A Tale of Two Cruises: Silversea and Seabourn, June 2015

[Aapreciate]

I have been intensely curious about whether I am more suited for Silversea or Seabourn, and due to a very unusual set of personal circumstances I am going to get to experience BOTH in June (provided I can get to Copenhagen as my ticket is on SAS where some of the pilots are striking...but I digress). I thought I would write up what I see in this next month in case others have the same curiosity. I welcome any comments and questions. What I write will be only my experience. I am not trying to write any definitive guide on anything, just a set of my own observations in the hope that what I see might be helpful to others. Or at least entertaining.

 

I have only ocean cruised once before: On Crystal Symphony in the Mediterranean in 2008. My husband and I took our kids, then early teens, and it was BLISS, the best vacation ever. I loved Crystal. But a bunch of circumstances and other travel (and river cruising) have delayed my ocean cruising again until next month.

 

A tiny bit more about me because one's observations are necessarily filtered through one's experiences: My husband and I live in Silicon Valley today but we are moving to Oregon a month after we get back from the Seabourn cruise. He works in tech and I have been running a nonprofit. We are empty nesters with one child in college and another in grad school.

 

From the outset, both Silverseas and Seabourn seem extremely lovely. I'm very excited about taking both cruises! I am not likely to get to do two cruises again in the same month anytime soon, so I am reveling in this chance and feeling very blessed.

 

On this side of the cruises, I have just received the ticket packets from both companies. Seabourn provided the old-fashioned quasi-leather folder carrying printed information and tickets, along with very fun luggage tags and a personalized 8.5 x 11 book about the cruise. Silversea presented us each with a nice box with a smaller personalized travel journal about the cruise (very cool!) and some paper luggage tags. Both very fun to drool over.

 

As you can see from the footer, the Silversea cruise we are doing is me + my 78-year-old mom, the Baltic, 7 nights. We are in a Veranda suite, Deck 6. Mom has always wanted to do St Petersburg so we are doing to do so. I'm clandestinely organizing ballet tickets for her too while we are there. Hopefully very fun. Because she is 78 and moves at her own pace, we chose to go with a private car and driver in St. Petersburg but will do the Silversea shore excursions in Estonia and Finland.

 

The Seabourn cruise is 2 weeks up the Norwegian Fjords. Again a veranda suite, Deck 5. We are celebrating 25 years of marriage! Husband and I have not yet chosen any shore excursions for this. Nothing like leaving things until the last minute....

 

So that's what I know today. Provided that SAS keeps flying (fingers crossed) I leave on Saturday for Copenhagen. Won't be back for a month (very happy to have great dog and house sitters for the period that hubby and I are both gone!). Please let me know if anyone is curious about anything in specific about these trips. And thanks for reading!

 

PS Cross-posted from Silversea unless the mods object? Thanks!

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[carefreecruise]

I see you posted on both sites. I'm sure you will soon find out the one that best suits you.... Maybe like us, you will find out both are fine and will alternate between both when voyages interest you.

Good luck. Best to just find out on your own...

[alithecat]

I'm sure you will enjoy both cruises. Our last cruise was on Silversea and we thought it was even better than our last Seabourn cruise, except for the breadsticks!

 

One recommendation. We did the Norwegian fjords cruise on the Seabourn Quest last summer. You can visit most ports on your own with one exception, the Flam Railway. This is a must-see and it's very difficult to get tickets. There will probably be multiple ships docked along with yours, and most of the train tickets will have been reserved for ships excursions. The ships tour was expensive but worth it.

[wripro]

Very good advice from Alithecat re: Flam.

 

Enjoy both cruises and we look forward to your reactions and comparisons.

[Mr Luxury]

We have seen this Seabourn versus Silversea comparison many times before.

 

On the Seabourn boards you will get those who prefer Seabourn and exactly the opposite when you post on the Silversea board.

 

As always you will give us your experience on two particular cruises.

Don't listen to anyone that tells you which line is best as ultimately it is your experience and views that count for you alone.

 

Have a wonderful time on both trips and report back with what you experienced.

[Tillylovesseabourn]

It really is down to personal taste.

We prefer the food on seabourn, but again it really depends on what kinds of things you like.

[Flamin_June]

Very engaging writing style. I will enjoy reading your posts.

[conchyjoe]

I'm sure you will enjoy both cruises. Our last cruise was on Silversea and we thought it was even better than our last Seabourn cruise, except for the breadsticks!

 

One recommendation. We did the Norwegian fjords cruise on the Seabourn Quest last summer. You can visit most ports on your own with one exception, the Flam Railway. This is a must-see and it's very difficult to get tickets. There will probably be multiple ships docked along with yours, and most of the train tickets will have been reserved for ships excursions. The ships tour was expensive but worth it.

 

I would also add Geiranger and Nordcap to the ship excursion list. Almost impossible to do on your own without great expense.

[cruising kirby]

I have been on both Silverseas and Seabourn and enjoy them both. I am keenly awaiting your review in relation to the Norwegian Fjords as I will be on the same Seabourn cruise next year.

 

Have a wonderful time on both cruises!

[Paminflorida]

Are you on the June 13th Norway cruise? If so, we will see you on board. We cruised with Silversea once and there was no comparison in our opinion. Will look forward to your reviews!

[oregon50]

Very engaging writing style. I will enjoy reading your posts.

 

My thoughts, exactly. Some have not noticed the missing plea for advice.

[Flash harriet]

I love Seabourn, I really do, but I do wish they would upgrade the luggage tags..they stink when you open the box, are poorly stitched, and just look cheap. If Viking Cruises (both Ocean and River) can manage real leather tags, I am surprised that Seabourn can't. I guess if that's all I can complain about then life must be pretty sweet..and nobody forces me to use them....

[Kauaijim]

We did SS for the fjords 2 years ago and it was great trip. We are doing a SS alaska in August and a long seaborne trip down under in jan. for us they are variations of the same theme, both well run operations. Life is too short to nitpick either one. Just enjoy.

[fudge]

We have only sailed with SS, we are new to cruising only six cruises however, we have booked a cruise with Seabourn in August, we are really looking forward to it.

 

Having read this forum about Seabourn it sounds really positive, it will be nice to compare, I guess there won't be much between them. :)

[pvkatmom]

JUST off Seabourn Odyssey 7 day Adriatic cruise and it was splendid. Great crew and food, will post about it later. Was also on Silverwind, but it was 17 years ago-- found it a bit too small of a ship. Loved Azamara at 680 pax for a 12 night Christmas/New Year's cruise to South America just this last Christmas. Also loved Seabourn Odyssey at 450 pax. Mainly it's important to me to eat where and whenever you want to eat, have terrific food and not have to sign a piece of paper every time you have a beverage. All 3 lines I mentioned offer this. Enjoy your cruises!

[lincslady]

We did the Quest Norway last summer, and it was a sheer delight - partly due to the lovely weather we had, not always the case.

 

Two things of special interest - the first I think to most Seabourn cruisers and others considering Seabourn - I don't know if you smoke, but would love to hear your comparison of the availability and nuisance value of smoking areas in both ships. Personally, having cruised both lines, I would like to hear your impression of the staff who look after you on board, especially in the bars and restaurants. They are, to me, slightly different on these two lines. We have a distinct preference; would like to hear yours on your return.

 

Have a wonderful time - looks like you will be busy on your return answering the various questions!

[SnoBirdCruiser]

I look forward to following your experiences on Silversea and Seabourn as we are also planing to try both these cruise lines in the next year or so.

We love Crystal and have completed 27 /28 cruises with them,including 2 WC. We have also cruised on Regent for 175 nights or so(can't remember the exact nights)....including doing Norway one on Regent. Rachel, I think you and George were also on this same cruise as we were back in 2008. In Gerrhinger, six of us(a tad tight) hired a private taxi to take us around and we were able to get awesome photos.

 

Anyways, I am sure you will have a wonderful time on both.

Looking forward to your reports on both forums and the responses on each.

Pat

 

(I also posted this on the Silver sea forum)

[Emperor Norton]

My thoughts, exactly. Some have not noticed the missing plea for advice.

 

Haha. Being a thread on the internet it's hard to tell if they missed it or are just wandering off doing their own thing.

[Ka Honu]

You can visit most ports on your own with one exception, the Flam Railway.

 

We didn't find this to be true at all. Booked on line earlier this month for next week (https://www.visitflam.com/en/) with no problem. Granted we had to go in the afternoon instead of morning but it was about 1/3 the cost of the ship excursion (on HAL).

 

I guess it depends on how many ships are in port and when you make your reservation.

[Chairsin]

And we just got off the ship , walked less than five minutes to the train station and bought our tickets . Not sure why you would waste money paying for this as a tour since it is easy to do in your own UNLESS there are numerous others ships in ports that day. Check on that issue and DIY Flam if there are only a couple of ships there that day.

[cruiseej]

Aapreciate and Pamiflorida, we look forward to joining you on Quest in two weeks! (Aapreciate, we just celebrated our 29th anniversary this week -- and this cruise is with my parents to celebrate my mother's 85th birthday this week.) This will be our first Seabourn cruise, after half a dozen on Regent; aside from not having free Internet as we do on Regent, we're looking forward to the Seabourn experience.

 

Eric

[Paminflorida]

Eric, you will love Seabourn! We just booked the Extensive Fjord Exploration in Lofoten - looking forward to trying one of the new Seabourn Ventures!

[Emperor Norton]

OP - Id like to know if SilverSea has figured out how to properly cook rice and pasta. When I sailed with them any risotto or rice side always had about 20% uncooked grains in them. Pasta at times was fresh out of the bag al dente. Could you let me know if they've improved with these staples?

Edited May 31, 2015 by Emperor Norton

[cruiseej]

Eric, you will love Seabourn! We just booked the Extensive Fjord Exploration in Lofoten - looking forward to trying one of the new Seabourn Ventures!

 

I might have tried this one, but I've rented a car for our day in Svolvaer/Lofoten, and I'm going to stick with that, as it seems there's a lot we can explore there driving south along the islands. Might be able to do both, but I don't want to get crunched on time returning the car. We'll look for your zodiac flotilla from the deck of the ship when we come to pick you up at the end of the day!

 

Some of the new Ventures descriptions leave a bit to be desired. For instance, in Stavanger, there's a hike on Mt. Dalsnuten, which includes the line "the final climb up to the summit of Dalsnuten can be somewhat demanding", yet there's no indication how long a hike this is. 2 miles? 7 miles? I wish they would put more "need-to-know" information in the excursion descriptions.

 

I also wish they would tweak the times on some excursions so you could do one in the morning and one in the afternoon if you were so inclined. For example, in Stavanger, we've booked the Lysefjord Cruise to Pulpit Rock, which departs at 9:00 and returns at 12:30. The two new Ventures excursions they've added here depart at 12:30. If they moved the morning departure a little earlier, or the afternoon departure a little later -- and there is leeway on both ends of the day based on our arrival and departure time -- it would be possible to do two different activities. I know, I know, these are minor issues in the scope of this fabulous cruise -- I just like to be able to see as much as possible in scenic places where it's hard to do it on your own, so it would be nice if they made it easier to give them more money for more tours!

 

Eric

[wripro]

I think SB considers itself lucky if most of its passengers have the fortitude to do one excursion a day, let alone two.