markandjie

Let's keep in mind that @SLSD is a long-time participant here who has time and again been a helpful and considerate member of the community. It's easy to read bad intent into words on a page but given the sum-total of my interactions with them I'm quite confident they don't think I'm a farm animal despite the fact that I love a good buffet, whether breakfast lunch or dinner. To each their own. Live and let live.

Just saw this on twitter and I'm impressed, what a fantastic guest to have aboard. For those who don't know, Isaacson is an extremely well regarded author and wrote the definitive biography of Steve Jobs. This almost makes me want to switch from the Kimberly on Pursuit to this itinerary. Delve into the world of renowned author and Humanities Medal awardee Walter Isaacson as he recounts a lifetime’s worth of stories in this upcoming Seabourn Conversation on board Seabourn Sojourn’s 14-Day Moroccan Gems & Canary Islands. https://bit.ly/44HGk8C

Only thing to watch for us whether there are many anchorages on your itinerary. Dropping the anchor is LOUD and usually early in the morning. Any cabin at the front of the ship will hear it, V1s especially.

The return to the ship was one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had. The enthusiasm and joy of the crew as they welcomed us back onboard was amazing. I mean, the concert was pretty great...see photo below...but the return was special.

We were on the Venture in July for two weeks and had caviar delivered to our room almost every afternoon. It most certainly IS available.

Agree completely with this...as long as you're arriving at least a day or two ahead of the cruise. If you're cutting it close then would strongly consider booking through Seabourn just for the peace of mind that they're on the hook if things go sideways.

I usually take my coffee to go, as I like to get up early and go on a coffee run to take back to my wife who likes to lounge in bed in the morning, so the table service doesn't do much for me. Further, at least on the Muse the to go cups were small paper cups with ill-fitting plastic lids that staff warned against using them. On Seabourn they have nice ceramic mugs and cardboard coffee carriers to take two at a time easily (I think on the Muse they gave me a plate to carry them on since they were hot). As for Illy, it's quite good, but it's all pre-roasted and in those large storage tins. Seabourn goes above and beyond by roasting the coffee in the Square every couple of days. I don't drink alcohol any more, so my coffee snobbery has probably gone a little overboard. I'm one of those people with a subscription to have freshly roasted espresso beans delivered to my house regularly for use in my home semi-automatic espresso machine. From my perspective the experience in the Square is far superior to Arts, but I fully recognize I have a unique use case and viewpoint here. On the other hand, I will say is that I much preferred the selection of herbal infusions and teas on the Muse to the brand and selection commonly available on Seabourn. The selection was more varied and the quality seems higher. (Though if you attend the afternoon tea on Seabourn they have different and much better tea available than what is more commonly served...the afternoon tea is more on par with SS.)

Now that you can order ahead on the Source app (at least for coffee), the Square is a seamless experience for me. They also read any comments you add so you can have your drink made exactly as you like. Also note they freshly roast beans on the ship, which is HUGE for the freshness and quality of the brew if you're an espresso snob like me. Found Arts Cafe on Silver Muse to be massively disappointing by comparison.

Our Iceland/Greenland itinerary had a strong quiz competition scene with lots of prizes. For entertainment we had three itinerary-relevant guests: the ship's godmother, a NASA astronaut who has done both space and undersea missions, and a European Space Agency doctor who over-wintered in Antarctica. They were interesting, but not entertaining in a singing and dancing sort of way. 😉 The MDR is spacious and we felt the meals were excellent. Sushi in the club is outstanding, just perhaps skip it the first day or 2 when it gets slammed. Love the vibe of the small ship.

My least favorite event in any cruise. Always seems to come too early.

This is where we're coming at things from completely different places. I have zero desire to cruise ships larger than they have to be, and were Seabourn to announce new 700 or 900 passenger ships I'd be disappointed, no matter how beautiful they may be.

Your analysis and thinking seems pretty spot on to me. I'm also VERY curious to see how the market develops. On our last SB cruise (Venture) we were told that SB wasn't really shopping Odyssey, but they got a great offer they couldn't refuse so took advantage of it. Given it's their oldest ship and likely in need of a refit in the coming years made it all the more obvious. I do wonder whether they are looking around and thinking that the luxury market is getting WAY more crowded, especially in the 600-1000 pax segment (Explora, Viking, new SS ships, etc), perhaps it doesn't make sense to try to compete as directly there. Further, given Seabourn's roots in smaller ships (and many customers and staff alike pine for the old days of the 'three sisters'), they're well positioned with Venture and Pursuit... So maybe they make do with the new fleet of 6 for a bit and see who fails and what ships come up for sale, perhaps at a significant discount to a new build. I don't believe that Seabourn, or any luxury cruise line, has to engage in a massive buildout to stay profitable. Staying smaller, which makes it easier to maintain a well trained and experienced crew, could be a winning bet in the current environment. Curious what you heard is being considered...

For those who are celiac/gluten free, the GF bread rolls in TK are outstanding. Last year aboard Encore we arranged to have them brought to the MDR each night we weren't in TK. Sooo good.

We were just on the Venture and stopped at a number of locations around the island (Grundarfjörður, Húsavík, Seyðisfjörður, Djupivogur, and Heimaey). I would consider only Heimaey a true must-see or would-definitely-return location. The others were generally nice, don't get me wrong, but not overly memorable. I have heard that Akureyri/Godafoss is a must-see, but unfortunately given our last minute scramble of an itinerary (we were supposed to go to Scoreby Sund in Greenland but couldn't due to sea ice conditions) we had to drop it due to port conflicts.

It's basically all in place already. Only thing that's new to my knowledge is the "two new recipes added to the menu each week" in the MDR. Everything else was already in place for our sailing last month.

Thank you! We did a 14-day Alaska on SB 5 years ago, and just today finished a 7 day Alaska cruise on the Silver Muse. The experience in terms of focus on wildlife was stark versus what we remember on Seabourn (in that on Silversea there was very little focus on wildlife). Would love to know the size and staffing of the expedition team, as Silversea had nothing in that regards.

This was our experience as well on the Muse this past week. With relatively few exceptions service on the ship was a disappointment. It felt very much like they had poorly trained and perhaps newly hired staff, not dissimilar to (though worse than) Encore last year. I would expect better on all lines now that we're yet further from the COVID shutdown. I can't help but wonder whether the launch of the Silver Nova has strained their staffing, though the ship was fully staffed, with over 400 on board. Our butler, Nelson, was outstanding. He served us cavier and canapes each evening around 4:30, whether we were in our room or in the Library on 11. The one night we tried Indochine the person who seated us did not pull the chair for my wife, our server never greeted us nor proactively took our drink order, and she had very little understanding of the menu. It was a terrible dining experience. Our first night in Atlantide our server was curt and perfunctory, showing little personality. When my wife sent back the ahi tuna for being over-cooked it took a while for it to come back and he just dropped it off without checking to see if this time it was better (spoiler: it was not). He told us the manager would come speak to us and that didn't happen, until he chased after us as we were ascending the stairs. Said he meant to come by our table but "I forgot." Seriously. We had a reservation for the Grill that was inexplicably cancelled without checking with us. When we worked to get in regardless the Grill manager made sure to point out that we did not have a reservation. Only once we pushed back, showing him the confirmation message we originally received did he share that he had a cancellation and could seat us. Good grief man, why didn't you just lead with that? Even worse, by the end of our meal we counted 5 tables that went unused for the evening!!! At one point the sommelier at La Terraza (during lunch) asked if we wanted something to drink. We asked for sparkling water, as no one had taken our order (the waiter for our section had followed us to our table when we came in, never spoke to us, then walked away and did not return). The sommelier responded "Sparking water is not a bar drink" before reluctantly agreeing to get it for us. It wasn't all bad, Marlon in the Grill was an excellent waiter and Jeffrey in the Arts Cafe was an absolute delight, we had a very enjoyable meal in Silver Note, and our second dinner at Atlantide was significantly better from a service perspective. But hard to really appreciate those islands of excellence when you're drowning in a sea of bad service.

Just spent 7 days on the Muse and I have to say the forward views are disappointing relative to any Seabourn ship. You can't get out on deck closer to the water, like you can on all SB ships. And the library itself leaves much to be desired. First, and perhaps most important, the bar was only staffed after 6p. This despite the fact that most sail-aways were at 4 or 4:30. People were constantly trekking out to the pool bar to get drinks and bring them back. Next, the ceilings are relatively low, such that at standing height (I am 5'10") I can't see the horizon. This is partially because of the bulky blinds they have which are a bit of an eye-sore as they were never all pulled up to the same level cleanly. Photo taken from eye level: About a third of the space doesn't have low chairs but rather high-top tables with stools. This limits visibility from these seats, which again take up a good chunk of the limited real estate: When seated, even in the prime spot right at the center, there is a minor obstruction immediately in your sight line. Just another indicator that sight lines are absolutely an afterthought. There were several special events held up there (returning cruisers, a Tauck event, a back pain seminar) and when they would set up (hours and hours early!) for those events they would turn all the chairs to be inward facing! What's the point of an Alaskan cruise if not to SEE Alaska??!?!? Finally, there is only a single stair to the rooftop observation deck, so at peak whale spotting times this became very congested. On Seabourn ships there are always access doors to the outside on both sides.

Yes, sorry, I mis-typed in my comment above. I meant that Starlink should be worse over Greenland than over Alaska. Agreed, but I was on SB Venture a month ago in Greenland with MUCH faster download speeds on the included plan. This morning in Ketchikan I upgraded on the Muse to the premium internet and I'm still only getting 8-10 mpbs download speed, about 1/2 to 1/3 what we saw in Greenland on the Venture.

It really feels that SS has decided to cap internet speeds for the included plan. I hear you on issues with internet in Alaska, but there are fewer Starlink satellites over Alaska than there are over Greenland, and in Greenland on the SB Venture we routinely got 10-25 mbps, whereas here I'm getting 1.5-1.75 mbps every time. Feels like SS has decided to cap speed on the free plan (in addition to blocking sites like YouTube) whereas SB has decided to take the approach of blocking sites but not capping speeds.

The speed test site I used identified my provider as starlink, so pretty sure it's installed on Muse.

Based on our first 24 hours on the Muse, I have to say I agree with him. Very very small sample size, but underwhelming in many ways both large and small. Will share more after giving it the full week.

First time Silversea cruiser here. Just embarked the Muse in Seward, AK. Was curious internet speed on the included plan and found very disappointing results, despite the fact it's apparently Starlink. Was getting 10-20x this result just a month ago on the SB Venture in remote Greenland, also with the included plan. Is this normal for SS?

We've primarily sailed Seabourn thus far. Due to interesting life circumstances we had the opportunity to get to cooler weather for a week, so we decided to head to Alaska first week of August. Seabourn itineraries didn't fit in our time window so we'll be on Silversea for the first time, sailing on the Muse. Will be very interested to experience the differences (and of course will share thoughts)!

Weather was windy and brisk, but lots of sunny days. Layers varied widely as one would expect. I was generally comfortable in a base layer plus the inner liner of the parka. For windy days or zodiac rides I added the outer layer of the parka. And as a photographer gloves were a must or my hands would freeze. I also wore a fleece beanie that covered my ears.