clarky

Today we are in Casablanca. This morning we were greeted with rain. This afternoon is sunny and many people are going in to the town again after the abortive morning on the shuttle into town. We have been to Casablanca before so were happy to just walk around town. Not the most impressive port in Morocco but if you have not been to the mosque here it is worth a visit.

I'm so glad other guests are also commenting on the positive changes that have been made on board. I spoke with Chef Neal and he is on until the end of February so all of you who are reading with interest and will be joining the ship in Cape Town will have him and Handre on board. We are very impressed with Neal and Handre is a favourite of ours.

We attended the pre dinner show last night which was the Harpist Francisco Yglesia from Paraguay and while most guests liked his music it was not to our taste so we left early. We did however enjoy the comedian Martin Beaumont very much and I believe he was well received by the other guests on board also. Here is the schedule that I said I would attach for your viewing.

The formal night was well attended. Everyone looked wonderful all dressed up. We arrived at about 8.00 p.m. into the dinning room as we had drinks with friends. Most of the tables were occupied but they found us a table for 6. The food was cooked to perfection. I ordered a small portion of Beef Wellington and a small portion of the lobster. The beef wellington was excellent, my husband is still taking about how tender the beef was. The lobster was also cooked perfectly. The service unfortunately was very slow, to the point where I needed to flag a staff member down and ask that someone come and take our orders. I know that the dinning room was busy but the wait was unacceptable. I'm hoping this is a one off as on our two previous nights the service was excellent.

Last night we ate at 2 restaurant. I know many guests have expressed their dislike of this venue but we have had some wonderful food at 2 and for us it changes things up. The food was excellent with the exception of the main offerings, the fish and the veal. Both were over-salted. We asked that this be bought to the attention of the chef. When we first experienced restaurant 2 they suggested a different wine with each course to enhance the dinning experience. They do not do this anymore which I think is shame as it takes away from the whole experience. There were only about 5 tables occupied and I think that Seabourn should probably be looking at changing this venue as it does not appear to be popular among guests. So I would give this dinning experience about a 7/10 due to over-salting and lack of wines to match the courses.

Yesterday we took the Seabourn tour to Cordoba. We have previously done the Seabourn tour to the Alhambra and my husband really wanted to visit the Mosque with the church inside. It did not disappoint, it is truly magnificent and I would highly recommend this tour to people who have already visited the Alhambra. The only downside of the tour was our guide who did not take a break from telling us inane facts about Spanish history for the 2.5 hours to Cordoba and the 2.5 hours back to the ship. She had a very monotone voice which did not help. I love history and appreciate learning about the history of the region we visit but her delivery was very poor.

Handre is a very good CD and we have cruised with him before. I believe he is staying on board until February but I will check with him and get back to you. The wine guys are holding a lecturer and tasting this evening and I will try and attend. I did hear from another guest that their 11.00 in the morning lecture was well attended. Tonight we have a local Flamenco Show on board and I'm looking forward to this.

As a note: Our friends have the owners suite and invited us to have drinks in their suite last night. They called room service to deliver a plate of cheese and some drinks and 45 minutes later it had not arrived. We ended up going for drinks to the bar on deck 10 and our cheese plate was delivered there. We have never had to wait so long for a room service delivery and I'm not sure what is going on with room service. Are they understaffed? The crew are a great mix of nationalities some of whom are getting off in Cape Town and some who have just joined the ship.

I have taken some photos of the Seabourn diary as I'm calling it and will try and include this in my next post.

We boarded the ship yesterday and today is a sea day so I thought I would put my first impressions down while they are fresh in my mind.

The ship underwent a deep clean for three days before it cruised into Monte Carlo. We have been told by guests who joint in Monte Carlo that some carpets were replaced. The ship is certainly looking as good as ever. We have Cpt Karlo Buer at the helm and Handre as Cruise Director. We also have 8 guest Lecturers on board for this trip and I have just attended a lecture by Phillip Hurst who we have met on a previous cruise. I have also attended an arts and craft class held by Julie Warren an artist who mainly works with sculpture. I'm quietly pleased with my clay work so far and I'm planning on giving my two pieces to my children as pay back for all the art work they bought home from school for me which I heaped lots of praise on. What do they say about payback!

We have an Irish Chef on board. I'm yet to find out his name but the food so far has been some of the best I have experienced on any Seabourn cruise. I will keep all the foodies informed on the quality of the food and comment on his menu tonight for our first formal night.

One thing that has changed since we last cruised is that in our suite we are given a large page which is something like a diary. Special events are listed as are the dress code for the day. There is room left for you to put in times of the activities that you would like to attend. I really like this as it allows you to look at the week ahead and what events you would like to attend and place them in your Seabourn sheet diary. We have also received the little booklets of the ports we will be visiting. I know via the diary sheet that the block party is scheduled for the next sea day. I know this is normally in the Herald but this is a much clearer way of giving you information.

The wines so far have been good, not very good but decent. We also have two wine guys on board, they may be known to Americans as The world wine guys. Mike Desimone and Jeff Jensenn. They are giving wine lectures and I think this also includes tastings. They held there first one today but it clashed with another activity I was attending so can not comment personally on them. I will try and find other guests who have attended their lecture and comment on how they are being received.

If anyone has any questions they would like answered or anything particular they would like comments on just let me know.

Just received the same message. We are on the cruise Barcelona - Cape Town on the 19th November and have had a number of ports cancelled. Will post while on board and let everyone know the situation is being handled.

We have done this three times on Seabourn, twice on the Odyssey and both times the only items we packed up were our toiletries. We were in port both times and headed out early on tours and when we returned to the ship we just returned to our new cabin. Once on the Spirit we had a problem in our cabin they could not fix so they moved us to another cabin and the same routine occured (they packed everything for us). If you are doing a back to back then the day that you will need to move cabins you will be in port and most likely you will be out touring so it really does not cause any inconvenience.

We have done this doing a back to back with Seabourn. They pack everything for you. We left our suite and later that day after a day touring we came back to the new suite and everything was in the same place as our previous suite. They take everything. I did pack up all my toiletries but just left them packed in the bathroom. It was so easy and did not cause us any disruption what so ever. Obviously you will need to take everything from the safe but you can arrange for this to be kept safe with the office until you move to your new suite. Honestly not a problem.

Thank you for that Emperor Norton,

I have been posting on cc since 2002 and this is the first time I have felt insulted and belittled for my opinion. I have cruised on a number of different cruise lines and was giving an opinion to be helpful. The sort of comment posted here from Oregon50 puts other people off from posting in case they get comments like this.

To Oregon50 please keep insulting comments to yourself.

Grump Wombat, (love the name by the way, makes me wish I had chosen Crazy Kangaroo or something similar),

We have tried both cruise lines. We had done about 6 Seabourn cruises before we tried Silverseas. We bumped into three other couples who we had met sailing Seabourn. We were the only ones trying Silverseas for the first time. Here are my feelings (which as everybody know are not what others may think or feel about Silverseas just my personal opinion).

Food: I did not enjoy the food on our Silverseas cruise at all. Now this can be put down to the chef on board at the time as the other guests who had sailed on both lines said that is was the worst food they had had on Silverseas.

Staff: I like the mix of staff on Seabourn better. They are in my opinion more professional. I had a number of complaints with the staff on Silverseas which I have never had on Seabourn.

Ship: The ship was due to go into drydock not long after we got off and it showed. When we complained about something that was not working in our room they said it would be fixed in drydock! My husband was not pleased and asked that they fix the problem for us and not just the guests who would be sailing after the dry dock. They did in fact fix the problem but their attitude left a bad impression.

Guests: We made wonderful friends on the Silverseas cruise who we have converted to Seabourn. None of us have done another Silverseas cruise.

Perhpas we were just unlucky and had an indifferent crew but I can only base my opinion on the cruise we took.

I understand that not all cruises run perfectly but when I have had an issue on Seabourn it was addressed immediately and I was never made to feel like my complaint was insignificant. I would honestly say that if you are happy with Seabourn then stay with Seabourn. If the itinerary on the Silverseas cruise was significantly better then I would suggest perhaps you try Silverseas for yourself but as you say they are nearly identical. Go with Seabourn.

Karen.

We have been cruising on Seabourn for over 14 years and have only experienced a large group once and this was on the little ship. As you can imagine on the smaller ships it really did impact other guests. The groups constant demands on the crew left other passengers feeling unattended to and the noise they made left other passengers with few places to find peace and quiet. I wish I had the foresight to complain directly to the Hotel Manager at the time and then later follow this up with a letter to head office. Seabourn is entitled to book groups on the cruises it offers however it has an obligation to all guests to offer the experience promised. Perhaps if more people complained and asked for compensation Seabourn would think twice about accepting groups that were part of an incentive reward.

Kirby and the other Sojourn guests are not getting the experience that they expected because of the large group that is on board at the moment. I also know that the crew suffer when they have large demanding or poorly behaved groups on board. No-one wants to be a complainer but if you don't say anything nothing changes. I know that if I was in this situation now I would make a complaint.

One of the things I would like to see enhanced is the dinning options for outside. Many guests enjoy eating alfresco in the evening and doing something creative with either menu or venue would be appreciated. I'm thinking the patio grill.

I agree with the post regarding the Filipino entertainers. They are fantastic. I do however hope they keep the same mix of staff as they have now as I believe this is one of the things that set Seabourn apart from other cruise companies.

Hi,

We live in Bali for part of the year and the thing that would concern me would be the officials clearing the ship. I'm not sure how much confidence I would have in them to clear the ship efficiently. You may dock at 7.00 a.m. but that is not necessarily the time the ship is cleared. Having said that I have no first hand experience in arriving in the port. Getting to the airport should not be a problem at that time in the morning but it does not leave much room for any sort of delay. International check in is two hours before and sometimes the lines for immigration can be long. We were there three weeks ago and with the new airport things have been streamlined and we proceeded through security and immigration very quickly.

Sorry this may not be of a big help but for myself I think you are being a bit too ambitious and while things may go according to plan you are cutting it very fine.

We are on the cruise that stops in Walvis bay and if you look at my post on Historian quad bike tour in Walvis bay you will see an independent tour that requires 10 people. I have 6 at the moment. This company also does the 4x4 tours into the desert. I do not think Seabourn offers a Seabourn experience at Walvis Bay.

For anyone on this cruise Barcelona - Cape Town who is interested in this tour the details are: We are met at the Harbour gate in Walvis Bay Namibia. We take a 3.5 hour tour of the dunes including the history of the land, local people and desert wildlife. My husband and I along with two friends and perhaps two other friends on the ship will take this tour. The maximum number of people is 10 to get the tour to go ahead. The cost is $110.00 USD per person.

Further information can be found on http://www.kuisebonline.com This tour is highly recommended on tripadvisor so you check out reviews of the tour there. In the e-mail that Fanie send me he said this tour is educational and not for adrenalin seekers. He is 67 so I think this tour will be given at a sedate pace.

If you are interested after visiting his web page and checking the tour out on tripadvisor please contact him direct on fanie@kuisebonline.com

Tumi,

How frustrating to call the customer service line and get a poor attitude from the person supposedly being paid to help you. Even if this agent could not help you for whatever reason explaining this to you in a pleasant manner and offering you advise on who could help would have left you with a much better impression of the Seabourn brand. Despite any cost cutting on the land side of Seabourn it does not cost a cent more for a customer service agent to be pleasant.

Like you mentioned Seabourn holds itself up as a luxury cruise experience and Head Office needs to understand that this also includes the pre-cruise experience when guests may have questions or need help from the land side of the organization.

When you get on-board the staff could not be more pleasant and helpful it is a shame this does not carry through the whole organization.

We took the Seabourn 10 hour tour and thought it was an excellent tour. A very emotional day all round. Having said that, if you are familiar with driving in France or can find a private guide then either of those options would be preferable. It gives you more freedom to decide where you want to spend more time, either the beaches or the war cemetery. I would suggest that at the museum at the beach landing you take a guided tour (if you drive yourself) as the history that is imparted as well as pointing out where the landing occurred is really invaluable.

Henry, Wow! I know I'm just repeating other posters when I say this but really if someone at Seabourn has not seen this and contacted you about using it in their marketing they are crazy. What better endorsement of the Seabourn we love than to have a real guests impression and experience of their cruise. What we say in words your video says visually.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share.

The wet season in Bali is Dec, Jan, Feb. Having said that it usually only rains at night or about 3.00 in the afternoon and the afternoon rain may last an hour. This time of year is much more humid. Would it stop me going on a cruise at this time of year. No, because most cruise lines cruise around Asia at this time of year. It is not the wet season in all parts of Asia at this time of year, in fact in some parts of Asia January and February are the best times to visit. June, July and August are the best times to visit but most cruise lines are busy in Europe or the Med at that time of year.

Hi,

We have lived in Indonesia for many years and have a house in Bali. Lombok is a great Island and has some wonderful scenery. Here is a link you might find helpful.

http://www.lombok-tourism.com/lombok_day_tours.htm

As for Celukan. We live in Bali for part of each year and I'm not familiar with the area of Celukan. I looked on the map and it looks like you could be driving distance to West Bali National Park (Menjangan). We have snorkeled all over the world (including the Great Barrier Reef) and this is our top spot. Not sure what tours the ship offers but if you let me know I can give you my opinion.

As you start the trip in Bali let me know if you would like any information or help on what to see or do in Bali. If you would like a driver with a car I can help you with a great driver who can take you anywhere you want to go at a great price. If you do this right these two port could be highlights.

Karen.