New essential cruises, voyage only fare.

[RetiredOnVacation]

I think these new Essential fares might be a way to get into the late availability online bucket market and avoid commission fees. Just worry that it might lead to a non-inclusive fare which would definately devalue the SS product. 

I do like that PTP is now aligned with D2D wrt cancellation conditions etc. 

[TechSurfer]

We booked an "Essentials" fare for the Alaska cruise, primarily because we couldn't get a good sense of what would be included in the regular Inclusive fare but expected most of our choices would be extra-cost anyhow. Silversea has remarkably little hard information on their website, and the travel agent we're trying out (who was well recommended here) is a complete disaster, a useless mess, so we've had to do the legwork ourselves.

 

For example, we've booked:

• Helicopter glacier with dog sledding
• "Flight-Seeing" over the fjords
• Hovercraft

I suspect, but couldn't verify, that the White Pass railway would have been "included", but it seemed less likely that these others would have been. And they do add a lot to the cost, but if we were going to pay anyhow...

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

2 hours ago, TechSurfer said:

We booked an "Essentials" fare for the Alaska cruise, primarily because we couldn't get a good sense of what would be included in the regular Inclusive fare but expected most of our choices would be extra-cost anyhow. Silversea has remarkably little hard information on their website, and the travel agent we're trying out (who was well recommended here) is a complete disaster, a useless mess, so we've had to do the legwork ourselves.

 

For example, we've booked:

• Helicopter glacier with dog sledding
• "Flight-Seeing" over the fjords
• Hovercraft

I suspect, but couldn't verify, that the White Pass railway would have been "included", but it seemed less likely that these others would have been. And they do add a lot to the cost, but if we were going to pay anyhow...

 

By booking 'Essentials' you also have the flexibility to book tours like these direct with the vendors, possibly at a lower cost and/or with smaller groups.  When we did Alaska in 2013 we did the Misty Fjords flight seeing with Island Wings, a woman who flies year-round doing wild-life tours.  She was very good, and is still operating:

https://www.islandwings.com/mistytours.html

 

[DavyWavey70]

3 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

By booking 'Essentials' you also have the flexibility to book tours like these direct with the vendors, possibly at a lower cost and/or with smaller groups.  When we did Alaska in 2013 we did the Misty Fjords flight seeing with Island Wings, a woman who flies year-round doing wild-life tours.  She was very good, and is still operating:

https://www.islandwings.com/mistytours.html

 

That was the company we used too and can highly recommend. They were superb.

[Syd58]

I think the new fares could work but only for cruises where one does not expect to do many excursions. Unfortunately, it appears to not be available on TA cruises.