jeffbrig

We got ours a few days before sailing, when our boarding passes were ready.  Time slots are pretty soft... I've been on two cruises in the last 15 months.  The first, our Seabourn transfer from the airport got us to the port a couple of hours before our "boarding time".  We were immediately checked in and allowed to board.  On the second, we were staying near the port and made it earlier than expected.  No lines, no waiting, checked in and boarded immediately.  

My suspicion is that boarding slots is more a concession to covid protocols and not wanting crowded terminals.  But this is more an issue for huge ships, not Seabourn.  FWIW, the two sailings we've been on since covid had 100, and 220 passengers.  So absolutely no congestion at the port.

As a whisky drinker, I was pretty happy with the offerings.  Most of what's on board is included.  Each bar venue will have a list of ultra premium options available for purchase.  Well below typical bar prices.  Yes, I sampled most of them...

Macallan 25, Yamazaki 18, Laphroaig 30, Elijah Craig 23.  Those are all $1k+ bottles.  The Macallan was the most expensive, at around $100 for a pour - it's usually 3x that in bars in my experience.  Ultra premium pours measured from a shot glass - that's 1.25-1.5 oz?

Highland Park 18, Blanton's, JW Blue, etc. were available at much lower prices.  Most of the premium options fell in the $13-$20 range on our recent cruise.

Free (included) stuff I remember off the top of my head: Macallan 12 (sometimes Quest), Highland Park 12, Woodford Reserve, Knob Creek 9, Basil Hayden's, etc.

On the last 2 Seabourn cruises I've been on, I believe passengers were asked to disembark by 10am.

Also worth noting - the upgraded "stream" internet package that's available for purchase is included at certain suite categories.  We recently traveled in a penthouse spa suite and the upgraded internet was included.

I hope you don't mind me crashing the thread.  Here's my absolute favorite pic from when we at Sawyer Glacier (Tracy Arm Fjord) on Sept 12th!  Took this while kayaking...

On 9/18/2022 at 3:13 PM, Missabby said:

Everyone says to be prepared for rain in Alaska. Please believe them. We had the misfortune of being there while an atmospheric river came through. 9 out of 11 days it rained fairly steadily which is more than usual. 

OK, you're going to hate me. We got on the Odyssey the day you left. We had approximately 5 minutes of rain on our entire 10 day sailing. We even had clear blue skies in the "Misty" Fjords. 

Glad to hear you made it, Laylam! 

In case it helps anyone else, I'll share our experience with forms /apps and boarding the Odyssey in Vancouver yesterday.

We flew in 2 days before the cruise. Used ArriveCAN and the automated kiosks at customs without any issues or delays. 

We filled out veriFLY for boarding the cruise ship, including uploading negative covid test results. At the pier, seabourn had a side desk for veriFLY check-in. They looked at our confirmation and pretty much waved us thru. Super easy.  

As for your 2nd arriveCAN, this wasn't clear to me until we got help from the seabourn people at the pier. We had prepared a dummy arriveCAN for our departure (yes, I realize this makes zero sense, it's an "arrive" app). What they actually wanted was for us to submit one for the end of the cruise when we return to Vancouver. We deleted the dummy one, and it took 5 minutes to submit a new one and show them the code. Then they waved us thru and we boarded the ship. 

27 minutes ago, Laylam said:

YES, looking forward to it. We might be the ones you see being scolded for not having had a pre-boarding covid test!!  I am interested to know if you were also told you didn't need one, during your pre-boarding ArriveCAN application?

So I put all our information into veriFLY, including vaccine and covid test results. My wife did ArriveCAN on her phone, and it reused stored info from our flight entry, which did not ask for test results. We'll see what happens tomorrow... 

On 9/4/2022 at 11:59 AM, Laylam said:

I have just completed our second ArriveCAN, prior to embarkation September 6, and during this process was informed that as verified fully vaccinated travellers we don't require pre=board testing.  However, I am unable to find an update on the above link so ?????????   I will report back after boarding.

I think we are on the Odyssey with you tomorrow. 

22 minutes ago, Laylam said:

According to this site https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/covid-vaccinated-travellers-entering-canada Pre-entry testing is not required

 

It's not for entry into Canada.  It's a requirement to board a passenger cruise ship at a Canada port.  While rules/restrictions are generally thawing out, it seems this one has yet to be lifted.

https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/cruise

On 8/15/2022 at 4:01 PM, Mahogany said:

When I mentioned the lack of jokers, I was referring to tiles, not playing cards. Mah jongg is played with tiles and an official card from the National Mah Jongg League, not with a deck of playing cards.

Interesting anecdote.... when I was taught to play Mah Jongg by some Chinese colleagues on a business trip, they doled out playing cards to track points each round.  At the end of the night, we counted out the difference, and then some RMB exchanged hands.  I somehow managed to break even!

On 8/18/2022 at 5:43 PM, worcestergal said:

 

 

• I just spoke to Seabourn to find out about testing requirements for the Sept. 17 cruise. Canada requires vaccination, so the option for unvaccinated travelers to take a test is not possible for cruises into Canada. However, for vaccinated travelers, there may still be a testing requirement since the cruise is in  “remote” location. The Seabourn rep told me to check back after September 1 to find out if the 17th is a testing-requires cruise.  So, it seems like this is still a work (or policy) in progress. 
   

FYI for anyone else boarding at a Canadian port.  We're sailing out of Vancouver on Sept 6th (the first day of the change).  The way it was explained to us by a Seabourn rep is that even fully vaxxed, Canada requires a negative test within 3 days to board the ship. This a Canada requirement, not Seabourn.

We were told either a PCR or a proctored antigen test is acceptable.  We plan to do a proctored home test before we fly to Vancouver.

Shark - I think the operative question here is.... after this long vacation, do you still remember where you live and how to get back there??  😆

We leave Sunday and board the Odyssey on Tuesday.  We just bit on an offer today to upgrade our V1 cabin to one of the aft view penthouse spa suites.  Now I'm REALLY counting the days until we board....

Appreciate the thread Shark.  👍

We're flying to Vancouver on the 4th and boarding the Odyssey on the 6th.

Sunburn, I live in one of the Fort Lauderdale suburbs, and we used Alliance Health for our pre cruise PCR test. That was the requirement for our cruise from Barbados, not sure what Miami based cruises require. Alliance has multiple locations around town. We used the one in Plantation that is closest to us. We had our test appts at 9am, and expedited results that same afternoon for about $150

22 hours ago, twodjs said:

BTW - passenger count for our Oct 24 cruise is about 170 passengers. Lovely experience! They expect the count to increase to about 300 passengers for November cruises.

 

This is interesting.... when we sailed in September, they were telling us that by late October they were expecting ~300 passengers.  I wonder if that was overly optimistic, or reflects that passengers are still a little shy and rescheduling their trips?

2 hours ago, italyforme said:

BVI is still making it very difficult for cruise lines to call there and we have been told that our stop at Jost is replaced with a sea day; it sounds like this will continue at least for the next four weeks.

On our cruise, BVI turned into a marina day. The transom of the ship folds out and becomes a platform for watersports. Kayaks, paddle boards, banana boat rides, etc. It was a lot of fun! Enjoy! 

Thanks for the pic SDuckers - takes me back!

I'll throw this funny story out there from our cruise last week.  I've never been on a prior cruise where we participated in any sort of hosted dinner.  On this sailing we did two.  Early in the week, our group received an invite to dine with Ellie, one of the singers on board.  We had an absolute blast.  And this young woman is stunning - she was actually Miss Nevada a few years ago.  Then, later in the week we received an invite to dine with Casey, the band vocalist.  Well, the wives in our group protested dining with yet another young, attractive female ("You guys already had Ellie...", lol...).  So the ladies half-jokingly asked if they could get Alex, the band leader and sax player, to join us too.  Well, Seabourn made it happen, so we had dinner with the both of them!  We had such a good time...

My apologies to my fellow cruisers from that week - we were the rowdy table at dinner, always laughing and enjoying our drinks way too much!

I will tell you this.  I suspect going on Seabourn at 25% capacity has ruined me for all future cruises.  Ha!

3 hours ago, GrandCru said:

It sounds like the ship is filling up.

 

I have searched this thread but have not found any mention about formal nights.  Are people dressing up for them?

 

On our cruise last week, I was speaking with the cruise director, and he said numbers are ticking up in October.  By month's end, they have a sailing with close to 300 passengers on board.

Yes, people are still dressed up for formal nights.   I saw anything from a sport coat w/no tie, to white dinner jackets and bow ties.

We had booked our flights through Seabourn / flight ease, and yes we had printouts of our test result letters that were emailed to us.

18 hours ago, Travels with Lisa said:

I understand that we need our original vax card, but what "original proof of documentation" are they referring to here?

We traveled with our CDC vaccination cards, as well as photocopies.  We showed the original cards when we arrived in Barbados, but we had backups just in case

Honestly, the arrival process was rather bizarre, and I can't say I fully understood what was going on at each step.  But I'll share what I remember from our arrival last week...

Step 1 - Covid check just inside the terminal.  Seabourn expediters took us aside from the regular queue, and we showed passport, vaccine card, and PCR results.  Since we were day-of-cruise arrivals, we were given a yellow wristband that we were "in transit" to the ship, and then taken down the corridor by our Seabourn handlers to the next step.

Step 2 - Someone with a tablet entered/verified our names, passports, the ship we were in transit to, and the dates of our PCR test results.  Maybe this was linked up with our BIMSafe entered data, but they did not scan our QR codes. I don't remember showing vaccine cards again at this point.  Then, it was a long (outdoor breezeway) walk to the far end of the terminal for actual immigration, again led by our Seabourn handlers.

Step 3 - Here we were taken to a side line, not the main queue.  At immigration, the officer is behind glass, masked, and you can barely understand what they're asking you to do.  Watch the people that go ahead of you.  You hold your passport and immigration QR code (my wife prepared these ahead of time) up to the glass for them to scan.  They ask you to pull down your mask to see our face, then let you through to baggage claim.

Once we claimed all of the group's bags, Seabourn handlers walked us out, made arrangements with the taxi dispatcher, and handed us off.  We were taken directly to the ship, without regard to boarding time.

At the port, you will meet with the Seabourn doctor during check-in.  In addition to passports, I believe they they verified either our vaccine status or PCR results.  Then we were administered a rapid covid test, and sat in a holding area for ~15 minutes until we were cleared to board.

Enjoy the ship, guys. We just got off this morning, heading back to the real world. Seabourn has us at the Hilton for lunch before heading to the airport. 

Just unreal being on a ship like the Odyssey at 25% capacity. Amazing! 

23 hours ago, cruiseej said:

Seabourn won't provide transportation to the ship unless you booked a land package (hotel + transfers) with them

We did a day-of-sail arrival with group transfer and seabourn reps got us thru customs/immigration and put us on transportion to the ship.  Did you mean that those who book independent pre cruise stays won't receive transportation from seabourn? 

51 minutes ago, FAUDR said:

several of the Caribbean islands on our itinerary lack sophisticated medical facilities.

This is why we buy travel insurance with med evac coverage. If an emergency happens, I want access to the best first world doctors. 

Also worth mentioning, the seabourn health screening. In addition to everyone having a negative PCR test in advance, the ship doctor met with everyone at check in and we had to clear a rapid test before boarding.