Seadream II Rome to Venice

Greetings all, I have been reading these posts and finally I am now booked on a cruise Rome to Venice July 2016 (having previously been bumped from a Silversea cruise which will be relocating to Rio Olympics). Lucky me! I am wondering if a couple of my questions could be answered please?

Firstly, we have a lovely itinerary, and SeaDream will stop overnight at four of the 10 ports. If you overnight, obviously that means you can go ashore for drinks, dinner, soak up the atmosphere.

My question is, I see Seadream have cocktails pre dinner, and all this other stuff happening on board. How do we juggle this? If we stay on shore we will miss this, if we go back to the boat, we miss the town? Please seasoned cruisers, can you advise.

And a silly question, the sleeping on the Balinese beds, what if you need the bathroom in the middle of the night? Do you need to go back to your cabin?

Oh and a final silly question, what are the odds of lots of children on this itinerary?

Thanks, for any insights.

Cheers, Millie

Greetings all, I have been reading these posts and finally I am now booked on a cruise Rome to Venice July 2016 (having previously been bumped from a Silversea cruise which will be relocating to Rio Olympics). Lucky me! I am wondering if a couple of my questions could be answered please?

 

Firstly, we have a lovely itinerary, and SeaDream will stop overnight at four of the 10 ports. If you overnight, obviously that means you can go ashore for drinks, dinner, soak up the atmosphere.

 

My question is, I see Seadream have cocktails pre dinner, and all this other stuff happening on board. How do we juggle this? If we stay on shore we will miss this, if we go back to the boat, we miss the town? Please seasoned cruisers, can you advise.

 

And a silly question, the sleeping on the Balinese beds, what if you need the bathroom in the middle of the night? Do you need to go back to your cabin?

 

Oh and a final silly question, what are the odds of lots of children on this itinerary?

 

Thanks, for any insights.

 

Cheers, Millie

Hi Millie,

Just a few comments to your queries.

1. Yes the overnights are at:

- Amalfi

- Kotor

- Dubrovnik

- Venice

Three of these are worth eating out at (not so sure about Kotor but maybe wrong: it does happen very occasionally and only when Blondie is around. Thank heavens she points it out !)

The answer is simple: do both !

Cocktails onboard then a later dinner in the towns.

The crowds will have also gone at a later time, which is really useful in Dubrovnik.

Otherwise clone yourself ! Sorry sounds rude...certainly not the intention.

2. There is a restroom on Deck 6, the deck with the Balinese beds.

It is on the opposite side of the "Golf Simulator" identified as point 18 (on point 17 side).

See deck plan (long blue oblongs are the beds to the left hand side and the white odd shape to the right hand side is a bed too).

The link to the deck plan is here:

http://www.seadream.com/the-yachts/deck-plans

3. Regarding children HH suggests you call your TA (travel agent) and ask them to ask Sea Dream (including the nationality). They will be able to give you actual numbers closer the time.

But generally speaking expect no more than 2/3.

And generally speaking different cultures have different attitudes to childcare (or not).

Seriously, it is vital to make sure your TA insists of being kept informed of child numbers from Sea Dream.

Hope this helps.

As you say it is a wonderful itinerary.

Thanks so much for the response HoHum. Truly appreciated. You have obviously done this or a similar itinerary before? End July/August.....should we expect calm seas? And I presume it will be hot! Any tips or hints about the ports of call?

Thanks, Millie

Thanks so much for the response HoHum. Truly appreciated. You have obviously done this or a similar itinerary before? End July/August.....should we expect calm seas? And I presume it will be hot! Any tips or hints about the ports of call?

Thanks, Millie

Millie, HH has jotted down a few points on the "idle jottings" thread in reply to your queries (under the terms of an amnesty with CC, HH ain't allowed to be his silly self on other threads like this one. Well not for too long).

See please go to "idle jottings" for news.

HH will remind you from time to time if there is anything being posted.

Thanks HH, Understood. I shall go to the Idle Jottings and read with interest....

Cheers, Millie

It's been 2 years since I've been on Sea Dream solely because we have to sail during school holidays. Our last voyage was 14 nights Venice to Athens in late July. The first week was one of the best holidays EVER. Unfortunately, the 2nd week we had multiple under 12 misbehaving children with parents who didn't give a da#*. I've been in a trial for most of the past year so I am a dead vegetable on my days away from the office. I've been on SD with wonderful families, including small children and Tweens. But in July everyone is on holiday and your risk is much higher. While nowhere near the nights of HH, I've spent at least 30 nights with more than 10 children under the age of 12 on board, all at either Easter break or July holidays (don't travel with a professor or Jim Avery, I've done both). If you think you will be bothered, buy cancel for any reason insurance, call and see how many children are on board and adjust accordingly. There is no service or food like SD-it is the best, we've sailed on both SD I and II since 2002, but in July you have an extremely high risk of children, unless fares are elevated or the ship is full. Beware last minute discounts. Nothing compares to SD when it's done right.

Dear Frequent Traveler, thanks so much for this great information. Yes, it would indeed impact our cruise if it was bombarded with children as I was led to believe its mostly for adults. It has taken me years to talk my husband into any type of cruising so I had to find something more personal, smaller, a bit of luxury, i.e. Sea Dream. He is now looking forward to it and I am hoping it will be that great, that he will want more and more. The unfortunate thing is, our Aussie exchange rate is not travelling too good against the US dollar so we made the decision, while the rate was reasonable, to pay in full! I am not sure we could just cancel if we found out it was a kids cruise. And as we are coming from so far, after flights are booked, accommodation booked, how do we just cancel anyway and forget about it. What do we do then? So, my fingers and toes are crossed that it will be not be loads of kids, that it the best thing we ever did, and that my husband will be hooked and be the one that books the next cruise whilst on board!

Cheers, Millie

Dear Frequent Traveler, thanks so much for this great information. Yes, it would indeed impact our cruise if it was bombarded with children as I was led to believe its mostly for adults. It has taken me years to talk my husband into any type of cruising so I had to find something more personal, smaller, a bit of luxury, i.e. Sea Dream. He is now looking forward to it and I am hoping it will be that great, that he will want more and more. The unfortunate thing is, our Aussie exchange rate is not travelling too good against the US dollar so we made the decision, while the rate was reasonable, to pay in full! I am not sure we could just cancel if we found out it was a kids cruise. And as we are coming from so far, after flights are booked, accommodation booked, how do we just cancel anyway and forget about it. What do we do then? So, my fingers and toes are crossed that it will be not be loads of kids, that it the best thing we ever did, and that my husband will be hooked and be the one that books the next cruise whilst on board!

Cheers, Millie

Millie, please contact your travel agent or SD direct and simply ask about bookings to date; they should tell you how many children are booked onboard (if any).

Then you will have the true facts beforehand.

HH believes this voyage will be quite popular and most of the vessel will be booked.

Please don't worry un-necessarily.

Ho-Hum to my rescue! I took your advice (no pressure!) and that's when we decided just to go with it. How unlucky could we be. I'm thinking positive that there will be a small handful of children at most and that we could deal with it. (We don't hate kids, just like them to not be feral). But yes, I will get our travel agent to check 4 months out to hopefully alleviate any fears I may have.

To change tact, I think I read somewhere that you yourself was a reluctant cruiser until Blondie finally talked you around, and that you have never looked back. Well, that's what I want to happen with my husband. I want him to love it more than me and I want him to nag nag me until we book our next one, or better yet, leave the boat with a future booking in the bag.

Thanks Ho-Hum for your positivity.

Cheers, Millie

Just remember it is not necessarily the presence of young people that is the issue, it is how well they behave and how well they are supervised. FT and I have been on voyages with children and you would never know they were there, and we have been on some others where you knew they were there, because no one controlled them.

For a personal view of the nightmare that kids can be on SD see post #315 in this thread: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1576769&page=8

Morning,

I am a uber newbie but have heard awesome things about cruise critic and about seadream. We leave (2 couples) Sept 23rd and my question is - do we book the opt tours via seadream or look for private tours in the various cities on our own.

We were told you would get a smaller group and lower prices if you book a private tour.

Looking at the schedule we don't have much time in some ports, but others give you lots of time.

Suggestions are greatly appreciated.

TIA

Carolyn in Maryland

Good morning, Carolyn. We haven't done this itinerary with SeaDream, although we have been to several of these ports on other ships. My comments, however, will be general in nature. Yes, SeaDream port excursions can be pricey. But you might also find that the concierge can book a private tour for you that is cheaper. That happened for us when we went to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. She arranged a car and driver, and we were met at the museum by a guide who had our admission tickets. The downside was there were not enough people to take the regular tour, so it got cancelled. Some guilt feelings.

We have been fairly successful in finding private guides at a number of ports, often just by hiring a cab driver near the dock. (Check out their English, though. On one Greek island we were lucky to find a driver who grew up in the US.) Bear in mind that sea conditions may cause the ship to skip a port. If you book something privately, and have prepaid, you may be out of luck. Also, where the ship docks is subject to change, so have a way to contact your driver so he can meet you.

Zimmy's DH