I have been moved to post by reading recent reviews of Ovation, some of which I do not recognise as the ship that we were on recently.
I appreciate that everyone has a different view and experience and we are relative novices as this was our second Seabourn cruise, the first being in 2018 on Ovation.
We heard few negative comparisons to previous cruises from experienced Seabourners and some even said it had improved.
We were on the same cruise as Fudge, but did not have the pleasure of meeting him, however I concur with the majority of his comments.
Here are some of my observations in no particular order.
Ovation looked lovely and not “tired” as I had read in previous posts.
As many posters have said, ignore your boarding time and turn up whenever you want.
Our suite lived up to our expectations, there was a welcome champagne cocktail and canapés from our steward in addition to the bottle of champagne.
There were small Molten Brown toiletries, except for a larger bath and shower gel, which made sense. However, there is a very polite note that they are for use on the cruise and any extras will be charged to your final bill! Needless to say our room steward left some out for me on our final night.
There were no tote bags (apparently they missed the ship) and no note paper or pens. My husband was convinced that there was a pack of cards on our first cruise and went on about this for a few days! I’m sure if we had asked he would have been given some.
The entertainment in the Grand Salon lived up to our low expectations. The Seabourn Singers had great voices, but the production was cheesy and old fashioned. They repeated the Tim Rice show on our second Friday which was our last night so we had no show to go to.
The band (Music Machine I think) were great and had a good repertoire, they were wasted in the club.
Neal, the pianist in the TK Grill is excellent and it is a nice spot for a pre dinner drink.
We ate in the Grille twice and had fantastic food. The steak was super tender and tasty and my husband enjoyed his veal.
Service in the Colonnade was patchy, very good if you were lucky enough to be outside, but poor and slow inside. Tea and coffee sometimes arrived after we had finished breakfast. Service in the Restaurant was generally very good. We had one very slow service and one very quick service.
I’m sure you all know that the chips on the patio at lunch are to die for.
The staff and crew were lovely and worked very hard and we could see evidence of them being well managed.
We had two Carambola beach parties, lobster on the first, but missing from the second. We heard that there were no lobsters available.
We asked for paper copies of the Herald and they were delivered to our room each evening, most days there were maps and information about the next port.
One of our cases was missing on disembarkation and the Seabourn staff were unhelpful and disinterested. The label had come off and it was put in the wrong place despite our name being on a tag. So, disappointing service at the very end.
As I’m sure you will all agree fellow passengers were friendly and good company.
So, there we are, we had a super time and hope that we are lucky enough to return again.
