Encore Athens to Athens Oct 16-30 live-ish

[FlyingScotSailors]

40 minutes ago, RetiredandTravel said:

I grew up in NY and was going to go with Utica Club or Genesee Beer but figured it would get lost on the general public.

Do they still call it Genny? 🤣

[RetiredandTravel]

3 minutes ago, FlyingScotSailors said:

Do they still call it Genny? 🤣

 

Genny Cream Ale?  More bang for the buck.

 

Recently we were out to dinner (not NY) and Genesee was listed as a craft beer, I got a kick out of that.  My wife is from the Albany area, I used to go out with her father for 10c Genny drafts.

 

Sorry for hijacking your nice thread I'll stop.

 

 

 

 

 

[calm down dear]

Day 11 cont’d : well I’m sorry to report that tonight’s service was wholly unacceptable I complained directly to the maitre’ d, who seemed suitably mortified. I have to say I’ve never been so badly treated as tonight in the colonnade for the Keller night. I invited a couple to dine with us and to be deliberately embarrassed in front of them multiple times to boot adds to my boiling anger even as I write now.

We had booked for 4 and maitre’d said he’d give us a bigger table for 6 but the server got confused and wouldn’t remove the spare settings or seats until 3 attempts. Then the starter arrived before drinks, water or menu, worse it was clearly a serves2 portion, I’ll return to that.

Again asked for wine sommelier- took ages, eventually she arrived (same person as prior night) and asked to retrieve the half bottle of white plus a bootle of red.

She returned with the white but only 2 glasses and started pouring. I said what are you doing - there are 4 of us ? She said but this is for you, I said go get 2 more glasses but she bought 2 mismatched ones and so badly mismanaged the pour so one of my guests had a dribble and we had to rebalance ourselves.

We then had to fight off servers trying to clear our plates whilst explaining we were waiting for a new portion of the salad. In all the confusion we also had another server put the flat carafe water into our san pelligrino. But it got worse.

I called for our red wine for our main course. It was clearly tainted and I quietly rejected it. The sommelier said it didn’t seem right but “she wasn’t qualified”, bear in mind I was trying to entertain my guests, I said I don’t care, it’s not nice bring me my other bottle of chianti. Next comes another sommelier who interrupts me and says could he try my wine, I say whatever. He says wine is fine and just closed and I just need to accept wine can taste different, all this theatrically to table. Now I get up, I turn to him and say take this away and bring me my chianti, he says this wine will be nicer tomorrow!

I’m now done. I go straight to maitre’d and say this is wholly unacceptable, if a guest rejects a wine (and we are talking usd 60 not usd600) that’s that (unless he has a history of multiple rejections) and you don’t argue multiple times in front of that guests guests. He agreed and said he was so sorry, but even then sommelier 1 continued through the meal to tell my guests that wine is like clothes and just because we don’t like them doesn’t mean they are bad and that the rejected wine will be served to me tomorrow. I’ve never known service so bad. Now I’ve no idea what is going to happen but I’ll be damned if I’m paying let alone drinking it.

On the plus side, food was good and chef visited but service not just wine was frankly amateurish and embarrassing.

[Catlover54]

12 minutes ago, calm down dear said:

Day 11 cont’d : well I’m sorry to report that tonight’s service was wholly unacceptable I complained directly to the maitre’ d, who seemed suitably mortified. I have to say I’ve never been so badly treated as tonight in the colonnade for the Keller night. I invited a couple to dine with us and to be deliberately embarrassed in front of them multiple times to boot adds to my boiling anger even as I write now.

We had booked for 4 and maitre’d said he’d give us a bigger table for 6 but the server got confused and wouldn’t remove the spare settings or seats until 3 attempts. Then the starter arrived before drinks, water or menu, worse it was clearly a serves2 portion, I’ll return to that.

Again asked for wine sommelier- took ages, eventually she arrived (same person as prior night) and asked to retrieve the half bottle of white plus a bootle of red.

She returned with the white but only 2 glasses and started pouring. I said what are you doing - there are 4 of us ? She said but this is for you, I said go get 2 more glasses but she bought 2 mismatched ones and so badly mismanaged the pour so one of my guests had a dribble and we had to rebalance ourselves.

We then had to fight off servers trying to clear our plates whilst explaining we were waiting for a new portion of the salad. In all the confusion we also had another server put the flat carafe water into our san pelligrino. But it got worse.

I called for our red wine for our main course. It was clearly tainted and I quietly rejected it. The sommelier said it didn’t seem right but “she wasn’t qualified”, bear in mind I was trying to entertain my guests, I said I don’t care, it’s not nice bring me my other bottle of chianti. Next comes another sommelier who interrupts me and says could he try my wine, I say whatever. He says wine is fine and just closed and I just need to accept wine can taste different, all this theatrically to table. Now I get up, I turn to him and say take this away and bring me my chianti, he says this wine will be nicer tomorrow!

I’m now done. I go straight to maitre’d and say this is wholly unacceptable, if a guest rejects a wine (and we are talking usd 60 not usd600) that’s that (unless he has a history of multiple rejections) and you don’t argue multiple times in front of that guests guests. He agreed and said he was so sorry, but even then sommelier 1 continued through the meal to tell my guests that wine is like clothes and just because we don’t like them doesn’t mean they are bad and that the rejected wine will be served to me tomorrow. I’ve never known service so bad. Now I’ve no idea what is going to happen but I’ll be damned if I’m paying let alone drinking it.

On the plus side, food was good and chef visited but service not just wine was frankly amateurish and embarrassing.

 

I am sorry about your bad experience, (though saddened, and not too  surprised) but appreciate your reporting it in detail to us here, so at least some of us have perspective.

It is also good you took it up a level.

[Mr Luxury]

Have a word with the Hotel Director and take him through the fiasco.

I never have dinner in the Colonnade on any Seabourn ship because that's where they put all of the staff that are training before they let them loose in the MDR.

[Flamin_June]

Outrageous.

This is a sort of mass-market trained approach where the sommelier bluffs that he/she knows better than you, because, after all you are just a mass-market customer form the boondocks and they are a Sommelier, with a capital S. It's the sort of thing that really gets my ire. I would ask to speak to the Captain. You can't have the hotel staff attempt to belittle and embarass a paying guest and act as if they know better.

[RetiredandTravel]

There are times that complaining to peoples superiors can have the opposite of the desired effect.  

 

😬

[Dunnedg]

I just finished this cruise in Istanbul. As the Queen once said, “recollections may vary”. We had a fantastic cruise, no issues with water, wine, food, situation in the restaurant or service. 
I can categorically confirm that at no time did I receive or indeed see tonic water or any other mixer come from a tap. I will say the choice of tonic is average (mainly Royal Club) requested Schweppes and asked them not to put too much in the glass.

[cruisingaussies]

19 minutes ago, Dunnedg said:

I just finished this cruise in Istanbul. As the Queen once said, “recollections may vary”. We had a fantastic cruise, no issues with water, wine, food, situation in the restaurant or service. 
I can categorically confirm that at no time did I receive or indeed see tonic water or any other mixer come from a tap. I will say the choice of tonic is average (mainly Royal Club) requested Schweppes and asked them not to put too much in the glass.

I’m enjoying reading this, thanks Calm Down for your many helpful posts, we’re doing the Istanbul to Athens itinerary on Encore next year. 

Dunnedg, it’s good to know that Schweppes is freely available, for me,  no other tonic will do. 

Please can you advise which terminal in Istanbul is used for embarking and disembarking in Istanbul?

[Dunnedg]

11 minutes ago, cruisingaussies said:

Please can you advise which terminal in Istanbul is used for embarking and disembarking in Istanbul?

We disembarked in TDI Sarayburnu. It is a small port very close to the main ferry port and the Galata Bridge. It is effectively in the area known as the Sultanahmet and perfect for visiting Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Cisterns, Grand Bazar etc

[cruisingaussies]

21 minutes ago, Dunnedg said:

We disembarked in TDI Sarayburnu. It is a small port very close to the main ferry port and the Galata Bridge. It is effectively in the area known as the Sultanahmet and perfect for visiting Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Cisterns, Grand Bazar etc

Thanks for this info and I hope that Seabourn still use this port next year.  This year we had an overnight stop at the new Istanbul cruise terminal, which is enormous, it's about 15 minutes' walking to get out to the street.  Whilst you can get a tram or taxi to the Sultanahmet area, it's so much better to be docked close to the centre.

[Mr Luxury]

11 hours ago, Flamin_June said:

Outrageous.

This is a sort of mass-market trained approach where the sommelier bluffs that he/she knows better than you, because, after all you are just a mass-market customer form the boondocks and they are a Sommelier, with a capital S. It's the sort of thing that really gets my ire. I would ask to speak to the Captain. You can't have the hotel staff attempt to belittle and embarass a paying guest and act as if they know better.

The Captain will not get involved with Hotel issues.

The Hotel Director is the correct route in these matters.

[calm down dear]

I did have a quiet word today with the main sommelier who reported that the matter has been discussed and “training needs identified” and the person had joined recently from Quest for said training. I said I was dining tomorrow and in the restaurant and I’d like my poor bottle of x replaced with a white burgundy style of his choosing and he agreed. We will see what happens.

[Mr Luxury]

49 minutes ago, calm down dear said:

I did have a quiet word today with the main sommelier who reported that the matter has been discussed and “training needs identified” and the person had joined recently from Quest for said training. I said I was dining tomorrow and in the restaurant and I’d like my poor bottle of x replaced with a white burgundy style of his choosing and he agreed. We will see what happens.

You'll get a Rose then. 😁

[calm down dear]

Day 12 Santorini. Well another warning about port congestion given, there were 7 ships including 2 mega-giants - yet tomorrow only 1 ship, why Seabourn chose to be with the others I don’t know as it really affects the ambiance of the town. This port also doesn’t allow ships tenders only local boats. We had to wait 30mins between tenders as all tours went first but we just met the first lot of odyssey of the seas - some very nice people in the short cable car queue explained how they had “speedy disembarking” otherwise it’s nearly 4 hours so I can’t moan !

The throng around Fira was crowded but we set out on a long 3.5 he walk on top of the caldera to Oia and we were soon on our own, indeed most hotels had now closed, but Oia was also a zoo of cruise ship passengers. We queued for 20mins for a regular bus back and then walked very pleasantly back via some side alleys and the donkey route back to ship. Others who used cable car had 1hr waits (as oddly you cannot buy a return ticket). Aside from the very touristy areas which were busy, the rest of the island was a delight, no crowds and warm but not hot sun.

Our tender back was bumpy and also Seabourn was parked the furthest away really far 20+mins in tender, why we couldn’t be alongside the others was a bit odd.

Tonight we gave chefs dinner a swerve but friends talked very well of it. We went sushi and it was packed out, and whilst we were perhaps “second” sitting at 815pm, many were turned away. I don’t get why at 845pm they need to rush you for “last orders” and start mopping. This also happens in restaurant where the other night at 9pm they were ironing the cloths next to us. Again really detracts from experience. However whilst the sushi bar isn’t Nobu and only serves cold food at dinner, it is pretty good.

We visited shop to use up obc but there was so much out of stock / unavailable, the staff explained they only provision every month and that’s on Sunday and said they were sorry. Question -  can you give left over obc to crew fund ?

 

[sfvoyage]

1 hour ago, calm down dear said:

We visited shop to use up obc but there was so much out of stock / unavailable, the staff explained they only provision every month and that’s on Sunday and said they were sorry. Question -  can you give left over obc to crew fund ?

 

 

Unfortunately OBC cannot be used for crew fund donation.

 

So the ship boutiques are still having inventory issues due to global supply chain issues?  (On the Ovation, for instance, there were no new items or replenished inventory starting from Oct 2021 until at least Apr 2022, when I was last on that ship.)

[skybluewaters]

29 minutes ago, sfvoyage said:

Unfortunately OBC cannot be used for crew fund donation.

 

On our recent Odyssey cruise, OBC could be used for the crew fund.

However, for gratuities to individual crew members, you could not use OBC, you had to personally hand them cash.

[sfvoyage]

25 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

 

On our recent Odyssey cruise, OBC could be used for the crew fund.

 

I had this discussion recently; can't remember if it was with you.

 

In any case, only redeemable OBC can be used towards the crew fund, since that is essentially cash (you can cash it out any time during our cruise).  Do you recall if you had used redeemable OBC for the crew fund?

[Catlover54]

2 hours ago, calm down dear said:

Day 12 Santorini. Well another warning about port congestion given, there were 7 ships including 2 mega-giants - yet tomorrow only 1 ship, why Seabourn chose to be with the others I don’t know as it really affects the ambiance of the town. This port also doesn’t allow ships tenders only local boats. We had to wait 30mins between tenders as all tours went first but we just met the first lot of odyssey of the seas - some very nice people in the short cable car queue explained how they had “speedy disembarking” otherwise it’s nearly 4 hours so I can’t moan !

The throng around Fira was crowded but we set out on a long 3.5 he walk on top of the caldera to Oia and we were soon on our own, indeed most hotels had now closed, but Oia was also a zoo of cruise ship passengers. We queued for 20mins for a regular bus back and then walked very pleasantly back via some side alleys and the donkey route back to ship. Others who used cable car had 1hr waits (as oddly you cannot buy a return ticket). Aside from the very touristy areas which were busy, the rest of the island was a delight, no crowds and warm but not hot sun.

Our tender back was bumpy and also Seabourn was parked the furthest away really far 20+mins in tender, why we couldn’t be alongside the others was a bit odd.

Tonight we gave chefs dinner a swerve but friends talked very well of it. We went sushi and it was packed out, and whilst we were perhaps “second” sitting at 815pm, many were turned away. I don’t get why at 845pm they need to rush you for “last orders” and start mopping. This also happens in restaurant where the other night at 9pm they were ironing the cloths next to us. Again really detracts from experience. However whilst the sushi bar isn’t Nobu and only serves cold food at dinner, it is pretty good.

We visited shop to use up obc but there was so much out of stock / unavailable, the staff explained they only provision every month and that’s on Sunday and said they were sorry. Question -  can you give left over obc to crew fund ?

 

 

If you cannot use OBC for crew fund (depending on the type you have, see posts just above), then maybe you could use it to buy a couple bottles of really nice (though seriously marked up) wine on board, and then take them home.

[skybluewaters]

15 minutes ago, sfvoyage said:

 

I had this discussion recently; can't remember if it was with you.

 

In any case, only redeemable OBC can be used towards the crew fund, since that is essentially cash (you can cash it out any time during our cruise).  Do you recall if you had used redeemable OBC for the crew fund?

 

I donated money to the crew fund two days prior to the end of the cruise without indicating to the representative at Seabourn Square that I wanted to use non-redeemable money.  The next day when I noticed that it was taken out of my reedemable OBC, I asked the rep if it could be changed so that it would come from non-redeemable money.  Initially she said that it couldn't, but subsequently allowed me to do so.  I don't know if they made an exception for me (rather doubt it) or if this is the general policy. 

[sfvoyage]

39 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

 

I donated money to the crew fund two days prior to the end of the cruise without indicating to the representative at Seabourn Square that I wanted to use non-redeemable money.  The next day when I noticed that it was taken out of my reedemable OBC, I asked the rep if it could be changed so that it would come from non-redeemable money.  Initially she said that it couldn't, but subsequently allowed me to do so.  I don't know if they made an exception for me (rather doubt it) or if this is the general policy. 

 

It was definitely an exception, or she wasn't well trained enough to agree to make the exception.

 

Seabourn definitely does not want to allow guests to use their non-redeemable OBCs (most if not all of which is funded by Seabourn) towards the crew donation fund; they want us to use them towards shore excursions, wine, spa, boutique, etc. with a hefty profit margin.

[calm down dear]

Thanks for all the replies. Overpriced face cream it is (can’t take a wine home !). 

[sanne]

On 10/28/2022 at 6:06 AM, calm down dear said:

Day 11 cont’d : well I’m sorry to report that tonight’s service was wholly unacceptable I complained directly to the maitre’ d, who seemed suitably mortified. I have to say I’ve never been so badly treated as tonight in the colonnade for the Keller night. I invited a couple to dine with us and to be deliberately embarrassed in front of them multiple times to boot adds to my boiling anger even as I write now.

We had booked for 4 and maitre’d said he’d give us a bigger table for 6 but the server got confused and wouldn’t remove the spare settings or seats until 3 attempts. Then the starter arrived before drinks, water or menu, worse it was clearly a serves2 portion, I’ll return to that.

Again asked for wine sommelier- took ages, eventually she arrived (same person as prior night) and asked to retrieve the half bottle of white plus a bootle of red.

She returned with the white but only 2 glasses and started pouring. I said what are you doing - there are 4 of us ? She said but this is for you, I said go get 2 more glasses but she bought 2 mismatched ones and so badly mismanaged the pour so one of my guests had a dribble and we had to rebalance ourselves.

We then had to fight off servers trying to clear our plates whilst explaining we were waiting for a new portion of the salad. In all the confusion we also had another server put the flat carafe water into our san pelligrino. But it got worse.

I called for our red wine for our main course. It was clearly tainted and I quietly rejected it. The sommelier said it didn’t seem right but “she wasn’t qualified”, bear in mind I was trying to entertain my guests, I said I don’t care, it’s not nice bring me my other bottle of chianti. Next comes another sommelier who interrupts me and says could he try my wine, I say whatever. He says wine is fine and just closed and I just need to accept wine can taste different, all this theatrically to table. Now I get up, I turn to him and say take this away and bring me my chianti, he says this wine will be nicer tomorrow!

I’m now done. I go straight to maitre’d and say this is wholly unacceptable, if a guest rejects a wine (and we are talking usd 60 not usd600) that’s that (unless he has a history of multiple rejections) and you don’t argue multiple times in front of that guests guests. He agreed and said he was so sorry, but even then sommelier 1 continued through the meal to tell my guests that wine is like clothes and just because we don’t like them doesn’t mean they are bad and that the rejected wine will be served to me tomorrow. I’ve never known service so bad. Now I’ve no idea what is going to happen but I’ll be damned if I’m paying let alone drinking it.

On the plus side, food was good and chef visited but service not just wine was frankly amateurish and embarrassing.

This reminds me of my first Seabourn cruise in 2011 having been a Regent regular for many years. The wine glasses for our red wine were rather small…we had seen other tables with much larger ones. We asked if we could have the larger glasses and were told ‘ those are for the purchased wine, your glasses are quite adequate for the complimentary wine’. 

[calm down dear]

Day 13 : Spetses - a very rough overnight, our balcony flooded in morning on deck 6 (no rain) but sun was out for our 830 arrival and we anchored offshore. 10 min v bouncy tender (which was suspended outbound 10-3!) but the island was a delight, easy hikes and walks, churches and local cafes etc. Back on board at 130pm and we had to queue for collonade, no tables at all, staff harassed and buffet was “Australian” but sadly it was very poor and nearly everything eaten - at 150pm I had for my dessert the last cookie and last piece of cheese ! I’m now very unsure on staffing given this cruise only has 350 on board.

Tonight to Keller, well service was very slow, 20mins to get my wine and for those interested my replacement wine for the previous horror was an ok white but not $ over what the horrid red I’d previously paid (50 usd). It was also theatrically served as if they were doing me a great favour and if they had given us a premier cru burgundy and said it was “on the house” - which it wasn’t. I also asked for wine and water to be left on table which was a battle as people kept trying to take them away. Usual vigilance needed on water to stop refills of wrong water and again I took bottle off them. 
Food was very good, as I said before you’d be happy to pay for it on land. We had Dover sole and a steak, starter of Caesar salad which is prepared table side but with far too much chat - “I’m now going to put the olive oil in - look how it emulsifies” - we were talking about something else but she was very insistent !

 

I’ll do a more considered review on this cruise in due course but my perception - like a lot of land based hospitality is that “things are not the same” and not in a good way. We recalled how in colonnade previously staff would fall over themselves to carry your plate, top up drinks etc. We didn’t have (aside from wine incident) very bad service but often slow service and unless you really specified stuff was just done quite poorly eg no canapés or nuts - you need to say that’s what you wanted with your drinks, if you wanted your g+t with mixer on side say so and say double measure and specify you don’t want the awful royal club etc

If you wanted more drinks or anything etc you had to flag someone down, it really wasn’t as proactive as before. To us breakfast and lunch were serious weak points, dinners were good. Sushi restaurant a boon. We never tried patio as too cold at night.

[SLSD]

16 minutes ago, calm down dear said:

Day 13 : Spetses - . Back on board at 130pm and we had to queue for collonade, no tables at all, staff harassed and buffet was “Australian” but sadly it was very poor and nearly everything eaten - at 150pm I had for my dessert the last cookie and last piece of cheese ! I’m now very unsure on staffing given this cruise only has 350 on board.

 

 

Clearly not acceptable.  This looks like a failure on the part of the Food and Beverage manager.  

Edited October 29, 2022 by SLSD