2seabournsailors

Hi Norm, I certainly remember your posts and your Wedding pics etc....and of course the famous "Pirate Pics"..... I "used" to write very long blogs in here once upon a time, but no longer.I was known as Granny back then.  I now prefer that other social media place....

12 hours ago, SLSD said:

It's the entitlement that really bothers me.  (Of course I can just look away.)  I was trying to answer a question in a Facebook Seabourn group and one of the members said to me,  "HOW many SB cruises have YOU been on?  And how would YOU know the answer to this."  The person went on to tell me how many days they had sailed.  Talk about off putting!  That being said, my husband and I have enjoyed dining with several ships' officers.  I find their work and how they came to their vocation to be fascinating.  For us, they made wonderful dinner companions.  Others may not care of the experience--and that is certainly their prerogative.  In my very humble opinion, seeing the officers around the ship talking to passengers adds a certain festive holiday air to a cruise.  It's an intangible and perhaps so subtle that not everyone sees it. 

 

I hope you aren't referring to SS with this quote? I have searched and cant find anything like those sort of comments! Please point it out to me if I am wrong.

6 hours ago, BasandSyb said:

We just missed Earth and Ocean on our recent cruise, but will experience when next on in December. Looking forward to it as a long overdue evolution of the Patio Grill. Good to hear from Floris that it was enjoyable.

 

Yes, we all have a few first world problems from time to time. In our case we are thankful we have our health and are able to  experience as much as we do.  However, echoing Henry's recent post about Seabourn pricing... we are fundamentally consumers of goods. Sometimes you query the product - what you have paid vs what you are receiving OR weigh up your product knowledge vs what you are prepared to ante up for the next trip. No one likes being taken for granted as a customer. As with any business, decisions are made and in our opinion some of the more recent Seabourn decisions have not concurred with the direction we saw for the brand. Ultimately for us, if the cons start to outnumber the pros, we will vote with our feet. As we have with TK.

I agree with your comments 100%. This ridiculous "first World problems" statement, which has become the excuse for everything recently, annoys the hell out of me. We are paying a premium price for a supposedly  "6 star experience". If product and quality continue to fall, what price are you willing to pay for a 3 or 4 star experience? Making statements like "first World problems" for everything, that is not up to standard, only allows the Company to provide less and less, and you are giving them the ok to do it!

all the decor on the ships are done by "Famous award winning designers"......most of whom have probably never set foot on a ship, and are half the age of the average passenger.

how do you add a pic here without having to "Click" on the image thing?

The Quest has arrived in Dover!

Out of interest, anyone in Aus used SB air to go to Europe or USA? How do the prices / routes compare. We have never considered it and often book the flight before the cruise as it can sometimes dictate where and when we travel.

 

Usually fly Emirates to Europe, Q to USA and Cathay to Asia. But have since used Qatar (very good) and are flying Singapore to Europe later this year.

 

Any feedback on SB air from Aus?

we had a quote recently as they had a "special deal".... cant remember the forward route, but coming home from Iceland they would take us to Canada, then to the US then home, and at a cost of over $20,000. We booked ourselves with Emirates...….

as an Australian, and very aware of skin cancer, we don't sit around pools to get a "trophy tan", but on a very hot Australian cruise on Encore last year, MANY Americans certainly did! The pool deck was crowded every day. The weather on the December and January cruise will be even hotter than that! I doubt very much if the very small pool on Deck 5 will cope with the amount of people who will want to swim! Many places on this cruise will be around the 38C mark. (from midway up the West Coast of Oz to Singapore) We then also continue on till Cape Town, most of that will be very hot as well.

I was on Sojourn in Feb/March when it was already a problem and have booked Sojourn for Dec/Jan this year.

 

For us it is a minor irritation. We generally only use the pool deck when eating lunch or dinner at the Patio Grill and we don't do that every day.

The December and January cruise is going to be a very hot cruise, with many people wanting to use the pool deck. It will be dreadful if it isn't useable by then!

Congratulations! Did you bid for the upgrade or was it complimentary? From a Penthouse Suite?

 

Cheers,

Floris

Complimentary! From a V6.

Good news for us today! We have been upgraded! Owners Suite! Haven't had an upgrade since our very first Seabourn cruise way back in 2006 on Seabourn Spirit!

we tend to celebrate New Zealand New Year, as they are 3 hours ahead of us.....therefore we can go to bed at 9pm! We are real party animals! However we will have Sophie on board, so I would imagine she will make sure its a good New Years Eve!

Don't miss the horizontal falls! A brilliant adventure. Probably even more exciting with an hangover!!!!!

The Horizontal Falls excursion is $800US per person! so over $1000 each for us! Think I'll give that a miss....

We are also on this cruise and looking forward to meeting everyone on board. There hasn’t been much activity on our cruise site yet. What is everyone doing for excursions?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

some of the stops still haven't got excursions posted. We wont be doing too many as have been to most of the places by land, some we have also already done by sea, so imagine the Sky Bar out of the sun will be our main excursion!

NY day we are in Broome, Western Australia.

 

Tours include a Camel Safari, a Hovercraft ride and a "Horizontal Falls Explorer".

 

So I am sure that everyone will want to be up bright and early for one of those. :evilsmile:

 

Alternatively ..... just push on through and skip sleep. :D

Just have a nice relaxing day and go buy lots of pearls! It will be boiling hot in Broome!

Has anyone been on Seabourn for Christmas? I am on the Sojourn this year and am hoping that it won’t b the disaster that it was on Viking Sun last year NY finished at 00.10 even the Nightclub!!

I will be on that one too, but have never done a Holiday cruise on Seabourn, so have no idea what to expect.....actually I will probably be in bed by 00.10....

Wow! Just noticed this thread had already dropped down to Page 2! I thought it had been deleted when I didn't spot it within the first half of Page 1!

Depending on where people are travelling from to join this cruise, I will probably be amongst the first to actually leave home and head to Dover. Just looked at the clock, and it has just ticked over to Monday, we leave home on Friday, so not too much longer for me. (I am not usually awake past midnight, but been watching the rescue in Thailand, hopefully it will all be over tomorrow!)

We are almost packed....just some last minute stuff to add....the rest of this week is going to go very slowly! Really looking forward to this itinerary, and we are pretty sure we will want to do this one again, plus the Second half of the Route of the Vikings....will be very interested in reading about that.

This will be quite a short trip for us, but after this one, we then have a long cruise on Odyssey, followed by another long cruise on Sojourn, so for the rest of the year we will be packing, unpacking, washing, and repacking! We do enjoy Retirement!!

The "red flag" to me was that at least in the U.S. last year and early this year, the website for a supposed luxury line that deals with mostly affluent people whose time is valuable, was chaotic and inefficient for coherent back and forth searches on various devices I have, and did not get any better as months went by. I thought it would be exciting to be on a ship the first year it launched, and was considering making some compromises (like not having a bathtub in a base suite). ButI worried that customer service, if something went wrong, would be as bad as the website, and that they hadn't made it classier because they were understaffed, or perhaps had enough business with Aussie pax and thus did not bother with the U.S. much.

My TA had also previously tried to book a Scenic river cruise for me through them and they were so difficult to deal with, again, in U.S., that I told her to skip it.

So many companies, be they airlines or software, rush rush to get their new products out with unrealistic deadlines, and then have to deal with the messes they create in the products and do patch jobs, and the ill will with customers (e.g., my pre-purchased British Airways long-haul flight was cancelled less than a week before a cruise, probably due to engine design concerns) .

Perhaps unfairly, I also worry that subtle safety corners might be cut to finally get the show on the road.

 

I am glad I did not book, and empathise with those whose holidays have to be seriously rearranged (especially if you bought advance long-haul airline tickets)

We did a River Cruise with Scenic way back in about 2008......their Head Office, in Oz, for an Aussie, was very difficult to deal with! It seems that, that area of their Business has not improved! However, once we stepped on board the River boat, it was a different matter completely. Crew were brilliant, and I remarked at the time, that any of them were equal to our Seabourn crew.

The Eclipse passengers I mostly feel for now, are the ones who will "maybe", be on the very first Scenic Eclipse cruise. Until late January, anyone who is already booked, will be getting a refund and discounts etc etc.....time will tell if those benefits are good enough BUT....if the cruise goes ahead late January, for the very first cruise, it will be to Antarctica! I know I certainly would not want to be on the very first cruise, in a brand new ship, with a brand new crew, to a very dangerous and isolated place like Antarctica! To go to that part of the World, I would like a tried and true ship and crew. Before these Antarctic cruises were to take place, Scenic Eclipse was supposed to be in much safer areas for a couple of months....any problems would have been able to be sorted out.....I really hope the entire Antarctic season will end up being cancelled for this season!

we will be heading to Dover next week (flying in from Oz) We fly Emirates who also include limo transfers before and after flights. When I checked the rules, I saw that Dover was a bit outside the allowable mileage, but after a phone call to Emirates, were told our "included" limo could take us to Dover for just an extra 25 pounds! This is a bargain! Until we got this sorted out, we were looking at the train option, although luggage on and off trains isn't the best....all the car transfers seemed dreadfully expensive.

we were also big fans of the triplets, and took a while to try the O class. Now we do enjoy those ships, love Seabourn Square and having a "real" balcony etc. We did try Encore, but doubt if we will again. The two new ships have got much too big for us and no longer "feel" like Seabourn.

Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons…..it now seems that the very first cruise Scenic Eclipse will be doing, will be Antarctica...is that correct? When there are any sort of "construction problems", would you really feel very safe being the FIRST Guinea Pigs, and heading to Antarctica? I think I would prefer that both the ship and the new crew would have had a few "shake down" cruises under their belts before heading to such a remote and dangerous area! Although I thought the submarines were going to be a brilliant addition, I certainly wouldn't be amongst the first to use them down there!

2seabournsailors---So, the perfect opportunity for you to try out these two ships! On our recent cruise, a crew member told me that there were 550 (some odd) passengers on the first leg and 580 (some odd) on the last seven days. The suites may have been full, but with single passengers in some.

 

Would you share of of the "deals" on Encore and Ovation you have received? I am just curious.

we did try Encore, in the first few months.....it was not for us....

2seabournsailors---So, the perfect opportunity for you to try out these two ships! On our recent cruise, a crew member told me that there were 550 (some odd) passengers on the first leg and 580 (some odd) on the last seven days. The suites may have been full, but with single passengers in some.

 

Would you share of of the "deals" on Encore and Ovation you have received? I am just curious.

I didn't keep any of the advertising I received, as we aren't interested in the "big "ships…..but it was something like 16 days on O Class was very close to the same as 30 plus days on Encore and Ovation....I will keep the info from now on....and post it here.....it just seemed like to us that the big ships were not getting the bookings they expected!!

we are receiving a lot of Advertising lately on all the cruises, but are wondering why we are getting so much advertising for Encore and Ovation, at a lot less per day than the O Class? Maybe not selling as well as they expected??