stan01

Explora Journeys, Ritz Carlton, Silversea and Seabourn would be four others to consider. All are larger ships than Seadream have a lot of pros and few cons so I'd focus on special ports of call that avoid the large cruise ship destinations like Dubrovnik and Mykonos as much as possible. All of those cruise lines have some great choices. To be honest, while we like Seabourn their dining variety is probably the fewest of the four I've listed. They have mulitple venues but in our opinion the food in each restaurant is a variation of what's on rotation in all. Opinions will vary on that and its not a major issue for us.

I'm sure this won't be popular, but I'm actually glad to hear some labor-intensive special requests are being denied rather than diluting the service for everyone else. It's not the old days when a waiter could stand and chat with each table for a few minutes without impacting service greatly. I've heard people request things like beer at breakfast that have sent a crew member running all over the ship to figure out how to accommodate. You can see the look of horror on the waiter's face, yet selfish people still do it. As I wrote, may not be a popular opinion.

Many US customers on Seabourn embarking in the near future have large $1000-2000 non-refundable on board credits that have been part of the fare deal for most of the last year, so my guess is the revenue wines and spas will be a little more in demand.

It's not QM2 which is in a class by herself. There are plenty of things to do on Seabourn although sometimes not multiple things at the same time which you would get on QM2. Take some books (paper or electronic) to read while sitting in the sun or shade. Talk to the people around you in the jacuzzi or pool or bar. Enjoy the ocean breeze on your balcony or at the bow of the ship. Look out over the horizon from the Observation Bar. Those are part of the crossing experience along with food, drink, trivia, and planned entertainment.

Just curious, are you in a Neptune suite and are you on a newer HAL ship with the separate Club Orange dining room for suite passengers? They are starting to do a "ship within ship" suite concept as well but its definitely not as far along as MSC, Celebrity or Cunard.

I am curious whether Pursuit and Venture are sailing at close to passenger capacity, or if they are well under capacity. In Antarctica, Australia/Pacific, and Iceland/Greenland where occupancy might be different.

BA/AA connections and US CBP lines at JFK or MIA are bad, but there is the TWA Hotel in the JFK terminal area which is nice airport hotel for one night. The in-airport hotel at MIA is bad. Via Atlanta on Delta or Virgin might be better for CBP lines. Guessing FlightEase would often try to run people through MIA?

We agree, but we also live on west coast. Our UK and EU friends will prefer Barbados since there are nonstop flights from London to Barbados every day. A plus for them is that they don't have to clear US border control. We agree though about San Juan and would much rather embark and disembark there (or even in St. Thomas) than in St. Martin or Barbados. Our first choice though would be Florida but Seabourn wants to operate 7 day cruises for people who can't take two weeks off from work and they don't want to buy the fuel to get from Florida to the Caribbean when the customers will pay the airlines to take care of that.

To be honest, at this point I'd rather they raise fares and try to remain a luxury line with very good food quality and attentive service. Make sure you make a future cruise deposit next time you are on the ship to get a further discount. What I hope doesn't happen is that fares show up 25% less on discount sites three months before departure and after final payments are due.

As you have said, there's a spectrum of needs and abilities. My mom used a Rollator (walker with wheels if that's not a common UK term) for her last 10 years. Never a powered wheelchair or a scooter, but she could not have gone up or down more than one step by herself. She would have needed an evacuation chair. If those walking stick passengers can't go up and down the stairs they would need the evacuation chair, too. And people are not always honest about this. Until the end my mom would tell people she could walk across the room without her Rollator. That was not true but she believed it to be (and fell several times). I think this will eventually impact how ships are designed and we'll eventually get ships that are more accessible, but that's many years away.

Sounds like they did the right thing by correcting the wording. Thank you for bringing it to their attention and getting it corrected. When QM2 goes into her extended maintenance period in 2027 I hope they are able to make modifications to add more accessible rooms to help deal with the impacts of the policy change to customers. It is impossible for them to prioritize who has the greater need. They have to go by what people tell them.

Dietary notes and photos are definitely on the server's tablet. As a male couple they can tell us apart, and a few address us by name which they would only be able to do by looking at a photo. For people with dietary restrictions, it helps the server alert you quickly if there might be an issue. I think they also designate people for "special attention". Years ago we were told that our photos were on a bulletin board in the crew quarters after several people we passed in the halls called out to us by name. We do miss Legend and her crew having spent 6 weeks on her on three different occasions.

Those changes have been reported, but not clear whether that will be every cruise on every ship or if the ships will still have the flexibility to make changes specific to the itinerary or staffing levels on the ship. I think a number of passengers will be happy to begin their dinners earlier and that might also reduce some of the overcrowding in the bars before dinner as well.

Ah, nice to know they do have the self-service coffee set up at Seabourn Square now. Thanks for the update.

Great, when we were on Quest in November 2023 the app did not allow ordering coffee, so that new feature (if it is always enabled) does help make up for the loss of the service in the Observation Lounge. Just a little farther to walk in the morning for us.

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad to see that you saw some improvements in staff efficiency. Were they able to provide quick service at the Seabourn Square for morning coffee? I'm hoping not to stand there in line for 15 minutes. To be honest I will be bringing a large insulated mug and asking them to fill it with half-caf regular coffee then taking it up to the Observation Lounge which should now be even more peaceful in the morning :-).

Not surprised to see Encore in Alaska, so that she can easily return to Southeast Asia cruises in the winter with Suez Canal not available. Was surprised to see the larger Ovation in UK, Norway and Canada not Med. Quest doing the 7 day Venice, Athens, Turkey cruises that Encore was doing. Soujourn in Western med doing the 10 day Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Rome cruises that Ovation was doing. Pursuit going back to Australia. Venture plans for summer 2026 not announced yet.

Encore mostly does 7 day port intensive itineraries in the summer. I'd expect fewer people at afternoon tea on port days than on sea days. What's the alternative? I realize some want to just call room service (and wait) but we'd prefer to walk up and get something to eat when hungry. We don't want to queue or wait for 15, 30, or 60 minutes. That gets back to Seabourn's strategy on this, if they are trying to bring down the average age by 10 or 20 years they still have to provide a service enough people want to fill the ships at fares they can sustain the business on. If the strategy is they are trying to eek out as much revenue as possible from these ships until they can sell them off then we will just see the cost cutting. I'm older Gen-X, and I actually prefer self-service for things like tea, coffee, and snacks. There are a lot of baby boomers and younger who feel the same way.

We will be on Ovation in November, and hopefully we will simply be able to get morning coffee with warm refills in the Observation Bar rather than having room service deliver a carafe at 6:15 and another at 7:15 every morning.

The reported early risers closure in the Observation Lounge was on Ovation in mid September. Maybe they are doing a trial period to see how many complaints they get.

Next on the chopping block per reports elsewhere: coffee and snacks Seabourn Square closing at 6 PM for the night Observation Lounge no longer has early riser coffee service

Seabourn just needs to find thousands more customers each year who are willing to book a cruise at full fare without $1,000+ on board credits and bulk suite sales through discount travel agencies. Then they can keep going as in the past, but alas that appears to not be happening. I do understand your sentiment, and we agree, but at the same time we are not exclusive to Seabourn nor are we wealthy enough to not care how much a cruise costs. I have a real mental block of paying more than about $750 per person per day. It's going to take a lot to get me over that. I am noting antics on other social media pages about Seabourn entertainment staff pushing each other into the pool for the enjoyment of passengers. Maybe what some of us want just is too far away from what the people who are willing to pay really want to experience? As for the caviar, I do about one per week definitely not partaking of the unlimited offering and if it was extra cost I would not eat it at all.

Smaller ship size means a lot, but things like "happy crew" apply to other cruise lines too and to be honest a lot of Seabourn's crew from pre-COVID have moved on. The new crew is very overworked. The posts on another website from Odyssey's farewell cruise seem more like a farewell to Seabourn than to Odyssey. We don't know what Carnvial Corp's plans are, but Ms. Leahy's background is in finance not development of new luxury cruising products. She has marching orders and a timeline from her bosses. I hope I'm wrong but we continue to look at Ritz, Explora, SeaDream, Cunard Grills, Windstar, and other cruise lines rather than only going on Seabourn. All offer good products, with many strong points and a few weaknesses. We don't like the inclusive excursions on Regent and Silversea otherwise we'd do those too.

All speculation because corporate Carnival isn't talking. Yes, I'm thinking something like a ship-wide Club Orange branding for the Seabourn ocean ships could fit in if they go in that direction. They can't really transfer Seabourn to Cunard because of the dual US/UK business structure Cunard has but there it would be a ship-wide service branded as Grills (for those more familar with Cunard than HAL). Pretty sure the two Seabourn expedition ships were a mistake from the beginning and Carnival Corporate just can't come to terms parting with them at a price someone will pay. I know this is a cruise forum not a business forum but Carnival Corporate is in a really bad place. Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and Disney are pumping money into new family ships to compete with the aging fleet of Carnival Fun Ships and land based trips to Disney World and Disneyland that have become very expensive for families. MSC has another four ships on order for Explora competing directly with Seabourn and backed by billionaire owners who seem to have a very long term outlook and are willing to operate the ships at half capacity and low fares for a long time. Ritz and Four Seasons are attempting to skim off the top tier customers willing to pay $2,000 or more per person per day. Silversea and Regent have launched new ships while keeping their old ships going (for now). Viking Ocean goes up to like 19 ships (competing with HAL and Princess). All with Carnival Corporate's approx. $25B debt tying their hands to modernize their aging fleet.

Just received a HAL email announcing their "Best Deal Ever" for Americans: - Included crew appreciation - Included elite drinks package (15 drinks per day valued at up to $15 each) - Included Wi-Fi - Included up to 3 specialty restaurant visits depending upon duration of cruise Sounds a lot like Seabourn at least on paper. Let's get this assimilation over with and everyone can make their choices and get on with life. 🙂