ernieb

We recently (May) completed a 21 day Panama Canal cruise on Seabourn Odyssey and prior to COVID became silver on Regent Explorer. We were disappointed in the Odyssey for a number of reasons: The age of the ship - This is something we were concerned about since we normally sail on the newer ships in the fleet. The Odyssey launched in 2009 and could not compete with the Explorer in 2018 & 19. There were many comments on the Seabourn board after our cruise regarding the poor condition of the ship which had just completed dry dock 2 weeks before we boarded. Laundry facilities - My DW is OCD about keeping our clothes washed almost every day. The Odyssey only had 2 laundry rooms, both on deck 5 which were always in use with no seating available. The Explorer has laundry rooms on most deck with 2 on some. Specialty dining - The Odyssey only has the Thomas Keller Grill, The Colonnade and the Pool Grill which becomes something called Earth & Ocean in the evening. Of course we were used to Prime 7, Chartreuse, Pacific Rim and Sette Mari. For our tastes the food on both lines is very good. The Odyssey does change their menus with daily and a number of items that are always available. We however, prefer the ability to plan our dining venue and menu in a more predictable manner. We booked this cruise because a Panama Canal cruise has always been on our bucket list and this one came at a good time for us. On the whole, we really enjoyed the cruise. The staff we’re great and the other pax were very friendly. We made a few new friends onboard. The entertainment was very good and the bartenders and wait staff always did their best to keep us happy. I will not rule out another Seabourn cruise in the future. However, given the choice, I will pick RSSC every time.

We were also on the MIA to LAX Cruise. It was our first on Seabourn. While we were very impressed with the crew and their continuous attempts to make the pax happy and comfortable, we were disappointed with a number of issues: We agree with Dan that the condition of the ship was not what we expect of a luxury ship. This may be due to the fact that we normally only cruise on the newer ships in the fleet. One can probably not expect a 12 year old ship to compete with a ship that is only 1 - 2 years old. However, we should be able to expect a ship recently out of dry dock to be in the best condition possible. We were disappointed with the dining experience. While we generally found the food to be adequate, there was very little we found to be exceptional. We dined in the TK Grill 5 times. The Caesar salad, Dover sole and lamb chops were very good. Other items were acceptable but not very memorable. There were always items on The Restaurant menu that we found acceptable, however very few that we really desired. We were impressed that we could request a special dish that would be prepared with 24 hours notice. However we were frustrated by the inability to make that request with knowledge of what would be included on the menu we might prefer. We were also disappointed by the limited dining venues. We are accustomed to about 4 specialty restaurants in addition to the main dining room. Due to these items we will probably return to Regent or maybe even HAL for our future cruises. We did participate in 4 of the SB shore excursions. While the objective of the excursion was normally fun and interesting, we were disappointed by the amount of bus travel on 2 of the 4 and particularly on one 4.5 hour excursion with at least 3 hours of bus travel that was not mentioned in the description. I also got in significant trouble with my wife due to a “Luxury Sailboat Ride” that wound up being much rougher than my wife appreciated. We were also disappointed with the personal laundry facilities. We are used to having a laundry room on each floor rather than only 2 rooms for the whole ship. They were also not particularly comfortable without even a chair on which to sit. We did find the other PAX on Seabourn to be extremely friendly. We made new friends and enjoyed our interaction with almost everyone. We were very impressed with the entertainment, particularly Roy Tan and Lou Gazzara.