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Seabourn Cruise Line

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Seabourn Odyssey

Seabourn Sojourn

Seabourn Quest

Skagway

Had previous safe trips but this one was horrible. Not only injured but upon return home was advised by ship insurance carrier that we required tons of previous medical information in order to obtain satisfaction for injuries and loss of ship use for 10 days after injury. Tender was ordered to stop operations after my injury but should have happened in advance.  Lack of security to stop Tender operations in rough sea resulted in personal injury.

Poor food service in all restaurants, except room service ; obnoxious child in suite opposite ours was running about unsupervised and sometimes naked and knocking on doors before 6am!

Ship medical officer was less than helpful and failed many requests or obtain my medical records. 

Ship did have highlights but since this was a cruise to latin isles there was little to none of latin music in clubs or entertainment 

Ship excursions were less than satisfactory; on one the guide was obnoxious and some cruise members were stuffed 6 into a 4x4 car resulting in pain and back injuries.

We lost 3 excursions booked in advance; 2 cancelled due to Tender injury and 1 cancelled at last minute by vendor. We recommend NOT using the ship for excursions but booking you own, either on the dock upon arrival or with other companies in advance.

Injured between tender and ship; unsafe operation of tender

Honeymoon We had a PH for 4 weeks. My parents joined us on 4th Jan. My 82 old mum was ill for the last days of the trip and was disembarked by ambulance to a hosp in Barbados on 18/01 thereby missing flt back to the UK. My 83 old dad has dementia. My mum was discharged today and has been pronounced fit to fly by the doctor after suffering with pulmonary congestion. My problem is this, we booked our tickets with Seabourn Flight Ease, first class with BA. I am unable to access the booking as it says agent has to do it. I now hear from BA that Seabourn called to amend the ticket but BA needed further information. Seabourn did not go back to them until after the flight had left so we were classed as No Shows. BA have said that it is down to Seabourn to sort it out, they are the named party on the Atol certificate. Seabourn Family Assistance in Seattle are telling us that they can not assist us and our only choice is to purchase tickets for c$21,000Us, 3 club seats and 1 premium economy. I am getting no where fast! Having spent over £60,000 on this trip I feel that Seabourn have left us high and dry!

Our time onboard the Odyssey was very nice, although having sailed on Seabourn for many years we notice the cutbacks.

On the whole the staff were great, especially the bar staff, our stewardess, who couldn’t do enough for us and although service in the Restaurant was a bit hit a miss we found a great waitress called Beiber who was amazing. Special thanks goes to Mirelle, the assistant hotel director, Alex, the head sommelier and Chiprian in the sky bar. The doctor and nurses were lovely to my mum and all of their work to get her disembarked by ambulance and admitted to hospital was second to none.

The cruise director Robert was great and the singers were superb.

We ate in the Thomas Keller restaurant twice and that was very good, although limited on choice.

Think twice before booking with Seabourn

We sailed to the Caribbean for the weather.  On the whole it was lovely weather.  We chose Seabourn Odyssey for dates and itinerary.

Embarkation in Barbados was not well organized; there was not a SB Rep indicating that the line to board the port shuttles to the ship should be kept inside...it was raining and people were queuing outside, as per port reps.  More than 50 people waited for the first shuttle to arrive.  Once in the ship, registration was smooth and officers and crew were helpful.  We received only a token juice upon arrival, no champagne, nor even prosecco.  We would like to point out that the CD Chris was charming and it was a pleasure to hear him sing.

Our cabin, 825 in the pool deck, was adequate. What was shocking was a miniature TV set, which could not be properly seen from either the couch nor the bed, that also failed to work several times.  The movie selection was good, but not adapted to the screen.  Even though we do not cruise to watch TV, at times we watch movies between activities.  The bathroom was adequate, great to have two sinks, but the shower stall was small to move around in.  Our stewardess was very sweet, but we missed having a butler.

We very much like the concept of the MDR (the Restaurant).  We found the food good and very good and we were pleased.  The wines were acceptable, as we could ask for substitutions when we deemed necessary.  What we found surprising was the inconsistency of the service crew.  Some were excellent and others perfectly poor!  We could tell there were more than a few who were not properly trained.  We liked the Colonnade for lunch and enjoyed most of the food.  The servers were good on the whole (after all it's a buffet...smiley face here), but the wine servers were not up to task.  Many times we had to flag wine servers several times during a meal!!  We ate at the TK twice.  We had excellent and not very good offerings both times.  All servers, however, were impeccable.  We did not eat at the Patio.  Lunch starts at 1:00pm, and since we have early breakfast, we just could not wait.  Dinner starts at 7:30.  What we did not enjoy was having no available food venue between lunch and dinner, except for pastries and limited sandwitch offerings in Seabourn Square.  Of course, there's always room service, but we would have preferred to have snacks by the pool.  Seabourn Square, by the way, is a gem of a site!  The library is diverse and pretty well stocked.  The coffee is excellent and the servers are delightful.  The ambiance is congenial in a quiet way, as it should be.

For us, port highlights were San Juan and Santo Domingo, but we also enjoyed going for the first time to Martinique and Guadeloupe.  We like to chat with locals and walk around the towns.  We felt safe all the time, and spent good money to contribute to the islands' economies.

We found we enjoyed the entertainment, especially a magician and comedians.  The dancers were very good and the singers as well.

Debarkation in Miami suffered by not calling "by colors" and many people queued at the same time.

All in all, it was an enjoyable cruise.

Very Good Cruise with Disappointments

We chose this cruise as we had so enjoyed a fantastic trip with Seabourn Quest in 2016. We wanted to skip a month of Winter and be spoilt whilst doing it. 

To rate it 3 stars seems mean, but the trouble is parts of the cruise were 2 star and parts were 4, never did it achieve the 6 stars it clams to be! 

Embarkation was a little shambolic, but it was Barbados, so we were not surprised. Welcome aboard was casual and we were ok with that. Our cabin was identical to the one we had on The Quest, so fine for us.

What let this cruise down so badly was the service and it feels very sad to say that because at times it was exceptionally good, indeed I think by the last week our complaints had been listened too and service was noticeably better. Areas of utter chaos were breakfast in the Colonade, where it was not unusual to wait 20 minutes for tea, where we were several times totally ignored and not asked what we would like to order and where orders were taken that simply never came! Senior staff were clearly battling trying to get new staff doing what they should be doing whilst serving guests themselves. There were several excellent senior staff there but they were spread far too thinly. The deck/pool area was another place where waiting for a drink was a hit and miss affair. Occasionally we were served within 5 minutes but mostly we waited up to 20 minutes and sometimes gave up and went and ordered for ourselves. This would not be such a big deal had we not paid a great deal of money for this cruise and been sold it on it's basis of being 6 star! The Club on deck 5 had a wonderful trio playing each evening but the service in the bar was really poor. Again after complaining, it improved, but only on and off, there are huge problems with lack of communication between staff and way too much chatting with guests at the bar whilst ignoring other guests at tables. 28 days is a long time on a ship and not something we would repeat but it really does give you an opportunity to get to know how everything works, or doesn't and we really did see the holes in the operation. Staff bickering in The Restaurant service area was observed more than once and bar staff arguing over which bar the sole bottle of Armangac on board belonged to! 

Our cabin steward was excellent on the first half of the cruise and mostly our room was cleaned and sorted by 10am, then she had to train a new girl and suddenly we were lucky if our room had been serviced by 3pm, which we thought was very poor. Trips ashore were generally quite good although in Curacao we were moored so far from the port that we had get awful taxis into town, despite being promised just a 5 minute walk to the centre of the town! The hype about being a small ship and getting into ports that others couldn't, certainly didn't work on this cruise. I had not intended writing so much on Cruise Critic but I am cross not to have received any customer survey from Seabourn. We had one delivered to our cabin during the first part of the cruise which was tidied into the bin by our steward before we had the chance to fill it in. No further survey appeared. On our last evening one of the Senior Restaurant staff asked us to make sure we filled in our online survey that would come through as soon as we got home, he emphasised to us that he knew how much had gone wrong on the cruise and that management at top level really needed to be told. No survey has come through and we have now been home 10 days. Hence this review. We are very disappointed, there was lots we did enjoy, we experienced a few moments of exceptional service but generally speaking the smile has gone from a lot of the staff, there is a feeling of a general drop in standards and although they can still really pull it off when they want to, like Champagne and Opera night or the only Beach Barbeque in 28 days, when you think what you pay compared to many other cruise lines, I can no longer say it is worth every penny.

A Training Ship!

Rome (Civitavecchia)

She was an elegant young lady waiting;tied up at the dock but that was the surface; like with many painted ladies! We eventually got to and waited in the Grand Salon (after waiting on the dock facilities for 45 min.), no announcements, people confused, no music, no smiles, waiting for a "person" to take us to our cabin about an hour later; there he was, no smile, bored I think! We marched to our cabin, our bags were outside the room, he said "this is your cabin" and left. We carried the bags in! I as a person with 3 gen. of contractors noticed shims put in near the ceiling. I knew what that meant and took pictures, this is not my first rodeo. My husband at 6'3" could not stand upright in the shower, I liked it. The T.V., think the size of a place mat- oh well I hate T.V. The frig stocked with soda, we asked for water, we don't drink soda. The deck-dirty! We never saw the soda leave so we brought our water in from other sources. The first night it was like 50 people partying above us, the creaking and crunching and vibrating bed?? was horrible. We called and they sent a maintenance guy asap that a.m. I asked if the shims were there to fix the noise and he said "yes, he could do no more. That night the "elegant young lady of a boat" wallowed in the sea like a fat sow in a mud pile. First time in all my cruises I was sea sick, ugh! One crew member eventually told us stabilizer issues? After 2 days I complained about the noise and another maintenance guy came in and reshimmed the cabin. It helped for two days then it started again. My husbands birthday is on Christmas day, At time of reservations Seabourne knew this and NO celebration was given to him except our own. I tried to get a cake but finally scored a peach pie, Thanks to Guenther. Although my husband wore expensive Tommy Bahama shorts and shirts we were not made welcome in 3 restaurants. The food when we did manage to get in was not of the quality we were use to. We did eat at the Grill and the service was wonderful, warm but the menu extremely limited. Many of the crew members were not warm and helpful like we are use to on Regent. The Barrista at Seabourne Square was the best I've seen AND always smiled and his service was wonderful. The goodies there great! When the wait staff at "The Restaurant" refused to sing "Happy Birthday" to my husband and the only other gentleman (70) celebrating a Christmas birthday at the restaurant and said that was policy; I was shocked. Two days later they were singing in force for another persons birthday; I was stunned. The time we went to the Colonade for Italian night and my husband ordered salmon (excellent) and the wait staff person announced 3 times very loudly "You want Salmon" its Italian night!! At 6'3" and a voice that makes a dog cringe at 50 paces; she absolutly heard what he wanted. Italian night was Osso Buco and potato stuffed noodles. No lasagna, spaghetti, or many of the wonderful Italian dishes we know. It was just plain strange. On a positive note I had several spa services and they were exceptional; but overpriced and I'm assuming that the space was contracted for as being the reason. I feel the Odyssey is beautiful, has service issues,food issues,no warmth,only one formal dining area is needed it is 2010 and my grandparent's day of flying/cruising around the world dressed to kill is gone! We work many hours and vacations are a get away not a dress up to impress. The crew- few smiles,crew act stressed, no personalities emerged among the crew. It was like no one really cared. I asked one crew member to help an elderly couple and was told "Its not my job!' My husband watched as a person delivering drinks spilled a drink on the tray and it was spooned up behind the counter and served to someone! Was That YOU! This beautiful ship is an ice princess and lacks warmth; she needs TLC. My question is since they/staff/maintenance/shim maker/shim installer/boat owner and on knew our cabin was not suitable to occupy how could they let us pay to not sleep for 7 days and have what we feel is NOT a good experience. 


Oddyssey /Cabin includes Shims/Great coffee at the Square

The satisfaction from most of life's experiences depends on expectations. Seabourn sets the expectation bar impossibly high. But it very nearly succeeds in all aspects. A bit about us. We're both former magazine executives, widely traveled on land, but this was just our second cruise,the first being a Caribbean cruise on the Regent Navigator. The former confirmed that we liked small ships, but that even a week-long cruise (as on the Navigator) demanded a more dining options. Which the Odyssey certainly has. Not to keep anyone in suspense, the Odyssey experience offered the luxury of really pampering service, a la the Four Seasons in Buenos Aires, for example. A majority of the stewardesses and waiters were South African, and the residue of our contacts was a sudden interest in visiting that country. One of the interesting things that Seabourn does is to allow--and perhaps encourage--their service people to be individuals. Yes, you get the requisite "sir" and "madam" often, but you also get a strong sense of the human being behind the service being rendered. This is especially true in Restaurant 2, the smallish tasting restaurant available by reservation only, and in the Colonnade,the less formal (with an outdoor terrace) alternative to The Restaurant.The latter is a trifle too dramatic for our taste, and perhaps the service there is a bit less personable-though no less efficient-- then elsewhere, as the staff responds to the more formal surroundings. The food was generally excellent. The fish--always on the menu-- never seemed anything other than fresh.Though the meat dishes were often overcooked.(It may be that the customer base--essentially quite senior--likes their meat well done,so getting anything "medium rare" was virtually impossible.) Only two dishes were unacceptable. One was a mournful sauerbraten,tough and clearly not marinated long enough. The other was a New York Clam Chowder so salty as to be inedible. (Remember, I did declare I was picky.) But, how many restaurants do you know where you could have 33 consecutive meals in 11 days and walk away singing its praises? The wines, on the other hand, were far less impressive. Too many come from Chile--which certainly produces some excellent wines, and some not. We got a disproportionate share of the latter. We also got a Rhone wine that was harsh, and an Albarino--hurray for the idea of offering it--insufficiently dry. You can buy packages of higher-priced wines, but that is catering to label snobbery. There are plenty of good wines available at $15 or so retail, and far less than that in the quantities Seabourn orders. So, some disappointment there. The bartenders, I should hasten to add, were tireless in their efforts to make you happy. The chap in the Observation Lounge on Deck 10--Ivo?--made the best bourbon sour I've ever had. (Actually, he made, and I drank, many.) Others have already commented on the ample cabin dimensions. My wife always travels with a pillowcase from home, but never used it once she fingered the on board linens. Our stewardess could not have been nicer, and seemed always to be there when we needed something--which, honestly, wasn't that often. Entertainment. The cruise director and his team work hideous hours and seamlessly reflect good cheer. They trio, headed by Barry Hopkins-I hope I've spelled his name correctly-- are thoroughly engaging. Still, there are limits to what a ship of this size can offer.I thought the singers were quite good, the bands good enough to listen to and dance to. The rest was, to my taste, quite uneven. The most lauded was a British film type whose major contribution was workshops devoted to Photoshop, which seemed an odd area of emphasis given the age of many of the passengers. (More on that in a moment.) Happily, this non-event was balanced by Mark Haslam, a master magician, and Phillip Huber, a master pupeter. If those terse descriptions don't tingle your interest, their performances certainly would have. There were other guest lecturers whose personal descriptions seemed inflated, and whose arena of focus seemed not irrelevant to the ship's Caribbean destinations.  Oh yes, there is a casino on board, and the experience of being there is pleasant. (And I was not a winner.) So, who went on the cruise? Of 450 passengers, 245 held American passports. Other nationalities included Canadians,Brits,Belgians, Dutch, French, German and others. We met Americans and others who were bright, witty, interesting. We also met Americans and others who were snobbish, boring and loud.The criticisms from some Americans were both illogical and ignorant."Why can't we have bingo?" whimpered one henna-haired lady from Florida.The answer, I presume, is that you pay for Seabourn's definition of sophistication which quite rightly excludes bingo. (It also, thankfully, excludes the art auctions which pockmark some other cruises.)Other passengers complained that Odyssey only had four singers, while Crystal and Princess cruises offered at least eight. Yes, and those ships are much bigger.Some people just like to complain,and there was always a bit of that.It always seemed to me somewhat unfair to characterize passengers in simple demographic terms. Which is to say, how old were they? On Odyssey they skewed older--a few in wheel chairs, a few more than that with canes. But there were younger couples too. And interestingly, several gay couples, predominantly from Europe. In the beginning at dinner we asked to seated with other passengers. Sometimes this experience was interesting, sometimes dreadful. By mid-voyage we had found a circle of acquaintances with whom we happily socialized. The only other aspect of the Seabourn experience which was less that thoroughly satisfying was shore excursions.These seemed pretty routine, and the experience we had with three--a snorkel trip on Antigua; a safari trip on Barbados and a beach excursion to Grand Anse on Guadeloupe were bad, worse and quite good, in that order.Mind you, we had been to all of these islands --excepting Barbados--before. And to the Caribbean many times. We had never--well, rarely--booked group excursions because they are too often commercial, leaving you with a taste of Disney gone really bad, as opposed to the insightful experience you were hoping for.But nobody forced us to take the excursions. And I want to emphasize that people from the local tourism office always appeared aboard the morning we came to a port. They offered maps, brochures and lots of advice. And the Seabourn folk in Seabourn Square were (literally) available 24-hours a day to offer advice about into local tour options. One small negative that may be very important to some is that Odyssey has a vibration problem. Well, maybe not vibration. One night the seas were running 8-14 feet, and the wind was blowing at 30 knots. In our cabin we didn't feel a lot of rolling or pitching. More like a shudder, a little shake, and the sense of sliding forward. Now, imagine all three of those things happening in rapid sequence. The next morning I would estimate that perhaps half of the passengers were suffering from mal de mer. But my wife, who is sensitive to such things, was unaffected. So, would we go back? Yes. The Seabourn Odyssey was a memorable experience. 






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