Seabourn Encore Review
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I have sailed with Seabourn many times and were looking forward to our post-pandemic cruise. However, we were disappointed with the level of service provided by Seabourn and it is definitely not at the superior quality the cruise line used to offer.
First off, the wait staff in the dining areas are all great and diligent as before and so are the cabin service personnel. However, we feel that the quality of food provided in the main dining room is lacking. The Grill by Thomas Keller was consistently good as expected. The Sushi restaurant is substandard and the sushi offered on the menu is limited and not of good quality.
What was disappointing most were the quality of the excursions, both in terms of planning and execution. Same goes with embarkation and debarkation. We signed up for a wine dinner excursion at a renowned winery in Turkey. The bus that carried the group was too big to deliver us to the winery so they let us off and make us walked uphill on a dirt road for about 100 yards. Some of the participants in the group have issues with walking without a cane not alone walking uphill on a dirt road. Apparently Seabourn did not know this nor did the local tour guide - bad planning - and there was no Seabourn representative at the excursion. During debarkation in Tel Aviv, the independent group that arranged their own transportation was asked to go on the pier side and claim their baggages. After claiming the bags you were then required to take a bus to a different terminal a mile away where the taxis and other ground transportations were located. There were no sign, indication, or personnel at the baggage area to instruct the passengers what to do. Many our us stood around for more than 20 minutes wondering how to get out of the pier. We soon found out from the only Seabourn personnel that instructed us to wait for the shuttle bus. She was not wearing any identifiable Seabourn uniform nor was she proactively offering information. All in all, the level of services at the tours and pier side are definitely insufficient and ineffective.