Is it them, or me?

[loungeboy]

I've been booked on the "Grand Voyage" from St Thomas to Lisbon on the Legend in March 2008 for what seems like quite a while. I'm sure as many of you do when you book far enough in advance, I like to buzz around seabourn.com just to look at my itinerary and all the new things on the site.

Today I was quite shocked when I pulled up the itinerary and it had completely changed. No more the leisurely meander from and thru the Caribbean and onto Europe. The itinerary pretty much showed a new island a day. No more Puerto Rico. No more Easter in Ft Lauderdale. Plus, it shows the voyage not only originating in St Thomas, but returning 2 more times as well.

Hmm. Ok. I knew things might change, but this much?

Then I saw the oddest thing of all; the new itinerary shows the Legend departing St Thomas on March 30 and arriving in the Azores on April 1st.

Is that even possible? One day at sea? Do you think this is real or just another glitch their website seems to be having lately?

Afterall I just finished reading about the vanishing 4 and 7 day cruises in the other thread.

[loungeboy]

I just looked up my rez and the cabin I've had confirmed since July has become "WL" which I assume means waitlist.:eek:

[loungeboy]

Double post

[SantaAna,CA]

Loungeboy, if the ship is supposed to get from St. Thomas to the Azores in two days, they must be firing up the afterburners to make that kind of time. Very puzzling. They changed a couple of days on my itinerary, too, but nothing like this. Considering what's been going on, I'd say the website is suspect!

 

Jane :confused:

[Two4Sea]

Let’s see STT to Azores, 2400 miles and 40 hours is 60 knots, I think we have Speed III. That’s not the fastest web cruise time however, CruiseCal has Silver Wind making morning and afternoon port calls this April 20th .... Dubai and Antigua. Faster than BB’s jet.

 

I too regularly find typos in the schedule database, I think it is very hard to think of every angle for every change you make. I don’t know whether to send notes the webmaster or leave him alone to get his work done. And then, does he change typos on his own or do they have to be confirmed by route planning, Shorex, drydock scheduling, etc?

 

I like to rely on the web’s quick info and the people you can call do it too but the limitations can sure be a problem. In my own case all the trips to Kusadasi include an evening reception at Ephesus, but suddenly my May 9th call doesn’t mention it.

 

Cross your fingers, Bill

[Daneite]

We are on this Grand Voyage too, our agent told us to hold off booking hotels etc a couple of weeks ago as there were going to be changes. I have just checked our reservation and our suite number has disappeared and we have WL too!!! This is really strange! The itinerary they have on the website just cannot be done, so they must still be changing things but why put it there for people to see and get anoyed about! I hope they make their minds up pretty soon!

Kathryn

[crystal808]

I heard overnight from my TA that my Legend transatlantic had been changed to April 6 (from March 23rd), and the website now shows an April 6 date for the crossing. Hmmmm. Methinks there's some (more) discrepancies in their database! No doubt it'll be straightened out soon! I'll be okay with either date, but hope it gets "verified" sooner than later!

 

Paul

who hopes nobody is "toying" around with his 3/11-18/06 sailing!! :eek: :D

[johnnycruise]

Seabourn really likes to push future cruise sales onboard. I believe I counted about a dozen references to this in the daily newsletter on my recent Pride sailing. This usually works out to the advantage of both the company and the passenger - the company gets a deposit and the passenger gets a discount. Most passengers prefer to book a published itinerary. This puts pressure on Seabourn to post itineraries as far in advance as possible. (I would think those making an "open" booking in order to get the 5% discount are in the minority but that is just my guess.) As long as Seabourn offers this onboard booking bonus they will continue to disappoint a small number of passengers whose itineraries are cancelled or drastically changed. That is something the SB marketing department has probably researched and determined the positive aspect outweigh the negative.

[shefinch]

We have had the Legend 08 crossing booked for a while as well. We tried to add on the St Thomas/Fort Lauderdale section a couple of weeks ago only to be told that the Grand Voyage price at 50% had closed but that we could still have it at the 35% discount. When we queried this by saying that nowhere in the brochure does it state that Grand Voyage price (with a 50% discount) is a limited offer our TA told us to hold off for a while as SB were rethinking the whole crossing and the itineraries before and after the crossing. We are still waiting! Maybe the crossings are becoming too popular (and are sold at too low a price) and SB are thinking of only selling them with add-ons either before and/or after or am I just being cynical?

[Host Dan]

We have had the Legend 08 crossing booked for a while as well. We tried to add on the St Thomas/Fort Lauderdale section a couple of weeks ago only to be told that the Grand Voyage price at 50% had closed but that we could still have it at the 35% discount. When we queried this by saying that nowhere in the brochure does it state that Grand Voyage price (with a 50% discount) is a limited offer our TA told us to hold off for a while as SB were rethinking the whole crossing and the itineraries before and after the crossing. We are still waiting! Maybe the crossings are becoming too popular (and are sold at too low a price) and SB are thinking of only selling them with add-ons either before and/or after or am I just being cynical?

I don't think your being cynicle, I think your absolutely on target.

 

Host Dan

[CruisinMatt]

I'm not surprised they are still playing around with 2008 itineraries. They don't even have the whole year of schedules posted yet.

 

The calendar on the website is extremely buggy. Each time I look at it I see some sort of descrepancy.

 

Semi-related, what does everyone think of the "VIP" list with required deposit for the inaugural year of the new ships? Is that procedure usual? I found the form-letter a bit off-putting.

[loungeboy]

We are on this Grand Voyage too, our agent told us to hold off booking hotels etc a couple of weeks ago as there were going to be changes. I have just checked our reservation and our suite number has disappeared and we have WL too!!! This is really strange! The itinerary they have on the website just cannot be done, so they must still be changing things but why put it there for people to see and get anoyed about! I hope they make their minds up pretty soon!

Kathryn

 

I thought that booking early and paying the deposit meant you got the basic cruise you want in the category you want. I guess I was wrong!

I assumed that the itinerary would change somewhat and I figured I wouldn't be surprised if the dates were moved around some, but I thought that at least I'd have the cabin I booked.

At this point I am questioning the wisdom of Seabourn putting its indecision LIVE out there on their website. I don't ever think I've seen that done before without a rather large warning that what you are viewing is "Under Construction".

My attraction to this itinerary was the laidback schedule: many sea days with a port call here and there. If they are going to turn this into 10 islands in 10 days (with 3 stops in St Thomas!) I'm going to have to start looking for something else that meets my needs. And that would be a terrible shame because I have been looking forward to Seabourn for a very long time.

If any of my fellow cruisers hears anything new please post it and I will do the same! :)

[Daneite]

OK, here goes, we have been back and forth all day with our TA over this, the end result is we have still not sorted out what we are going to do, but basically the 19 day Grand Voyage is still available only two weeks later and 1 day longer (so now 20 days) Starting in St Thomas on the 30th, 7 days up to Fort Lauderdale, then 13 days Fort Lauderdale to Lisbon leaving on the 6th April and arriving in Lisbon on the 19th. Even though we had booked this as soon as it came out we are now informed it has gone up in price, our options are to pay the extra, cancel altogether or change to a different cruise, but Seabourn being so generous are actually allowing us to do the change or cancellation without any administration charge which usually applies to us in England:mad: . We even enquired about booking the 14 days prior to this to make a 34 day sailing but they will not accept our onboard booking for the whole trip!!!They say it would not be one trip but a Grand Voyage and a transatlantic so they say the 5% discount would only be allowed on one portion of the trip!!! Obviously Seabourn are too popular now and do not want our money!!

Kathryn

[loungeboy]

OK, here goes, we have been back and forth all day with our TA over this, the end result is we have still not sorted out what we are going to do, but basically the 19 day Grand Voyage is still available only two weeks later and 1 day longer (so now 20 days) Starting in St Thomas on the 30th, 7 days up to Fort Lauderdale, then 13 days Fort Lauderdale to Lisbon leaving on the 6th April and arriving in Lisbon on the 19th. Even though we had booked this as soon as it came out we are now informed it has gone up in price, our options are to pay the extra, cancel altogether or change to a different cruise, but Seabourn being so generous are actually allowing us to do the change or cancellation without any administration charge which usually applies to us in England:mad: . We even enquired about booking the 14 days prior to this to make a 34 day sailing but they will not accept our onboard booking for the whole trip!!!They say it would not be one trip but a Grand Voyage and a transatlantic so they say the 5% discount would only be allowed on one portion of the trip!!! Obviously Seabourn are too popular now and do not want our money!!

Kathryn

 

Well at least you have a helpful TA. I've been using the TA that comes along with my Platinum Card and they are abyssmal...they seem to work only a few hours a week and never return calls.

Can I ask how much the price has increased? I'm guessing they are going to want more of a deposit if the price goes up so maybe that's when I'll hear from my TA.:mad:

Since it is a holiday weekend here in the U.S. I'm sure I won't be able to sort anything out til next week anyway. Guess I better start shopping some other lines so I get a backup plan.

[Seabourn-nail]

Hi Kathryn!

I can understand why you´re upset! It sounds crazy. We´re also booked on the Legend 2008 Transatlantic (supposedly March 23, now April 6?).

We have not heard a thing yet. We will be leaving tomorrow and I will be bringing my booking form to the Legend where we will board Tuesday the Th. Stay tuned on your upcoming cruise and again bon voyage!

[Daneite]

Loungeboy, Don't panic the price has not gone up by much, it is more the principle of it. We entered a contract for a specific thing at a specific price and paid a specific deposit. Here in the UK if we wanted to change our booking to a different date or a different ship within the fleet then Seabourn charges us £100 to make the changes, Seabourn have changed the whole thing and want to actually charge us more, is this a little one sided? We have not even had a "sorry", just a "take it or leave it" attitude.

 

Marja, Have a wonderful trip, we are so looking forward to your cruise finishing:D and ours beginning:D . The wonderful crew on the Legend will make us forget all our troubles for a few weeks.

Bon Voyage & best wishes to Rene.

Kathryn

[loungeboy]

Sorry to hear about the "take it or leave it" treatment Daneite.There's nothing gracious or service oriented in that! Someone posted in another thread that their crossing on the PRIDE was also changed (increased by a day) and Seabourn isn't charging them anything because they were already deposited. It is a shame their policies aren't being applying uniformly.

Hopefully things work out.

I haven't heard a peep from my TA but I really didn't expect to...talk about not being service oriented!:)

Anyhoo I did find another itinerary on another line that fits what I am looking for so at least I have a Plan B.

[crystal808]

loungeboy:

 

Don't equate the SB office with the SB crew and onboard experience! It seems that there's a lot of "confusion" with changes of schedule, itineraries, etc., and it's likely the SB office isn't as "forthcoming" in as timely a fashion as some of us would like....! Add to that the fact that you're using a credit card travel agent, and information will be likely less timely to you as opposed to those using "conventional" travel agents.

 

I received an email from my TA this weekend suggesting that he had learned that changes were forthcoming; I've let him know what I've learned here on the board. He's planning on calling SB office later next week to find out more details, but I'm sure they will be overloaded with calls, and may not yet have answers to all questions!

 

It's never a bad idea to have a "plan B" in place, but I hope you will be patient and wait, along with the rest of us, to see how things develop. The ambiance and fellowship of SB shouldn't be judged by its corporate office dealings, and I'm willing to wait for things to settle down, as they surely will!

 

Paul

who remains excited for his first transatlantic on the Legend '08...and needs to update his signature!

[loungeboy]

I'm ready to see how this plays out, Paul. Heck if I didn't get the bug to see the itinerary yet one more time, I never would have even known of any of this and it probably would have sorted itself out without me being any the wiser. And I am not about to change my signature just yet.:p

As Doris Day (and Lisa Lisa) say, "Que sera, que sera!":rolleyes:

[crystal808]

I'm ready to see how this plays out, Paul. As Doris Day (and Lisa Lisa) say, "Que sera, que sera!":rolleyes:

 

Words to live by this week, for sure! :D

 

Hopefully all will be sorted out, and I'll look forward to boarding in Ft. L, as loungeboy lounges, as the embarking cruisers "muster"!! ;)

 

Paul

who fully expects to see his reserved Sky Bar stool in '07 AND '08! (hint to Maciek!) :)

[crystal808]

gremlin bump

[Daneite]

:( We have finally come to a decision, we are now booked on the 20 day voyage from St Thomas to Lisbon, it has increased by one day but the price has increased also! We did query this as people on this board have been credited back to original price but no go for us in the UK, we could have had our money back or changed to another cruise but if we wanted this voyage we had to pay the extra! Cancelling would have been cutting off our noses to spite our faces so we have had to swallow our principles and go for it. I know we will have a great cruise but it will have a slightly bitter taste.

Kathryn

[Daneite]

We have finally come to a decision, we are now booked on the 20 day voyage from St Thomas to Lisbon, it has increased by one day but the price has increased also! We did query this as people on this board have been credited back to original price but no go for us in the UK, we could have had our money back or changed to another cruise but if we wanted this voyage we had to pay the extra! Cancelling would have been cutting off our noses to spite our faces so we have had to swallow our principles and go for it. I know we will have a great cruise but it will have a slightly bitter taste. Kathryn

[Iamboatman]

I know Seabourn is adjusting its 2008 schedule and, unfortunately, the crossings are likely the easiest things to move around. Whether it be because of potential (and then actual) charters, an itinerary or two in the middle of the Spring that cannot be done because of logistics in various ports, or whatever, it is very, very common in the cruise industry for changes to be made...and seasoned cruisers booking that far in advance have probably had it happen to them before.

 

Sometimes it takes a couple of long weeks before it is sorted. But no matter how many phone calls are made, it just takes time for all of the charters, ports, etc. to be firmed up.

[loungeboy]

The fact that you were even still able to book the 20 day cruise fills me with hope Daneite!:D

Did they change the itinerary of the St Thomas - Ft Lauderdale portion or did they just change the dates?