Today, Seabourn announced that it will not operate a planned five-month, 15-cruise series of voyages in the Indian Ocean aboard Seabourn Legend in late 2010 and early 2011. The vessel will instead be positioned back to the Americas at the end of its Mediterranean season to cruise in the Caribbean for the winter.
Seabourn’s President and CEO Pamela Conover said that the intended shoreside destinations remain apparently safe for visitors, but the high seas routes between them are currently vulnerable to incidents of piracy that have not been adequately controlled.
“It makes me sad to have to cancel these cruises,” she said. “I personally loved touring Kenya’s game parks, and the islands of the Seychelles, Madagascar and Zanzibar are lovely and exotic destinations where we sincerely had hoped to be able to take our guests. We look forward to a time when the sea routes are controlled enough for us to cruise there for a season.”
But if you are looking for an exotic Seabourn voyage in 2010 and 2011, you’re still in luck.  Seabourn Spirit will sail through Egypt, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and Oman to Dubai. Spirit will then continue via India, Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore, to begin a season of cruises exploring Bali, Borneo, Java and the islands of the Java, Flores and Savu Seas.  Spirit will even venture southward to Australia’s Northern Territories and Great Barrier Reef.

Seabourn Pride, meanwhile, will be in Asia for the full year, and in the autumn will be sailing in China, Thailand and Vietnam, with land extensions to Beijing, Guilin, Cambodia & Laos and the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.

Seabourn Odyssey will make a maiden circumnavigation of South America in early 2011, encompassing the Peruvian and Chilean coasts, the Chilean fjords and Patagonia, Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and the Amazon.

Seabourn Legend’s voyages in the Caribbean are designed to take advantage of her intimate size, and features such as the fold-out watersports marina that can be deployed for a “Champagne and Caviar in the Surf” beach barbecue. Activities ashore range from snorkeling, yacht-racing, kayaking, hiking, horseback riding and zip-line adventures to visiting artists’ studios, tony boutiques or relaxing on world-class beaches. On board, deck barbecues and al fresco dining options make the most of the bucolic climate, as do Dancing and Movies Under the Stars.

Seabourn has just won a prestigious award from one of the leading luxury travel agency groups—again. On August 20, at their annual Travel Mart convention in Las Vegas, the Virtuoso Travel Network announced that, for the second consecutive year, their membership had voted The Yachts of Seabourn the Best Small Ship Cruise Line in their Peer-to-Peer Awards poll. Virtuoso is made up of over 300 agencies and some 6,000 travel advisors worldwide. The Virtuoso award is a little different from the readers’ poll awards that Seabourn won from Condé Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure this year. Both of those are voted on by people who have sailed on Seabourn. In the case of the Virtuoso award, the voters are travel agents who book their clients on Seabourn cruises. (OK, probably some of them have sailed on board too!) The point is that they not only rate Seabourn by how well their clients like their cruises, but also by how easy it is to do business with Seabourn. So that provides an extra measurement of how the company is performing for another set of customers. As Seabourn’s president and CEO Pamela Conover put it, they “…put their own reputations on the line along with ours.”

Seabourn also tallies guests’ “votes” by means of a questionnaire filled out at the end of each cruise. The questionnaires ask for numeric ratings and verbatim comments, and are read by onboard management and headquarters executives as well. Then, the results are discussed in meetings of department heads on board and by the department heads with their staffs. That way, any issues are quickly addressed so they don’t continue from cruise to cruise. Seabourn takes a lot of pride in the awards it has received. They mean a lot to everyone involved. It’s just one more way of knowing our guests are happy. And that is the key to everything.

Among the many activities that are ramping up during The Yachts of Seabourn’s launch of Seabourn Odyssey is the company’s presence on social media websites. The Seabourn Odyssey blog, located at http://blog.seabourn.com, has attracted a healthy following, and after a recent enhancement, the company’s main website at www.seabourn.com continues to garner heavy traffic. But the introduction of the industry’s first new luxury cruising vessel in over six years –  and Seabourn’s first newly built yacht in more than 15 years — has been the occasion for Seabourn to mount a concerted foray into the interactive social media universe. Seabourn’s company Facebook fan page is already on line. (more…)

Lisa Hughes, Publisher CNT, Pam Conover, President and CEO, Yachts of Seabourn, Klara Glowczewska, Executive Editor, CNT

On Wednesday night, Seabourn was honored by Condé Nast Traveler as their “Readers’ Choice” for the World’s Best Small Ship Cruise Line. Over 32,000 readers voted in the annual poll, evaluating cruise lines in categories such as accommodations, service, activities, dining, shore excursions and itineraries. The Yachts of Seabourn came out on top. To say Seabourn is excited is an understatement, but they are more honored than anything else. (more…)