Khareef

There is no such thing but on deck6 there is bar open 06.00-18.00 where you can have tea and small sandwiches and cookies (and ice cream :-)). So it should do the job. Of course if you are very particular about your tea just bring your favorite..

So most of the staff is Italian and can't speak English?

Great month for Antartica, tons of snow will make it even more magic (and snow makes it penguin smell more acceptable :-))

Yes I am saying that. Everything is dated, the design, the food choice, the food presentation. Some people might like it old school. Food is not bad but there is nothing particularly remarkable either. The pros; It is spacious and comfortable and hardly any waiting times on the Venture since it is a small ship. All the guests I talked too were a bit tired of the restaurant after the first week since the food felt a bit repetitive and the taste a bit dull. Other lines, even in inferior categories, have much better food. As simple as that. The Venture strength it is in the peculiar itineraries and in the Expedition Team department (which makes sense since it is an expedition team 🙂). The ship is also a Beauty to look at! I think they can and should improve greatly their food offering, regardless of the personal taste on the restaurant design. It is a competitive world and the competition is simply doing better than Seabourn foodwise.

Indeed, that was my experience on the Venture (X2) as well. Food in the Restaurant was uninspired, they offer way too many options and that kills the quality imho. Plus everything is so dull and traditional, they do need a breath of fresh air, less choices, more modern presentation and food choice, less pre cooked stuff...I think it is a 6/10, most of the times I ended up having Sushi or eating in Colonnade where in the evening they have a small menu but freshly prepared. Plus don't get me started on the restaurant look which is very very dated.... Things have really moved on in the gastronomical world, Seabourn is stuck in the 80es...

Even the 2 new expedition ships have very dated interiors, not sure why they like that grandmother stuff so much. I think a fresh of breath air is very much needed.

I don't know the specifics, but in general it is our duty as fellow travellers to figure out if we need VISAs or not. And the foreign ministry is the one to be contacted for clarification. I wouldn't trust any travel agent or Cruise-line for that. Once one airline wanted to deny my boarding the plane because they thought I needed a return ticket to enter a certain country, I had to call the police and I had them force the idiotic employee to let me into the plance...quite funny actually.

What happened to Mr L.?

your husband is a fine man with a keen eye for details 🙂

Wait for the usual discounts and promos in January 🙂

Nope, still the same when we sailed in August 🙂 My camera and my 400mm lens were always inside 🙂

Seabourn pre and post cruise customer service is a a disgrace. For Europeans it is even worse, you don't get assigned a single person in charge of your booking, they never reply or reply 3 weeks later to our emails and yes they do spam every guest with tons of identical emails about the upcoming cruise. But once you book and pay just don't bother too much with all that....btw expeditions ships are so small that boarding time does not really matter, last time we embarked in Iceland we had 0 wait and since we only brought carry on luggage we went straight to our suite with everything we needed. Even if 250 people showed up at the same time it would probably take 20 minutes to have everyone on board 🙂 So just relax and enjoy.

Provided boots are for landing only. Deck wear any shoes of your liking but of course you want something with a good grip (it can be wet), confort and warmth. So any running or hiking shoes is fine, I would avoid boots for deck wear, they are heavy and bulky. People were wearing all sorts of sneakers I think.

Yeah I saw some video of Greenland early in the season (Ponant) and it was covered with ice and snow, lovely but way less chances to do a lot of things. Go in August if you can. Also good thing there is almost no place to spend money in Greenland because Iceland is almost insulting price wise 🙂

If you do the longer journey which includes South Georgia and maybe try to spend some time in Patagonia (or anywhere in Chile and Argentina) then I would say Antartica all the way. Artic is good fun for the hikes kayak and helicopters tours but as someone mentioned the best place is Scorbysund which actually reminded me a lot of Antartica.

Bringing sunglasses is always useful

Most people on board seem to go to dinner 19.00/19.30, so by the time I get there at 20.45 there are plenty of nice tables ...the one .good thing about coming from a late dinner country I guess 🙂

How was the bugs issue? A few crew members told me it is really hard to be on open decks with all those bugs flying around.

Water proof pants are pretty much mandatory, that's usually the third and final layer, the first 2 ones being merino wool and second usually being fleece. Those 3 layers will keep you warm and dry and they are pretty light weight even combined. Enjoy the ride!

Yeah I have already booked the Galapagos 🙂

Yeah the videographer is a very nice, laid back and down to earth.

He is a very good photographer indeed

Thanks, the more I read about the Amazon the more I feel it is not the place for me. I like activities (hiking, kayak etc) and spotting animals, I hate bugs and humid heat. Plus a few people from the expedition team told the interesting part is from Quito to Manaus, after that the river is so big you don't see much (it is like being in open sea).

I don't think you are allowed to bring a hair drier on most (if not all) ships due to obvious fire hazard reasons.

That’s what I did in Greenland, only issue mine weren’t waterproof