Observations of a recent Quest Cruise

[JPH814]

Over the years, I have traveled quite a bit. You can see my cruise history in my signature below.  I plan my travel carefully, whether it is a cruise, a trip to Las Vegas or any other vacation.  I am an avid reader of websites like Cruise Critic, Trip Advisor (and others) to help inform me on my plans. I listen to all opinions, positive and negative. I also contribute to the discussion when I have information or opinions I feel will be of value to others.

 

What follows are my observations and opinions regarding my recent 12 day cruise on the Quest, from New York to Montreal.   It is not a full “review” nor is it a day-by-day description of everything I did, or ate or experienced.  I rather have put together a list of the things that I enjoyed – kind of a “top ten list” of my experiences.  And also a (shorter) list of complaints or negative observations.  Hopefully some will find the information interesting or valuable.

 

Countdown of my Top Ten experiences

 

10.  Coffee Bar in Seabourn Square.  The service here was outstanding.  I have a rather specific order (low fat milk, four scoops of mocha, three shots of expresso- two regular, one decaf).  I gave this order once and the rest of the trip it was remembered by the barista, with a smile and a “thank you Mr. Henry.’  I use this as one example of the service I routinely received on the trip. 

9.  Galley Lunch – One day the restaurant served a buffet lunch.  The buffet was set up in the galley – you actually walked through the kitchen to fill up your plate.  Almost any conceivable type of food was available. A huge display of lobster tails, crab legs and shrimp.  Prime rib, Asian foods. A roast pig. Cheese display.  Incredible desserts.  Do not miss it.

8. Hosted Dinners.  We were invited to three hosted dinners this cruise – once with the HR officer and one with each of the two lecturer on board.  We were joined each time with other couples.  It was a good way to meet other cruisers and engage in interesting conversations.   

7.  The lounge chairs in Seabourn Square.  There are about 8 of these along the aft window and are a great location to settle in with a book or an ipod listening to music.

6.  Daniel – the star of the colonnade.  This guy gave us our first glass of wine during lunch on the first day and greeted us – by name – with a smile every time we were there for breakfast or lunch for the next 12 days.

5.  Iyan - The wine sommelier. In general, the wines that were offered at meals were generally good.  We were always offered one red or one white but could – and did – request something different.  For example, we are not big fans of Pinot Gris that was offered, but we could ask and receive a chardonnay or sauvignon blanc if we preferred.  But for a few dinners we decided to buy a bottle of premium wine for a special dinner.  Iyan was knowledgeable and fun.  He gave us good recommendations and opened and poured the wines for us and spent time telling us about the wines.  And the premium wines were not tremendously marked up. Most restaurants will charge 2 to 3 times the retail price.  These wines were less than twice the retail price.

4.  Wine Pairing Lunch.  We decided to pay for a special lunch offered one day in the dining room. It was a 6 course meal paired with 6 different wines.  It was hosted by Iyan.  Salmon, Fois Gras, Lobster Risotto, Beef Tenderloin, Dover Sole, Grand Marnier Parfait.  The food was beautifully plated and the wines (generously poured)  were outstanding.   It was a special experience shared with only 5 couple other couples. It was a little pricey, although less than the average excursion (-$115 per person)  but well worth it.  Highly recommended.

3.  Grill Dinners.  Dinners in the Restaurant were consistently very good and occasionally impressively special.  The colonnade was good, occasionally very good.  But we had two dinners in the Grill that were as good as almost any restaurant on land.  The room was attractive, the food prepared very well and the service was spot on.

2. Our Room Stewards (Patrician and Mugabe).  These two were outstanding.  Room serviced twice a day and all details attended.  Replaced water bottles. Replaced sodas in the refrigerator.  Replaced my vodka and wine when emptied. Bathroom sparkled. Always greeted us by name with smiles.

1. In general – service throughout the ship!  In twelve days I can maybe identify 2 or 3 crew members who I felt was not on top of their game.  Virtually every staff – whether an officer, a bartender, a waiter,  or a maintenance worker in a jumpsuit  - would smile and say good morning and would provide a fine service.

 

Now – for those few things that I feel were lacking or could be improved. None of these were deal breakers, but I provide them so you don’t think I am a cheerleader  ( I will not mention the Seabourn Source app since I started a separate post about that.)

1.       Wifi – The free wifi is barely serviceable. There were times it just did not work.  After a couple of days I splurged for the “streaming wifi” at $20 per day.  It was somewhat better – when it worked.  But about 30 percent of the time it was not functioning.  Eventually I was given a refund.  This is something all cruise lines will need to figure out.

2.       TV.  Why is there no US based sports channel?  I was onboard during the football season and the baseball playoffs and there was no way to watch any of it.  But three stations were dedicated to European sports networks

3.       Breakfast service it the colonnade.  Despite being a buffet, you still rely on staff for ordered items and bring juice, coffee or tea.  And this was painfully slow – I mean 20 -30 minutes for a pot of tea or an omelet.  It seems so disorganized and very frustrating.

4.       And speaking of tea, why can’t a cruise ship provide lemon for hot tea?  Occasionally you got it, but half the time you might get a slice of lime and often we were told that no lemon was available.  This was a problem in the colonnade and room service.  But somehow, it was never a problem in the coffee bar or in a bar.  We started bring our own lemons from the coffee bar to breakfast.

5.       Snacks.   This might sound weird with so much food available breakfast, lunch and dinner.  But wouldn’t it be nice to have a slice of pizza available at 4 in the afternoon or 10 o’clock at night?  Or maybe a display of cheese and crackers or pretzels or popcorn somewhere virtually 24/7?  I don’t want to call room service.

 

Again, these “complaints” are really very minor.  None of them would keep me from booking Seabourn again or recommending Seabourn to someone else.

 

If anyone has any comments or questions, I will be happy to respond

 

[Mr Luxury]

Thanks for your review.

Room service is the way to go if you haven't had enough food and want to eat outside of the normal opening journey of the good venues.

A regular order of lemon placed at the start of the cruise will get the desired result.

[JPH814]

2 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Thanks for your review.

Room service is the way to go if you haven't had enough food and want to eat outside of the normal opening journey of the good venues.

A regular order of lemon placed at the start of the cruise will get the desired result.

We were told on multiple  occasions in the colonade and room service “we have no lemons”.   How would a “regular order” help? 

[Asquare]

We asked for a cheese plate and fruit, along with lime wedges for our G & Ts, to be delivered to our room every afternoon.  And there it was waiting for us when we returned from our explorations.  The room steward took our initial order on the first day of a 14 day cruise.

 

I agree with you about snacks…a handful of pretzels, nuts or popcorn…that’s all I really want around 4PM.

 

We once went to Las Vegas with some friends who were high rollers & while they gambled we went bar hopping…  Talk about some amazing bar snacks…each bar seemed to have its own signature snack…I think we were at one of the MGM properties…bars were tucked all over the place…I think that is where we learned to chat up the bartender & see what bar snack magically appeared.  It started with my husband asking for some nuts to snack on…

[Mr Luxury]

2 hours ago, JPH814 said:

We were told on multiple  occasions in the colonade and room service “we have no lemons”.   How would a “regular order” help? 

Never been on a ship that doesn't have lemons.

I can't believe it 😁

[JPH814]

28 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

Never been on a ship that doesn't have lemons.

I can't believe it 😁

The problem was not that the ship did not have lemons.  The colonade and room service said they had no lemons.  One morning when I was at the collonade and was told they had no lemons, I walked down to seabourn square coffee bar. ( one floor directly below collonade!!) They had lemons. I brought them back to my table.   
 

again, not a huge problem.  ( unless you really want lemon in your tea).  Just a surprising - albeit rare- lapse of good service. 

Edited October 31, 2022 by JPH814

[Mr Luxury]

3 minutes ago, JPH814 said:

The problem was not that the ship did not have lemons.  The colonade and room service said they had no lemons.  One morning when I was at the collonade and was told they had no lemons, I walked down to seabourn square coffee bar. ( one floor directly below collonade!!) They had lemons. I brought them back to my table.   

You needed to nip in the bud all of the poor service issues that you had by going to see the Hotel Director.

This always gets issues resolved.

Sounds like you encountered some lazy staff who couldn't be bothered to go and get the lemons.

This is not usual and is definitely not the Seabourn way.

I know it wouldn't have happened to me.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Mr Luxury

[JPH814]

2 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

You needed to nip in the bud all of the poor service issues that you had by going to see the Hotel Director.

This always gets issues resolved.

Sounds like you encountered some lazy staff who couldn't be bothered to go and get the lemons.

This is not usual and is definitely not the Seabourn way.

I know it wouldn't have happened to me.

Please view my lemon “problem” in the context of my entire post.  It was clearly an exceptional issue on a overwhelmingly wonderful experience.  

[CalmSea]

Regarding Galley lunch: We were on the Quest that departed Montreal on September 22 and there was a Galley lunch. I was told that this was the first Galley lunch on the Quest since covid. We had Galley lunch before and knew what to expect. However, despite the impressive display of food, it is not my favorite. I hated lining up, and especially on this cruise, when I knew that there were some covid cases on board. Once I picked up my plate, and with the encouragement of the staff controlling the line-up, I skipped to the last food station, the one serving cold seafood. After saying this, let me add that the food was very good, and the service at the Galley and at the table were excellent.

[Fletcher]

2 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Never been on a ship that doesn't have lemons.

I can't believe it 😁

Sometimes in life you have to take the bitter with the sour. (Billy Wilder)

[PaulaJK]

i recognize the lemon story, in a fashion. On Sojourn ,a few months ago,

if you had your bloody mary on deck 9, it was was made w tomato juice

and garnished with celery. No horseradish available. At the bar on deck

8 they used a bloody mary mix and horseradish but had no celery. I find this annoying and unnecessary. There was a similar problem w.  Beefeater gin…not in Club but in Observation Bar. The cruise was down the Med ports.  Rome-BCN- Rome but no pinot noir.

[Mr Luxury]

Life is tough at times on a ship 😁

[cruiseej]

15 hours ago, JPH814 said:

The free wifi is barely serviceable. There were times it just did not work.  After a couple of days I splurged for the “streaming wifi” at $20 per day.  It was somewhat better – when it worked.  But about 30 percent of the time it was not functioning.  Eventually I was given a refund.  This is something all cruise lines will need to figure out.

 

Well, Silversea — as part of a change for all Royal Caribbean family ships — will be getting new Internet service via Starlink over the next few months. Starlink is Elon Musk's company which has launched more than 3,000 low-earth orbit satellites to provide high speed Internet to large parts of the world (full earth coverage in another year or so). Because the satellites are in low orbit (about 200 miles high), they're moving at a different speed than the earth, so service to a location on earth is frequently switching to a different satellite as it comes into range — thus the need for such a large network of satellites. Traditional satellite Internet service uses geo-stationary satellites, which are about 22,000 miles high in order to stay in position over the same spot on earth. Because the round-trip Internet signal on traditional satellite Internet travels more than 45,000 miles, versus a few hundred or few thousand miles with Starlink, there is much less lag with Starlink. The overall quality of service on a cruise ship will depend on the capacity (bandwidth) a ship is able to use, but this has the potential to radically change the performance of Internet service on cruise ships. Well, at least on Silversea cruise ships. On Seabourn…?

[rkacruiser]

6 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Sounds like you encountered some lazy staff who couldn't be bothered to go and get the lemons.

 

Agree.  

 

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by rkacruiser

[rkacruiser]

16 hours ago, JPH814 said:

Hopefully some will find the information interesting or valuable.

 

A concise and well written observations of experiences.  Thank you for doing this.  

[brenecke]

I was on the same cruise as the OP and have the same general observations.  This was our 9th Seabourn cruise and overall I found service at the same level as past pre-Covid cruises. 

 

Our stewardess team was accommodating, efficient and extremely personable. 

 

Staff at Earth & Ocean/Patio Grill, Patio Bar and the Sky Bar were for the most part exceptional. 

 

Service in the other restaurants was variable, but for the most part friendly and competent. 

 

I have never been a big fan of the food on board (repetitive, tepid in temperature and fairly bland), but that is very subjective, and I found no change from prior voyages 

 

Internet is unbelievably bad.  Much worse than before the free package was offered.  Knowing I would need to work intermittently during the trip, I immediately signed up for the pay package.  Even so, one day it took me sitting in the Square for about 45 minutes to review and approve some wire transfers that my team had submitted. In normal circumstances this would have taken 5 minutes.  We were in port in Halifax at the time, not at sea or in some backwater.  Big problem.  The day in Quebec City with no TV or internet for most of the day was also unacceptable

 

Sorry for the OPs problem with lemons.  I drink ice tea during the day and kept telling the Patio Bar, Sky Bar and Square - no lemon!

[labonnevie]

11 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Never been on a ship that doesn't have lemons.

I can't believe it 😁

Even worse, we were on a cruise once that had no limes!!!

And even worse than that, it was true, we tried every bar on board...repeatedly!

Edited November 1, 2022 by labonnevie
clarify

[Vineyard View]

It is great to read your review about the Quest and all the positive experiences that you had. Thank you for sharing. From multiple threads, Quest has had some fairly significant issues and this sounds as if those are being turned around. 
On sea days, was the MDR open for lunch?  Wasn’t sure if the Galley lunch was on a port or sea day, and if a sea day, if others were able to dine maybe in a different area?  Also curious as to whether the MDR was open for breakfast, at least on sea days?

You mentioned hosted dinners, but how were your other evening meals? MDR and TK? 

Thank you again. 

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Vineyard View

[PaulaJK]

8 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Life is tough at times on a ship 😁

Unnecessarily..just get the act together…perfection not necessary

y

[MBP&O2/O]

Never been on a ship that doesn't have lemons.

I can't believe it 😁

 

 

I have sailed with a few though 🙄😵‍💫🤪

[rkacruiser]

11 hours ago, MBP&O2/O said:

I have sailed with a few though

 

Only one and a half for me.  The disappointing whole lemon was 1980, a trans-Atlantic crossing on QE2 beginning in Bremerhaven to New York in Tourist Class.  Labor problems on the ship were the cause.  (Friends in First Class were equally disappointed.)  The "half" was a Noordam 21 day Caribbean cruise when "things just were not right", the Senior Officers were missing in public and when they were encountered, we guests were made to feel "you are bothering me".  That attitude spilled over to some (and thankfully not all) of the service staff.  

 

[fdnycruiser]

I’m happy to report that I’m presently on the Quest, and yes with lemons 🍋 too !  Service hasn’t been bad, and they are really trying hard to please. The MDR has been open on sea days .

[fdnycruiser]

We just got off the Quest this morning, and overall had a great cruise. The restaurant was open on the sea days, and we enjoyed the lunch there. Earth and Ocean for dinner was by far our favorite for dinner, after drinks in the observation bar. The dinners in the restaurant just seemed a little lackluster and tired.IMHO.  A lot of new crew, but not really any serious flaws or indifferences that we observed. They really tried hard to provide a nice experience, which they did. Our cabin attendants did an amazing job. 
  Here’s where the entire staff, from the Captain down to the people we never see excelled. We left NYC for Charleston SC on Monday afternoon in great weather. Unfortunately, due to what was to become Hurricane Nicole , the stop in Charleston was canceled. The Captain advised us that we would east, then south and go around the storm which we did. However, with a storm that size we still encountered almost 48 hours of waves of 20 feet or greater, and 70 mph winds. The waves would sometimes cover the entire window in the restaurant! The whole crew did an outstanding job working under such difficult and stressful conditions!  They were simply amazing! 

[fdnycruiser]

I also should mention that we were given permission to bring our son on board in NYC . It was a beautiful night, and we had dinner together outside in Earth & Ocean .

 

[lux4me]

Who did you contact about getting a visitor onboard?

 

We are going to be in Tobago and would love to bring on a family 

member for lunch

Edited November 19, 2022 by lux4me