kjbacon

Regent and Oceania are our two favorite lines and you cannot go wrong with either. Like a previous poster, we prefer the newer ships on each line. We have upcoming cruises booked on both. The buffet is fabulous on Oceania with the huge sanitary plus of the staff serving your plate at your request. We love having the flexible all inclusive shorex on Regent because nothing is better than being able to change your mind up till the last minute without a cancellation penalty.

It’s like little has changed with the breakfast and lunch buffet conversation! Everybody likes something different and that’s ok, but the fact is that buffets are extremely unsanitary. Google it. I wish I had known the actual breakfast and lunch set up on SB in time to make an informed decision. If you are looking for a 6* food experience, I can say factually that it was not offered on the July 22-August 29 Quest sailing. Dinner was riddled with problems, yes, but breakfast and lunch were substandard to the point of disgraceful. For those of you who are experiencing or reminiscing about the Restaurant being open for breakfast and lunch, good for you. Be happy that you got lucky because not everyone does. On our 38 night summer sailing, it was the very rare occasion that it was open. And yes, when it was open, it was open from 8-9 which is one hour. For those of you who want to interpret that be be longer than one hour because you can stay beyond 9 to finish your food, you are factually incorrect. And there’s the segway to the mobbed and frenzied Collonade breakfasts and lunches that were too understaffed to order from the limited menu. We learned to stop at seabourn square for coffee on our way to breakfast because it was too difficult to order or to get coffee at the buffet. There were many days that it was too cold or windy to dine outdoors, just making the indoor crowding worse. It was more common than not that the line for toast was so long that it was better for forego toast. Running out of plates or food items was not uncommon. The breakfast buffet selection was identical day after day after day and did not offer an actual special or the variety that we are accustomed to (and you should be to). It sounds as though there’s been some improvements and I hope that continues. Seabourn was our 3rd post Covid cruise and the only one of the 3 that was apparently crippled by it. We have future cruise credits that we are going to use next year and nothing would please me more than to experience the 6* luxury that I was promised the first time. And I’ll be the first one to report it here.

Was this at the Embassy Suites Miami Int’l Airport?

We love Ross too! We will be on splendor in February and would be very happy to have him on board.

I think you are right that it is best to have low expectations for SB, especially Quest. There isn’t enough Kool Aid in the world for me to like their daily buffet only options or to buy into that as a 6* experience. You are also right not to look for any variety in breakfast options like Huevos rancheros on a SB ship. Others ships yes, SB no.

Or maybe you just weren’t invited.

I also prefer a sit down over a buffet and with the longer cruises, more variety would be good.Turkey bacon and turkey sausage was the notable omission since more and more people are not as into pork products. The sliced deli meats on the cold buffet at breakfast were also all pork based and while I did request sliced deli turkey many times, it was still always pork based (like ham and salami). A vegan choice of some kind as a special would have been good. I know the vegan burger was popular at lunch. Avocado toast on a good hearty grainy bread or Huevos rancheros are both healthy and popular. The Patio had some interesting grain bowls with quinoa and mango as well as breakfast burritos, either or both would have been a nice addition to the indoor venues.

On Quest in August, the restaurant was sometimes open for breakfast or lunch on a sea day and sometimes not. The breakfast offering in the restaurant was identical to the offering in the Collonade. The Patio does offer some interesting variety for breakfast.

We attended two different hosted tables on Quest in August. One was a fantastic time for all and one was a desperate bore.

The Sojourn and The Quest are different ships. To the best of everyone’s knowledge and what is being reported on the boards, it is only The Quest that is experiencing the sustained lack of staffing. I’m truly pleased for those that had good experiences on The Sojourn but that is irrelevant to what has been going on for months now on The Quest. This was our third post Covid cruise and the only one that was problematic. Regent in December and Oceania in March both did a great job. We have also enjoyed Viking, Azamara, and Fathom (to Cuba) since we switched to the smaller ships. Never did the ship within a ship thing when we were doing the large ships. We enjoyed all of our large ships cruises too. We plan to stick with small ships but will make an exception and are looking forward to a return to Disney Cruise line when the grandsons are a little older. Doesn’t matter whether you prefer butlers or whether you prefer perks in some cabins or how you say potato. It’s about whether or not a quality product was delivered and in this one and only case for us, it was not.

We left notes most days. When that didn’t help, we went to SB square. This is not what we are accustomed to on a luxury cruise. Again, everyone knows that the quest is a hot mess right now. It’s not a question anymore! How many more times can some of you shoot the messengers or tell us we asked wrong for simple basics like water in our room? We will probably make use of our 10 days of future cruise credits but have every intention of returning to the high quality of Regent and Oceania where everyone is treated well and we get an ostentatious (not) perk like free laundry. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how one says potato. It’s just that Seabourn should stop trying to fill The Quest until they are providing adequate numbers of properly trained staff to handle it.

We also choose large suites when we cruise. We like the extra space and the second bathroom too but we also enjoy the perks. There are no perks on board with SB and that’s different than any other line that we’ve been on. And yes, there was no differential service either. If anything, our room hostesses were surprisingly poor and we know that there were many good teams on board from asking our friends if they were having similar problems (which they were not but rather they were getting creative and adorable touches in their cabins in addition to perfect service). And yes, we went to SB Square repeatedly and pleasantly when the hostesses forgot the water again or the coffee pods again or didn’t go out on the balcony again to get dirty coffee cups, etc. It was a joke. No, we desperately tried to get an additional reservation in TK Grill after missing two of our nights because of our Covid isolation to no avail. We couldn’t even adjust the reservation time we already had by 15 minutes either in TK Grill or the Collonade. The Hotel Director was going to get back to us on 3 separate issues that he wasn’t familiar with when we tried to talk to him. He never followed up. Our impression was that it was in one ear and out the other as he was always pleasant but seemed to not so much as recognize us.

You are not wrong. There are basically no perks on SB for a named suite which is different than any other line.

All of these posts offer helpful insights and thoughts. I’m not sure how much financial trouble SB is in right now but they are only setting themselves up for worse. They had no problem charging us for our 38 night cruise in the Wintergarden suite and also had no problem letting us deal with absurd waits every day to order breakfast that was more often than not incorrect and or unpresentable. That is but one example of way too many. There were so many mess ups on our cruise that we had to work to find the positives and yes, I am well aware that these are first world problems. But I’m also well aware that we are comparing SB to luxury cruise lines as opposed to a Motel 6. The fact is that I went easy on SB in my live from thread. I am finding myself more put out by this as time goes by and they continue to provide substandard service for the same price to the guests. At the time, we figured that these things can happen and ok, we pulled the short SB straw. Now, it is clear that SB is making a daily decision to shortchange their guests.

When I boarded Quest as a first time SB cruiser in July, I was disappointed in some of the service aspects. The ship was about two thirds full. When the second leg of our trip started in August with a full ship, the little disappointments became huge disappointments. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to figure out that the short staffing with inexperienced personnel becomes more pronounced when there are more passengers. The subsequent live from posts on the Quest are similar to mine with describing both the good and the bad experiences but clearly, the short staffing only continues. Like me, the current posters are sometimes chided that they have a bad attitude or did not handle the problems on the Quest the right way. It is my opinion that the attitude that needs to be questioned is Seabourn’s. Further, the responsibility of how to handle the ongoing problems on Quest belongs to Seabourn. That ship is a service mess. And Seabourn knows it. They are, however, continuing to try to sell the remainder of the cabins on the next 2 sailings when they are not staffed enough to be able to service the number of passengers that they have now. And that says it all about Seabourn’s attitude and how they are handling the problems on Quest.

We also had multiple issues on our cruise on the Quest and everyone, including SB knows the ship is riddled with problems. There were those that went off on me too.

I am sure that you are as well informed as we were, just a quick mention that like you, we were fully vaxxed and boosted but still got Covid on our July/august cruise. On our upcoming February cruise, we will return to mask wearing indoors on the ship. And no more elevators!

It’s always a plus to read such a balanced trip report and much more helpful, thank you. Wishing you calmer seas and fewer missed ports as Fiona leaves your path!

That’s a great solution! Montreal is a beautiful city with plenty to see and do.

I understand the itinerary changes with Fiona but why will it end a day early?

Thank you both so much, exactly what I was hoping to learn. We took our first Oceania cruise earlier this year and loved it so we are very excited to sail on Vista!

Thank you but I’m not asking for a strategy. If you read my post carefully, you will see that I’m asking what the guidelines are for selecting shorex (for example, is there a price cap). In your opinion, how many topics that are active right now have never been covered before?

Just booked our 2nd Oceania cruise and this thread is so helpful, thank you all! How does it work if I choose the shorex perk? Do I select my 9 included ones (aka the most expensive) or is there a certain guideline in place?

I’m sorry to see that the improvements are slow to come on the Quest. We also had the frequent poor dishes in the Collonade and the very pleasant but unqualified reps in seabourn square. We started to joke with each other that we had to go to seabourn square so they could send an email for us. It’s most interesting to note that your cabin hostess might have been the same as ours. Most people we spoke with on our cruise had very good hostesses but we did not. They were very nice young ladies but rarely did a complete job on our cabin, whether forgetting to replenish our water or leaving basic tasks undone. Best to you as you negotiate these next few days around Fiona. We thought the spa was very nice so maybe for one of the days in Trois Rivières, you could treat yourself to a massage and enjoy the steam room and sauna (which should be complimentary with the purchase of a massage). Pedro is an excellent masseuse and I thought the Thai Herb Poultice was the best. Quebec City is fabulous so 2 days there will be a good thing. We did the local hop on hop off bus and enjoyed it very much. We had a fantastic lunch in a cute little bistro called Q de Sac that I would heartily recommend. If all else fails, take good advantage of the included drinks! 🍹🍸🍷

Another yes vote on Mondavie. Great service, delicious French bistro food, and a very nice Bordeaux. Call me a nerd but yeah, I still have the pictures!