brittany12

Sounds like you never sailed Seabourn pre Covid. See my review I wrote of recent cruise for my total evaluation.

We were on Odyssey too in summer of '18 in Greek islands. Same glorious memories. Almost entirely Greek Islands as I recall and really stupendous. Pool deck even with uncomfortable mesh lounge chairs was not crowded. Extra 150 passengers in nearly same size pool and surrounding deck is hard to swallow as an enjoyable experience on warm months cruises. Based on last cruise short time ago on Sojourn I totally agree with HappyDays2024 about calibre of crew. Plus the Seabourn "efficiency measures". Those of us who have earlier memories of excellence see the difference. I can't say from personal experience whether same story on Seabourn competitors nowadays

Scary thought for me is that with sale of Odyssey, this may be the future business plan for the Seabourn unit from its Carnival master. Get rid of other two smaller ships Quest and Sojourn in its fleet, almost as old as Odyssey, focus on inadequately sized 600 passenger ships Encore and Ovation plus continue to expand expedition ship business. No other new cruise ships, unlike exponential growth of Silversea fleet, and no new ship building plans on horizon of which I'm aware. New ships take years to accomplish anyway.

You're not going to have pool deck problems late March/early April in Med. Still quite cool. But the MDR and Collonade may present seating problems at mealtimes with 150 extra bodies.

In retrospect, it's really a shame that when Seabourn decided, and Carnival management approved, to build the Encore and Ovation, the decision must have been made to keep the costs down and, unlike competitors, not build a significantly larger footprint-ship to adequately house, feed, and overall comfort... in all venues... the extra 150 passengers they were allowing onboard so that the feeling of being crowded, in certain venues and at certain times, would not take place. The length and width of the bigger two ships is not much greater than the smaller ones, with the new deck squeezed in, so usable space for passengers in the DR and pool/pool deck is not much greater.

Most everyone has eyes, but all maybe some don't see as well as others. And maybe it just was different for you, but don't tell me what I saw, personally experienced or criticize how I feel. You can have your attitudes and acceptances but so can others. And other passengers we spoke felt the same. Let me try to explain it again.Yes, I find it offensive if the company I'm dealing with, whether cruise line or car dealership or resort hotel, is not completely transparent in its dealings with me and trains its staff to try to sell their customers a more expensive product, through clever marketing efforts, that many if not most don't need or want. And to be clear, I'm talking more about Solis as a dining venue and not so much the DR, even though I saw vestiges of this upbuy marketing effort there too. Don't get me wrong, if you want to order from the premium wine list, go do it. I have myself on occasion.. But on a luxury cruise line where we are already paying top fares for the overall product, which boasts about its included "fine wines", (we can differ on that definition and quality), no customer should have to inquire in Solis about ordering the regular fine wines that one has drunk with satisfaction in the DR. The initial effort to get the "normal" stuff should not have to come from the customer. As LinksLady from the UK so aptly just said, there has been an attitude from the staff that it is assumed anyone dining in Solis, as it was with Keller, will want to order from the premium list. If maybe 25-35 percent of its dining customers are influenced by some subtle and some not-so-subtle means to order wines from the premium wine list, the business entity will make a lot more money than otherwise. Any percentage helps tha bottom line. And cruise lines need a lot of money today from many onboard sources, like this and over-priced excursions and private car costs, to help get over the deep Covid financial losses and begin to pay back the costly bank loans they took. Does anyone doubt this is in their business plan to make more money by selling premium wines wherever possible, at, may I add, inflated prices to begin with, to willing customers? Or do you think they just sell these wines for our dining and drinking pleasure and don't care about the extra profit they are realizing to help pay the rent. Their including the premium list right there on the back page of the Solis menu is an attempt to influence the guests dining there to order from it once the guests' interest is visually stoked. It does not have to be "pushed." Sure, when a guest then asks the server or sommelier instead about access to the regularly included "fine wines," they have been trained to open up and graciously serve and pour them. In my experience, not too many Solis waiters, unless they are dealing with return customers from that cruise, open up with the free wines first. This subtle attempt through clever marketing to make us upbuy is damn good salesmanship. But lets recognize it for what it is.

Here's the thing. The 3 Odyssey class ships and the two newer ones have basically the same footprint. The two newer ones, Encore and Ovation, with some necessary added weight, though have another 150 passengers squeezed into that new deck, but the ships themselves are not much wider or longer than the 3 smaller ships. That makes for the congestion in and around the basically same size pool and on the pool deck, competing for chairs in warm weather cruises, and the larger people presence in the only slightly enlarged Colonnade and restaurant. Solis is much larger. And of course there is the Retreat.

Sarcasm? Sorry, but I did not recognize your attempt. What one does tipping-wise at the end of a cruise is that person's business and no one else's if tha person wants to reward people for exemplary service during the cruise.. That's not the immediate discussion. I was raising the point of tipping for normal services, like getting a Bloody Mary during a cruise, and slipping a fiver to the bartender. Or supplying towels on deck. Or bringing over a deck chair. I'm sorry you are annoyed Utopia1 that someone would have the temerity to point this out but I think most regular Seabourn sailers, and, Silversea, Regent and Crystal ones too, who abide by the generally prescribed rules suggest4 by the cruise line would call that abnormal tipping behavior on board a luxury cruise line. And yes, it can affect other passengers in a bad way if other guests see this unusual tipping behavior, think they have to do or should do the same and thus raise crew's expectations about what guests should be tipping for normal services during the cruise. I don't think Seabourn would like this if this developed. Tipping like this is not normal. This is not MSC or Carnival where your drinks card gets punched each time. Inclusive still has some meaning.

Exactly, it was never a big deal. People not concerned their time was wasted that first day. So why dumb it down so with new rules? And put the passengers at risk, as well as the cruise line if there's ever a tragedy. One captain recently told me he was against it but had no choice.

Each of the dozen or more Seabourn cruises I have ever taken over a a ten year spread has prominently featured the premium wines first in the old alternative higher end restaurant which I believe was called Restaurant 2, then the same after Keller took it over and it is still happening in Solis. We were just on the Sojourn. Once we even had some fellow sojourners from a foreign country tell us they saw the premium wine list prominently featured in the alternative restaurant , to the exclusion of the waiter even mentioning the regular fine wines" existed, and thought that the premium wines was all that was available in that venue so they paid godnmomney when they would've perfectly happy with the general selection..I find it even more offensive now that that it is part of the menu and not a separate paper listing sitting on the table. Do you think that is an accident? Does anyone seriously doubt Seabourn would much rather have passengers buy premium wines than enjoy the free ones onboard? So a little diversionary tactic in Solis is not surprising.

Possibly, but try to find Montaudon in any wine shop. It hardly exists, which to me... along with its low retail selling price online... is a pretty good indication of how it is generally viewed. Nicolas Fueillatte Brut is a recognized champagne house of decent quality and taste and available for sale most everywhere inn wine shops in its several bottlings, including an incredible rose. IMHO, it's a far superior product, but the winner of the Seabourn fleet champagne concession always goes to the lowest cost bidder.

The new relaxed rules for muster drills are fine with many if not most guests, with many passengers cheating and saying they watched the video. Not just Oceania, but Seabourn too and I'm guessing most others.. until one day there's terrible tragedy at sea and many people die. A Board of Inquiry very likely will find one of the causes of so many deaths was the cruise lines cutting out the old muster drills and people helpless to know what to do and where to go to get off the ship. God forbid.

On thing about the otherwise good Solis menu and dining experience...much better than Keller. Which menu certainly does not take a day or two in advance to read and absorb. They include the premium wine list on the back page. I find this offensive. Not a written or verbal mention about the complimentary "fine wines" available there too unless one asks. Its availability in Solis almost has to be clawed out of the waiters, like they are under strict instructions to maximize profit. Make a buck, I always say, but do it ethically and transparently. No different, though, from the Keller days.

The Sojourn service is not what it used to be. When they decided to save money by basically combining the wine ordering and serving job into the waiter's job taking food orders, going into the kitchen and serving the food, and giving too many tables to each of the waiters at each station, they doomed the once great service they used to have. They did this pre-covid. And they eliminated the dedicated assistant waiters to each station. On a recent cruise the service was bad. Too long taking orders, too long getting the complimentary "fine wines" ordered, poured and repoured, too long getting served, too long leaving dirty dishes on table. The waiters job now is very hard.......too many tables plus the wine job duties.The few sommeliers that are left are there basically to sell and serve the premium wines. The DR maitre d'hotel now helps out the mess by carrying full trays from the kitchen. Unheard of. Plus many did not seem well trained.They need more and better trained DR personnel.

This has been a long topic on tipping.....four pages, and I did not read all... so I do not know if my point I am about to raise was raised before. I'm a longtime Seabourn sailor and returned for first time in years to the Sojourn back in June. I don't like seeing fellow passengers slipping $5 bills to bartenders when they routinely order a drink. I was tempted to say something to the persons I saw doing it - twice, but refrained. This is not right and those doing it are either ignorant of the normal rules or just don't care. It is unpleasant to watch and dirties up the water for the rest of us. And I'm not talking about at the end of a cruise when some guests reward their favorites with a little something extra before they depart. This was during the cruise..

It's a very bad, or shall I say, very ordinary champagne. Not at all what it once had been a few years pre-covid.

Don't do it, unless this is the only time you can do the Mediterranean, unless you prefer cool days where swimming in or relaxing on deck around pool not a great idea, short days of light, many shops closed, particularly on the Greek Islands where you might stop, and increased chance of rough seas. You might luck out as some have, but the fares are cheaper for a reason.

Not just important for cruise line executives to be aware of what factors—like MDR's being open for breakfast and lunch on all days— make passengers choose one cruise line over another, but for them to have a firm, well-publicized in advance policy across the entire fleet and then adhere to it in practice..

A transatlantic cruise from Europe in middle of November. I've done several. Seas are frequently rough. Hurricanes are possible and windy, rainy days to be expected, even though sometimes it is like a lake. Cold outside temperatures in the middle of the Atlantic until ship gets closer to Florida waters are the norm. Outside dining on Colonnade or patio probably out of question for most of those days. No one except maybe a few brave Brits are hanging around at pool or pool deck. People staying inside. The point is that therefore for TA November cruises the MDR dining experience for breakfast and lunch becomes even more vital to people's enjoyment of the entire cruise experience. Maybe it's a small minority of us who prefer this, but it is the hallmark of a luxury cruise line to provide this more civilized, and now safer because of covid, luncheon dining option, even with truncated hours. The rule recent SB sailors had been insisting upon that they thought SB followed a policy, as criticized as it is, was that the MDR is open for breakfast daily but only open for lunch on sea days. Hello, because now it's reported that even this limited sea-day policy does not apply on the Sojourn TA cruise and people have had to crowd into Colonnade for lunch each day for the normal buffet meals service and lines. We now have just heard the ship is saying it is covid related, but "twochromic" suggests no one really knows the truth. To me, it sounds like poor planning or bad deployment of available resources. What can be done, besides bitterly complaining to on board management? All of those board and all of us who object to this breakdown of the SB past practice and promise, even in this unacceptable sea-day only form, have pens and keyboards, so we should write to SB management and let our voices be heard. Insist on an explanation and correction. Don't just complain here to sympathetic and unsympathetic voices.

Forget the hyperbole. Forget counting the exact number of stars. 5, 6, 7....100. Everyone gets the underlying point—luxury means luxury. We all certainly know it from the prices we pay and the services we read are being promised. And from what the "luxury" competition provides. 6 days on the Sojourn TA that was just reported without any MDR open for lunch is an absolute disgrace. Why does everyone on board take it so calmly?

Spot on, kjbacon. 6* by definition is table service meals 3X day.

Their advertising says they are going to retrofit the two ships and that means fewer cabins and larger ones. But I don't see their doing much with those claustrophobic bathrooms even in the higher-priced cabins. Or making the newly designed cabins SS, Oceania, or SB size. Their service was excellent as was food. I'm sure they will get back to that level, but the ships are old and used to sail with twice the passenger count of SS. I for one will miss Fernando on our March cruise. But there is just so much these former SS staff now with Crystal can do.

I tip my hat to Catlover 54, SLSD and the others who want the best from their luxury cruise experience and have the tenacity to speak that truth of what they have been witness to and what others have reported. Even at the risk of speaking ad nauseam on this subject. What is clear is that the different SB ships have had recent different MDR experiences for B and L. The optimum is that Colonnade and its fans should live and be well but —for us others who prefer the standard that any luxury line should be offering its passengers— the MDR should be open for a reasonable length of time at both breakfast and lunch on all SB ships every day and not just sea days. We should make achieving and maintaining that our mission and SB should be adhering to that standard..

Beg to differ. I go back dozen cruises to 2012 on Odyssey and recall lunches in MDR in ports in Greece and other places.

We've really gotten a bit lost on this thread into the creativity of dessert and bread displays in the Galley Lunch as well as looking to see if the beef has too much fat on it during a perusal of the buffet line. People on this site who prefer buffets for these and any other reason should be able to satisfy that on the special Galley Lunch or on the regular buffet line in the Colonnade as their choice for any meal they want. This thread really was originally about the responsibilities of a luxury cruise line charging luxury fares to meet its obligation and satisfy its promise of excellent food and superb dining venues to keep its MDR open on a regular basis for both breakfast and lunch in addition to the Colonnade. This is what a number of us who prefer that upgraded, more relaxing and enjoyable dining experience and remember the old days are still expecting from luxury SB. It should be both venues until such time as SB formally advises its current and future guests that such will no longer be the case. And it should not be one set of rules for one of the SB ships, imposed on the spot, and a different set of rules for another unless real on the ground operating circumstances require it.. When I am on the Cunard ships, I am dining in the top end, tableclothed, Queen's Grill for all three meals day on any of their four Queens.