Comparing Viking Sun with Seabourn Sojourn

I have been asked by a few to compare experiences onboard Viking Oceans and Seabourn. We were fortunate to sail the first 4 months of this year on Viking Sun. After three weeks home we sailed Seabourn Sojourn in Alaska. Both itineraries are well documented in other posts and both have plenty of Wow! so I will not get into that here. I have had some problems posting long threads so will post this in smaller segments.

Some background. I have sailed Liners/Cruise ships my entire life and worked at sea running tankers and freighters for over 15 years. Many ships from many cruise lines. We find something to like in all of them, even a couple of cheap-o Carnival cruises. We sailed Seabourn in the days of the Little Sisters and loved it. This was our first foray into Seabourn's larger ships.

The physical ships. Viking Sun is the most beautiful and well thought out interior of any ship sailed so far. Seabourn Sojourn, while built in 2010 and is considered a modern ship, is rather puzzling imho. SS carries 450 passengers, approximately half as many as VS. SS felt crowded in some venues. And design elements are strange to me. For example, there is a central open pool deck with pool, hot tubs, plenty of seating, a grill restaurant, and a bar. This area is popular and heavily used. This is the area that gives SS its signature swayback profile. What is amazing to me in a modern ship is there is no retractable roof. If it rains, events are cancelled. If it is cold and you want a drink at the only bar open most days, bundle up. I won't go into the failing fake teak decking in this area as there are lots of posts on Seabourn covering this. VS on the other hand has a neatly stowed retractable roof. No cancelled events or discomfort on Viking.

Another oddity is that all passenger cabins are stacked forward of midships. All public spaces are stacked aft. If you have a cabin on deck 8,9, or 10 and want to go aft your choices are go aft on the outside decks or go down to deck 7 and walk aft then go up to the venue you want. Very inconvenient. There are a number of similar quirks but I will mention only one more. We stayed on deck 5. Walking aft on deck 5 you come to a single file, shiny black wall, humped "bridge" like thing. Only one way traffic is possible in this area. One morning I was walking aft followed by an officer and I asked what was the purpose of this humped bridge. She laughed and said "decoration". Silly decoration, glad we didn't have an emergency.

The gym. On VS the gym is at least 5 times the square footage with at least twice the machines as the narrow, cramped space on SS. Some machines are turned sideway so one can walk down the narrow path. More than 6 in this area is a big crowd. Viking is vastly superior here. And not to forget, a design element of the exterior of SS has a glass and steel "mesh" looking area just forward of the stacks. Serves no purpose but design element though it appears to be a retractable roof stowed. It's not. What does this have to do with the gym? One of the steel beams in this stylish stuff horizontally splits the windows in front of the treadmills exactly at eye level. So much for any views. The machines on SS are from the same maker as on VS but are cramped and limited.

The crew. On Viking Sun we had the best crew we have ever had on any ship. Hands down. On Seabourn Sojourn the crew we had contact with was friendly and very good. Our cabin stewardess on SS was not in the same category of good as our excellent attendants on Viking. The windows and public spaces on SS were worn and a bit old fashioned looking compared to the sparkling Viking Sun. On VS the windows were always spotless. If there was a spill on carpeting, by the evening you could not spot it. On SS windows needed cleaning, stains were noticed. The best way to put it is that VS seemed to have more crew than advertised, SS seemed to have less crew than advertised. Service in the Main Dining Room on SS was ok to abysmal. This has been well noted in posts on Seabourn board but service was poor. Food quality is good on both and I will not bore anyone with my personal likes and dislikes food wise. Aside from the MDR, The Collonade is the buffet, casual area, equivalent to World Cafe on VS. World Cafe is much larger, has much better flow patterns, better seating, better views, and a larger selection of choices. Enough said on that.

Seabourn calls itself "all inclusive". It is not. Booze, yes included. Port taxes/fees are not included on Seabourn, yes they are on Viking. Tipping included on Seabourn, not on regular Viking though Viking really needs to include it like on the World Cruise. I get the buy booze if you want it theory but Viking is very close to being more inclusive. Wi-fi on Seabourn very expensive and poor quality. As we know it is included and pretty good on Viking. Excursions. Viking always includes at least one and offers good selection. Seabourn offers none for free and selections offered are good but pricey. One example on our Alaska voyage is that they would anchor for the day (Tracy Arm comes to mind) in a beautiful location and put out the onboard Zodiacs. Prices for 1.5 hours on a Zodiac ranged from $159 p/p to $299 p/p. Quite a lot for a short rubber boat ride. We have owned Zodiacs. They are a bumpy ride and you can get wet. Just sayin'. No coffeemakers in the room. Available at Seabourn Square 24hours but usually a line and a wait. Always a line at the staff desks. Almost never a line at Guest Services on VS.

Cabins. We sailed in a DV on Viking Sun and a V1 on Seabourn Sojourn. Directly equivalent cabins size wise and in each lines hierarchy. SS had a balcony about 18" deeper than the balcony on VS but the door swung out using a good bit of that extra space when compared to the slider on VS. The attendant on VS cleaned all our glass spotlessly each day. On SS the glass always seemed spotted or streaked. The cabin on SS had more storage but scattered in strange locations. Still, more storage is a good thing. Both beds were very comfy but the real King Size on Viking wins. The 42" flat screen interactive tv with lots of movies on VS most assuredly trumps the postage stamp tv in a cabinet on SS. It is supposed to be interactive but you better sit about 2 ft away so you might read it. The baths. SS has a tiny shower with a dim light. Do not drop your soap! VS has a nice sized light glass surrounded shower with a foot shelf. SS includes a tub we never used. On SS, half of the bath storage is locked. Has replacement items stowed there for the attendant. VS has shelves both sides of the sink counter, drawers each side and a cabinet under the sink. SS has two small sinks, VS has one large center sink. When do you both use the bath at the same time?? And finally, did we remember the great heated floors in the Viking bath? We missed them on SS. Oh yes, room service. On SS always on time and they set a real table with linens, flowers, condiments, etc. Very nice. Room service menu is nice and also during their hours of operation you can order from the MDR menu or the TK Grill menu. We used room service several times since the MDR service was so bad. On Viking room service was also always on time and nicely done. We sat at a low coffee table, not a full table on VS. This could easily be solved by putting a Hi-Lo table for the coffee table. Viking also has a good room service menu and allows ordering from the MDR or Manfredi's during their operating hours.

In short, Viking is a much more modern, spacious, enjoyable ship with a fine crew. Seabourn seemed much cheapened from our Little Sisters days (all the way back in 2010). Carnival Corp at work?? But the bottom line for us is we agreed we could NEVER spend 120 days on Sojourn but are already booking another 127 on Viking Sun next year. :cool:

Jim,

I have been looking forward to reading your comparison, as I enjoyed following your World Cruise adventure. We are novice ocean cruisers, never thinking we would enjoy an ocean cruise. After a Viking river cruise, we decided to give Viking Ocean a try, and were delighted with the experience. We have two more cruises booked with Viking.

I had started to consider whether to try other lines on future trips, looking for some other ports of call. I won't rule that out at some point, but for now, I think I will keep searching through Viking's offerings! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience.

Thanks, Ji.

Did not know about ordering room service from MDR and Manfredi's do you think that was just a World Cruise addition or havey ou done so on other cruises. Admittedly we only ordered the occasional breakfast and a terrible pizza once!

Thanks, Ji.

Did not know about ordering room service from MDR and Manfredi's do you think that was just a World Cruise addition or havey ou done so on other cruises. Admittedly we only ordered the occasional breakfast and a terrible pizza once!

Not sure Dee. We have only sailed Viking one time. They surely treated us well didn’t they? Probably a downer to sail shorter voyages.😳🍸😎

Also, we only learned about Manfredi’s private dining room in the last month. Probably lots we still don’t know. Have to get back soon.😎

We were disappointed that Viking has started charging $10 for gym classes.

Hopefully not a trend to follow the other cruise lines that slowely started charging for more and more.

We were disappointed that Viking has started charging $10 for gym classes.

 

Hopefully not a trend to follow the other cruise lines that slowely started charging for more and more.

I agree. Nickel and diming has taken many fine lines down to Carnival level. We enjoy the different experience on Viking. I would like to see Viking include gratuities in the passage fee. Tacking on "tips" every day is just tacky. And on the WC we tipped each of our three cabin attendants and several of our favorite bar staff on top of whatever Viking does for them. Always have, always will. Come on Viking include the gratuities....;p

Jim - thanks for the detailed summaries. Sure glad we opted for a VO World Cruise rather than Seabourn.

Thanks for the comparison!! Loved our Viking ocean cruise (only 3 weeks) but it was far and above any of the other 50 cruises we've been on....so much so that we canceled our RCI cruise to Australia for this year to save money for our Auckland to Bali cruise next year. We were used to main stream cruise lines so to us, everything on Viking was so wonderful!! Glad to hear that it is even when compared to Seabourn.

Thank you for the posts. I was on Seabourn for the first time in June, from Vancouver to Seward. I have sailed SS, Crystal, Regent, Windstar and PG. Is that the specific cruise you were part of?

I will be on Viking for the first time in January.

I have many thoughts to respond about Seabourn, but as a CPA in public accounting, September 15 is my busiest deadline of the year, so I need a little more time.

We were on Seward to Vancouver July 21-Aug 6.

Thank you for the posts. I was on Seabourn for the first time in June, from Vancouver to Seward. I have sailed SS, Crystal, Regent, Windstar and PG. Is that the specific cruise you were part of?

 

I will be on Viking for the first time in January.

 

I have many thoughts to respond about Seabourn, but as a CPA in public accounting, September 15 is my busiest deadline of the year, so I need a little more time.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions. I was asked to compare and contrast the Viking Oceans and Seabourn similarities and differences. Normally I would add specific trip experiences, and they both are great. Alaska is simply a one of a kind destination. This was our second Alaska cruise and I ran freighters from Seattle to all points North up to St Paul in the Bering Sea for 2.5 years in the late '80s. I never get tired of the scenery up there. Sometimes get tired of the weather (especially in Winter) but even that is different and sometimes awesome. :cool:

Thanks Jim Avery! We’ve not cruised with SS so I can’t compare, however we too have sailed on many different cruise lines, mainly mainstream. Having done 9 Viking river cruises, 2 oceans with the 3rd in 4 weeks, and have one river and one ocean cruise with Viking booked next year, we’re hooked.

I found your comparisons very interesting so for now we’ll stay with Viking. But never say never.

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I note VO advertizes “no smoking”, is that true? Or do they just limit it to certain areas? How about the crew, do they have designated areas for them to smoke, and does the wind swirl it into guest areas?

We had an issue on SB Odyssey where we could never use our balcony because of the smoke apparently coming from the only two cabins forward from ours. It was there from early morning until we went to bed at night. Could never leave the balcony door open. It was so constant that we began to suspect that there may have been a crew break area forward of our cabin.

Smoking is only permitted in a designated area on the Stbd side of Deck # 8

Jim,

I'm baffled by your comment that a DV on VO is the same as a V1 on Seabourn Sojourn. We just finished our first VO cruise in July, Into the Midnight Sun. Loved it. However the DV4 is only 270SF including balcony. We found it to be a tight fit, especially when both of us were transiting the foot of the bed. We spent 42 nights on the Seabourn Quest in a V2 (same as V1) which is 365SF, 300 inside. The comfort of this cabin greatly exceeded the comfort of the DV4. If we sail VO again we would opt for a Penthouse thus increasing the fare which affects the apples to apples comparison. I loved the feel of VO design, furnishings and art. The Quest was sadly minimalist. However, we loved our Seabourn cruise. We are sailing the Seabourn Encore on Sept 29th for two weeks. I will return to this forum with more info. Have appreciated all your info on the world cruise! Will that thread ever end?

Jim,

I'm baffled by your comment that a DV on VO is the same as a V1 on Seabourn Sojourn. We just finished our first VO cruise in July, Into the Midnight Sun. Loved it. However the DV4 is only 270SF including balcony. We found it to be a tight fit, especially when both of us were transiting the foot of the bed. We spent 42 nights on the Seabourn Quest in a V2 (same as V1) which is 365SF, 300 inside. The comfort of this cabin greatly exceeded the comfort of the DV4. If we sail VO again we would opt for a Penthouse thus increasing the fare which affects the apples to apples comparison. I loved the feel of VO design, furnishings and art. The Quest was sadly minimalist. However, we loved our Seabourn cruise. We are sailing the Seabourn Encore on Sept 29th for two weeks. I will return to this forum with more info. Have appreciated all your info on the world cruise! Will that thread ever end?

Our cabin on Sojourn was 516. I possibly have it categorized wrong as it did not feel any larger than our DV4 (4046) on Viking Sun. The veranda was notably deeper but not wider and as noted the swing out door negated some of the extra depth. Also on 5 deck the balcony rail is mostly steel compared to all glass on Viking. This limited the view somewhat. Cabins on Sojourn 6 deck and above had all glass. Glad there are choices because we absolutely feel we could not stay 120+ days on Sojourn but were just fine in 4046 on Viking Sun. Ragnar. Yes the crew have their own open deck on 9 deck around the funnel. No, never smelled smoke from them at all. Not sure if crew can smoke in their areas but we never smelled smoke in any area of the ship.

Smoking is only permitted in a designated area on the Stbd side of Deck # 8

Thanks. Is this area near any cabins or other guest areas?

Since VO does allow smoking, why do they say “no smoking” very explicitly in their “what VO is not” area (a question to the forum, not Heidi13 only). Does this also imply that “no children under 18” in the “nots” area means that some cabins and guest areas may allow screaming toddlers??? (Though this would likely be quieter than having Jim aboard during football season....)