Thinking of trying a luxury cruise - have you done one?

[Can'tstopcruising]

Believe me, what you saw was definitely not part and parcel of a Seabourn cruise. Now, I've seen my fair share of disorderly drunks on the mass market lines, where alcohol is not included, so I don't believe it had anything to do with that. At times, there are groups of certain people who take a luxury cruise, or heck, any cruise for that matter, who's behavior leaves a lot to be desired. I've experienced groups of passengers who's behavior should have gotten them thrown off a ship, but for whatever reason, they are left alone. For example, there was a large group traveling with lots of kids on an Infinity cruise I was on. Every single one from this group were behaving badly, both adults and kids. Absolutely terrible treatment of the staff (teens swearing at them in the most vulgar language), food fights in the main dining room and buffet (one kid threw the large salad bowl at his cousins) and the final misbehavior, throwing human feces in the pool that had to be closed for nearly two days. I asked someone why this family of over 45 people were allowed to stay on the ship and the answer was "They cruise a few times a year and spend a boatload of money in the bars and casino, so we let them be". So, as you see, boorish behavior knows no limits.

 

How awful! This is one group I would like to avoid. Was this over Xmas? We took the Infinity years ago from San Diego through the Panama Canal. The cruise before us was the Xmas vacation, and we kept hearing horror stories from the staff.

[skandls]

So were more pax drinking more because of the open bar, or was what we watched an aberration?

 

How loud is the entertainment? Was there any classical? Piano bar type?

 

j

 

People enjoyed their cocktails but everything was very low key. No loud drunks. The entertainment was very low key - with port lectures and local entertainment on Seabourn. It seems that because liquor was available 24/7 no one was in a 'big rush' to get as much free stuff as possible.

 

This reminds me of our first trip to Europe. We started travelling about 10 years ago. Our first trip a barge cruise in Burgundy and a land tour to Tuscany. The first night on the barge had many of us enjoying a lot of wine and cocktails (included for free). After that night everyone scaled down and enjoyed their drinks without the next day consequences.

 

But the wine, drinks and sometimes after dinner drinks continued as we all enjoyed the 6 night barge cruise.