Live from the Seabourn Sojourn - Alaska Cruise Sept. 21

Hello to everyone.

Ellie and I are leaving home today for our first cruise on Seabourn. The cruise does a round trip to Alaska from Vancouver. Depending on the internet, I will be posting our impressions of the journey as we take this wonderful trip. Ellie says that once I set foot on a cruise ship there is an entirely different person who emerges. She calls me "Cruise Art". We do love cruising.

I try to be objective in my posts, but ultimately it is nothing more than one person's opinion (actually two, because I also consult with Ellie as she sees things I don't and vice versa). So if we deem something important such as the entertainment, food or friendliness of the crew, and it is not one of your priorities, please remember that. I promise not to be overly critical or a shill for the cruise line. My purpose is to help others who have not sailed on Seabourn, or at least not for a long time, with our impressions of their strengths and weaknesses (hopefully there won't be many).

Tomorrow we will be taking a photo tour of Vancouver prior to boarding the ship. Then it is off to Alaska. Both Ellie and I have sailed to Alaska before, but not for quite some time. We will be visiting several ports which will be new and this is the latest time in the year we have ever gone.

Hoping for good weather, but packed and ready for most anything.

We just came back on Sept. 9th from our first Seabourn cruise. 14 nt. Alaska. We were lucky to have good weather and hope you have as well. Makes all the difference. We have cruised all the luxury and premium lines and we really enjoyed Seabourn. Service was great. The passenger`s on board were some of the friendliest we have ever cruised with. Enjoy, Heather

Hello to everyone.

 

Ellie and I are leaving home today for our first cruise on Seabourn. The cruise does a round trip to Alaska from Vancouver. Depending on the internet, I will be posting our impressions of the journey as we take this wonderful trip. Ellie says that once I set foot on a cruise ship there is an entirely different person who emerges. She calls me "Cruise Art". We do love cruising.

 

I try to be objective in my posts, but ultimately it is nothing more than one person's opinion (actually two, because I also consult with Ellie as she sees things I don't and vice versa). So if we deem something important such as the entertainment, food or friendliness of the crew, and it is not one of your priorities, please remember that. I promise not to be overly critical or a shill for the cruise line. My purpose is to help others who have not sailed on Seabourn, or at least not for a long time, with our impressions of their strengths and weaknesses (hopefully there won't be many).

 

Tomorrow we will be taking a photo tour of Vancouver prior to boarding the ship. Then it is off to Alaska. Both Ellie and I have sailed to Alaska before, but not for quite some time. We will be visiting several ports which will be new and this is the latest time in the year we have ever gone.

 

Hoping for good weather, but packed and ready for most anything.

Hi artbcpa,

We are on this cruise with you. I (cwn) have been posting on the other Alaska thread that has been working since the Sojourn Alaska 2017 season started.

We are also doing a blog so there will be opinions fro two of us!

Look forward to meeting up with you and Ellie on the ship tomorrow.

Carolyn

Hello to arthcpa,

I am very interested in all you will inform us as I have booked this time next year and I am concerned about the weather .

Also are there less crowds in port at this time of the year.

Hope all is wonderful for you all.

Thank you all for your good wishes. Our flight from Los Angeles went smoothly. What a beautiful airport in Vancouver and customs was a breeze! We caught a taxi to our downtown hotel - the Metropolitan - only $31 Canadian dollars. Ellie and I took a walk around downtown and then decided to walk to the waterfront. Great views, plus the weather was clear and in the low 60's - what more could we ask for to begin our trip. Knowing we would be having great food on the ship and lots of it, we opted to eat dinner in the hotel. The food was good, the menu very limited. I don't know if I would recommend it, but it met our needs.

We got some nice pictures today of the tall buildings, the waterfront and the seaplanes taking off. We are looking forward to our photo tour of Vancouver tomorrow.

We took a few interesting pictures yesterday in Vancouver. We expect to take a lot more today.

I find it much easier to post the photos on Flickr. Here is the link:

Unfortunately the internet in the hotel is as poor as most cruise ships; so I had to reduce the pixels dramatically to upload them. Maybe we will find a a better wifi sometime today.

Great photos!

Hope you have a fantastic cruise.

Art, have a nice time on the cruise with Ellie.

I look forward to your thoughts and of course the day to day posts and photos. Am already enjoying these.

Keith

We boarded our ship yesterday afternoon. The boarding process was so easy.

But before I go into detail, I want to tell you a little about Vancouver photo tour. I would highly recommend this tour. Our guide and photographic expert, Aura, was both friendly, professional and extremely helpful. I learned quite a bit about my camera, framing photographs, lighting, settings and some fancy tricks as well. While I am not a professional, I have been taking pictures for many years and have been on several photographic tours previously. There is always so much more to learn. Ellie was also impressed as she is not really into photography and like many people who take photos mostly for fun, she uses her iphone. Aura had tips for her as well. Both Ellie and I feel that Aura was one of the best guides we have ever had. In addition to gving great tips and guidance, Ellie wanted to see some parts of Vancouver that we had not seen before. Aura provided that too. After picking us from the hotel and taking us on our tour, Aura dropped us off at the port.

Seabourn has the boarding process very much under control. There were virtually no lines or wait and once on board that welcome lunch was far superior to those we have received on many other cruise lines. By the time lunch we finished lunch, our rooms were ready. Within a very short time, our bags were delivered - another big plus for Seabourn.

We are in a standard veranda suite. It's a wow! Most of our experience on luxury cruise lines has been on Crystal. This easily blows it away. In fact it is comparable to the penthouse suite we stayed in last time we sailed on Crystal. Lots of closet and drawer space, lots of outlets for our electric equipment, a walk-in closet and a very nice balcony. The biggest plus for me is that it really is a suite with a separate section that can be closed off with a curtain so as not to bother the other person in the room. That is where I am right now.

The service has also been wonderful. Our housekeeping staff came in almost as soon as we came into the room to explain the amenities and ask if there was anything special we wanted. We met the cruise director who was very outgoing and friendly. While we out on the deck near the pool, we met some of the entertainment staff who came over to introduce themselves. Last night we met more of them as we went to the room where they had the dancing. Several came over to our table to talk with us and also took our requests for songs.

We also heard about how friendly the passengers were on Seabourn. We found that to be true as well.

Our first dinner was excellent, as was the service and our tablemates. For Ellie, the first day wouldn't be complete without a visit to the casino. It is small, but we won. What elese would you want from a casino? LOL

As you can tell we had a wonderful first day. Much more to follow.

Good to know your first impressions of the Sojourn and Seabourn have been positive. Hope your journey is memorable..Your photo tour sounds very special. Vancouver is a very photogenic city -- even an amateur like myself got some nice photos.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Day 2 was another fabulous day with just a couple of little hitches. Since Day 1 was all wonderful, let me start with them.

Breakfast - It is not unusual, but it is annoying, to have a difficult time getting scrambled eggs that are not runny or bacon that is crisp. ( I told you these were little hitches). There were enough items on the buffet at the Colonnade that I thought I would address the runny eggs on another day, but I did want my crisp bacon; so I special ordered it with our waiter. Not even close to crisp. Also Ellie was very disappointed with the muffins. In fact, none of the bakery items thus far have reached the caliber of what we expected on a luxury cruise line. If you want great baked items, breads, pastries, desserts, we have found that the best can be found on the European river cruises (but that is a topic for another day).

Well that is pretty much it for the negatives.

In the morning, I went to the lecture by the nature photographer and in the afternoon I played bridge. Both experiences were wonderful. For those who are into "serious" bridge this might not meet your fancy. There were only 4 tables of duplicate and the play was closer to social than typical duplicate... which was just right for me. Ellie went to the spa and was very pleased. In between we met for team trivia. Lots of fun without the seriousness we have found on some other ships and apparently they don't repeat the questions; so long time Seabourn passengers don't have the typical "home court" advantage.

Service - We have found that the staff goes out of their way to be friendly and helpful and remember our names. They definately get an A+. That aura of friendliness is contagious as it seems to spill over to the passengers. "Tone at the top".

Tonight was formal night and the captain's welcome party. Based on how so many other ships have done away with ANY dress codes, we were not expecting many to comply. We were surprised and pleased to see that so many of the passengers on Seabourn still keep up the spirit of dressing up. That does not mean that everyone was in tuxes or long gowns, but pretty much everyone was very well dressed.

Since this was Friday and Seaboun has a rabbi on board, we went to Friday evening services. Although the attendance was small, the rabbi was engaging and the attendees were involved. Interestingly the rabbi and her husband also sat at our table for dinner.

After dinner, we went back to the casino for another hour of making money. Yahoo. Then it was off to the show. Because of the size of the ship we did not have any great expectations regarding the quality of the shows. Were we suprised? It was really wonderful. The voices of the vocalists were as good as any ship we have been on.

Tomorrow will be our first day of excursions. We will be taking a seaplane to the Misty Fjords National Monument. Seabourn has really put emphasis on the itinerary. There are lots of naturalists on board and their excursions take advantage of Alaska's wilderness.

One more thing I should mention is the Internet. Seabourn's is no better than most other cruise lines. Perhaps there is a place on the ship we can find that has better connections, but in our room is very, very slow. No chance of uploading photos even with reduced pixels.

Try Seabourn Square

We found Molly and the other vocalist to be the best we have seen on our many cruises. CD also put on a beautiful show.

artbcpa,

Did you get to do the seaplane ride? Saw that the Crab feast left as we got off to walk around a bit.

For crisp bacon try the Restaurant for breakfast. That is a pet peeve of mine also, but it has been nice and crisp both morning. We also have eggs benedict each morning and those eggs are perfectly done to the right degree of runniness.

Enjoy your cruise.

I will keep my post about the cruise on the old Alaska thread.

Carolyn

We had super crispy bacon 🥓 on Odyssey this past August. I never saw anything other than crispy. The difference must be the galley staff, so please speak to the Collonade manager and I'm sure they will adjust accordingly.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Thanks for this thread -- it is really helpful to someone considering a first cruise on Seabourn.

I'm never sure what people mean by 'crispy' bacon. I know what I like and what I don't :D I don't like bacon that fractures when your fork touches it [and am afraid that is what people mean when they say 'crispy']. But I also don't like bacon that is so limp that the fat is un-rendered and no one could pick it up [i call that 'half-cooked']. How would you describe the in-the-middle state I want?

Thanks for all the crispy bacon replies. When the fat part of the bacon is still white, that is my definition of not crispy. We were pleasantly surprised with our last two cruises with Viking Ocean and Crystal. Both had crispy bacon every day.

Now to the serious stuff. No we did not get to go on our seaplane adventure. That was very disappointing. Ellie was truly looking forward to riding in a seaplane for the first time and I was looking forward to the photography part of the excursion. The weather is often wet and windy in Ketchikan. Tomorrow is another day. We ended up staying , playing bridge and mah jongg. Just a relaxing day. The entertainment was once once again very special - a ventriloquist with a Jamaican puppet.

This morning I was able to resolve the crispy bacon issue by speaking directly with the kitchen. However, after several days of eating breakfast at the Colonnade, we have come to the conclusion that breakfast here does not compare to those on Crystal, or for that matter, most other ships we have sailed on. The buffet is too small, with not enough choices. There are too many items that have to be ordered individually from the waiters, which then means the service, while friendly and well intentioned, is just too slow. Today we found out that even the teas are not available to the waiters. They must order them from the kitchen. By the time Ellie got her tea, she had finished her meal. Tomorrow we will try the main restaurant. The reason we haven’t thus far is that it does not open until 8:00 AM and we were scheduled for morning excursions.

We also found the tea service at breakfast to be annoying when we were on the Odyssey. The waiters also had to order the tea and then I'd have to guess if it would be 2 minutes, 5 minutes or sometimes 10+ minutes before I would go get my food so that I had the tea ready when I was eating. Not sure why the waiters don't have ready access to hot water at the serving stations? or a better system for serving tea.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

This morning I was able to resolve the crispy bacon issue by speaking directly with the kitchen. However, after several days of eating breakfast at the Colonnade, we have come to the conclusion that breakfast here does not compare to those on Crystal, or for that matter, most other ships we have sailed on. The buffet is too small, with not enough choices. There are too many items that have to be ordered individually from the waiters, which then means the service, while friendly and well intentioned, is just too slow. Today we found out that even the teas are not available to the waiters. They must order them from the kitchen. By the time Ellie got her tea, she had finished her meal. Tomorrow we will try the main restaurant. The reason we haven’t thus far is that it does not open until 8:00 AM and we were scheduled for morning excursions.

Try room service breakfast! We've had much success with that and everything comes at once. I had eggs Florentine once and they were perfect. And i'm a sucker for their french toast. You can have it way earlier than eight am, if necessary.

Sorry you missed your seaplane adventure. Are you trying one of the later plane rides?

I love breakfast is the Restaurant and always eat there or have room service. We generally do not like buffet service and find the buffet breakfast very unsatisfying on all lines, not just Seabourn. Too much confusion. Though we ate in the Colonnade last night for the lobster tempura and found the service and the food very good. They also dealt with my food allergy very easily.

We are in Sitka today and had a very nice excursion. We saw sea otters and a whole lot of humpback whales.

The internet in town is slightly better than on the ship. I was able to upload a few photos, but still had to reduce the pixels.

Added about a dozen photos to my Vancouver album:

and began a Sitka album with a few photos from our excursion including a couple of the ship from our catamaran.

We are in Sitka today and had a very nice excursion. We saw sea otters and a whole lot of humpback whales

Sea otters are the best! So cute :D

How is the weather. I thought about this cruise but we decided on the Aug 26th one instead.