LMB01

I booked a Seabourn cruise today and was told by my PCC that the new way is the only way to get OBC for stock ownership. He had no way to process the request “the old way”. He said this is very new.

Our last two Seabourn cruises had a great deal of “No, we can’t do that”

We just got off Odyssey last week and the quality of the Grill had declined from a few months prior. While we are not fans of their Caesar salad, we did try to go as much as possible on past cruises - last week, once was enough!

We liked the Retreat on Ovation and love the better lunch menu. Go up as early as possible to select your cabana - depending on the weather, some are better than others. For example, if it is a hot, humid day, you may want one one the cabanas on the side that have openings to the fresh air. Also, while they do have TVs, TV coverage can be spotty. We just got off 14 days in Alaska and we went 4 days with no live TV coverage which is important to us. The upside is the internet wasn’t quite as crappy as recent cruises!

Oh, I am with you - nothing worse than “old” sushi! They launched sushi on the 2nd night of our 14 day cruise and we ate there many times and did not notice a change in quality except occasionally the seaweed wrap in the rolls. We were in Alaska so I assume they had no problem getting Salmon but not sure about the other fresh fish. We will be on the Quest in 3 weeks; I will try to remember to ask the F&B manager about this.

Seabourn has, again, started providing hard copies of the Herald to all suites. You can also ask for a hard copy of the dining menus. We just carry those 2 documents with us and find it much easier to find information than using the app.

Ladies, Men are hunters and gathers, but if I waited for mine to get up, I would not have caffeine! I get up very early so on my own I go.

We got off on Friday in Vancouver after 14 days. The Zodiacs off loaded were black, not white - we not only watched the offload but saw them in the water several times. Robert is not the best source of information unless it relates to the evening’s entertainment.

You need to download it so it will be easier to connect to the internet once on board - otherwise, we find it useless. It tends to have inaccurate data ( but so does the printed herald). Two weeks ago we left Vancouver and it was in the mid 60s F, but the app said it was 136F! Download the app, it will make your life easier on board. And, if you happen to get a cruise where the internet is not good, don’t go to the Square; simply open the app, hit the “connect” button and then “Wi-Fi” and things should be okay. Our last cruise that ended last week, internet was not too bad - only had to reconnect a few times, however, live TV was abysmal. Early in the year, in the Caribbean, internet was so bad, we were reconnecting several times a day.

Six Seabourn cruises since Covid and never Bingo The activities depend on the cruise director and we just got off a cruise that had a cruise director that only cared about his evening entertainment and the Seabourn singers and dancers. One of the worst CDs ever (one other beats the race to the bottom by a slight margin). Seabourn is not your typical mass market cruise line. You won’t find a photographer trying to take your picture to sell them to you later, no bingo, no horse racing, no disco or kids club but some will still bring kids.

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this topic. Hours are nightly 6pm to 9pm. They do have saki drinks - I think I have a picture of that menu - see below. We have been 3 times. The second night was unbelievable - 280 guests, most of whom go to the Observation bar. Sushi team was able to keep up but the bar was a bit overwhelmed - the bar manager did a great job stepping in and basically handling the service well - you can tell he has a great deal of experience as a bartender. Being brand new, there have only been a few hiccups but none worth mentioning. Seems most people are treating it as a pre-dinner appetizer but not us - we make a meal out of it! We are generally not crazy about Seabourn’s food so this is a great addition for us. We are on the full 14 day Vancouver to Vancouver but it is actually made up of 2 7-day cruises. Tomorrow in Juneau, 225 passengers will disembark and another 225 will get on. It will be interesting to see what happens to the sushi demand then.

No perks or rewards and we gamble a lot! As others mentioned, it is a small casino with only 3 employees and therefore, only 3 table games. There are about a dozen or so slots and half a dozen or so video poker machines. We are on Odyssey now and they just changed out all their slot machines and it is saving us a bunch of money because we don’t like any of the new ones. Because it is such a small staff, they will shut the tables down every day between 5pm and 6pm so the team can have dinner. We’ve been on Seabourn cruises have lots of gamblers and then there are some cruises with few gamblers.

We are on the Odyssey’s last 14 day Alaska cruise of the season. Tonight is the first night of sushi in the club. We were lucky enough to place our order first and be served first! Menu and picture below

Ok That is your opinion We have a different one

Ok folks, let me see if I can do this without getting in trouble again. I answered a question as to what we do in regards to tipping. And, for clarification purposes, this has nothing to do with getting the best tables in the Restaurant as we never, ever go to the Restaurant.

It is a supply chain issue. We have done 6 cruises since Covid and on most received the tote bag - and on some cruise, a new, different design! We have had a cruise where there was no tote bag and one where they substituted a canvas bag - like something you would get from Home Depot!

Absolutely!

If we didn’t see it, it would not impact our tipping. Our first Seabourn cruise, we did not tip and were underwhelmed with service so we wanted to see what others did, that is why we watch. My point about the bar and Vegas is that tipping impacts service. And btw, our Vegas experience is very impressive given our status. Most on this board and other sites seem to think the “Seabourn experience” is something extraordinary - to us it is ok. We have also wondered about the answer to your final question. I don’t think Seabourn provides the included tips to your room stewards, for example. We have heard that Seabourn pays better than the mass market lines so maybe the tips are “baked” into the salaries.

I find the snippy comments amusing. There were questions about tipping and I replied with what we do. We see quite a bit of tipping on Saebourn. Tipping is something we closely look for - not sure why but we like “logistics” and to know how things work. We also spend a lot of time in Vegas and we own a bar not far from our home. Tipping is king in both. The most tipping we see on Seabourn is the last morning in the Colonade with envelopes flying between passengers and servers. We also see some tipping on the pool deck during the cruise for both servers and bartenders. The tipping of the Maitre’Ds is much more subtle (usually, the “Vegas handshake” method) varies by cruise. I can only speak to what we’ve seen in the Grill and Cololnade but we see it every cruise (again, I repeat, we are looking for it).

Bartenders are very important to us. Once we establish who will be working where, we tip those at the bars we will frequent. We tip early and generously. We like to get into the TK Grill often and early (and quickly). If we think it will help the cause, we do tip there also. We always tip our room stewards at the end of the cruise as well as asking them if there is anything we can get them when we are in a port when they can’t get off.

Here is a picture of the Ovation laundry room

We always tip the porters at the port We rarely do room service but do not tip We do tip many others once on board (even though tips are included nor expected)

A few other items, the 5 cruises we have been on post Covid, the Observation bar was always mostly set up by 5:30am daily - most days I saw the F&B manager going up to check about that time (I am also an early riser). The new ships are not ones we would ever go on - the lack of a casino and TK Grill are dealbreakers. I only mention this as another example of we all don’t value the same things on Seabourn.

Thank you @jondfkfor these reports. We board on the 29th of this month for the final 14 days of the season. As @SLSDsays, we do not all want the same thing from Seabourn. We never go to the Restaurant as we prefer to eat early and quickly - we try to get into the TK Grill as often as we can at 6pm - we average 45 minutes to dine. (As a side note, on our April Ovation Caribbean cruise, they ran into the same service issues when trying to open the Restaurant one or two days for breakfast. The solution was to shut it down for breakfast and lunch for the remainder of the cruise. It did not impact us but many passengers were unhappy). Suites are also a personal preference. We only sail in an Owner’ Suite 2 or above - the size and amenities of the suite are very important to us. We tried a PH suite once because we wanted to do a portion of a Grand Cruise - well, if you are not booked for the full Grand Cruise or World Cruise, you can not book the premium suites. We had some future cruise credits from Covid so we decided to book a short Caribbean cruise in a PH suite to see if we could do it. Seabourn kept offering upgrades but we needed to try this experiment. Within an hour of being in the suite, my husband asked me if I thought the other suites were still available! We hated that layout of the closet to the bathroom! We cancelled our portion of the Grand Cruise the next morning and rebooked something else! A tip that might be helpful for some, we have a typed list for the suite attendants regarding our alcohol preferences and time of suite cleaning preferences and any other oddities. This seems to work very well. Thank you to whoever provided the list of officers. We believe we are only familiar with the HD assuming she is still there.

Our favorite occurs at the patio grill - “taco” not tacos, just taco. Then the mystery begins - they may have legitimate taco fills but many time have no taco shells and we’ve seen them substitute tortilla chips instead (at that point haven’t we transitioned to nachos?) The necessary accompaniments are also seriously lacking - maybe a small bowl of cheese and another small bowl of salsa! But every single cruise, one day one the menu, the theme is “taco”.