Sojourn

[KyleSS]

Does anyone know who the CD and Executive Chef are at present on the Sojourn?

Thanks!

[Pop-I]

Executive chef terrific, but CD is John Howell and not our cup of tea, not that of most others. He is quite useless in fact.

[harbormaster]

Hi KyleSS: We were on the Sojourn in South America in November and the Chef was Andrew Soddy and the CD was John Howell. The food was excellent and the Chef was very personable. The Galley lunch was exceptional.

We love the Seabourn CDs and this was our first cruise with John Howell. We have to say we found him very professional, engaging, funny, and omnipresent. He really took an interest in cruisers personally and we must say he ran a great trivia. Our night of Rock the Boat was the best we have had on Seabourn (and they were all good), and John has a great voice.

We look forward to sailing with him again. (And Jan and David and any cruise on Seabourn :))

[Alipius]

Pop-I, I must say that people who use throw-away jibes such as 'not my cup of tea' are dashed annoying. Even more annoying is the fact that you give not one example of what supposedly irked you or what you found 'useless' and, in truth, people who employ such cliches usually don't.

 

It is a terrible thing to simply criticise a person in his profession like that. (Mind you, you do serve to remind me that anyone who, except in jest, uses the expression 'not my cup of tea' usually has their own, larger, problems.)

 

If you had said that he didn't introduce the night-time Shows in a professional and lively way (which he did) or that on Galley Lunch day he failed to get all the Staff out of the Kitchen and the Restaurant crew to come forward and congratulate them in a way that pleased not only them but us too (which he most certainly did) or that he failed to get us all going and laughing in his presentation of Team Trivia (every day was a hoot) or that he never gave a cheery greeting when he ran into you about the ship (I can still see his cheery smile) or that on days that the ship couldn't call into a port he didn't organise dance-classses and other entertainments to take its place (John never failed in this), if you had gone into any of these areas, well then your post might have had some worth. It didn't, and it hasn't.

 

I have been on board a total of 42 days with John Howell as CD and he is the best I have ever known. I hope I have provided enough examples of why I think so, as I could provide more.

[my crow's nest]

Alipius, Thank you for your very intelligent and well written response to POP-I's vacuous post.

[rl787]

We were on a cruise with John Howell last year and found him to be a pleasant chap who really tried to welcome every guest, I go along with the comment about being polite to everyone when he came across you. We don't tend to have much interaction with cruise directors but found him really pleasant and he seemed to constantly try to ensure guests were comfortable and were enjoying themselves.

Quite often someones personality is just not for you, this does not make them a bad CD just someone who you just don't take too. It is the same with other passengers sometimes!!

[Tutuma]

Recently returned from cruise (South America) with John Howell as CD. Thought he was most pleasant and professional.

[cwisleman]

We have sailed with John on several occasions and find him to be great.

[laryrob]

Hi KyleSS: We were on the Sojourn in South America in November and the Chef was Andrew Soddy and the CD was John Howell. The food was excellent and the Chef was very personable. The Galley lunch was exceptional.

We love the Seabourn CDs and this was our first cruise with John Howell. We have to say we found him very professional, engaging, funny, and omnipresent. He really took an interest in cruisers personally and we must say he ran a great trivia. Our night of Rock the Boat was the best we have had on Seabourn (and they were all good), and John has a great voice.

We look forward to sailing with him again. (And Jan and David and any cruise on Seabourn :))

We were on the same cruise w/John and Kathy and totally agree. As a generality we often skip the entertainment on many ships but close to every night on the Sojourn it was superb and that,among many other tasks ,is attributable to a good CD. John was terrific and ran a great staff and made sure everyone was having a fabulous time.The best we have had on any of the luxury lines( Regent, Crystal,Silverseas). As for the trivia,John really made it enjoyable with his sense of humor -and of course we loved it because our team won! (John and Kathy and us were on the same team--still waiting for the free cruise to be offered as the grand prize!)