Isklaar

Just to add a note to the excellent responses above.

I am not sure of your itinerary but you mentioned Yacht Harbours, if that's the name of your itinerary then I'm assuming its the Caribbean. Have done it several times.  If your itinerary includes Carambola Beach, St Kitts they will offer the 'Caviar in the Surf' event there, and there will likely not be Caviar in the Pool. The beach one is much better, the pool one is usually held during itineraries that there is no suitable beach. e.g on a Baltic cruise. When they hold the event at the beach you can look forward to a great day, caviar arriving by surfboard, unlimited champagne of course, and a lobster barbecue lunch. 

SB video here: 

18 minutes ago, shark b8 said:

 

…or sister, I guess.  Why do I assume?  BAD SHARK, bad boy.  🤷‍♂️

😂

Sharkb8, I'm enjoying your thread so much, thank you for taking the time to share your cruise with us. Very fond memories of the TK crab cake, my go to appetiser at the Grill. 

Also, thank you for the heads up regarding correct pronunciation of Solis. I've been saying something like SO-liss - completely incorrect! 

38 minutes ago, tjcox9 said:

Oh my! That was before our Seabourn cruising "career" began, thank goodness!!😝

In my opinion sharkb8's pic doesn't quite convey how hideous the decor actually was! However I did enjoy the food on offer. 

I will just chime in with my usual opinion about best time of year to visit. I believe the countryside around the British Isles is at its most glorious in May and June, and there's the added bonus in those months of long daylight hours. 

6 hours ago, shark b8 said:

But the news (for me) was……well now, if this has been going on for a while, I’m sure it’s been thoroughly discussed elsewhere on this site and I missed it.  In The Restaurant, they’ve removed quite a few tables, to set up a band and a dance floor.  So, we had music and dancing going on throughout most of the dinner.  This is not my cup of tea, I didn't care for it (just a little too lounge-lizard-piano-bar for me, especially on formal night), but The First Mate had other ideas.  Over 40+ years, this was, maybe, our 3rd disagreement.  😱.  (Photo snapped on our way out)

 

 

 

 

We were on a cruise when this occurred. It was years ago, I usually have a good memory for these things but on this occasion I cannot recall which ship or itinerary it actually was. (It may have been on Sojourn on a WC segment between Hong Kong and Singapore).

I posted about it here at the time but the search function doesn't take me back far enough to find the post, There was more than a hint of mutiny amongst the guests. I certainly was not a fan. They only tried it two consecutive nights of the cruise, then never saw it again, Until now 😔

9 hours ago, shark b8 said:

If this unreadably small or light I’ll try to split it up into multiple more readable pages.

 

I see the Sommelier is Joanna!  Is this your current cruise or a past one? Good to know that Joanna is back with SB if current. 

3 hours ago, Stu UK said:

Lovely update - looking forward to my first Seabourn cruise at Easter. What are the enhanced improvements / changes that have been announced?

The improvements mentioned in the email are mostly the re-introduction of amenities that SB had recently removed (!), such as a choice of soaps, daily printed version of Herald (next day's activities and dining options), complimentary jackets for the Alaska cruises, and a farewell gift.

In addition, more recent improvements are Starlink internet available across the fleet, a new dining space to replace  TK Grill, new dishes for the MDR. 

6 hours ago, Sucellos said:

For me using this link instead fixed it and gave me access to the menu/three horisontal lines in the upper left corner:
https://www.seabourn.com/en/eu/experience/voyagetracker/index.html
But this being Seabourn IT your mileage may vary

That works for me too.

8 minutes ago, Nops said:

I do not see four parallel lines, screen shot attached. I maybe making an error

Same for me. 

15 minutes ago, Plumeria123 said:

That’s good to know! We will be on the Encore March 2 Hong Kong to Singapore. First time on Seabourn and very excited. Trying to figure out clothes to pack. 

We have taken that itinerary two times at different times of the year. For us northern Europeans the climate in most of the ports is mostly very hot and humid.  In March, for us the exceptions were Hong Kong and Halong Bay. It was mid March, Hong Kong was pleasantly warm, Halong Bay was cooler and damp. Depending where you live, what temperatures you are used to, you may want to bring a warmer layer and a light jacket, in addition to warm weather attire for the remaining ports. 

1 hour ago, Mauzac said:

 

It's lovely up there, we'll be there next week!   We particularly enjoy it when there is a sail away or Epicurean event. 😀

Absolutely, it's one of my favourite spots on the O class ships.

22 minutes ago, caviarforme said:

 

 

Mind you we never get a guest comment email after our cruises

 

 

Seabourn appeared to get flappy over GDPR when it was introduced. It seemed that they had no understanding of how to handle it. There was a thread here at CC but I can't find it using the board search function.  We suddenly stopped receiving anything from them by email, including the ccomment email. Around that time I emailed a simple question to SB Club and got a response along the lines of 'dear very loyal guest, unfortunately we can no longer communicate with you due to data protection'  😂. Not in those exact words but close enough. I must see if I can find it, I'll post it here. Anyway, as I recall our TA sorted it for us. Eventually.  

We didn't get an email but our suite attendant left it for us when she did the turndown. It was a Tiffany pin. This was several years ago so things may have changed since.

13 minutes ago, Mahogany said:

My experience is that "complimentary premium spirits" is accurate, "fine wines" less so 🍹

Exactly!

Seabourn absolutely has a UK website. From overseas https://www.seabourn.com/en/gb  has previously worked for me. 

48 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

This is the piano from last year's NYE dinner on Sojourn.

Same as the one served on Sojourn NYE 2019. Nice memory, thank you for posting the pic.

1 hour ago, Love dubai said:

I called in at the Spa this morning to check what I had been told.

 

One of the masseuse I know well confirmed they now receive NO basic salary and all monies paid to them come from the 18% “gratuity” and they had requested the word gratuity not be used as it is NOT a gratuity and been told no by Head Office.

 

This is nothing to do with people not tipping - this was a decision to increase overall prices and felt people would not be happy and thus came up with this “creative “ way for them to get their price increase and the staff to take the fallout!

 

Staff very upset but cannot do anything and say many customers now challenging/ refusing to pay tip and this they will receive no payment for the work done.

 

Same company still manage all Spas on ships,

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for checking. What a horrible situation for the staff.

45 minutes ago, frantic36 said:

 

 

If the tip is the only way the staff get paid I would be appalled.

 

 

Same here, If what has been posted is accurate I'm appalled. I'm not suggesting that @Love dubai is reporting inaccurately here, but I can see that there is a possibility that the situation has been misunderstood between the other passenger and the spa staff member. So I would like clarification/confirmation. (I'm aware that the spa staff relies heavily on commissions from product sales)

Can anyone tell me which company operates the spa nowadays? 

Wintergarden - I book it specifically when I need it (for the space) so can't comment on a paid upgrade. I am very noise sensitive and do find that I'm aware of noise from the pool deck. It has been a big enough disturbance that I will probably not book it again. A quick word with Guest Services hasalways led to less noise but I still hear it. 😳 That said we have at least one poster here on the board who is a WG regular and she has no complaints about noise from above. The shower is a good size, the bathroom is great. Balcony is superb. I can't think of any amenities that make the WG 'worth it', for me the only reason is the spaciousness. 

I'm usually more than happy with a deck 6 ( or deck 8 ) veranda suite, would prefer to save my money if offered an upgrade and enjoy another cruise instead. 

My experience in the WG is only on the O class ships, not E class or expedition ships.

2 hours ago, mklions said:

We have just booked on the Encore 17 nights Dubai to Singapore sailing on 21/11/24.

Cruise only £4100 pp for a V1 cabin.

Im trying to find out a bit more about these cabin on deck 5 as they have a steel balcony frontage. Any pictures or reviews would be most appreciated.

MKlions

Try a bord search for more info, it's actually a fairly frequent topic here. I found this thread with a video showing the balcony :

Agree with Ka Honu. I haven't been near one on Ovation but took a fairly lengthy cruise on Sojourn next door to it. No noise issues. I would happily book it again.

Non native English speaker here. Just spent approximately one hour asking my bewildered husband to explain meaning of  'cheek by fowl'. Arround 10 minutes into the conversation he did suggest that I meant to ask about 'cheek by jowl', which I denied. 😂

Worth noting that at least in my experience, on Seabourn the itinerary is important to this question. Caribbean during the holidays skews much younger than, for example, Montreal to Miami. 

I just posted at the same moment as Imcpa 😀

Thank you Catlover for taking the time to present an informative and balanced review. I believe it would be interesting for all SB cruisers, i.e  those new to SB, current cruisers and those of us who have been unable to cruise in recent years.