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Odyssey comments, photos, 12/22/18-1/5/19, eastern Caribbean


Catlover54
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Unfortunately, within a few minutes a guy came out and started listening to a loud ball game on his iphone, without headphones, and a few minutes later the three loquacious women from the bus plus an older man also came out, and some started smoking and resumed  their prior loud style of conversation, plus a bit of hooting and hollaring as they had some cocktails, so back to our suite I went.  As on the balcony, I would not have minded the outdoor smoking in the breeze if their conversation had been quieter.

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Catlover54,

 

You called it, and I have experienced the same thing: boorish, loud, thoughtless and oblivious people who think nothing about disrupting the peace and mood already in play on board. And don’t get me started on those who insist on talking or even singing along during a show in the Grand Salon. Why can’t people respect their fellow passengers and the professionals on the stage?

 

With your retreat to your suite you did the only thing you could do. There is only so much space and seating on Seabourn ships and their public areas. Too bad that “public” is not respected by some as shared space to be enjoyed by all.

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

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Markham, my prior SB cruises were not at Christmas and New Years, and not to Caribbean which likely draws younger people traveling to do water sports more so than for wildlife, scenery or history. There were much fewer young, rowdy groups and first-trip pax.  I know it is worse on mainstream lines, of course.

 

I am not suggesting people sit in silence in public areas, just wish they would tone it down if people other than their group members are there and not act like it is their private veranda.

 

If there are several groups, at least they can compete with each other , but when you are sitting solo and a loud group comes, retreat is the only option ( I was pretty sure based on various indicia they would not comply  if I politely asked the sports watcher to use headphones or the group to be a little quieter).  

 

We did holiday cruises in South America on SS ( mostly quiet) , and around Namibia/ South Africa on Hapag Lloyd Europa 2 where there were plenty of families, but they were better behaved, so this was new for us on a luxury line.

 

It reminded me of how some airport and hotel business lounges now have people loudly facetiming home grandkids without headphones, kids doing loud videogames, and playing competing music collections.

 

At least on SB I had an out!

I was in a doctor’s office yesterday in a cancer center where you have to wait a long time in between various checks. The office played soothing music in the special wait room, and most women were quietly reading, but one facetimed her boyfriend or husband  and loudly yelled and giggled away in her native language ( one that sounds very strident to me and unfortunately not one I could eavesdrop on) , the entire hour I sat there. I asked her politely to please consider going out of the room for calls or deferring them , as most women there were under stress and trying to relax, but she  barked that she had a right to talk and I should mind my own business.

 

I would have contacted center clerical personnel, but at least yesterday they were also busy giggling and gossiping about personal topics, shopping,  how to outsmart customs agents when bringing illegal things from out of the country, and — oddly enough — how to smuggle forbidden liquor onto cruise ships!  I wrote a letter to management ( which will be ignored).

Life is too short to get aggravated by things like this, I know, but I do anyway ( working on it) as it will likely only get worse as manners continue to evolve.

 

My next SB cruise will not be Caribbean at Xmas, though we enjoyed it overall anyway.

 

 

 

 

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Day 12, St. Barts

 

I had gone to SB Square earlier in the trip to get some assistance setting up an upscale lunch reservation for us, but they were not too interested in doing more than naming two mediocre places ( based on what I had read) that  we could “try” when we tendered in so I researched more online. The issue became moot when we could not tender before lunch anyway due to swells.

 

That AM I had told my perpetually sleep-deprived DH to sleep in late as we had no excursion, and had snuck out of  the suite early in the morning to get my essential caffeine  and hang out in the peaceful observation lounge with a croissant as we approached St. Barts. I quietly crept back into our suite around 7:30 and was surprised to find  a befuddled looking DH sitting at the table with a tray in front of him loaded up with 4 big glasses OJ, two big coffee pots, a basket of multiple croissants, several plates, jams, salt and pepper. 

 

He said he thought I had ordered room service when the doorbell had rung a few minutes before, so he just passively accepted it, and though he wondered why I had ordered so much stuff, he was not thinking clearly enough to reject it.  My first thought after a laugh and mild annoyance DH had been unnecessarily awakened was that some other guests were sitting and suffering from caffeine deficiency ( a horror, to those of us who know about pre-coffee mornings) .  I called room service and they apologized for having roused DH and took the tray away, but were not too concerned with  the fate  of the mystery  breakfastless guests.

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Many yachts of varying sizes were anchored or docked in St. Barts, a playground for celebrities.   

 

My balcony view showed one large yacht far from the madding crowd tucked into a cove, while others  strutted their stuff in port and jockeyed for best position.

 

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We were able to finally tender   into St. Barts early afternoon after a Colonnade buffet lunch just to stroll around as we had already eaten and not interested in traveling to a beach.  

 

Taxis were rare. I was surprised at how quiet the business area was, with just a few uninspiring cafes with way overpriced drinks and champagne.

 

Away from the main drag, houses for locals were cramped and not very glamorous, with the usual chaotic collections of potentially useful junk we had seen on other islands but less actual trash.

 

There are a fee remnants of a fort on top of a hill you can hike up to ( very steep) but I was too tired and worried about tendering back if the swells got too high.

 

We noticed an interesting aviator:07E442B9-CE86-46D3-AAEA-1B5204CF55AA.thumb.jpeg.bf1664b17d2e04b7ff5b6107dc48f7c9.jpeg

 

As we tendered back home we saw a yacht with a water  a slide attached to it , which supposedly rented out for 200k dollars a week in high season for parties, according to some pax.

 

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Ritzy St. Barts of course had its share of slime:

 

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And some characters:

 

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We did not sail until 11PM, so we saw the harbor at night.  We had considered eating in town, but none of the restaurants we considered had answered the phone or emails for several days and did not have online booking, so we ate more excellent MDR food on board. We had been warned that celebrities and affluent locals fill the remainining post-hurricane restaurants for dinner in prime holiday time. We would have tried harder to find a place  if MDR food were bad.

 

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I had a milestone birthday this trip, which was spontaneously acknowledged late in the evening when we went to dinner very late in MDR and were presented with  a bottle of  complimentary Moet Chandon champagne ( which we took home with us, as we just wanted red wine that night 🙂.) A crew member  I had never seen before also came over grinning  and vaguely mumbled congratulations. It turned out to be the restaurant manager.  Later Sergio came over and was more genuinely friendly. 

 

Personnel offered to sing Happy Birthday and expressed visible relief when I told them not to.

 

We were presented with a very rich tasty chocolate cake, too big for both of us so  we had it sent to our suite.  We ate it as a couple more in-suite desserts,  and then landed up bundling the dense rest up and taking it home in my suitcase!

 

SB also stuck four balloons on our suite ceiling while we were at dinner.

 

I am not sure how SB would have acknowledged the birthday  if we had eaten dinner on land, but we had not asked them to do anything. Three years ago birthday special touches for my friend had already started early in the morning and continued , e.g., with a towel animal etc., so the approach was different now ( or at least very late in the day).

 

If you want special things to happen now for an event you celebrate on SB , I recommend talking to the restaurant or hotel personnel and plan ahead just in case.

 

Of course, nothing they did would have made me any younger or healthier 🙁.

 

We had to go to bed early, as we had an AM excursion coming up we did not want to miss.

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Catlover54,

 

I am enjoying your tales and style of writing them. You put me in your space wherever you go eg at Seabourn Square, the MDR, your suite, on shore, and even the medical center's office. I am afraid that I might not have been as patient as you were with the "I have a right to do what I want..." yakker who chose to expand her space with her loud and thereby rude yapping. "My bad."

 

About Christmas cruises, I have been on a couple with Seabourn and each has been unique. The most recent was 13 months ago on Quest's Antarctic cruise but that had few children and they were rather well behaved. There were few family groups.

But we are going this coming Christmas on Sojourn's Cuba cruise. I will be prepared mentally for whatever that brings and expect to spend more time than I might otherwise choose to on my verandah. We really had no such issues on our Odyssey 2 week cruise (sold heavily as 2 one weekers) starting early December, 2018, which ended the week before Christmas.

 

I wish you a belated Happy Birthday and trust that the Moet gift bottle was consumed at home with your loved one(s) in peaceful surroundings!

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

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Thank you, Markham. 

We have a plan for the Moet, hopefully this weekend ( to celebrate the power coming back on in our weekend house after coastal storms), and just finished off the last of my big, and very durable, chocolate mousse style birthday cake  from the Odyssey! 

 

 

 

Day 13,  St. Kitts

 

We did the SB excursion “ Best of St. Kitts” which included a decent amount of time at the amazing Brimstone Fortress, with tremendous views (especially if you hike all the way to the top up the steep hill) , interesting lighting for photos, and a museum presenting an eerie history.

 

Hundreds of years ago British slaughtered French and vv to try and hold this piece of rock as long as they could, and now some British and French SB tourists, along with many Americans descended from many countries that at one time or the other were enemies of both Britain and France, trudged up the hill together,  carrying the same iphones and wearing the same style leisure shorts and dorky sun hats, to photograph the ruins and scene of the slaughters.

 

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The walk up does not have railings to hang on to and is irregular, so wear shoes with good grips and assess your fitness to go up.  You can stay below near the bus (and snack shop and toilets and a resident old cat) for some views and a short film, but the top is the best spot ( as it often is):

 

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The gardens were at the Romney House center.

One passenger suggested we spend the rest of day just sitting under that big tree.

 

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However, pax were getting hungry, and that chicken was starting to look a little too good . . . 

 

 

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20 hours ago, markham said:

Catlover54,

 

I am enjoying your tales and style of writing them. You put me in your space wherever you go eg at Seabourn Square, the MDR, your suite, on shore, and even the medical center's office. I am afraid that I might not have been as patient as you were with the "I have a right to do what I want..." yakker who chose to expand her space with her loud and thereby rude yapping. "My bad."

 

About Christmas cruises, I have been on a couple with Seabourn and each has been unique. The most recent was 13 months ago on Quest's Antarctic cruise but that had few children and they were rather well behaved. There were few family groups.

But we are going this coming Christmas on Sojourn's Cuba cruise. I will be prepared mentally for whatever that brings and expect to spend more time than I might otherwise choose to on my verandah. We really had no such issues on our Odyssey 2 week cruise (sold heavily as 2 one weekers) starting early December, 2018, which ended the week before Christmas.

 

I wish you a belated Happy Birthday and trust that the Moet gift bottle was consumed at home with your loved one(s) in peaceful surroundings!

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

Markham, I hope you have indeed booked a nice large suite for your cruise. I suspect you will be spending a lot of time in it as the Cuba Christmas cruise will have lots of large family groups, many of which will likely be from the USA (I do not use the term “ American” since the continent comprises more than the USA), given that it ends in Miam. Cuba will also attract those that are normally restricted from visiting that country.  You are a brave man 🙂

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One of the enrichment speakers gave a talk about pirates, which was pretty awful.  She dressed in a pirate hat and when I walked into the salon she pretended to be shooting at me with two imaginary pistols ( she apparently did not know that I am an Americn who learned  as a young girl   that you do not point a gun at anyone you do not intend to shoot, so I was a bit taken aback ( especially as I had the sense this lady was not a firearms fan at all, and had probably never even shot a BB gun, much less a revolver). She said “ argh” a lot, trying to be cute like pirates.   Information given was more lore than fact and not clearly separated.  We even heard tales about feminist and little boy pirates.  We did not hear about the Tripoli or Somali pirates. It was basically a talk for teenage boys, but none were in the audience.

 

I had to wonder how some cruise speakers get these gigs.

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Day 14, Jost Van Dyke

 

DH went on a bumpy speedboat excursion around Tortola Island, which included a couple hours at a pretty, uncrowded beach.  I was originally signed up to join him but cancelled because I was worried I might have trouble getting in and out of the boat at the beach and did not want to become a burden. 

After the event DH agreed it was good I had cancelled and did not join two other guests who struggled to get in and  out of the boat and complained about it, though there had been warnings by SB about needing to be fit . Neither life vests nor helmuts were worn.

  DH loved it, a good excursion for moderately fit people. The boat driver who had lost his house, also gave a lot of information about the hurricane damage, and told interesting and sad stories.

 

 

 

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January 5, DISEMBARKATION

 

This was not done optimally.

We had color and number coded disembarkation instructions to follow announcements, but as ship clearance  was  delayed, there was just a late rush to disembark for pax to meet waiting buses and cars, with no announcements to clarify who should go first.

Lines for immigration were huge, with multiple different cruise ship pax waiting. SB personnel were hard to find to direct us to our airport bus, which arrived a half hour  late.

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I already posted about my ten hours at the awful St. Martin airport and will not bore with repetition.

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Final thoughts:

 

Overall, we enjoyed the cruise.  The food and service was overall very good, and better than last year on the Quest, which was encouraging.

 

But there is room for improvement. There is still understaffing. Personnel were almost always working very hard, e.g., in restaurants, but other than in TK, they struggled to keep up.

Staff also should not misrepresent information if they do not know or feel too busy to do something ( like when we asked about the complimentary wine list and were misinformed that we could not get one).

TV interactive features and wifi need improvement, as does SB Source, and SB Square helpfulness in providing information for independent land excursions and dining.

Ambience was not ideal for our needs this holiday cruise, as there were too many large groups and families who were louder than on our other SB cruises, and more boistrous than on three other holiday luxury cruises we had done on other luxury  lines to other areas ( maybe the Caribbean is more likely to attract such groups).

 

 We also greatly missed not being able to go to the MDR for a calm, cool lunch, to relax after a tiring excursion,  not even during a one hour open period. I understand from crew that at least so far on some other SB cruises, e.g., Europe, the MDR is opened briefly for lunch, but am concerned this may not continue.  

 

We will not likely cruise to this part of the Caribbean again soon as we have so many other places we would like to explore, and only so much time,  but will definitely consider cruising on SB again.  So, while still on board, we put $500 per person refundable deposits down to get 5% off on a future cruise, though we have not yet selected a future SB cruise. But I will make sure I select a non- holiday cruise, preferably with longer segments, to help avoid the big groups with too many loud people.

 

I hope this blog was able to enhance potential SB newbies’ knowledge of the Odyssey experience, and that the photos showed some of the little bit we experienced in this part of the world that was totally new to us.252ADE71-BE5B-433B-8F50-38371F85D48A.thumb.jpeg.6182c25bd6403d7030fc90f3799d427e.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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