First Seabourn cruise: four thumbs up!

We just completed our first cruise on Seabourn -- a 14 day Norwegian fjords journey on the Quest which gave us a good mix of sightseeing and sea days. I haven't had time to write a formal CC review, but I wanted to post here to report that we were extremely happy with our first Seabourn experience.

For a point of reference, we've travelled on Regent for half a dozen cruises previously. We've always enjoyed Regent for the same reasons so many Seabourn cruisers love this line: the size of the ship, the quality of service, the quality of food and drink. It's been several years since our last Regent cruise, but my feeling was that it quality of food and service had slipped just a little since our earliest experiences. So we were eager to see how we liked Seabourn, and whether the nearly-uniform positive comments here could measure up.

The answer: We enjoyed almost everything about Seabourn and the Quest. We thought the food was excellent throughout. The staff was exceptional: friendly, getting to know our names (even when we never identified ourselves) and our preferences. The ship seemed in perfect condition. (Very much on a par with the Regent Voyager and Mariner; the Regent ships have a nicer theater and atrium, while Seabourn Square beats Regent's Coffee Connection, but very comparable in most respects.) The staterooms were very comparable to the Regent ships. I appreciated the larger-than-average safe in the closet; I liked the the sizable bathroom, but wished I could trade the space of the tub, which we don't use, for a larger-than-tiny shower.

We ate lunch most days in the Colonnade or Patio Grill, and dinner most nights in the Restaurant -- and found the food quite uniformly good. (Some of the fresh fish daily specials at the Patio Grill were as excellent as main courses at dinner in The Restaurant.) We had dinner at Restaurant 2 only one night, and because it was the "Signature" menu, quite enjoyed that, too. (Seeing all the menus, I do see why many don't love the R2 concept, and are looking forward to the changes with Thomas Keller coming in the next year.) We got to experience a galley lunch near the end of our cruise, and that was fantastic. We also tagged along on part of a Shopping with the Chef in Bergen (they never advertised it, so we weren't on it, but we happened to bump into them as we were walking around the fish market, and tagged along for a bit -- great fun). And Executive Chef Jes is truly a rock star!

I had been prepared to be a little unhappy with the included wines based on reading this board in recent months, but we found we could easily find both white and red wines we quite enjoyed -- I asked for alternate wines a number of nights, and once I knew ones I liked, I could mention them by name and they would bring them.

We enjoyed having an Expeditions staff aboard, as they did a number of interesting lectures, and we went on one of their new Ventures expeditions by zodiac, which was a blast. (An expensive blast!) They also pretty much sold us on an Antartica trip in the future.

We enjoyed the shows the the Seabourn singers; apparently they're new shows and a new formula -- six singers, lots of tight harmonies -- instead of a mix of singer and dancers. We enjoyed talking with the singers and a few members of the band in The Club after the shows. The guest entertainers were a mixed bag; one comedian we liked a lot, one singer/comedienne not so much. Most of the ship called it a night after the shows (or before!); we usually retired to The Club for a nightcap, and were two of about 20 people there. Look, we were in the land of the midnight sun, so the views were frequently great even at midnight -- and the bar staff had few people to serve, so our glasses never emptied until we begged them to stop.

Passengers were about half American, one-quarter Australian, and one-quarter 20 other nationalities. We met some nice folks, and none who were annoying or unhappy.

In the end, we felt this was probably a half-notch better than our most recent Regent cruises -- not by much, but in some small ways (food quality and friendliness of staff, especially), and at this point, I think I'd look to Seabourn first when we're ready for our next cruise.

Thanks to all on this forum who helped sell us on Seabourn, and answered all my advance questions!

Thanks for review. Looking forward to our first Seabourn cruise next year!

Glad you enjoyed it, nice review. Interesting about the tub, I feel the same but DW would go without it. I guess that's the problem they have, satisfying all our various tastes.

Enjoyed your review.

Looks like you now have two go to cruise lines.

Keith

Glad you enjoyed it, nice review. Interesting about the tub, I feel the same but DW would go without it. I guess that's the problem they have, satisfying all our various tastes.

Oops, meant to say DW would not go without the tub. She loves the tub and looks forward to using it.

I was pleased to read your first Seabourn was very good - we did the same one last year, with wonderful weather which is not always the case , and it was was excellent.

Surprised that you found the shower small - we are both not tiny (though not obese) and find the shower more than adequate, and it is of course separate from a reasonably large bathtub. I believe however that the Regent suites altered to shower only probably have a very large shower?

Enjoyed your review.

Looks like you now have two go-to cruise lines.

Keith

Indeed... and right now, I feel I'd be inclined to stick with Seabourn. Maybe the most recent always seems best, but I think we found the food and service just a little better than the last time we were on Regent. And the smaller size of the Seabourn ships, while it (prepares surprisingly) is not significantly noticeable, is another slight plus. (One downside to Seabourn for us is not having the free Internet we get on Regent.)

Surprised that you found the shower small - we are both not tiny (though not obese) and find the shower more than adequate, and it is of course separate from a reasonably large bathtub. I believe however that the Regent suites altered to shower only probably have a very large shower?

The shower is what, about 3 feet by three feet, with the door cut on an angle -- maybe 7 or 8 square feet total? That's pretty small. It is functional, and wasn't too problematic, but it does feel tight, and not luxurious. The Regent suites with no tub give that space to a shower, so it's definitely larger. (For contrast, the walk-in closet on the Regent Voyager is also larger, but we didn't find the slightly smaller Seabourn closet to be a negative at all.) But if the small shower is my biggest problem with the Seabourn ship, I'll be content to "suffer" with the small shower on future trips! :)

Eric

Shower stalls are very small. We have been on Regent,Silversea,Paul Gaugain and the Little Sisters, this was the smallest shower we have ever seen. Before you complain I am 5feet 100 pounds husband is 6 feet 185 lbs.

Cruiseej,

Glad to hear you enjoyed your first Seabourn cruise. We are boarding the Quest this coming Saturday for the Norwegian Fjords cruise. It will also be our first Seabourn cruise and we are looking forward to it. Like you, we have enjoyed Regent, however we stopped sailing with them when they started including the excursions. Hopefully Seabourn will be our new favorite.

Which of the ports on your Fjords cruise did you enjoy the most, and which did you like the least?

I suppose the shower on Quest etc. is the same size as ours at home, so did not seem too small to us! Also an improvement on the little sisters, where the shower was inside the small bath tub, with a curtain - necessitating climbing in and out, which I found tricky when the ship was rocking and rolling.

We are going on a Regent cruise fairly soon, with one of the new no tub large shower suites, so this should feel like luxury. Anyone who has been on a 3 star ship in the past should try to remember what they were like. If you weighed more than about 120 lbs. the curtain would stick to you.

I just returned from that cruise as well - amazing! As far as excursions, don't miss the Venture in Trollfjord, where you can go out on the zodiacs and see the Quest come into the fjord and turn around. And the full day excursion from Olden is worth it as well -- I am not a fan of full days off the ship, but this is well worth it. Here's a link to my photo's on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pam.minelli.1/media_set?set=a.10203583747108178.1073741833.1650446377&type=3&pnref=story

Which of the ports on your Fjords cruise did you enjoy the most, and which did you like the least?

If you are game for it, and you have favorable weather as we did, rent a car for the day in the Lofoten Islands (Svolvaer). The scenery here was spectacular, among the best scenic driving we've experienced anywhere. It's like driving in the Rocky Mountains -- with ocean all around! And you won't believe the sand beaches and turquoise water. Google "Lofoten Islands images" to get an idea how great it is. Here's a Google map of the drive. The ship's tour to the Viking museum covers the first part of the islands, but the scenery gets better as you drive further south.

There are basically just two roads which run along the eastern and western sides of the first island, and then they merge together further south, so you can't get lost. Depending how many stops you make along the way, you can hopefully get down to the little town of Reine for this view (that's not my picture, but it's exactly the view we had from the small parking lot at the entrance to the town), or 10 km further to the end of the road in the town of A (which we didn't make it to because I had to turn around and head back). Driving straight through, it's about 2 hours down and 2 hours back, but if you stop to take pictures every mile or so, it's slower going! (Our car had a GPS in it, which made it more foolproof -- and was good for calculating of me when we had to turn around to get back to the ship in time; we had to head back after reaching Reine to not cut it too close.) There's not much traffic on the roads, so it's not difficult driving. I reserved in advance from Hertz, but there was a local company with cars to rent at the dock if you want to leave it to chance when you arrive. The rental car cost about $125, so with gas, it cost less for four of us than an excursion from the ship for one of us. This was by far my favorite sightseeing day of the trip. I only wish the ship was in port a little longer on this day. Of course, everything is weather dependent -- we had great weather this day, and not-so-great weather on two of our other top sightseeing days. (If you do this, you can request box lunches by calling room service the day before. It's a simple sandwich, cookie and fruit, but it saved us the time of stopping somewhere for lunch.)

I agree with Paminflorida that the 8-hour excursion in Olden was worthwhile. The day was broken up enough that it didn't feel like a typical 8-hour bus trip. The hour-long ferry ride through Geirangerfjord is spectacular, but we unfortunately had a very cloudy day and didn't get the stunning views I had hoped for. (I'm not sure why they couldn't improvise a bit instead of sending the bus up to the top Mount Dalsnibba when it was apparent to all that the top of the mountain was well into the clouds; we got there, turned around and came down.) But this trip was still worth it.

We didn't do an excursion in Bergen. It's a very walkable city. We walked to see the fish market, and then took the funicular up to Mount Floien. If you feel like stretching your legs a bit, there's a nice park at the top of the funicular, where you can walk along smooth trails for a short or long hike. (There's a nice little mountain lake less than a 10-minute walk from the funicular station.) Since it supposedly rains 310 days a year in Bergen, we were happy to have one of the rare days without any rain... and even sun at times.

In Flam, we did the Mountains and Valleys By Train excursion. The Flamsbana train is worth seeing -- although I felt it wasn't as special a train trip as several we've been on in the US (like the White Pass & Yukon in Alaska or the Durango & Silverton in Colorado). Maybe I'd feel differently if we had a bright sunny day here, but it was another cloudy one.

In Alesund, we didn't do a ship's tour, and just walked around the pretty town. And climbed the 418 steps of Mount Aksla for a wonderful panoramic view of the town and surrounding islands.

We also walked in Tromso -- across the bridge to the Arctic Cathedral (we took a city bus back because it was raining off-and-on). This was probably my least-favorite port call; not bad, but not special -- again, perhaps due to the weather.

In Honningsvag, the main thing to do is to go to the North Cape (Nordkapp). It's a bit of a tourist trap, but how often will you get to the top of the world? My parents, who we traveled with, took the bus trip; my wife and I opted to take the Ventures by Seabourn zodiac trip. We had some trepidation about being out on the sea early in the morning and being cold and wet, but it was really great despite some occasional light rain. We saw an astounding number of birds. Most of the group did the hike up to the top of Nordkapp, but it was a strenuous hike up a narrow path with some slippery rocks. My wife started out hiking but was slipping on the rocks and decided to go back to the ship via the zodiacs. (I know the expeditions crew learned a bit on our trip, so I expect they'll do a few things differently with the landing spot and the description of the hike for your cruise and others in the future.) I enjoyed the hike, but some passengers felt it was tougher than advertised. The good thing is that they were happy to take back anyone on the zodiacs who decided the hike was too strenuous; they staff took great care of everyone, and my wife had the sun come out and got some spectacular views from the water while the rest of us were huffing and puffing up the side of the mountain. We both ended up very glad we did this excision instead of the basic bus trip to the visitor center. (Although it was cloudy when we were at Nordkapp, in the evening when the ship left Honningsvag, the captain sailed out and around Nordkapp; the skies were clear and we got spectacular views, as the captain paused and did a little circle with the ship. They let us know this was unusual weather for the North Cape, but it was nice to see it in the sun after being cloudy during the day.)

In Stavanger, we did the Lysefjord Cruise to Pulpit Rock. Has this been a sunny day, it would have been truly spectacular. Unfortunately, this day was cloudy as well, so it dulled the beauty a bit. We briefly saw the top of Pulpit Rock at the base of the clouds. The boat for this trip is a very nice, smooth, modern catamaran, and it picks you up right next to where the ship is docked. This is also a very nice, walkable city; make sure you take a short walk from where the ship is docked to the old part of the city for a short walk along Ovrestrandgate to see some very pretty houses and gardens.

Enjoy your trip!

Eric