Not-quite-live from the SB Quest, Barcelona to Dover, 4/15/17-5/1/17

There seemed to be chocolate shops every few feet in the central areas

Assorted art and artists adorned the streets and corners

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The last photo supposedly represents someone who was displeased at the smell of urine in the tanning district, previously needed for tanning hides

We loaded up on assorted chocolate boxes with the pretence they would be " gifts" to others, but neither DH nor I believed our lies :)

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Day 17, Dover port

The rain has finally caught up to us as on this, our last fairytale day.

We had had a final MDR meal last night with a TK ham , pea and agnolotti special appetizer, and a very flavorful iberico pork chop, apple souffle. Antoni Pradeep again came through with an awesome pairing.

I awoke around 5 to do last-minute almost ritualistic checking and zipping and unzipping of bags, the solid sound of which today signifies the end of another overall rewarding and interesting luxury cruise, and the dreaded upcoming airport experience.

There was no early risers coffee in the Observation lounge even at 6:15 but the barrista in SB Square was there on her usual schedule.

I got a quick iphone snap of the white cliffs of Dover in the morning haze from our veranda as a good-bye

Unfortunately we had no time to explore Dover Castle before heading off to LHR. I plan to post some final musings and thoughts on this thread and about the SB Quest experience in a more formal official ( and much shorter) review on CC, where I will likely rate it a 4 on the five point scale, but would pick 4.2 if I had such a choice. The space, cleanliness, MDR food and service at lunch and dinner was a highlight ( as was the itinerary), but there is room for luxury service improvement elsewhere as you have heard.

The overall experience was better than on the Quest in Norway last summer, so that is encouraging and I did put down an on-board open-ended deposit for a potential future cruise that will discount 5%

If anyone has questions, I am happy to answer as best I can! Thanks to all who participated.

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Thanks so much for posting. A very enjoyable read

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Thank you for taking us along on your wonderful tour and welcome back to Blighty. Shame you couldn't stay but safe journey home.

Thank you for your fascinating posts. I enjoyed your descriptions, and particularly your photos. Can you share the name of the camera you are using?

PS. I also appreciated your review of last year's SB Norway cruise. I am taking that cruise later this year and your review was very helpful in planning.

DH of course took a much better picture of the white cliffs of Dover, once he mobilized, so I will post it to make up for my less than optimal one:

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Thanks for letting us accompany you on this cruise. Your Bruges excursion sounds all too familiar; sometimes they are great, but too often like this (on all cruise lines except lamented Swan Hellenic, who were experts in the art of excursions).

Hope Heathrow is not too awful,and you have a good flight and trip home. The pic. of approaching Dover shows our typical spring weather.

Look forward to reading your final conclusions about this cruise - I for one need to get home and think it over for a few days before assessing my trip overall. Plus getting over jetlag and unpacking.

thank you for posting all the good photos and descriptions

the problem for Bruges is caused by 2 reasons : it is indeed a smaller town and very often far too crowded to receive so many people ( imagine 2 giant ships ... )

the port: zeebrugge is not a pleasant port for cruise ships at all as it is nearly impossible to walk to the village itself and the public transport to Bruges simply is a disaster.

But it is deep water and there is no alternative on the Belgian coast - the original SB went to Ostend but that port has its limits.( for the size of ships )

In Antwerp the cruise ships are docking in the center of the town and the ships must do a "swing" in the middle of the river.

Actually Quest will be in Antwerp tomorrow.

That Bruges tour must have used the same guide we had in Cordoba just a couple of weeks earlier.

Catlover, Your photos are simply fabulous and your narrative equals them. I particularly look forward to revisiting St Emilion via your photos.

Ch. du Terte sounds really wretched...and unfortunately it sounds as though SB is dropping the ball or lacking umph in several venues.

 

Safe travels home.

Sounds slightly better than my experience with Regents Chateau Kirwan tour (of the outside of a Chateau) with a lovely dinner (of cat food off paper plates, in the barn next to the John Deere tractor).

With a tenuous link to BrisbaneGran's post, we slightly older Brits find the range of coffees a bit over the top so I found this photo shared by a friend on Facebook very amusing

Seabourn would well with a similar version over the coffee bar in the square. I've never seen such befuddlement over such a simple coffee menu before. It's like it was written in Aramaic.

Thank you for your fascinating posts. I enjoyed your descriptions, and particularly your photos. Can you share the name of the camera you are using?

 

PS. I also appreciated your review of last year's SB Norway cruise. I am taking that cruise later this year and your review was very helpful in planning.

DH used his Nikon D500, for most of the photos I posted.

The weaker shots (fewer in number) are my impulse quickies from my iphone 6Plus.

I am glad you found the Norway review helpful for planning, it was part of my intent in posting the review to assist others in port excursion planning, though of course they may have different offerings now,

Sounds slightly better than my experience with Regents Chateau Kirwan tour (of the outside of a Chateau) with a lovely dinner (of cat food off paper plates, in the barn next to the John Deere tractor).

Emperor, you have some lovely photos of that Regent cruise and at least the Chateau Kirwan grounds looked nice. I have to smile at the commentaries on the very organized photo sets you have available for viewing ( people should take a look!), and look forward to more posts and photos from your trips, especially on SB.

Thanks for letting us accompany you on this cruise. Your Bruges excursion sounds all too familiar; sometimes they are great, but too often like this (on all cruise lines except lamented Swan Hellenic, who were experts in the art of excursions).

 

Hope Heathrow is not too awful,and you have a good flight and trip home. The pic. of approaching Dover shows our typical spring weather.

 

Look forward to reading your final conclusions about this cruise - I for one need to get home and think it over for a few days before assessing my trip overall. Plus getting over jetlag and unpacking.

The bus to LHR left 25 minutes later than scheduled and before that I had gotten conflicting information about disembarkation times for bus pax ( four sets of times given through different SB square personnel). But for DH and me it all worked out with time to spare as I know better than to schedule flights too early after cruises when the consequences of missing them would be bad ( DH absolutely needed to get home to get back to work the next day, and without a potential bump from the flight and seat I had carefully planned for him)

LHR personnel were refreshingly pleasant, no surliness, with quick checkin for DH at Star Alliance business class, and for me separately on Germanwings for a short flight to Cologne airport ( I am visting a friend a few days near the Nuerburgring race track in the Eifel Mountains before heading back to SFO). Security was friendly and efficient ( US TSA personnel could learn something from them).

The lounge at LHR in the Queens Terminal (2) is also civilized, albeit busy, though there are very long walks to get to and from US bound gates. I was being careful not to fall and have a need to check out your NHS, and unfortunately saw an elderly lady plop down on one of the rapidly moving up-bound crowded escalators with a scream. She bounced a couple steps further before personnel were able to do an emergency stop of the system. She did not immediately get back up but it looked like help was coming. Seniors need to be super careful at airports not to put themselves at too great a risk, or they may get a sudden hip fracture, so for some it may be best to arrange a wagon ride in advance. I use lifts as much as possible and avoid dragging roll-aboards which put me off balance, since an unfortunate event at FRA with one on an escalator a couple years ago.

The stewardess on my flight then spilled tomato juice on my top, pants, and into my hair ( she was very apologetic) and I was thus happy I was not US-bound on a 15-hour journey smelling like ketchup. Such events are a good reason to have a change of clothing with you on board even though it is extra weight. Then a German businessman bonked me on the head when he was swinging his roll-aboard down to get off ( hazards of aisle seats).

My online SB feedback questionairre arrived today, and I will wait a bit before completing it, to be fair and complete.

Don't wait too long, Catlover. We travelled a bit after Sydney-Singapore on Encore in March, and when I got home I could no longer access the survey. Although they don't tell you there is a date limit expiry, there is! Now I will just have to provide my feedback here on CC....

Here, finally, is my just-published long-winded review (it duplicates some of the things I already wrote about on this thread, and is designed to also be helpful to newbies, so you can just skim)

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=576983

And here is a link to DH's edited photo tour, in port and excursion order ( upper right on the link has an option to view the photos larger, as a slide tour)

Barcelona

Portimao

Lisbon ( Obidos)

Bilbao

La Rochelle

Bordeaux

Portland UK

Rouen

Cherbourg

Zeebruggen ( Brugge)

Dover

https://adobe.ly/2qmV3Gz

thank you for the review:)

Emperor, you have some lovely photos of that Regent cruise and at least the Chateau Kirwan grounds looked nice. I have to smile at the commentaries on the very organized photo sets you have available for viewing ( people should take a look!), and look forward to more posts and photos from your trips, especially on SB.

Thank you. Alas my next cruises will be a pre-makeover Crystal Serenity and another go round on Regents Explorer. Though perhaps theres a TA I could sneak aboard...