We are just home from the 21 days Scandinavian Summer on the Ovation

2seabournsailors---So, the perfect opportunity for you to try out these two ships! On our recent cruise, a crew member told me that there were 550 (some odd) passengers on the first leg and 580 (some odd) on the last seven days. The suites may have been full, but with single passengers in some.

 

Would you share of of the "deals" on Encore and Ovation you have received? I am just curious.

we did try Encore, in the first few months.....it was not for us....

2seabournsailors---So, the perfect opportunity for you to try out these two ships! On our recent cruise, a crew member told me that there were 550 (some odd) passengers on the first leg and 580 (some odd) on the last seven days. The suites may have been full, but with single passengers in some.

 

Would you share of of the "deals" on Encore and Ovation you have received? I am just curious.

I've had an email from both SB and from my TA about some deals in a sale until the 16th of July.

These offers are currently on the SB website. I'm in the UK so may see something different to you, but the offers I see are nearly all Encore/Ovation and are mostly the longer itineraries.

We were given some promotional information for cruises while onboard. I did not keep it as the itineraries were not what we wanted. I did notice that there were some incredible deals!

It is such good news that Seabourn has ships to suit various people. And I totally understand about sticking with the ships that you love! After reading about deck issues on one of the smaller, older ships, I was so happy to be on a brand new ship. When though the Baltic was too chilly many days to get into a swimsuit, we spend a good amount of time around the pool and construction going on would have been a huge downer.

As I said above, I was initially horrified at the prospect of close to 600 passengers, but my fears did not come to pass. We truly felt that the ship was roomy and spacious. Of course, according to crew members, we were not at 600 passengers, but rather at 550-580, depending on the leg.

I don't have a view on the O class versus the new bigger ships. We book our cruises based on the itinerary, not the ship.

Hey Susan, so glad you and Tobias enjoyed your cruise. It was great to meet y'all and like you, I was sad not to ever see/meet the other CC posters. Oh well, next cruise....Anyway, glad you got home safely. We got home 7 days before you did (for others reading this, my husband and I did two 14-day cruises, back to back. First was Lisbon to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Copenhagen; SLSD was on the Amsterdam to CPH with us), and so we are acclimated, have all our clothes clean, patio planted and we are somewhat detoxed from all the champagne!

It was very interesting to read your impressions of the 7-day portion of your back to back. Actually it agrees with my thoughts after we had done a Mediterranean cruise (on Regent) in July about 10 years ago. One, it was way too hot and so I will never do a Med cruise in the summer again, and two, the other passengers were different than what we had been accustomed to on Regent (and Crystal, too, for that matter). I determined that because it was summer (and a trendy destination) there were a lot of working youngish people who wanted to get the bang for the buck fun (drinking and shopping, etc) and didn't really care about how their good time impacted our time. Anyway, you confirmed that short cruises in the summer even in the Baltic are probably not a good way to go. In fact, your comments made me reconsider one of the cruises we were just thinking about booking. We loved the Ovation (and Seabourn - this was just our second experience with SB, but we definitely want them in our rotation) and bought a Future Cruise certificate. We figured we would look at our leisure after getting home and see how another SB cruise would fit into our schedule. We "have an opening" in September 2019 and we liked an 14 day Ovation cruise (Dublin RT) and a 17 day Encore cruise that starts in Monte Carlo and ends in Rome. It it actually a 10 day and a 7 day combined to call it (and sell it as) a 17 day. Attractive, but then when I thought about that 7 day portion (and plus September can still be really hot although not technically summer), the Dublin RT won the nod. So, thanks for helping me to avoid a mistake!

One interesting note in the category of how portions of BtoB cruises can differ, we did not notice a big difference in civility and nice interactions in the two 14 day segments. Yes, the average age of the passengers in the first segment was quite a bit higher than the second segment (think we were getting more "still working" folks on summer vacation since the second segment was in June vs the first segment in May, but that is only a guess). And so there was more evening activity in the second leg, but the tenor of the cruise and the passenger interactions were similar. Just lots of pleasant folks (of course, the occasional boor, but that is life).

NJBelle, So happy I could help you choose your next cruise! Next time, we will have to have a plan to meet the others from CC. Mr. Toblerone stayed in the same hotel in Amsterdam that we stayed in, but we still didn't meet. He even said that he was listening for our Texas accents at breakfast. Little did he know that we were scoping everyone out at hotel breakfasts to figure out if any of them were from New Zealand.

NJBelle, We are still looking at future itineraries--but are considering the 14 day Dublin to Lisbon in September 2019. I don't know if this is the same voyage that you are mentioning above. It would also be on the Ovation.

I'm enjoying watching various live webcams of Tromso, Loen and Gerainger. A lot of ships today, including the Ovation at Loen. I've also just watched this very afternoon a Norwegian movie called The Wave (2016) - it's a disaster movie about a tsunami that barrels down Geraingerfjord after a rockslide. Gripping and too all feasible. You get the movie on Amazon Prime.

This is all part of my research prior to our own Ovation trip up and down the coast of Norway.

I love the kind of research you do Fletcher. Would you give us the link to some of the live welcomes you enjoy?

And is your Ovation Norwegian tour this summer? That is another itinerary we are considering, so I will be very interested in your comments.

SLSD - Here's a link to one of three Gerainger webcams -

You can find the rest easily enough on Youtube. There are three at Tromso. I have been unable to find one at Flam or Svolvaer or even Bergen.

And here is an amazing panorama from Loen.

I'm on the Ovation, Copenhagen-Dover, from 1 September.

Hey SLSD, the cruise you are talking about (Dublin - Lisbon on the Ovation in Sept 2019) is the one right after ours. Ours is a circumnavigation with some new ports for us (and some ports we have been to before - and we might make a couple of those sea days so we can get a few more of those!). But if I were you and had not been along the coast of Norway yet, then that cruise would win the nod for me. We have done it twice on Regent (once got up to Svalbard and on the other, went to Murmansk, Russia - both fascinating in their own ways), once on Crystal. In a couple of years, we will be ready again - Norway is just so beautiful. And it is a way to do a summer cruise without being so hot!

Thank NJ Belle. I'll take another look at the itinerary you have chosen and the Norway itinerary.

SLSD - Here's a link to one of three Gerainger webcams -

 

 

You can find the rest easily enough on Youtube. There are three at Tromso. I have been unable to find one at Flam or Svolvaer or even Bergen.

 

And here is an amazing panorama from Loen.

 

I'm on the Ovation, Copenhagen-Dover, from 1 September.

Fletcher,

Glad to hear you are on the Ovation 1 September. I recently created a roll call for this cruise.

Stop by and say... Hi !

I find some of these posts a bit distressing to read, as we are set to sail with Ovation for the 7 day Baltic leg very soon. It will be our first cruise, but we are very experienced travelers who usually travel on our own or with friends. We're doing this as we wanted to visit St Petersburg (I'm a volunteer at the National Gallery in DC). I hate to think of there being a schism on the ship between the "14 day people" and the "7 day people." My guess is that there are plenty of us who you would like who are just trying cruising for the first time to see if they enjoy it, and would care to become "14 day people" in the future.

artfanatic8, My only point in the discussion was to say that there was a very different vibe in the final 7 days of our voyage--mainly because of several groups on the ship. These were groups of up to 10 people. It was probably just these particular people who thought it was OK to be rude to our Russian guides, make snide comments about the meals we were served near St. Petersburg, try to change to purpose of a ship tour, etc. I'm sure this was an aberration. Enjoy your cruise! The ship is wonderful and so is St. Petersburg! I'm sure you will be just the kind of passenger everyone wants to get to know. Don't worry about it!

I just asked my husband for his analysis of what we experienced. He said, "These people were very self absorbed and ridiculously demanding". They wanted to leave a group lunch on an excursion before our guide was ready and when all the others on the tour were still enjoying dessert and having fun together. They wanted to change an itinerary for a tour so that they could shop. They made snide remarks to our Russian guide. In other words, they were insufferable!! You won't be like that--and everyone will be happy to be sailing with you!

Hey Susan, so glad you and Tobias enjoyed your cruise. It was great to meet y'all and like you, I was sad not to ever see/meet the other CC posters. Oh well, next cruise....Anyway, glad you got home safely. We got home 7 days before you did (for others reading this, my husband and I did two 14-day cruises, back to back. First was Lisbon to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Copenhagen; SLSD was on the Amsterdam to CPH with us), and so we are acclimated, have all our clothes clean, patio planted and we are somewhat detoxed from all the champagne!

 

Greetings!! We are just looking at this 14 nts. cruise for May 2019 in Ovation. Could I trouble you for some comments on the itinerary? We would have two overnights; in Bordeaux and in Greenwich (London). Did you take the train to London on your own, or went on tour? Did you actually dock at Brugges, or had to take a bus shuttle or tour? Whatever insight you can share will be appreciated. Thanks!