johng75370

And don't forget to play (and win) at Team Trivia when on board; the travel adaptor is really good and compact for travelling.

For more background (and whether FoD is a Judy Garland or a Dorothy Parker reference): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy

When we were on Sojourn in December it was labelled as "LGBTQ+ Friends and Family Get-Together"; 6:30pm in the Sky Bar. I think how many they hold per cruise depends on turnout and/or cruise director; some have had several, some just a couple. We last saw "Friends of Dorothy" on Celebrity several years ago; glad that is now a historical reference!

Or stymied on his plans to pay for the cruise from his casino winnings. 🙂

I think they are still a thing as @bitob noted for coordinating on excursions and discuss specific stops, but for the early cruises departing from Europe there is not as much need for that type of discussion (places are well known). The Explora roll calls are following a similar pattern (and their ship is following similar path as Serenity); none for initial sailings, a lot of activity on the Iceland to NY sailing but less on other North American sailings.

Gunwharf: https://gunwharf-executive-travel.co.uk/ Last year we tried to book with them at the last minute and were not able to; instead we used an Uber competitor (Bolt) and were very happy with both the price and ride.

Don't sweat it, at least you didn't (like me) think minty candy

You may want to give this a try (I just tested on an upcoming booking): After you've clicked on your reservation on seabourn.com and gone to Travel Planning (FlightEase) the first screen you get to lets you put in your "departure" airport; that should let you enter in WAS (see first pic below). Despite living in the Bay Area it lets us set WAS as our location. The next screen lets you choose either roundtrip, outbound only, or return only. It should show you multiple WAS area airports to choose from. (see second pic below). I hope this helps; if not calling Seabourn should get it sorted out.

Yes, we've done it a few times, usually for the return flight home. It's been a good deal because the pricing is competitive and the transfers are good if you've got a later flight (Seabourn provides a dayroom or a group lunch/space before transferring to airport for later flights).

If I remember correctly the lunch hours are roughly noon to 2pm; it's not open for a mid-afternoon snack which would be nice. We loved the Kaiseki dinner on formal night (menu attached, as well as lunch and dinner menus). If you're already booked on Ovation in the Seabourn Source app you should be able to see the menu (that's where I got the lunch and dinner menus).

Thanks to @tgg and all here - got my Diamond status and was able to book for December this year using the Diamond promo that just ended. Would not have come across that if not for this post and forum!

We did this in Sept 2021, when we went on Odyssey and there were only 80 passengers on board, and decided to stay on for the next cruise. The Seabourn Club/future cruise consultant onboard made all the arrangements, coordinated with our TA, offered a good fare comparable to what we booked originally, and got added OBC through the Amex Platinum and shareholder offers. It was an easy process and provided fair (but not super-discount) pricing.

I concur too, which is why I said in my post I hope this doesn’t happen. But when CCL has decided to sell parts of Seabourn piecemeal, some parts of it going to a competitor for the right price (and to fill a competitors gaps in the market) is not out of the question. Personally I hope this is just a slimming down, stops here, and they continue to make investments to keep the “hard product” best in class, as they did when they launched the Pride, Odyssey and more recently Venture.

Unless they got a great price for a 12 year old ship that is trying to compete against a number of newly built expedition ships. Without it competing in the expedition market there is nothing different about Quest than with Odyssey.

Surprised they sold just Odyssey instead of also selling Quest and Sojourn along with it. Could see Seabourn trimming down to just the newest ships, then merging with Crystal (so Crystal ends up with newer builds and expedition; and Manfredi was willing to spend a lot to try to get Endeavour). Hope this isn’t the case, but in thinking through why they sold Odyssey this seemed possible.

Don’t know if this topic has come up already, but I’ve been following Riverside river cruises who bought Crystal Mozart and are launching in April. They’ve mostly kept the names from Crystal (Waterside, The Vintage Room) and lightly renamed the Bistro (it’s named the Blue Bar Grill but they refer to it as the Bistro). Did New Crystal and Riverside both get rights to the old Crystal dining venue names, or are they generic enough that anyone could use them? They also have Symphony, Harmony, and Seahorse decks.

We were on Sojourn in December in a standard veranda, and the room was in good condition; some of the materials used (the small TV and cabinet for it) are looking dated style-wise but the room overall is well designed and well maintained.

@docpetey We’ve done 7 cruises since Covid (4 Seabourn, 1 Crystal, 1 Cunard Queens Grill, 1 Celebrity Retreat), and felt that all were not that far off their previous but had some minor changes on all (almost every hospitality business has changes over time). As smaller ships I feel like these issues get magnified on Seabourn, so the “risk” of your experience being impacted might be higher, but we’ve not personally had any serious degradation from what we were expecting. A couple other comments: - we sailed right as ships started coming back, and felt in those times on Seabourn (and Crystal) it was everything as before, and then some…really exceeded our expectations, and the staff were so genuinely happy to see passengers back. As time went on and all the ships relaunched it wasn’t as good with having a lot of staff turnover, new staff, changes in general. Supply chain issues hit at the same time, and maybe more “cost control” from corporate. I think that rough period has past, but the bad experiences people had during that period still linger. - We deeply value Seabourn and have future bookings in part because we always find on board both staff and other passengers we’ve enjoyed sailing with before (and new friends we meet); that part has not changed one bit. Seabourn hires, retains, and nurtures talent as all good organizations should.

Seabourn’s caviar policy is one of the reasons we keep coming back; wish there was red (salmon) available, but’s that’s a different issue. Two recipes we were introduced to on Seabourn that have become go-to’s are Eggs Royale with caviar, and Pom Moscovite (pic attached from recent voyage).

We’ve been on 4 SB cruises post-COVID, and thought the quality of speakers was very good (maybe not at the level of Crystal, but still very good). They have gotten better at showing on the website who the speakers are on each ship; you can check it out here: https://www.seabourn.com/en_US/conversations.html

We were recently in Japan, and any place where there was touching of shared items there was also an automated “glove dispenser” machine - made it much easier to make sure everyone was not using bare hands.

Over time they’ve gotten a lot better at how quickly they can serve caviar in the Obs Bar - they have some number of orders pre-staged there so they don’t have to specially order it. A few years ago (at least our experience) there could be some delay but more recently it’s been pretty fast.

As a couple in our (now) late-50’s having travelled on Seabourn for the last 7 years or so, one of the surprising delights is the friendships we’ve made with other passengers. Most surprising is how it has shown that age is truly a just a number; one of out best friends through Seabourn recently turned 80 (and we struggle to keep up with him!); some others even older. Like has been said here, quite an age range and it’s never made a bit of difference! Enjoy, have fun, and report back.

At least on Sojourn in December it was still live music at night in the club - Larisa and the Band, who were great. Would be fine to have DJ part of the time, but would hate to see the live Band go away.

Thanks for hitting the nail on the head! They have an email list from the open deposit program which is the same as a list of their most interested/excited pent-up-demand-filled future customers - yet no contact other than confirmation of the deposit. Sharing some of the design details (arch drawings, for example) would be a good first step to fill the awkward silence. Happy we did the open booking and looking forward to the relaunch - just surprised about this part of it,