, or Seabourn after I filled out that complaint form

I am not too worried as I hope the discount will show up when I book another cruise

My TA does not like replying to emails.  Even had a hard time getting hold of him when we were on the Encore to answer a phone call checking to see if we had Seabourn Flights regarding getting back to NZ

He had better tidy up his act as I reckon TAs will be looking for work😀

[whystayhome]

My travel agent was finally able to get information yesterday about how much we will be refunded, but was told we are still looking at 60-90 days to see a credit on our credit card statement.

 

Two future cruises have been canceled and again we were told to wait 60-90 days for the promised refund.

 

Linda

[Catlover54]

Why finally got our credit card refund for this cruise!  Yay! My TA was very persistent in following up.

[Thecat123]

On 6/21/2020 at 9:48 AM, Catlover54 said:

Why finally got our credit card refund for this cruise!  Yay! My TA was very persistent in following up.

 

Catlover I am glad you got your refund

Any idea of what percentage of the cruise you got back? About half?

We havent asked for a refund as we thought we would leave the refund and do another cruise when all this blows over. We got to the stage in NZ with no cases of the virus then they started letting New Zealanders returning  to NZ and now we have 9 cases. Lot of unhappy people in NZ about letting people in

[Paulchili]

On 6/21/2020 at 11:14 PM, Thecat123 said:

We got to the stage in NZ with no cases of the virus then they started letting New Zealanders returning  to NZ and now we have 9 cases. Lot of unhappy people in NZ about letting people in

Did they test the returning people for the virus on arrival? Were they required to be quarantined until tests were back?

9 people should be easy enough to isolate and trace contacts but it goes to show how difficult it will be to open larger and less isolated countries - like EU.

[Thecat123]

They didnt do everything correctly and some people slipped through

This should explain it better

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121945964/dr-ashley-bloomfield-refuses-to-get-dragged-into-political-fingerpointing