Seabourn Retools Award-Winning Website

[Jason]

'Virtual Theater' Features 360 Degree Ship Tour, Streaming Videos

MIAMI, April 28 -- Seabourn Cruise Line has launched a completely renovated website, designed to be both more user-friendly and more media-rich than their previous award-winning site. An innovative "Virtual Theater" feature provides an interactive, audio-visual ship tour with streaming 360 degree images of suites, public rooms and deck area, as well as streaming videos. The Virtual Theater is accessible from numerous links on the site or directly at www.seabourn.com/Theater/Experience_Online.asp (underscore between "Experience" and "Online.")

"The Seabourn yachting life is a highly personalized experience," according to Richard D. Meadows, senior vice president of sales and marketing. "We want our website to enable you to have that same experience," he said. "So in the Virtual Theater you are addressed by name, just like you would be on our ships. We'll invite you on a tour of the yachts in a 360 degree format and videos. We're even adding a feature soon that will let some guests share their experiences via individual video clips."

Seabourn's site was selected by Forbes.com for its "Best of the Web" list of the best-designed and most effective sites on the worldwide web. The new content includes complete itineraries for all three Seabourn yachts for 2005 and through April 2006.

The site averaged nearly 3,000 visits per day and attracted 550,000 unique visitors in 2003. The newly revised site consists of some 700 pages, including nearly 500 dynamic pages that auto-populate with content based on the user's query.

The new design features a navigation menu located on the right side of the screen in every frame, allowing visitors easy movement between pages throughout the site.

Visitors to the site are greeted by an appealing two-minute streaming montage of evocative images and music illustrating Seabourn's key product features, which the line calls Signature Delights. The greeting can easily be skipped on subsequent visits.

Visitors are then invited to categorize themselves as "First Time Cruiser," "Experienced Cruiser" or "Already Booked," leading them to a page suggesting possible further navigation based on the sorts of information the visitor may be seeking.

Alternatively, visitors can proceed directly to the navigation menu and explore every aspect of Seabourn's cruising, from destinations to deck plans, by means of dynamic HTML menus that appear at the touch of the cursor. Added features include:

Seabourn's Virtual Theater: "Living the Seabourn Experience" is a virtual tour of a Seabourn ship via 360 degree photography of suites and public rooms. A selection of videos includes "Discover Seabourn Yachting Life," an interesting "Shopping with the Chef," an aerial short "A Look from Above," and "Seabourn Stories," as told by Seabourn guests.

Plan Your Cruise allows visitors to navigate specific areas containing details about a Seabourn vacation, including a selection of Frequently Asked Questions and copies of various guest forms in PDF format for downloading.

Destinations: Highly interactive, this section lets users select a region from a world map and then explore itineraries for 2004, 2005 and 2006, along with shore excursions, pre-and post-cruise extensions, ports of call and Seabourn's complimentary Exclusively Seabourn shoreside experiences. At the bottom of each regional page, icons offer a map, average daily temperatures, optional golf excursions and suggested reading lists.

My Seabourn is a section allowing visitors to store itineraries in a My Cruise Folder for later review and to submit and update personal preferences, including Seabourn suite set-ups and their culinary preferences, food allergies or dietary restrictions, etc.

The Spa at Seabourn is highlighted in a new flash page that contains details of health and beauty treatments available on board.

Links on the site include Seabourn's online boutique of logo sportswear, luggage and accessories by Tumi; Seabourn's a la carte SeabournGolf program and an online source for maps, books and other materials sold by Longitude.com. Visitors can also order a printed brochure from the site, request a booking and send email to the company.

The Yachts of Seabourn is a proud member of World's Leading Cruise Lines. Our exclusive alliance also includes Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America, Princess Cruises, Cunard Line, Costa Cruises and Windstar Cruises. Sharing a passion to please each guest and a commitment to quality and value, our member lines appeal to a wide range of lifestyles and budgets. Together we offer exciting and enriching cruise vacations to the world's most desirable destinations.