Impressions by Regent veterans of first-time Seabourn trip, Quest Sept/18

First time on Seabourn, Quest ReviewMontreal-Montreal, Sept/2018

I'm posting this on the Regent board, because in the past I've been mainly a Regent cruiser; I'll put a link over on the Seabourn board I guess. We have also been significant cruisers of the Paul Gauguin, but I feel that the appropriate comparison is between Regent and Seabourn since they arevery similar products. We have not cruised Crystal or Silversea, although we've tried Azamara and Oceania, once each.

Just to get the itinerary out of the way, it was wonderful, and about what we expected. Coming from Eastern Canada we knew how the weather would likely be, and it was cold (and stormy for a while), but it was lovely to visit parts of our country that we hadn't visited, or not for a long time. The former included Newfoundland, St. Pierre et Miquelon, the north shore of the St. Lawrence River and the Magdalen Islands. The latter included Montreal and Quebec City, i.e., we'd been to Montreal a few times, and had both been to QC previously. Both are lovely cities, as is St. John's in Nfld. The Magdalens were pretty and quite surprising, and St. Pierre was charming and oh so French!

Many of our comments, both praise and criticism, cross over the different aspects of the cruise, but I'll try to categorize them. First the ship itself.

Quest, the Ship

It's a wonderful small ship. It holds 458 passengers, 229 suites. So comparison with Navigator is inevitable, the latter having 245 suites. You can lookup the stats if you like, but Quest has significantly higher tonnage per passenger than Navigator, and somewhat higher than Mariner in fact.

Public décor is quirky—some unusual art pieces in expected places, but in the suite hallways, just weird. Better I don't try to describe it. Let's just say it's colourful and kind of cute.

For restaurants there is The Restaurant (the main dining room), the Colonnade (like La Verandah), the Thomas Keller Grill (a specialty resto, reservations-only), and the Patio, the outside dining/bar area, and another bar higher up, again outdoors. I'll discuss them under food.

There is the usual Observation Lounge, with requisite piano in the corner, bar in the middle, and nice views, but small by Regent standards. At the other end of the ship was The Club, another bar and nightclub kind of place, with a dance floor and a stage. Above it is the show lounge, the Grand Salon, again quite small by Regent standards, about the size of the Paul Gauguin room I think, with pillars dotted around, making sight lines difficult. Low-ceilings, no aerials allowed I think.

Then there's Seabourn Square, which is a wonderful aft space on deck 7 that is like a Coffee Connection writ large, but including computer space,the library, Destination and Guest Services. The whole aft part of deck 7. To get our internet going, there were no less than 4 staff helping people out at embarkation. Lovely space, great barristas, snacks, views. Some furniture isn't very comfortable, but most is. Printed newspapers, and tablets pre-loaded with newspapers and magazines.

Because of the above public areas, we felt at first that the ship had less of a crowded feel than Navigator on another cold-weather cruise (Alaska),but once we knew the ship, we knew why, because they “spent” their space on Seabourn Square at the expense of the show lounge, and to some extent the Observation Lounge. Because of the weather, the pool deck was hardly used (although the hardy few ate out there at lunch or even dinner, under heat lamps and wearing blankets.) So the indoor lounges did often get kind of crowded (more on that later.)

The Restaurant has very limited hours. It's only open for one hour for breakfast, and is usually closed for lunch on port days. This made no sense on a cold-weather cruise like this, and was a major bummer for some. It meant that often the Colonnade was very crowded since few wanted to eat outside at the Patio.

The Colonnade was a nice space, kind of similar to half of La Veranda on one of the Regent ships, but with a larger buffet area. So the buffet itself was bigger, and had more choices I felt than Regent. I would definitely give Seabourn the award here. Will talk about food later.

The Suite

We were in a standard balcony (as we are usually.) Lovely suite. About exactly the same size as the corresponding Navigator suite, with the balcony on Quest marginally larger. Clean lines, light colours, great bed and linens as you'd expect. Huge amount of storage space—lots of cabinets with shelves and drawers, walk-in closet well laid-out. Nice full-length sofa plus two comfortable tub-style chairs, a good table and an ottoman that doubled as coffee table. The only small complaint we had was that the bathroom was a little hard to get in and out of. This was because the suite doors were set in, on an angle, and the bathroom door was difficult to open completely (and you couldn't get into the suite with it open.) As I said, a small complaint. Nicer than a Mariner cabin, for sure, oh well!

Outdoor Space

I didn't get to enjoy the outdoor space much, because it was too cold. But there's a nice-sized pool plus five hot tubs in total—yes, five. One out on the bow, two somewhere stern (can't remember where, but perhaps associated with the spa area.)

No real promenade deck. Deck 9 has a gallery that goes around the pool deck. It's 100 metres, so 10 circuits around is a kilometre. Kind of short, but did the trick.

I'll start with this and add more tonight or tomorrow. Still unpacking and such.

Enjoying your observations. Just one comment........ when the bathroom door is open in F1/F2 and Concierge suites on Explorer, you cannot open the door to the suite.

Enjoying your review. This past February we enjoyed a warm weather Seabourn Odyssey cruise in a similar room. Agree totally with bathroom door issue though liked two sinks. Room itself beautiful with lots of storage space.

Loved Seabourn Square! I will say we had trouble finding seats most evenings in the Observation lounge.

Can not wait to hear the rest of your review.

Enjoying your review. This past February we enjoyed a warm weather Seabourn Odyssey cruise in a similar room. Agree totally with bathroom door issue though liked two sinks. Room itself beautiful with lots of storage space.

Loved Seabourn Square! I will say we had trouble finding seats most evenings in the Observation lounge.

Can not wait to hear the rest of your review.

Yes, the two sinks was very good. The shower stall was as small as those on Voyager, and the bathtub space, for us, is wasted, except for hanging wet clothes, lol! The toiletries were very nice, and varied.

Although Wendy and I have had great fun talking about our Seabourn cruise, I too am looking forward to seeing what she writes next. Although we do talk, we don't always agree on everything, just usually. But for now I'll just mention that in addition to different passengers valuing different things, there are variations in quality on the same ship with similar itineraries. I once did a back-to-back with the identical itinerary on the same ship with the same staff, and the differences were huge. So, when bebop bonnie was on Quest just before us, our different impressions and experiences are not to say that either is more right than the other.

Thank you Wendy and David for sharing you Seabourn voyage experiences. Look forward to reading more.

Part II

Restaurants and Dining

Colonnade

We ate all or most of our breakfasts and lunches in the Colonnade, the more casual restaurant. Like La Veranda, it is a buffet for those meals. Smaller than half of La Verandah, but with a larger buffet area. The food was good, and very varied. There was always a table service menu, with the usual add-ons at breakfast, of pancakes, eggs benny, etc. There was muesli and granola as well as hot cereal (sometimes congee, but most commonly oatmeal), lots of pastries and good breads, cold cuts, cheeses, fruits, berries, yogurt. The hot items were pretty much as expected, very similar to what we're used to on Regent.

At lunch there were burgers and dogs, etc. that you could order at your table, plus a large buffet. A great salad bar, much better than Regent, and always a made-to-order Caeasar salad station. Themed hot lunch dishes of various kinds, often very good, of dubious merit at times, sometimes way too salty (sound familiar?). But generally a nice selection, and great desserts.

I would definitely give the buffets an edge over Regent in terms of the variety of items served. And perhaps a small edge on the quality of the food, but still the usual “misses”. And often very crowded, perhaps because the outdoor seating area wasn't too popular in the bad weather.

We had some very nice meals there at dinner, and it was generally table service, with a specialized menu of some kind, occasionally “family style”, and the last night it was a buffet, so crowded we could not get a table for four. Once in a while it was by reservation only, notably the “Clam Bake” family style night, and some special “Thomas Keller” nights, where they showcase some of his foodie menu items. Very good experience for dinner, nicer than La Verandah because the menu was different every night.

The Restaurant

Lovely room, decent acoustics along the edges, not so great in the center of the room, where the ceiling is higher. But beautiful to look at. One large space like Voyager as opposed to somewhat segmented like Mariner. Very elegant.

The menus were similar to Regent in some ways. Some nights there was a special tasting menu in addition to a unique menu for that night, plus a menu of favourites (Classic). As with Regent, some dishes were amazing and some disasters. Portions were generally small,except for main course Classics, I found.

One part of the menu that I missed were the Canyon Ranch items. By mid-cruise I was craving something light, and that was hard to come by. Yes, you could order anything you liked, but that would involve advanced planning I believe. At times all I wanted was a nice big salad and a piece of fish and chicken on top. In general vegetables were lacking (I'm a veggie person), and yes, you can order them, but they're not on the menu, per se—as usual individual menu items use vegetables more as a garnish, so they are incidental. The one time I asked for an extra vegetable, I got a nice plate of garlic green beans. So perhaps at the top of the range, the tasting menus, Seabourn wins, but overall, not much different, but for me, Regent wins for having the Canyon Ranch menu.

Note: we did NOT dine at the Thomas Keller Grill. Some people loved it, others hated it. We decided for various reasons to give it a pass.

And we only ate at the Patio once when the Colonnade was packed, and the staff there was getting slammed because, again, The Restaurant was closed for lunch. Staff were barely keeping up, but did what they could to get us served.

But this underlines the whole issue of The Restaurant being closed for lunch on port days, and open only for one hour for breakfast. It really did put a lot of pressure on the other dining venues,especially on this, a cold weather cruise. Goodness knows what it's like in the Arctic.

Service

Overall, the staff were wonderful. They always asked for our suite # on entry to a restaurant, so they then knew our names. The servers in the Restaurant carried tablets, so they also knew our names and, presumably, faces. Most of the restaurant staff were great.

There were a couple of lapses in service during the cruise, mostly in the lounges, and perhaps I'll ask David to elucidate. Suffice it to say that the service was great when it was great, fine most of the time, and dreadful once in a while. In general there seemed to be a staffing issue—one excuse that was used by Seabourn apologists as to why the Restaurant had such abbreviated hours during the day. But they boast about their staff/guest ratios, so I don't buy that.

Destination and Guest Services were great, except see below. They got us set up with our internet packages efficiently on boarding. Our OBC was cheerfully rolled over back to our credit card without any of the usual jiggery-pokery of Regent. Although I note that next year Regent is simplifying this in a very nice way.

Excursions and Guest Services

We did three ship's excursions. They were pricey. Because of the locations,buses were scarce—in all three cases our buses were basically full. All were good and well-run, although not as nice as our private tours, lol! Guides in all three cases were wonderful, a coincidence no doubt.

Funny, at one point just before sailaway in, uh, St. Pierre, there were six passengers missing. The CD went as far trying to find them onboard. The captain came on and said that if they didn't make it back within an hour, we would leave without them! Turns out they were on a zodiac trip, a ship's excursion.They made it back safely, but not with any help from Seabourn. We heard the story from the point of one of the participant. The zodiac driver insisted on dropping them in town, not at the dock. That meant they were to go to the town square and catch the shuttle back to the ship. But as they walked over to it, the bus pulled away without them, and that turned out to be the last bus! The lady at the tourist information booth attempted to phone the ship, but couldn't raise anyone. She ended up doing multiple trips in her own little car, ferrying the passengers back to the ship, about a mile away. Seabourn did not cover itself with glory on this one.

I'll leave off now, still got to talk about entertainment, enrichment,fellow passengers, and...?

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Funny, at one point just before sailaway in, uh, St. Pierre, there were six passengers missing. The CD went as far trying to find them onboard. The captain came on and said that if they didn't make it back within an hour, we would leave without them! Turns out they were on a zodiac trip, a ship's excursion.They made it back safely, but not with any help from Seabourn. We heard the story from the point of one of the participant. The zodiac driver insisted on dropping them in town, not at the dock. That meant they were to go to the town square and catch the shuttle back to the ship. But as they walked over to it, the bus pulled away without them, and that turned out to be the last bus! The lady at the tourist information booth attempted to phone the ship, but couldn't raise anyone. She ended up doing multiple trips in her own little car, ferrying the passengers back to the ship, about a mile away. Seabourn did not cover itself with glory on this one.

...

To re-iterate what Wendy wrote, this was a ship's excursion. And yet the Captain announced he was going to leave them behind if they didn't show up soon. And to top off being left stranded in the town square, when they finally made it to the ship, no thanks to Seabourn, they were fussed at by the staff as they boarded for being late. I've never seen such behaviour by any ship to passengers whose only fault was signing up for a ship's excursion.

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There were a couple of lapses in service during the cruise, mostly in the lounges, and perhaps I'll ask David to elucidate. Suffice it to say that the service was great when it was great, fine most of the time, and dreadful once in a while. ...

Early on we went to the Observation lounge at about 6:30 and, as usual, it was packed. We found seats and sat for about 20 minutes before a server showed up. I ordered a gin martini straight up with a twist. Ten minutes later he shows up with a martini with olives, which I despise. I pointed out the mistake, and he took it away. From where I was sitting I could see him at the bar take out the olives, put in a twist, and bring it back to me. I complained and he looked me straight in the eye and said I was mistaken, that the bartender had made a fresh martini. As Wendy wrote, in general the service was good to excellent: too many more incidents like this one and I would be advising people to avoid Seabourn for any cruise at any time.

To re-iterate what Wendy wrote, this was a ship's excursion. And yet the Captain announced he was going to leave them behind if they didn't show up soon. And to top off being left stranded in the town square, when they finally made it to the ship, no thanks to Seabourn, they were fussed at by the staff as they boarded for being late. I've never seen such behaviour by any ship to passengers whose only fault was signing up for a ship's excursion.

Oh yeah, I forgot that part! They were chastised at the gangway!

BTW, we found out about that incident while sitting on a tender for half an hour, striking up conversations.

The reason we were sitting on the tender for half an hour, at the port, was that Seabourn had not yet cleared Canada Customs & Immigration after being in French, St. Pierre. Another tender full of excursioners like us came up after us, and floated around out there waiting, and finally a third tender arrived, bearing officials who had the paperwork that allowed us to get off the tender finally. Again, no kudos to Seabourn for bungling this badly. We're used to seeing Customs officials trooping into La Veranda for breakfast or lunch, guess the Canadians don't do this.

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The reason we were sitting on the tender for half an hour, at the port, was that Seabourn had not yet cleared Canada Customs & Immigration after being in French, St. Pierre. Another tender full of excursioners like us came up after us, and floated around out there waiting, and finally a third tender arrived, bearing officials who had the paperwork that allowed us to get off the tender finally. ... .

To elaborate a bit, we had a ship's excursion booked, and Seabourn said we should be on the 10 AM tender, which was the first one of the day. Doing what we were told, we rode about 20 minutes from the ship to the dock in the cold unheated and uncomfortable tender, and then arrived at the dock, where they made us stay on the tender full of people for another 30 minutes. Second tender arrived about 15 minutes later, and they didn't even get to be at the dock: they floated around in the water. Finally a third tender arrived with a Seabourn person with a raft of papers, and we were allowed off the tender. I don't know whether this customs and immigration snafu was the fault of Seabourn and/or Canadian Border Services, but it was certainly Seabourn who loaded us onto a tender almost a full hour before we cleared customs and immigration.

I've now posted three very negative things about the cruise and Seabourn. Overall I had a lovely time, and will try to make my next post, if any, more positive about Seabourn and my experience with our cruise. But, perhaps I'm just love cruising that much: I even managed to have a fairly good time on my one and only Oceania cruise, but it would take a spectacular itinerary at a fantastic price to get me on one of their ships again.

Yes, we had a great time, and the ship was lovely. Very impressed with Seabourn overall. Just not enough to say that I like them better than Regent. As for Quest, lovely ship, but I didn't fall in love with it, the way I did with Mariner almost two years ago. That's a good thing, since we're now booked on the WC in 2021 on Mariner!

The ship sounds interesting and mostly nice, but the way they treat customers that you relate is awful.

Agree with Rachel - the ship and cruise seems fine with a few hiccups. Did your friends enjoy the cruise?

My husband and I were on a ship excursion where the bus about 45 minutes away from a small port in New Zealand died ( Christ Church dock not yet repaired from earthquake so docked a good distance from Christ Church) . He tried to call for help from his tour company but no help. We were in middle of nowhere on 2 lane highway. We all stayed calm because we knew Regent wouldn’t leave us. We started stopping random buses on highway. Little by little the 30ish of us found a seat here or there. There then was 8ish of us left and it’s getting really late...a bus from another cruise line excursion headed back to Christ Church...good drive away over mountains...stopped. He agreed to try to turn around on highway and take us to the small port he had left 45 minutes earlier. We left the bus driver with his bus waiting for help. The regent tender was waiting for us and everyone was happy we made it. We were quite late but knew the ship would be there. We were so thankful that New Zealand bus driver helped us.

When on ship excursion they should know it and know something is up with excursion.

Yeh, well I was surprised. When the captain came on the intercom and said this, I thought he was perhaps kidding. He did seem to have a rye sense of humour.

Yeh, well I was surprised. When the captain came on the intercom and said this, I thought he was perhaps kidding. He did seem to have a rye sense of humour.

Maybe the only report the ship had was the excursion was over and they had been left at drop off point in town without realizing last shuttle had already left for ship before they got there. That might explain it.

Thank you for your review! I have been trying to learn more about Seabourn. I haven’t been able to discern much from the boards. I really enjoy the Regent and Oceania boards and look forward to receiving brochures on a weekly basis and daily emails from Regent. I am 2.5 years out from booking - but reviews like this help me narrow down my luxury cruise line of choice.

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Maybe the only report the ship had was the excursion was over and they had been left at drop off point in town without realizing last shuttle had already left for ship before they got there. That might explain it.

That's an excellent point. If the word to the Captain was that the excursion passengers "chose" to get off in town when the excursion ended, then technically they'd now be on their own. It might be a case of the excursion company covering their mistake by saying they let the passengers off at their own request.

This was an excellent review Wendy. Thank you for your observations.

This was great reading, W&W. And, Wendy, I'm going to assume that you purposely chose your spelling on "rye" sense of humor. Good one! :cool:

Agree with Rachel - the ship and cruise seems fine with a few hiccups. Did your friends enjoy the cruise?

Our friends who we were traveling with had a great time. In fact, everybody on the ship was having a great time. Most cruises there are a very small number of passengers who are negative about everything: nothing is good enough for their super-refined sensibilities. I didn't meet any such passengers on this cruise, although there may have been some. Even the people who got stranded were having a good time but were justifiably angry about this one incident.

In fact, if one reads the Seabourn board one often sees posts from such ultra-critical people. That made me reticent about Seabourn. But, as is common, the posts of a few people on a particular board don't seem to reflect the overall type of passengers on the ship.

One small thing to add. When we left Havre St. Pierre, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, many townsfolk came down to the dock to see us off. They blew their car horns, waved goodbye to us, waving their Arcadian flags. Very nice. I hadn't experienced that since we visited Guatemala City some years ago.

This was great reading, W&W. And, Wendy, I'm going to assume that you purposely chose your spelling on "rye" sense of humor. Good one! :cool:

Oops! No, it was a rare spelling lapse on my part!

Maybe the only report the ship had was the excursion was over and they had been left at drop off point in town without realizing last shuttle had already left for ship before they got there. That might explain it.

Yes, that could explain it, for sure. Still not great on the logistical front, I'd say. Either the shuttle driver should have known about excursions returning to the port, or they should have done one more bus run.

Regarding the stranded passengers, surely the ship knows who is on which ship's excursions. Their database has no problem in identifying and charging the passengers for those excursions. If the ship's staff didn't check the list of missing passengers against the list of people on ship's excursions, then they are incompetent. Perhaps Wendy didn't commit a typo earlier, and rye whiskey was involved. ;p

Part III

Enrichment

This was a 12-day cruise. They had two lecturers onboard for the entire trip, doing talks on the history, economy and wildlife of the area. Both were Americans. Considering that this was a cruise in Canada, they could have done better. The one man we tired of soon and stopped going. He made obvious mistakes which were kind of laughable for Canadians,and we frankly felt slighted. The other speaker was very good,although also very American-centric (for instance, her talk on the historical whaling industry focused solely on Nantucket and that area, not mentioning whaling in other parts of Europe, Scandinavia,or other areas, let alone Canada. But she was entertaining, so we went to most of hers.

At least the enrichment was in line with the destination: that we really appreciated. This is something that Regent rarely does well, at least in our experience (with the notable exception of Terry Breen and Sandra Bowern.)

Entertainment

Didn't go to a lot of shows, so I'll start with the lounge entertainment. The pianist int he Observation Lounge was good, although not as good as some we've had on Regent.

There was an excellent trio, call The Trio, who played in the Club before and after dinner. Good repertoire, good performers, we very much enjoyed them.

Of the shows that we went to, there was a comedian who was okay, not great, but we laughed so I guess that's a success. There was a magician who came onboard for the second half and he was great fun—he was also a comedian, so did everything with a light touch. Notably we'd seen many of his tricks before, but it didn't matter, I still couldn't figure them out! The staff band and dancers we just saw peripherally and we did not like them—the dancers were also schmoozers at various events, strutting their stuff in tacky ways, imho. I tried a couple of shows that I had to walk out of, they were so terrible. One was put on by the above troupe, and it was a tribute to Country and Rock music. They opened with a Tom Cochraine number, the dancers all wearing cowboy hats, boots and fringed vests. I could not stand it and fled immediately. Ditto the Liberace-clone piano phenom who joined late in the cruise—I left after the first number—he was a mediocre pianist at best, but very much a showman, so lots of people liked him. I kept hearing that lines like Seabourn get the leftovers in the talent department—don't know if that's true.

All this you must take with a grain of salt since neither of us have ever been big on the production shows on Regent.

Fellow Passengers

This seemed like a very casual cruise. Maybe because it was cold-weather. Dress during the day was very casual, and got more so as the cruise progressed. And most were very friendly and open to socializing. We befriended an entertaining bunch who hung around the Observation bar before dinner, and had great time. And as usual, we shared dining quite a lot—at breakfast and lunch more by necessity, but we met some great people that way. As usual, there were some snobs and some drunks and a*holes, but a pretty nice bunch, overall.

Little Stuff

Probably slightly better selection on the in suite entertainment system. A fair selection of music as well as movies, although the quality of the sound system wasn't anything special. They had BBC, as well as the usual CNN, Fox, CNBC, etc., not sure if Regent has BBC these days.

I'll think of some other little stuff probably.

To contextualize Wendy's comments on the entertainers, we go to a lot of live music, both in bars and at concerts. The Trio was good enough that I would go hear them if they were playing at a nearby bar in Toronto. They were the only ones who met or even got close to passing that test. We are big country and especially bluegrass fans, and the Country and Rock performance we walked out of on Seabourn should be illegal in civilised parts of the world.