Reply from Poseidon ExpeditionsJan 14, 2022
Hi, Rick.
Thanks for your additional comments. We are happy to hear that you and your wife were able to quickly secure space aboard Le Boreal with the help of your travel agent, and see Antarctica as planned. We do disagree with your statement that we were "blowing smoke" and exhibited a lack of transparency about the COVID cases onboard the cruise previous to yours.
As explained, most of the Antarctic cruise departures this season – and I'm not just talking about Poseidon, but ALL of the various operators, our competitors – have had instances of COVID onboard. That's never been a secret. The only reason that Ponant notified their passengers for the next cruise that it would be canceled was that the significant number of cases onboard precluded them from disembarking these quarantining guests and crew into quarantine hotels in Ushuaia. In other words, they already knew – more than three days in advance – that the local health authorities would cancel the next cruise and Le Boreal would become a quarantine ship.
We did not have the luxury of knowing three days in advance that our ship, the Sea Spirit, would not be able operate your cruise as scheduled; we only learned the day prior to your planned embarkation. Thus, it was impossible to notify you any earlier than we did, with most travelers in transit on their way to Ushuaia when we learned the unfortunate news. We communicated it with you and the other guests as soon as we could. That is the simple truth.
We hope that clarifies things for you and other readers of your post in TrustPilot.
Dear Rick: Thank you for your comments about the canceled cruise on which you were booked, our January 8-28, 2021 Antarctica, South Georgia & Falklands program aboard the Sea Spirit.
All of us at Poseidon – crew, expedition staff, office staff, management – regret the inconvenience caused you, your wife and all of the passengers, and are saddened that we could not share these polar destinations with you at this time. We would like to clarify some of the perceptions you have and provide a more accurate representation of what happened.
The majority of Antarctic cruises that have operated this season have had incidences of COVID onboard. You were made aware of this possibility in pre-departure information covering all of the stringent protocols that both Argentina and Poseidon have in place to keep it off the ship, or to isolate the virus should it find its way aboard. Due to a brand new requirement from the Argentine health authorities – which was enacted over the New Year holiday weekend – a final PCR test was suddenly mandated of all passengers and crew before disembarkation from all cruise ships with positive cases. This test had to be administered by a third party (land-based), and processing the results takes more than 24 hours. This was our reason for coming into the harbor early, enabling negative-testing guests to disembark on the 9th as scheduled.
To answer your complaint: yes, we had infected passengers on the previous cruise and were managing them according to all accepted protocols; e.g. putting them and close-contacts in quarantine cabin during the cruise. We had every intention of operating your cruise right up until the time that all of the final PCR test results were in, the morning of January 8th, with positive-testing passengers and staff ready to disembark the following day for further quarantining ashore. This is standard procedure. The government upended this procedure and informed us that positive-testing guests would stay aboard and go through quarantine on the ship. Obviously, this government action suddenly made the next cruise impossible for us to operate.
While you and your wife arrived at the pre-cruise hotel on the 7th, most other passengers were still in transit throughout the day of January 8th. We were not hiding anything. There was no practical way to contact everyone earlier than we did, and we used the time to secure a charter aircraft and hotel accommodations in Buenos Aires – all at our expense – to facilitate guests' return home as conveniently as possible. You will be receiving an email from us or your travel agent very soon regarding our policy for rebooking, credit or full refund. We appreciate your comments and hopefully our response will go some way toward an explanation.
