On board the Odyssey

Actually, they sound typically Spanish to me. Spanish kids are often up very late and especially where an early dinner can be at 9.30pm. And they are often allowed to run/play around. Spanish society, in my experience, is very tolerant of children.

 

Cultural values and "class" differ from country to country. I am not excusing the behaviour or the disruption to other passengers. But children will be children which is one of the reasons that we do not cruise during the summer school holidays.

Actually your experience about Spanish society is not fully correct. We don´t allow kids to run/play around. Only the rude ones. I suppose like in other countries, whose sometimes their rude kids disturb as much as ours.

Lincslady,

I am guessing that the gentlemen who were given this erroneous message about shorts being allowed at dinners in The Colonnade (when they are not allowed) will choose to wear shorts there going forward. After all, they received the message they wanted to hear and that sets the precedent for them. A bit complicated for those concerned.

And if the Patio at dinnertime were offered up as a "shorts venue" that would also satisfy them as well as others.

Happy and healthy sailing!

I know in this case the person was told it was ok, I may be wrong, but I think some people will wear what they want irrespective of the guidelines. In hot climates like in the Med at the moment, on the outside decks, it is easier for crew to just overlook.

The Herald had a warning every day about reserving lounges by the pool but it didn't stop one person I saw reserve 4 lounges at 6:30am on the sea day recently.

Markham

I am glad you met with Stratos. We sailed with him last summer and I found him to be very thoughtful and considerate. I do however feel that he was trying to walk a fine line between acknowledging your concerns and not rock the boat vis a vis the shorts wearing contingent. To my mind the fact that it does not specifically state shorts are prohibited does not imply they are acceptable.

Abu

Here is my solution to the lounge hogs. As there are signs posted on the pool deck noting items unattended will be removed after half an hour I simply find a crew member when the allowed time has expired and ask them to please remove the items.

Hope the children on this leg of your cruise (wherever they are from) are better behaved. After our experience last June on the Odyssey in the Med I was steeling myself for a similar situation on our recent Alaska cruise and have to say all of the children were very well behaved - from an infant up to preteens.

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Actually your experience about Spanish society is not fully correct. We don´t allow kids to run/play around. Only the rude ones. I suppose like in other countries, whose sometimes their rude kids disturb as much as ours.

Keltic, it would have been a pleasure to have you on board then. I judge people on how they behave and respect others not necessarily where they are from. The problem on the last leg of the cruise was that a theme arose which was 3 or 4 large Spanish family groups of 15-20 people per family. Their behaviour was terrible...so they must have been the "rude ones". They did not represent your country well but I am sure there are many other Spanish that do, as is the case with all nationalities.

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Markham, thank you for sorting out the dress code policy, although given the heat I would not be offended if some men wore short pants in certain non formal venues.

On another subject, I need to find out who is managing the bar staff that are servicing the deck 5 aft pool. The service has been terrible and the staff when they do appear will not walk out into the sun to ask if you want something. Today we could not even serve ourselves drinks as there were no clean glasses. This is the third day in a row this has happened. We used to have Gusteo (sp?), who was excellent but I think he is on deck 8 now.

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I think the fault lies in the word "appropriate." Perhaps "forbidden" might carry more weight.

I am unfortunately back in reality after an amazing 7 days doing Athens --> Malta on the Odyssey. I can confirm about the "Armada" (as other folks started calling them) being absolutely awful. I was in the store one day, at the cash register doing the duty free paperwork for a purchase, when the matriarch of the group was there, she walked in to ask a question, was told to wait a minute or two for the saleswoman to finish up, sat down, waited for 2 seconds, and then started yelling (not exaggerating - yelling) that she was being ignored and waiting. The entire family followed that lead for the most part, including the children. One night the kids broke a glass out on the back deck area, and proceeded to kick the broken glass around for 10 minutes until I finally went to go ask someone to clean it up. Just no manners from that entire family towards anyone, it was disgusting.

Despite that one large group I did have an amazing time, I will write up a review as soon as I have some time. We also got ahold of the non-revenue wine list which I will share, as well as a bunch of menus and other things we brought home.

Oh - one other thing. I was in 532 and we did have many issues with the smelly bathroom. Stratos was wonderful in doing his best to deal with it, even going so far as ripping out the entire toilet and comping us a couples massage for the problem, but the smell was not gone by the time we got off the boat. It must be something systemic throughout the pipes...and holy cow it's smelly. Just be aware.

Just a quick update on the last few days and meals. We ate on Monday at the TK rib night at the Colonnade. I would give it a 6/10. The food was fine but nothing special. I felt sorry for the staff as they were required to wear jeans and it was far too hot and uncomfortable for them. Oddly, guests could not wear jeans but the servers could (not that I would want to). Last night was "Chinese Night" (their words not mine). I would give it a 5/10, again nothing special. The food that was supposed to be spicy was not. We had our usual excellent service from Agneskziu(I should know how to spell it by now but it is proving a bit of a challenge). She is lovely.

Tonight is TK Fried Chicken night at the Colonnade, we will see how it turns out.

Sail away from Santorini was beautiful tonight. Most people were in the pool enjoying the Caviar event, but we were looking out over beautiful OIa as we sailed out.

BTW, Markham, there were more adults in the pool today for the Caviar event but the lady and the same 3 kids as last week were still swimming amongst everyone once again! Set up was slightly different, they did not have the table with the Champagne last week.

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May I ask who is your Cruise Director at present, who obviously thinks it is fine for 3 children to be milling around in the pool at the Caviar splash?

A KFC night

I wonder what secret herbs and spices Colonel Keller uses and how many pieces are in a bargain bucket.

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If there were adults in the pool, why is it a problem for there to be children there too?

On a slightly different note to the caviar in the pool, if you do try to swim you have to dodge round the people who are just standing in the middle chatting. Why can't they stand at the side :rolleyes: or sit in the whirlpool?

Why not just order caviar away from the circus and really appreciate it?

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CD is Drew, he is nice but new. I agree about ordering Caviar if you want it whenever you do. The waste of champagne was silly, somehow I do not want to sit in the pool with the crew and officers spraying champagne over me. I think this sums it up.

TK Fried Chicken in the Colonnade was good. salad was 9/10, chicken was 7/10 and better than rib night.

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A KFC night

I wonder what secret herbs and spices Colonel Keller uses and how many pieces are in a bargain bucket.

 

 

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LOL!! Luxury ... good one.

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Oh - one other thing. I was in 532 and we did have many issues with the smelly bathroom. Stratos was wonderful in doing his best to deal with it, even going so far as ripping out the entire toilet and comping us a couples massage for the problem, but the smell was not gone by the time we got off the boat. It must be something systemic throughout the pipes...and holy cow it's smelly. Just be aware.

We had the same issue if the bathroom door was shut for any length of time and causally mentioned it in case the next passengers really complained. These ships aren't new so one could imagine what has hit the floors in the way of misses to run into the grout of the floor tiles over the years to make a smell. As i am in the flooring game and come across this problem lots of times I suggested they replace the grout between the tiles if the cabin was going to be empty at any stage. They did this one a day we were ashore with no further problems. The last evening the ship gave us a fairly large OBC for our inconvenience, and as we were not expecting anything or had made a big deal out of it we turned the money over to the cruise fund as it wasn't really an issue. We had just left the bathroom door open

We had the same issue if the bathroom door was shut for any length of time and causally mentioned it in case the next passengers really complained. These ships aren't new so one could imagine what has hit the floors in the way of misses to run into the grout of the floor tiles over the years to make a smell. As i am in the flooring game and come across this problem lots of times I suggested they replace the grout between the tiles if the cabin was going to be empty at any stage. They did this one a day we were ashore with no further problems. The last evening the ship gave us a fairly large OBC for our inconvenience, and as we were not expecting anything or had made a big deal out of it we turned the money over to the cruise fund as it wasn't really an issue. We had just left the bathroom door open

Now there's a helpful passenger. Nice work.

Now there's a helpful passenger. Nice work.

Absolutely - if this is what has been causing the problems it will be great to have them solved!

No news from Odyssey for a few days - hope it just means that everyone is enjoying it too much to have time to post here.:)

Ok, I am back!

The new segment people replaced to old ones yesterday in Piraeus. From what I have seen the mix is similar: a few children and maybe 200 who have never been on Seabourn. Imagine that?! Bodes well for Seabourn's future growth, it seems to me.

The ship runs so smoothly with the current departmental teams mature. The Caviar in the Pool party a few days ago was wild and fun. The Senior Officers On Deck Party 2 days ago and the flows for dining across the venues have all been well attended and calm. Plenty of space is one secret across these 3 Ody class ships.

Everyone leaves on Saturday in Venice since there will be 2 one week charters. I understand many crew appreciate the change in tempo these charters usually afford.

Happy and healthy sailing!

Good to hear things are going smoothly.

I imagine charters could be fairly easy, or absolute hell, depending entirely who the passengers are! I have certainly heard of some pretty awful ones in the past, with crazy drunks, but I suppose if you get a 'better class of people' it is easier to look after those who know each other or have lots in common.

It's been a little over a week since we disembarked the Odyssey in Athens and I thought I would close off with a few additional comments on the cruise. It has been an adjustment returning to normal life and work but I guess all good things much come to an end sometime.

Disembarkation - in Athens was very smooth. We left the ship shortly before 9am, shook hands with the Captain and the HD (first time I think I saw him in 14 days) and CD Drew. Since Seabourn arranged our air we had transfer back to the airport included. The whole process was very efficient and we were at the airport in less than 45 minutes.

Food - Overall the food was good. The daily fish specials for lunch in the Collonade were usually fresh and quite good. We did two Grill nights, the first one being quite good, but for the second visit they could not get my steak cooked medium, despite me saying "pink is good but no red or blood". The waiter did recognize that I did not eat it all and asked if I wanted another , but by this time it was too late and it was far too big of a pice of meat anyway so I was fine. We had two TK nights at the Collonade. The ribs were ok, nothing special and the fried chicken better. If you don't want the TK choice, then they will bring you something else from the standard menu. Most of us were not in love with the TK Collonade concept.

Crew- we had some wonderful crew serve us and I wanted to call them out by name. I also made a point to include their names in my comment card and I also spoke directly to the restaurant manager to commend a number of staff. They include ( please forgive me if I have spelled your names wrong) - Agenieszka, Nebojsa, Oleksii, Casey, Kateryna along with Ivan and Alanberg. In the Observation Bar, Milos was excellent as was Aaron. We loved Pierre who sang and played the piano in the Observation Bar each night. He's such a great guy. Also our stewardess Katerina did an excellent job...she works so hard!

Other entertainment - the main singers and musicians were very good. We did not go to many shows, but thought the Tim Rice show was relatively good. The entertainment in the Club was not very good and we stopped going there. They chose to employ the Asst CD as the main singer who spent more time on theatrics than her singing voice. It would have been better to have someone who could actually sing, sorry that may sound harsh but we heard the same comment from many on board.

Other passengers - much has been said about the large family groups during week 1 so I will not repeat that disaster. Week two was much better. We met many lovely people on board, some of whom we will keep in touch with. Despite this, I still have to say that I thought the overall feel of this cruise was more of a "mainstream cruise" crowd. We were often baffled by the manners of some of the guests and at other times bemused by how they behaved and presented themselves. Although some might have been sporting their diamonds and Rolexes it certainly at times did not feel like you were on a luxury cruise.

Other comments - despite having some excellent crew there were others who needed more training. Some were a bit lazy, like the guy serving the deck 5 aft pool. He refused to step into the sun to ask if you wanted drinks or to clear glasses. He said "it was too hot". Most times he was non-existent. Overall service to deck 5 aft pool during the day was very poor and at times you could not even serve yourself water as there would be no clean glasses or water available. Calls to guest services did not remedy the problem. We heard the same comments from many people who liked to sit out on deck 5 aft during the afternoon.

To end on a positive note, despite some small issues during the cruise, we did really enjoy spending 14 nights on the Odyssey. We love the size of the ship and the spaciousness. Overall, service was very good. As I mentioned before the ship was in perfect condition and we'd happily sail on her again. We did book a deposit before we left the ship so I guess it's time now to pick our next cruise.

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Marama, unfortunately we did not get to meet on this cruise. I did get your note and had asked Aaron in the Obs Bar to point you out to me when we're were there, which was usually around 6 -7pm and then after 10pm. Perhaps our timing did not align. I do hope you enjoyed your cruise and perhaps we will meet on a future one. Best regards.

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Oh, and I forgot to mention the touchy subject of reserving/hogging deck loungers. We always found a spot to sit by the pool on the upper level or on deck 5 aft. But I have to say that there were a large number of people reserving the deck loungers. Some might not have known better while others just wanted to have their spot in the shade. Deck 5 aft was terrible as some guests would claim their chair in the shade for the day, whether they were actively using it or not. I decided not to get involved and play the police or educator role (that would be Seabourn's job not mine). Nevertheless, it was a bit annoying.

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Thanks for the reports, Sunprince. I did not realise that there was supposed to be a drinks service on the deck behind the Club - although it looks enticing when we have looked down the loungers have always been occupied, so we have stayed on the pool deck, sky bar deck, or behind the Square.

I wonder if you know what sort of groups are currently on board, for what I believe is two one week charters?

Shame about the music in the Club; we actually like the venue for a drink before dinner, but it often has a rather intrusive musician playing, rather than the quiet piano in the Observation Lounge.

Markham - hope you are going to send in your opinions about your Odyssey cruise - maybe when you have had time to unpack!