spyder3010

Huh, opening shutters! When I inquired about that feature to Seabourn just two weeks as a "deal-breaker," the response was "no." We would have taken a port call day at the $149 rate but declined - who wants to spend a day in port with no view of the setting? Our veranda is a better experience at no added cost. We've since decided that even with the option of views from SOME cabanas, it's not an attractive option.

Never implied " snobbery" - just noting an extremely arbitrary assessment of people's nature based on how long they were able to cruise at that moment in life. It would be fun on even a "small" ship of 600 to watch you sort all the passengers by the length of their cruise! And, more importantly, that's not the way this industry works - what disappointed you on your 21-day cruise will disappoint you on this next and most subsequent cruises. That's the point.

Hmmm, so this is the criterion you have chosen to determine "sociability" and "friendliness" of your fellow passengers? Well, sorry to say, my cut-off is those making at least a 15-day cruise - that makes you a "short timer" persona-non-gratis on our voyage. It takes more than 14 days to display your value as a potentially-interesting and congenial ship-mate. But, you will easily qualify for our interest by joining our 42-day cruise next February! (But, I strongly suspect we still wouldn't become friends.)

Has anyone wondered why most cruise itineraries are in increments of 7 days? Cruise lines don't usually offer discrete "events" - they operate one continuous cruise between overhauls. The intervals -usually in multiples of 7 - are determined / designed by the spans between feasible ports of embarkation / debarkation. As a novice, I hadn't realized that our upcoming 21-day Ovation cruise wouldn't have the same passenger list between Stockholm and Copenhagen - until I discovered others who are booked on shorter segments of our itinerary. So, when we start our tour on 7/28, we won't be fighting 598 other passengers trying to board, but only those getting on in the same numbers as those getting off after completing voyages of 7, 14 or ?? That's a good thing for group management. And, the ship is certainly too big to get to know everyone as neighbors in two weeks, anyway. It seems somewhat presumptuous to deny the cruise line and its patrons the flexibility to mix trips of 7-days and longer durations - not everyone wants or needs that same 14 days as asserted here.

BTW, although the Ovation is only our second cruise and the first was in a HA Amsterdam penthouse suite 15 years ago, we're going out again in Feb 2019 on the Quest - 42 days (divide by our increment of 7 = 6 weeks even) from Santiago, Chile, to Manaus, Brazil. This may be an "event" cruise due to the limited ports of call (none on Antarctica, as I recall) for much of the trip, but I can see how the itinerary with the 7-day multiples stages the ship for spring in the Med. :cool::cool::cool::cool:

Looked into it at the $149 in-port rate and when discovering the no-view design said "not at any price." Considering the standard ship amenities, I, too, think this is a fail. It won't last as it's not generating any revenue for expensive space.