SeaDream Yacht Club has introduced a new “Barbados: Sell One and Sail One” incentive for professional travel advisors, as the luxury "yachting" line begins a winter season of roundtrip sailings from Barbados to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada in November.
Advisors who sell one of SeaDream’s roundtrip Barbados sailings on the 112-passenger SeaDream I this winter can be confirmed at the time of their client’s booking for their own personal voyage on SeaDream at a travel advisor reduced rate.
Advisors can choose from any Barbados sailing with the exception of holiday voyages. They can choose to sail on the same voyage as their clients or on another departure date. The incentive is expected to be open for two weeks and began on Thursday, September 24.
In addition, luxury advisors have a current consumer promotion, "It's Time," and customizable PDF to use in chatting with clients. "It's Time" offers a $500 savings per stateroom for guests on all Barbados itineraries, and the promotion ends on October 31, 2020.
Southern Caribbean Ahoy
On Thursday, SeaDream's executives unveiled the new trade incentive and reviewed the consumer promotion during a North American trade webinar with luxury advisors. They also talked about the line's successful sailings in Europe this year, plus detailed the upcoming Barbados roundtrip voyages that also call at ports in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.
Most voyages are seven nights, a few six or eight nights. Sea Dream I will call at ports that are rarely, if ever, visited by big ships.
SeaDream Yacht Club will call at Union Island (shown above) on southern Caribbean voyages by SeaDream I in winter 2020-2021. Photo by Susan J. Young
For example, the voyage departing November 14 sails roundtrip from Bridgetown, Barbados to Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and that nation's isles of Bequia (overnight), Canouan, Mayreau, Tobago Cays and Union Island, and then to St. George's, Grenada.
Why did the luxury line pick Bridgetown for home porting, replacing voyages originally planned much further north in the Caribbean? SeaDream's chairman, Atle Brynestad, founder, owner and chairman, told advisors that all three nations visited on the new line-up—Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada—have all been open since mid-summer. So, the line wasn't dealing with islands and ports of call that potentially would open—they were already open. Bridgetown also has excellent air lift. Most importantly, Brynestad explained that SeaDream found a "welcoming" environment.
Those governments and their agencies worked closely with SeaDream to provide assurances or approvals for operating procedures and policies designed to keep travelers safe and healthy in a COVID-19 (coronavirus) era. That included everything from addressing fulfillment of entry requirements to arranging permission for guests who could test positive for COVID-19 in the future to be taken off the ship to a local hospital.
SeaDream also laid out the multifaceted testing program so advisors could get a sense of the strict protocols. Besides a test required prior to arrival at the pier, guests are tested pier-side before boarding with quick results within 15 minutes. Those testing positive at the pier will be retested there and then, if the result is still positive, be taken to a local hospital for testing. If the result is positive, boarding will be denied.
Onboard, the line is adding special floor mats to disinfect shoes as guests come on the ship. It's going to pre-sanitize all suites with Altapure AP-4, an advanced ultrasonic fogger used for the high-level disinfection of hospitals, burn units and clean rooms. Guest suites will be disinfected daily and UV lamps used as well there. Sanitizer dispensers will be positioned around the yacht.
Executives stressed that SeaDream's sailings this past summer in Europe demonstrate that small-ship voyages can be done safely. Besides Brynestad, others on the webinar included Bob Lepisto, SeaDream's president; Sudesh Kishore, senior vice president of operations; Andreas Brynstead, who hosted the program; Emilio Freeman, vice president destinations, and Kris Endreson, vice president sales, North America.
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