28 Day Norwegian Fjords & Icelandic Intrigue on Sojourn - July 27th through August 24th - Our Experience

[SLSD]

Just a few nuts and bolts comments about our cruise on Sojourn.  The service has been impeccable.  The food has been quite good.  Both Mr. SLSD and I think that the food is better than last summer aboard Ovation.  I'm still disappointed that the dining room is not open most every day for at least  lunch and sometimes  breakfast.  Yesterday was a bad weather day--rainy and cold.  It would have been a good day to open the dining room for lunch.  Basically, there was one place to have lunch--the Colonnade.  Since we don't do buffets--ever--we dined out on the veranda of the Colonnade from the printed menu as we often do.  This time, we were bundled in all of our layers of clothing and I had a blanket offered by the wait staff as well.  There were three or four other couples on the veranda as well.The weather was very bad.   Our friends told us that there was literally no place to sit in the overcrowded Colonnade.  People had to share tables.  We saw this as we walked through after finishing our lunch.  To me,  this is NOT luxury cruising--and never will be.  

 

Our only other option would have been to order room service.  We may well do that on some days, but I don't think we should be reduced to that either.  

 

On about day three of our cruise, I was at guest services at 7am to request some help for Mr. SLSD.  While he usually does not suffer from back issues, his back was doing poorly and I finally figured out that the mattress on our bed might be partially the culprit.  I had noted that it was not nearly as comfortable as in prior cruises.   The staff had a fix, They came in with a huge piece of plywood cut to fit the mattress and placed it underneath.  It has made a HUGE difference and we are both sleeping better now.  From now on, we will make this request from the beginning.  

 

We haven't gone to every entertainment after dinner, but probably about half.  Last night was Phillipa Healey again.  Her voice is lovely and we enjoyed a second show by her.  

 

Today, we'll be be at Heimaey in the Westman Islands of Iceland.  The weather is predicted to be inclimate so we will see if our excursion which is a circumnavigation of the island is a go. It's not until this afternoon, so we will have a very leisurely day up until them.  Our guide told us yesterday that starting today, there is going to be a huge festival on Heimaey withc about 1/3 o Icleand's population in attendance. No word about that from the staff on Sojourn.  Perhaps they do not know abou ti?  

Edited August 2 by SLSD

[SLSD]

I have a question for all of you Seabourn experts.  Is Seabourn Square supposed to be as quiet as a library.  We don't go there very often just to sit. Yesterday we did go there as our suite was being serviced.  We ran into a friend and were talking quietly about our excursion from that morning.  We were almost whispering--and still a man sitting not to far away kept glancing our way in a manner that let us know he was not pleased.  If I need total quiet, I can read in our suite--whiich I often do.  I thought Seabourn Square was. a place you might meet and chat with fellow cruisers.  Please correct me if I am mistaken about that.  What is the proper etiquette for the square?  We are NEVER noisy or boisterous.  That is not our nature.  But it would be nice to be able to chat quietly with people in the square.  Is that not allowed? 

[caviarforme]

58 minutes ago, SLSD said:

  Is Seabourn Square supposed to be as quiet as a library................? 

Keep up the commentary please as we board Sojourn in 3 weeks as you get off in Dover - just 14 days Iceland and Scotland for us.

 

Seabourn Square is the social hub of the ship - where you can discuss things with Customer Services, have a coffee, read books/newspapers, book cruises, and even "meet the officers" as often happens as an event on transatlantic. It is not a library!! I suggest you "glance back" in the appropriate manner!

[lincslady]

The only bit of the Square which often seems like a quiet zone is at the aft end, where  the reclining chairs are. Otherwise I am sure it is meant to be social, obviously not too noisy, which applies to you you and most passengers.

[SLSD]

48 minutes ago, lincslady said:

The only bit of the Square which often seems like a quiet zone is at the aft end, where  the reclining chairs are. Otherwise I am sure it is meant to be social, obviously not too noisy, which applies to you you and most passengers.

On all of our sailings on Seabourn we have found the square to not be very social as it is so quiet.  I would never want to disturb anyone.  I generally avoid it--except for guest services and such.  Sitting in the Obs Bar right now--as we have an unexpected sea day due to rough conditions in Heimaey.  Actually, as our excursion was to be a circumnavigation of the island, I am pleased with the scenic cruising the captain has arranged.  Some are not pleased of course.  The BIG news is that the dining room WILL be open for lunch.  We'll be there!  Mr. SLSD loves sea days as he can work on his writing projects.  We are loving the topography of this part of Iceland.  I've taken quite a few photos and will post the best ones here once I go through them.  This has been the most exciting day of the cruise so far --for me--as I love the sharpness of the jutting landscape,  the grottos, the volanoes in the distance, the small towns perched between the cliffs.    We just moved to a better spot in the OBs Bar and Mr. SLSD said, "This is extremely pleasant".  I have to agree.  

[SLSD]

Here are just a few photos from our morning of scenic cruising which is the substitute for a port day at Heimaey.  

[highplanesdrifters]

5 hours ago, SLSD said:

Our friends told us that there was literally no place to sit in the overcrowded Colonnade.  People had to share tables.  We saw this as we walked through after finishing our lunch.  To me,  this is NOT luxury cruising--and never will be.  

 

I'm in big agreement!

[jondfk]

9 hours ago, SLSD said:

Just a few nuts and bolts comments about our cruise on Sojourn.  The service has been impeccable.  The food has been quite good.  Both Mr. SLSD and I think that the food is better than last summer aboard Ovation.  I'm still disappointed that the dining room is not open most every day for at least  lunch and sometimes  breakfast.  Yesterday was a bad weather day--rainy and cold.  It would have been a good day to open the dining room for lunch.  Basically, there was one place to have lunch--the Colonnade.  Since we don't do buffets--ever--we dined out on the veranda of the Colonnade from the printed menu as we often do.  This time, we were bundled in all of our layers of clothing and I had a blanket offered by the wait staff as well.  There were three or four other couples on the veranda as well.The weather was very bad.   Our friends told us that there was literally no place to sit in the overcrowded Colonnade.  People had to share tables.  We saw this as we walked through after finishing our lunch.  To me,  this is NOT luxury cruising--and never will be.  

 

Our only other option would have been to order room service.  We may well do that on some days, but I don't think we should be reduced to that either.  

 

 

 

Hi Susan, you know I'm in raging agreement with you on this point.  We sailed in Alaska last year and were unlucky with the weather (hey it's Alaska) but to just ignore that fact and limit the options to Colonnade with a completely full passenger load was well, stupid.

 

Cramming the entire ship into the buffett when the weather turns lousy is no sort of luxury experience.  Fortunately, our next sailing has a dozen sea days out and back from Hawaii, should enjoy lots of nice Restaurant lunches on that one!

 

[SLSD]

28 minutes ago, jondfk said:

 

Hi Susan, you know I'm in raging agreement with you on this point.  We sailed in Alaska last year and were unlucky with the weather (hey it's Alaska) but to just ignore that fact and limit the options to Colonnade with a completely full passenger load was well, stupid.

 

Cramming the entire ship into the buffett when the weather turns lousy is no sort of luxury experience.  Fortunately, our next sailing has a dozen sea days out and back from Hawaii, should enjoy lots of nice Restaurant lunches on that one!

 

The lunches in The Restaurant are among my very favorite meals.  Today I had veal scallopini--and it was excellent!!  

[Robisan]

13 hours ago, SLSD said:

Our only other option would have been to order room service.  We may well do that on some days, but I don't think we should be reduced to that either.

Order from the room service menu but request it be delivered to you in the dining room? Could be wrong, but I think the MDR kitchen is where room service food is prepared. If they'll bring champaign and caviar setups to the laundry room I don't see why this would be such an outlandish request.

[galeforce9]

1 minute ago, Robisan said:

Order from the room service menu but request it be delivered to you in the dining room? Could be wrong, but I think the MDR kitchen is where room service food is prepared. If they'll bring champaign and caviar setups to the laundry room I don't see why this would be such an outlandish request.

Ooh

[BasandSyb]

We both enjoy eating lunch in the restaurant as a calm oasis alternative to the Colonnade. We don’t have a problem with buffets (just some people and buffets🙄). Our problem is the choice. On our trips this year the lunchtime restaurant offerings have been about 3 choices of appetiser and main - so it’s back to the Colonnade if nothing suits. Given the short dining time the restaurant was open we didn’t press for anything off menu.

At times it seemed a completely wasted effort in opening the area up and diverting staff with few people attending despite it being chaos upstairs.

 

Such a shame you couldn’t land on Heimaey - it’s beautiful. An odd feeling of being at the nursery on the edge of the world being surrounded by baby volcanoes. Amazing landscapes.

Edited August 2 by BasandSyb

[SLSD]

6 hours ago, BasandSyb said:

We both enjoy eating lunch in the restaurant as a calm oasis alternative to the Colonnade. We don’t have a problem with buffets (just some people and buffets🙄). Our problem is the choice. On our trips this year the lunchtime restaurant offerings have been about 3 choices of appetiser and main - so it’s back to the Colonnade if nothing suits. Given the short dining time the restaurant was open we didn’t press for anything off menu.

At times it seemed a completely wasted effort in opening the area up and diverting staff with few people attending despite it being chaos upstairs.

 

Such a shame you couldn’t land on Heimaey - it’s beautiful. An odd feeling of being at the nursery on the edge of the world being surrounded by baby volcanoes. Amazing landscapes.

Fortunately we did get to view the landscape at Heimaey as our captain took us for some scenic crusing in the area. 

 

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the chaos in the Colonnade at lunch on a bad weather day is really bad.  I would never subject myself to dining that way off of a ship--so don't plan to do it on a ship either.  The choices at lunch in The Restaurant at lunch when it is open have always been satifactory.  I don't need a lot of choices, IF the choices are good ones and I have particularly liked the choices at lunch there.  The menu offerings to order in the Colonnade at lunch are much much slimmer.  While some moan about the ship being out of this or that or the complimentary wines not being good enough---I moan about a chaotic lunch in the Colonnade.  I guess we all have our issues.  

 

 

 

Edited August 3 by SLSD

[SLSD]

250 guests will be leaving Sojourn today and 185 new guests will be arriving.  Originally, months ago, when we booked this cruise, the first 14 days were not divided into two segments.  I assume this was done in order to better sell as many suites as possible. What I have found annoying is that The Source (Seabourn's app) is set up as if we are ALL cruising for only 7 days.  In other words, through yesterday--we have not been able to look ahead on The Source past the disembarkation day for the seven day cruisers.  I hope that is not a confusing statement.  Add to that, many crew have assumed that we are all disembarking today.  When we returned to our suite last night, there was no hang tag for room service breakfast.  I had to call guest services to get one at almost midnight.  We have a very early morning eight hour excursion today and we will definitely be eating breakfast in our suite.  We are on the ship for a total of 28 days and don't think we should be treated as we are only sailing for 7 days with limited access to information on The Source and otherwise.   It's a small point, but we have been impacted in various ways. We didn't make all of our reservations for Solis before getting on the ship and are not "allowed" to make them for all of our journey yet.   

Edited August 3 by SLSD

[BasandSyb]

Have recently experienced those same app problems. It is maddening and you do feel like a second class citizen. Anything internet related for Seabourn seems to be a major challenge. I’m sure you will very much enjoy your day. There is much to see and beautiful landscapes.

[SLSD]

26 minutes ago, BasandSyb said:

Have recently experienced those same app problems. It is maddening and you do feel like a second class citizen. Anything internet related for Seabourn seems to be a major challenge. I’m sure you will very much enjoy your day. There is much to see and beautiful landscapes.

We are excited about our upcoming day as we will be seeing a lot of the countryside. Our excursion today is The Best of the Golden Circle. 

 

 I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like a second class citizen on the app.  As of this morning, a few more days are revealed on The Source.  Of course we have our entire itinerary printed out--but why should we have to keep referring back to our files.  And our itinerary does not have all the details The Source could provide.  

Edited August 3 by SLSD

[BasandSyb]

The Golden Circle tour is a good one to do. We did it privately. The only downside is we have unfinished business in Reykjavik as it is a very full day. We ended up hiring a car in Isafjordur and driving inland...stunning. Fingers crossed you have good weather.

[SLSD]

11 hours ago, BasandSyb said:

The Golden Circle tour is a good one to do. We did it privately. The only downside is we have unfinished business in Reykjavik as it is a very full day. We ended up hiring a car in Isafjordur and driving inland...stunning. Fingers crossed you have good weather.

The weather was perfect---and sunny.  I'll go through my photos in a bit and report.  We enjoyed the excursion, but it was LONG!  We've opted to stay in our suite tonight and have room service.  We ordered a snack when we returned and Room Service told me that they were backed up with a lot of orders. When our order arrived, the waiter told us that the guests who embarked today were ordering a lot of room service. We have seldom ordered room service, but it seems like a perfect choice for tonight.  Perusing the menu for dinner right now.  

[skybluewaters]

13 hours ago, SLSD said:

The choices at lunch in The Restaurant at lunch when it is open have always been satifactory.

 

I very much agree that the Colonnade can become hectic on bad weather days, but I strenuously disagree that the selections at lunch in the Restaurant are satisfactory.  There usually are only a very few selections, and for some reason they quite often are uninteresting to me. At first I thought this was just some peculiarity, but it happens so very often that I believe there must be a reason for this.  Who knows, maybe they don't bring out the "good stuff" at lunch in the Restaurant because so few people show up to eat there.

 

The only reason I would want to keep the Restaurant open for lunch would be to decompress the crowds in the Colonnade.

[SLSD]

7 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

 

I very much agree that the Colonnade can become hectic on bad weather days, but I strenuously disagree that the selections at lunch in the Restaurant are satisfactory.  There usually are only a very few selections, and for some reason they quite often are uninteresting to me. At first I thought this was just some peculiarity, but it happens so very often that I believe there must be a reason for this.  Who knows, maybe they don't bring out the "good stuff" at lunch in the Restaurant because so few people show up to eat there.

 

The only reason I would want to keep the Restaurant open for lunch would be to decompress the crowds in the Colonnade.

All I can say is that we all have different tastes.  I am well aware that Mr SLSD and I may be total outliers when it comes to Seabourn cruisers.  We do like the lunch offerings in The Restaurant.  To us, the offerings are great. I had veal scallopini yesterday and it was really good.  I had moussaka one day and loved it.  The chef planning the lunches in The Restaurant seems to have my number.  We are not all alike.   For us, The Restaurant lunches DO feature the good stuff.  So there you have it.  No judgment at all--just the realization that we don't all like the same things.  I recognize that the myriad of choices at lunch in the Colonnade really appeals to many.  We just are not on that wavelength.  

Edited August 3 by SLSD

[SLSD]

I've fallen several days behind in reporting on our 28 day cruise aboard Sojourn.  I plan to catch up and will start with today and the go back to the last few days.  Today, we are in Akureyri, Iceland which is one of the larger Icelandic cities, located at the end of a fjord on the north side of the island of Iceland.  We took an excursion today which began at a botanical garden called Lystigarour Akureyrar.  It is a garden which began almost a century ago, designed by a Danish landscape designer and then made free to the public.  The growing season here is June 1st to September 1st, but the garden is open in the winter even when covered with snow.  There is a charming coffee shop and the garden is used for community events.  It is beautiful!  I don't think my photos come close to conveying the feeling and loveliness of this garden.  

Edited August 5 by SLSD

[lincslady]

The short summer season seems to mean gorgeous extra special flowers in these cold climates - I remember it was the same in Ushuia.  Lovely pictures, thanks.

[SLSD]

1 minute ago, lincslady said:

The short summer season seems to mean gorgeous extra special flowers in these cold climates - I remember it was the same in Ushuia.  Lovely pictures, thanks.

The flowers were an explosion of color.  And yes, I think the short season heightens their beauty.  

[SLSD]

Our next stop in the area of Akureyri, Iceland was Laufas, an ancient manor farm. The earliest records show that there was a church in this vicinity in 1047!  The current church in the area was built in the 1860s.  The very large turf house here was built from 1866-1870 and has 17 rooms.  It housed a large wealthy family and at times, the workers they employed.  Most of the house is quite primitive.  And, it's important to understand that a good part of the house is underground with tunnels connected the various additions.    A very few rooms had wooden floors and were furnished in a more comfortable way.  We had docents dressed in clothing in the 1800s style.  

Edited August 5 by SLSD

[SLSD]

Our last stop in the Akureyri area today was the Godafoss Waterfall.  The name in English would be the Waterfall of the Gods.  Legend has it that when Iceland converted to Christianity from paganism, statues of the gods were thrown into this waterfall.  It is a magnificent sight!  

Edited August 5 by SLSD