Seabourn Again

Seabourn again,

 

You will have a wonderful experience on Seadream! We are thoroughly hooked on it ourselves! sorry if I missed it but what islands will you be headed to?

 

Your daughter sounds lovely! And I am sure she will be fine and love the experience. After all! You can't go wrong in the Caribbean! Where everything is IRIE!! ☀️

 

Kathy.

Hello Kathy:

We are doing the standard "northern caribbean" which will include St John, BVI, Saba, St Barths, Barbuda, etc. We have done USVI, various islands, multiple times. We have done Puerto Rico (one of the ports) by boat a couple of times. We have done St Barths dozens of times. Saba will be new for us and we look forward to seeing it.

We have done other islands (Jamaica, Anguilla, etc) that are not on this cruise but which we also enjoyed.

At the risk of getting a virtual drink thrown at me here, and despite my earlier post about some past SD voyages with teens working out great and others horrendously, please permit this provocative threshold question. No matter how well behaved in fact or perception one's teens may be, why in the first place would one want to bring them on a small luxury yacht that markets itself as being for 56 couples? There are so many other options. Why not enjoy the ship as a couple and leave your teens something to look forward to when they can go as a couple? Said differently, why wouldn't one respect the nature of the voyage including the target audience and self-select to go elsewhere? Is this caught up in people wanting their kids to be their friends?

 

 

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It is a fair question and deserves an answer.

I spend what seems like every waking moment searching for vacations for my family. So far, my record is unblemished. Whether Seabourn or Rome or St Barths or Amalfi or dozens of other places, I have picked fantastic trips for us.

As it happens, I must plan months or even a year ahead of time because I get no flexibility in my schedule. And the week with which I have to work is the last time I will ever get Spring Break with our last child because I only get Spring Break off once every three years. Long story short, I have ZERO flexibility in the week chosen.

Having only one week, we wanted to stay nearby and not do Europe for this trip. And having stayed at several fine caribbean hotels - and having some on the book for later this year - we decided to mix it up a bit. We looked at Seabourn but they vacate the region a couple of weeks prior to our date. So they are out. And, not wanting to sound too much like a pigdog, once you have done Seabourn and some of the other things we have done, the Lesser Brands just don't cut it. I suppose I should state here that I have been on over a dozen cruises and on multiple different lines. Loved them all. But we have worked our way, or at least our preferences, to enjoying luxuries.

We could have gone to any of the several caribbean hotels we have visited before but this is our last spring break as a family so we wanted to do something different.

My daughter is quiet, impeccably mannered and polite well beyond her years. I find it inconceivable that folks would fine her a nuisance. Indeed, she was the youngest on our Seabourn Cruise a couple of years ago and was the darling of the ship.

I suspect that we will have a very good time as we have booked the trip. We are friendly folks who are happy to leave others alone unless they choose to visit with us. Since our cruise will go to some places that we have been to DOZENS of times, we will be happy to pass long information to fellow passengers who would like such information.

We look forward to the trip and I appreciate everyone's input.

Yep, thirty. Several other trips have had large numbers of kids and large groups but, so far, I was lucky enough to be on the Gold Standard of kid trips.:eek::D

I guess those were large groups with all the kids?

Oh well, like a farmer praying for rain, I am not asking for a deluge but I guess I am taking my chances here.

Thanks Jim Avery.

Thirty kids on board?

Ouch. :cool:

Oh well. The itinerary looks good. We know several of the stops pretty well and will be off the boat much of the day anyway.

I know that the tempting answer to this question will be "No, there are NO teens on board and yours will have a miserable time so leave them at home" in order to keep Seadream from being over-run by kids. I am not unsympathetic to such a view.

:)

But I am going to pose the question anyway.

We love to travel and have been to quite a few places. As my handle implies, we have done one of The Little Sisters on Seabourn (among many other cruises) and quite loved it. On a cruise a year ago, our sixteen year old daughter was the youngest person on the ship although we were traveling with her siblings on that voyage and there were half a dozen other teens on board.

We are now looking at a March sailing on Seadream in the caribbean. It would be my wife, myself and our sixteen year old. She is a sun-worshipper and does not need much stimulation. Give her a beach or pool or deck chair and she is good to go. She is quiet (naps in sun most of the day) and enjoys good food. We very much love the itinerary as we have been to the caribbean dozens of times and this would let us see a couple of ports we have not seen.

In March, spring break time, might there be a small handful of teens on board? And if not, would a solitary quiet and WELL MANNERED, WELL TRAVELED teen be poorly received?

Many thanks