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Seabourn Sojourn Food and Service


HappyFeet13

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Jim in Florida, I appreciate the time that you are taking to comment on your cruise. As we are not on the ship, we cannot comment on your comments as to whether we are having the same experience or something different. I truly hope that you will keep posting.

 

My apologies for somewhat hijacking this thread but I have to respond to sananda because of his numerous negative comments on Seabourn. (This is not in response to your specific Seabourn cruise sananda.)

 

I decided to search a variety of sites and read reviews from both "professionals" and "passengers". Interpretation of those reviews must also depend upon the reader. The majority, not all, but the majority of reviews that I read view Seabourn as a luxury cruise line where service typically excels as does the food and the overall experience. I am not any cruise line's cheerleader and am quite happy when people post their personal experience on a specific cruise. However, I wonder why someone continuously posts "put downs" rather than stating to check out reviews from different sources. I think that I am, perhaps, someone who is more of a glass "half full" person than you are and you seem to be drinking your "half glass" more empty each time that you post. I hope that you will experience cruises in the future on whatever line brings you more joy and is a better fit for you.

I totally agree with what mariners has to say. Like a good real estate appraiser, I ignore the very high and the very low.

 

Host Dan

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I totally agree with what mariners has to say. Like a good real estate appraiser, I ignore the very high and the very low.

 

Host Dan

 

This is exactly my point. The majority opinion expressed on this board represents the very high and should be ignored, or at the very least, taken in context to what other travel sites are saying about the current state of affairs with Seabourn.

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I've never traveled on Seabourn but plan to in October, so I can hardly be a Seabourn cheerleader. Reading these many posts about how the lines ratings have gone down on other sites prompted me to look at some. We subscribe to both Travel & Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler and my memory didn't seem to be the same as some of the posts. I just looked at Conde Nast's 2013 Gold List and found that for small ships the Seabourn Pride was ranked 4th after a Grand Circle ship and 2 Nat Geo Lindblad ships. Seabourn Odyssey was 5th, the Sojourn was 7th and the Legend was 11th. The point spread between first and 11th was not quite 7 points (97.1 and 90.2). I believe the reason the Seabourn Quest was not on the list is because it is too new. Next I looked at Travel & Leisure's 2012 Best Cruises List (the latest I could find). For Small Ship Cruise Lines, Seabourn ranks Number 1. I don't know what prior year rankings were, but those sound pretty good to me.

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Yes, as noted there are many polls and many results. Frankly i depend more on my own experience and the reviews/recommendations of like-minded people.But since the issue has been raised you may want to look at the January 17, 2013 issue of Barron's article titled " Another Banner Year For Seabourn Awards" -- subtitled " reader's polls, critics, travel agents and experts agree on top ratings."

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Like you, we rely on our own experiences and those of friends whose tastes are like our own. We have read reviews of cruises we've taken which made us think the reviewer was not on the same ship. I just found it interesting that some posters were citing articles which contradicted some of the surveys I'd seen. The Barron's article confirmed the accolades I had read. We have never had a bad cruise and when there have been issues we thought should be addressed we tried to do so with the appropriate person while still onboard. We're looking forward to our cruise on the Quest this fall.

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Sunviking ,

I hope your inaugural Seabourn cruise is all that you hope for and the first of many. We will be on the Quest for 20 days in September -- we'll try to leave some delicious food and wine for you and not wear out the staff so may experience their personal and exceptional service.

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Yes, you address issues while on board. The OP appears to have taken some advice given on this thread, but refuses to address his problems face-to-face. Thinking that SB should monitor this website for his own purpose is hillarious. He sounds very British to me.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion...especially when posting about a current experience as Jim was doing. I am glad he took the time to post and sorry he felt he had to stop because some stated their differring opinions.....but this is an open forum.

 

My opinion of food and service on my SOJOUN curise from less than 6 months ago is somewhat different than Jim's current one...(usuing caps so everyone will know I am talking about the same ship Jim is on now).

 

We did a three week cruise across the N Atlantic that was nearly full...think the captian said our cruise was 447 pass and the next leg down to the US was full also. So inspite of some other comments, not all cruises are sailing nearly half empty.

 

The service on the Sojourn was every bit as good as the service the last time we were on Seabourn, on the Spirit in 2009. Yes, the Sojourn has a different feel than the small ships, but we like the extra space and better design.

 

The food was good. Yes, some portions were smaller than in the past for the first course...but it is a first course, so that wasn't a problem for us and also was easily solved if we wanted more. The solution may not be to a person's liking, but food was there (and more of it if wanted) so there is no problem IMO.

 

For the record the portion sizes were comparable to those on our Regent Mariner cruises, but the food service was better and more consistent on the Sojourn, of course again, IMP.

 

For those who are reading because they are looking to try Seabourn...don't let the negative posters turn you off, but don't take any cruise thinking that it will be story book perfect in every way...there most always is a problem of some sort. One can ignore it and go on enjoying the cruise, talk to the Hotel Manager if it is affecting the enjoyment of the and/or write the home office after the fact. I personally find addressing an issue at the time improves my experience.

 

We have sailed on Silver Seas, Regent and Seabourn....there is really very little over all different in the three. We simply feel Seabourn fits us best of the three. It has small but not too small ships. It has the most comfortable regular suites and over all lay out and beats the other two lines in service and food. Crystal is not even in the running for us because of the 1000 pass ships. Again this is just a personal opinion. Others will disagree with me, but everyone should read the reviews, including mine, with a grain of salt because their opinions will be different as will their cruise.

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Hi All,

 

Reading these posts with interest. Doing our first cruise (never cruised before) in Sept (Odyssey). I do value Jim's posts and hope I read more from him in the future but I also believe in the "disregard the highs and the lows" of posts. Ones perception of the "current cruise" is what is felt at the time and that is what Jim is saying. I do not at all think that my Odyssey cruise will be that way, if it is I will comment that. Until I experience it, I will continue to expect the high standard that many many other posts and other reviews I have read elsewhere have portrayed. On many forums, it is quite common to post or compliment when you don't like something but not so common to compliment or post when you do. (just my experience with forums).

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The majority opinion expressed on this board represents the very high and should be ignored

 

"serves me right for using Wikipedia" is what you said on the thread that you started on ships fires,after giving wrong facts.:rolleyes:

 

No cruise line performs perfectly all of the time.You will find good reviews and bad reviews about all if you have the time to search.

You just have to sift through the reviews where the poster has an agenda because it did not suit or fit them.

Other guests on exactly the same cruise will have a totally oposite view.

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I too am sorry that Jim has decided to stop posting. I found his observations valuable even if they differed from mine on the same ship in December.

 

As for the other poster who I hope will follow Jim's departure since he has taken it upon himself to balance out the cheerleaders by being obnoxiously negative, bye-bye!!!!!

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As for the other poster who I hope will follow Jim's departure since he has taken it upon himself to balance out the cheerleaders by being obnoxiously negative, bye-bye!!!!!

 

You are right. My pseudo-anonymous postings have gotten out of control. I was at a loss as to how to get people to read reviews from other sources, but cherry picking the most inflammatory comments from neutral to negative reviews and some of my other characterizations have become obnoxious and unseemly. I am sorry. It will stop.

 

As an aside, I am a little surprised no one looked up the Wall Street Journal review. A quote taken out of context can be very misleading. After all, maybe the author believes that Olive Garden is the greatest restaurant in the world.

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No cruise line performs perfectly all of the time.You will find good reviews and bad reviews about all if you have the time to search.

You just have to sift through the reviews where the poster has an agenda because it did not suit or fit them.

Other guests on exactly the same cruise will have a totally oposite view.

 

This is very true and is why I have been trying to steer people to look at the professional reviews like the vacationcruisesinfo.com, the Wall Street Journal, Departures, AMEX platinum travel services, etc. I don't see these as having an agenda. If any of you are planning to take a luxury cruise, you should definitely consult the AMEX platinum guide. They tried to address the million dollar question, how do 10 different luxury lines compare head to head. 8 different reviewers each went on all the lines within a 3 month window. The summary review and comparison was insightful and very informative. It has been very helpful to me planning two cruises that were wonderful.

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I guess what irks me is if you're aboard and feel compelled to complain on CC, at least talk to the hotel manager. And lo and behold, things appeared to be looking up when the OP bailed.

 

Boards like these are full of opinions. I'm not sure I can sit back and not challenge discrepencies.

 

It begins to beg credibility. And credibility is very important on these sites since the posts aren't written by journalists.

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I guess what irks me is if you're aboard and feel compelled to complain on CC, at least talk to the hotel manager. And lo and behold, things appeared to be looking up when the OP bailed.

 

Boards like these are full of opinions. I'm not sure I can sit back and not challenge discrepencies.

 

It begins to beg credibility. And credibility is very important on these sites since the posts aren't written by journalists.

 

Mariner, I totally agree.

 

In all fairness since people come to this board to read about the Sojourn and other Seabourn ships, I think the OP comments to people boarding the Sojourn cruise after his should be where the readers of the Seabourn Board can see then also .

 

OP posted on the Sojourn Roll Cal on....2/4..."The Sojourn is beautiful, and the service superb".....2/12...."I am loving this cruise, but I started another thread that deals exclusively with food/service aboard the Sojourn. I am being particularly careful not to let my comments on the other thread concerning what I believe to be "acceptable but not great" food, taint any input that I can provide concerning other aspects of the cruise. The ship is beautiful, the staff is friendly, the cabins are very comfortable. There is a LOT to like about the Sojourn!".....2/14...."I got off the other thread re food/service because it got way off subject and quite argumentative. My purpose in starting it was simply to share my opinion with others who are on this cruise. I only got one "taker", and she is on this cruise now, and did agree with me. All the rest were chiming in with opinions on how it was on another ship or this ship at another time. While others have taken to criticizing all of Seabourn on that thread, please let me assure you that this is my 5th trip on Seabourn and it has always been and still is a first-class experience. You will love it!.....

 

I totally agree with Jim's last two statements. Seaboourn is a first class experience!

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Yes, you address issues while on board. The OP appears to have taken some advice given on this thread, but refuses to address his problems face-to-face. Thinking that SB should monitor this website for his own purpose is hillarious. He sounds very British to me.

 

If a company truly cares about customer service and / or its' online reputation, I don't think it is unusual to monitor web postings, especially on the first site listed by both Google and Bing when searching for reviews of their industry. In fact, many large companies have staff whose entire job function is to monitor the corporation's image online. It is now commonplace (especially in the airline industry) for customer service to respond to negative tweets, etc.

 

In fact, if you peruse the message boards for the other lines on cruise critic, it is obvious that other cruise lines are monitoring service issues. For example, just look at the Oceania board. There are far fewer complaints about service problems on that board than here, nonetheless, each of the last three complaints were acknowledged and handled by the company. Furthermore, each poster got a personal reply from Frank Del Rio, the Chairman and CEO of Prestige cruise holdings (Oceania and Regent), in which he provided them with his direct line telephone number and a promise to address the issues on the next business day. In subsequent posts, all of the complainants seemed ecstatic about how their issues were resolved.

 

This is AMAZING service that Oceania provides. I am very impressed with FDR's hands on approach to managing Oceania. It is very clear that Oceania's wonderful service starts at the top. Has anyone ever been contacted by Seabourn staff over something they have posted on cruise critic? Does Micky Arison give out his direct line number here?

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We shall see whether anyone reports that they have been contacted. I can't recall ever seeing a post a la FDR or Mark Conroy.

 

For our upcoming cruise, I have had difficulty getting 3 departments of

SB to give me the same and [a]correct answer. We booked in early January and all tours have remained sold out. Central office has not responded to

entries to clear at least an early tour [on day 2 of the cruise]. So I am not holding my breath for a reply on this board!

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This is very true and is why I have been trying to steer people to look at the professional reviews like the vacationcruisesinfo.com, the Wall Street Journal, Departures, AMEX platinum travel services, etc. I don't see these as having an agenda. If any of you are planning to take a luxury cruise, you should definitely consult the AMEX platinum guide. They tried to address the million dollar question, how do 10 different luxury lines compare head to head. 8 different reviewers each went on all the lines within a 3 month window. The summary review and comparison was insightful and very informative. It has been very helpful to me planning two cruises that were wonderful.

 

Samanda,

 

Can you send us the link to American Express Platinum guide where 8 Diffferent reviewers

each went on all the lines within a 3 month period. ( or where to find it?)

Thanks.

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