Live from Seabourn Spirit, Oct 25 - Dec 20 2008

[snowman]

Steve/Chris

Wonderful pictures what kind of camera do you have?

[cands]

Hi Steve & Chris,

We are really enjoying your cruise diary & wonderful photos. It is providing us with a great pre-cruise experience. We depart tomorow from Melbourne on Emirates for Istanbul. We look forward to catching up on Saturday.

Lorraine & John

 

Hi Lorraine and John,

Come and say G'day after the Muster Drill. We will try and be looking down from the Sky Bar.

 

Safe journey,

 

Steve.

[cands]

Steve/Chris

Wonderful pictures what kind of camera do you have?

 

Hi there,

Canon 450D. It's new. We're still experimenting.

 

Cheers,

Steve.

[cands]

Day 11 – Fethiye.

This was our first day in Turkey. We had yet another gloriously sunny day. Fethiye has a very attractive waterfront area and town.

This was our first venture into non-Euro currency territory so we found an auto-teller which dispensed Turkish New-lire. We found a taxi for our planned trip to Kayakoy and proceeded to try and bargain a price. I’m sure the driver was happy with the result so we obviously didn’t do too well.

Kayakoy is an abandoned township a few miles from Fethiye. Its residents were orthodox Christians who were moved to Greece in 1923. The town was never re-settled and has been left to slowly decay these last 80 years or so. It is a fascinating place. The township covers a whole hillside and looks over the valley floor where the current inhabitants live. We explored for about an hour before our taxi ride back to Fethiye.

We had a quick stroll around the town before heading back to the ship for lunch. We fully intended to return after lunch, but instead took a nap, waking just in time to watch the sailaway as the sun set over the harbour.

Tonight was the pre-dinner Seabourn Club get together, which is for guests who have previously sailed on Seabourn. We qualify because last week’s cruise was our first and we have now ‘returned’ for a second. We shook captain Soerensen’s hand and the passengers with the most number of days with Seabourn were honoured.

The captain introduced the president of Seabourn, who is on the ship for a 2 day inspection.

Tonight we enjoyed another of the Chef’s Tasting Menus. The menu:

Cauliflower Mousse and Mollassol Caviar with Mediterranean blinis, mustard cress and botarga.

White tomato plum soup with basil foam

Goat cheese “Sformatino” with walnut, radicchio, sage and asparagus

Orange Basil Sorbet

Beef Tenderloin “Bordelaise Sauce”, Grilled Mediterranean seasonal vegetables and “pommes chateaux”

“Nougat Glace” Honey and nuts with strawberries and aged balsamic

Chocolate Amaretto Truffles.

Some dishes worked better than others be we certainly appreciated the thought and skill that had gone into the planning and execution of this meal.

There was a slight service blip with this meal. We sat for 25 minutes with no food and no bread. We finally received some bread to nibble on after asking three times. I think this is a difficult night for the staff. Most guests arrive en mass and there are a lot of fiddly courses to serve. The servers usually bustle, but tonight looked a little stressed as well. Things improved greatly as the meal progressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lola loves cruising]

cands,

 

Thank you for sharing your wonderful photos and narratives. We were on the Spirit in Greece and Turkey two years ago and had a lovely time. We leave in a couple of weeks to transit the Panama Canal on the Legend. First time on that ship for us. We are really looking forward to the trip. Keep up the great posts!

 

Nancy

[Aussie Gal]

Cands (Steve)

 

I am enjoying your wonderful narrative and photos. My sister Katzoe (Lorraine) directed me to these pages and as she and John will be joining the ship on Saturday, I will be looking forward to reading about your adventures from Istanbul onwards.

 

Jennie

[GrannyLorr]

Cands (Steve)

 

I am enjoying your wonderful narrative and photos. My sister Katzoe (Lorraine) directed me to these pages and as she and John will be joining the ship on Saturday, I will be looking forward to reading about your adventures from Istanbul onwards.

 

Jennie

 

Aussie Gal, does your sisters surname begin with a "B"? If so I think she is the one I sent a Seabourn "referral" too for a shipboard credit! Hoping to hear if she was sucessful in claiming it, as that will mean I will also claim mine on my next cruise!

I am also pretty sure I remember your screen name from the HAL boards at the time "Grumpy" was doing his World cruise......didnt you meet up with him in Melbourne? If I am again correct....it was all the fault of Grumpy and his blog, that started my cruising career!! While reading that blog I booked our first Seabourn cruise...55 days....then again our second Seabourn cruise ...85 days.....then again I may be just barking up the wrong tree!! :rolleyes:

[Aussie Gal]

Hi GrannyLorr,

 

Yes my sisters surname does begin with "B" and yes I am the one who took Grumpy and Slinky around Melbourne for the day when they were on their world cruise with HAL.

 

I am glad that you started and are enjoying cruising after reading Grumpy's Blog. He does write well. Cruising is certainly a great way to travel and see the world.

 

Jennie

[cands]

Cands (Steve)

 

I am enjoying your wonderful narrative and photos. My sister Katzoe (Lorraine) directed me to these pages and as she and John will be joining the ship on Saturday, I will be looking forward to reading about your adventures from Istanbul onwards.

 

Jennie

 

Hi Jennie,

Small World!

Hopefully we will be catching up with Lorraine and John on Saturday.

 

Cheers,

Steve.

[cands]

Day 12 – Kusadasi/Ephesus

This was a big day! We had earlier decided we would take a private tour, based on the many positive reviews found on CruiseCritic.

Our guide met us at the port entrance. We were taken a short distance to the van we were to use for the day. So with our 12 seater van, our driver and our guide we set off for our adventure. Our requested itinerary was Ephesus including the Terrace Houses, House of the Virgin Mary, St John Basilica, Ephesus Museum and the Temple of Artemis. We were also to stop at a local restaurant for lunch.

We first headed to the House of the Virgin Mary. This was interesting, but unless making a pilgrimage, could easily be missed. We then headed to Ephesus. Our guide was a very knowledgeable and friendly young man who interpreted our needs and paced the tour just right for us.

Ephesus was just fantastic and the Terrace Houses a must-see. Having our own personal guide added a lot to the experience. After spending about 2 hours at Ephesus we headed to lunch. Earlier in the day we expressed our reluctance to be taken to a carpet viewing. Our guide convinced us that we should experience this while in Turkey and assured us that there would be no pressure to buy.

As it turned out our lunch spot was at a Carpet Centre, which we believe was also used for training future carpet makers from the villages. Lunch was set up in an undercover pavilion in a pleasant garden setting. We had a very satisfying 3 course lunch of simple but well prepared and delicious local fare.

After lunch we were shown how silk is removed from cocoons and shown the basics of the knotting process for making Turkish carpets. We were then led to a large showroom where carpets were theatrically unrolled for us while we sipped apple tea.

As our guide had said there was no pressure put on us. We liked a couple of the pieces, discussed roughly some of the prices and then left. There were several beautiful pieces – maybe next time!

We then visited the remaining places on the itinerary, all of which paled after visiting Ephesus, but were interesting nonetheless.

Well satisfied we were dropped back to the ship just after 4pm. Our guide would have happily taken us to other craft type shops had we been interested, but was more than happy to take us straight back to the port.

We had a really good day and are so glad we took the decided to take a private tour.

 

Once back on the ship we only had a few hours before we headed back to Ephesus for an evening concert in front of the library of Celsus.

Many people have written about this Seabourn Experience event. It was just fantastic. From the lower entrance gate of the site up to the library and beyond is floodlit. The only people there are the Seabourn passengers. The space in front of the library is set with tables and chairs and nibbles are enjoyed while having a glass of wine and watching a concert of popular classics performed by a string sextet.

We were back at the ship by 10:30 to have a late barbeque dinner on deck. We then watched the sailaway at 11pm before heading to bed.

What a day!

Steve.

 

 

 

 

 

[LaPaloma]

Cands--you do a great job on reviews--short and sweet--most I don't bother to read--yours I do! Don

[josephone]

Cands

The blog is marvelous. Please take more photos of the food. Each photo has been excellent. They make my mouth water and my traveling feet start getting itchy.

We will be on our first Seabourn Cruise in January and I appreciate all the descriptions as I didn't know all the services that were available.

We can hardly wait for the Istanbul post as we have visited many times, but don't have any good photos. I know you will.

Josephone

[CruisinMatt]

Steve - no comments on the breadsticks???

[cands]

Day 13 - At Sea.

 

Hi all. Thanks again for the nice comments. Having a day off from doing a proper post. Great day today. Sleep in. Cooking Demo. Trivia. Galley Lunch. Snooze. Great dinner in the Restaurant. Name that Tune in the Club. Hugs and goodbyes to people sadly leaving in Instanbul.

 

Breadsticks - good but I remove all the salt crystals from them so don't eat too many.

 

Bye for now,

Steve. (and Chris around somewhere).

[JUST4FUN101]

Great blog,I go to work come home and the first thing is to read your entry here. keep up the great blog. Love it.....:D Larry

[GrannyLorr]

Steve you can ask for breadsticks without salt. Friends we have sailed with a couple of times have the unsalted ones delivered to their table every night........suppose you just put in a request to the Maitre d' ...me of course prefers the salty ones...more salt the better....good for the old arteries.....:eek:

[cands]

Day 14 – Istanbul.

Oh gosh! Today was a cloudy and cold day. We knew the perfect weather could not go on forever! We started the day with breakfast in the cabin, listening to the disembarkation announcements and watching from our window as people left the ship. A week certainly does go by quickly.

We headed into the main part of the city where a lot of the attractions are by tram. This was simple to do, following the advice of previous CruiseCritic posters. We were not hassled too much. The approach is quite subtle in Istanbul. “Hello, are you looking for the Blue Mosque, let me show you the way and by the way, afterwards I will take you to my cousin’s carpet shop”. This is all done in a friendly conversational manner and once the initial panic passes it is relatively easy to keep things pleasant while explaining that you have absolutely no intention of buying anything.

So, we visited the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern. We ran out of steam in the Topkapi Palace gardens, so we sat a people watched for a while before walking back to the Galata Bridge. This area had lots of stalls selling hot corn and roasted chestnuts and there were also fish stalls frying fresh fish and serving it on bread. It looked and smelled delicious.

We caught the tram back to the ship and had a late room-service lunch in the cabin. It was then time to watch the newbies at the lifeboat drill. It was bitterly cold on deck and most people at the Sky Bar were wrapped in the checked deck blankets.

Straight after the drill Lorraine and John from Melbourne came up and introduced themselves. We had a welcome aboard drink with them and then I gave them a brief tour of the ship.

We were late leaving port as some luggage had not arrived. Only the very brave, or the well inebriated stayed out for the sailaway. Chris was there amongst them and said the lights of Istanbul were very impressive.

Turkey has been a very pleasant surprise and we would certainly consider coming back here some day.

 

 

 

 

[RachelG]

Love your pictures of the cisturns! We were in Istanbul a few years ago before the digital camera days. My pics don't look near as nice.

[cands]

Day 15 – At Sea.

We had a pleasant day at sea today. The weather is still cool and the sea a little choppy. The ship is handling it very well and no-one is having any trouble moving about.

I had a late breakfast in the Veranda Cafe. My server, Andrea, seemed to sense I had just woken up. She took my cereal bowl from me and opened those pesky packets, added milk to my liking and escorted me to an empty table. She then brought my OJ and came back a few minutes later with my order of hot and delicious pancakes with real maple syrup. I won’t ever make the mistake of calling this place a buffet!

A quick workout in the gym followed. This is an excellent small ship gym and easily as good if not better than many of the gyms on larger ships. I like to use the resistance machines and some free weights. The equipment is excellent. There are really nice monogrammed workout towels. I wonder how many of those they ‘lose’ per week.

The cooking demonstration was on again. Mushroom Risotto – again! Chef Alain has promised something new for the next segments. There was also talk of ‘hands on’ classes.

We attended the trivia contest. The questions were a little easy, with only 3 wrong amongst all the teams.

We met some nice people at trivia and headed off with them to lunch in the dining room. It seems we all have a liking for Indian food and we will be joining them for a specially organised Indian meal in the Restaurant later this week.

I was back in the Restaurant again this afternoon for a Galley tour. Chef Alain Bijou explained how the miracles of food preparation occur in this rather limited space.

Someone asked about provisioning. Apparently there has been over $2000 worth of caviar eaten in the last 24 hours!

Cheers,

Steve.

 

 

 

 

[PeaSea8ch]

Steve (and Chris),

Great travelogue and photos — keep them coming!

 

Your photos from Katakolon (Olympia) and Ephesus bring back very fond memories as they were the first port calls on my first cruise nearly 3 decades ago. I was glad you had nice weather while you were there as when I was there, it was heavily overcast and it started to rain while we were in the old stadium. I have a slide taken of the stone finish line with rain drops on it and then it started to pour and had to run for cover.

 

Keep up the great work!

[dmb707]

Thanks Steve for the posts and lovely descriptions of where you have been visiting and eating, trouble is it makes me hungry;)

 

Chef Alain has come from the Pride, thanks for the photo

 

Enjoy your cruise and please carry on posting

 

Thank you for sharing it all with us:)

 

Happy sailings and good weather

 

deb

[cands]

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support. It's very much appreciated. I hope to do some more photos of food and onboard activities once we have some more sea days.

S.

 

Day 16 – Athens.

Today we arrived in Athens for the second time this trip. This and tomorrow’s port Navplion are the only repeats on our cruise.

Chris was feeling a little off today so I headed into town by myself. There were just a couple of things I wanted to look at. I first went to the Olympic stadium. This is the one used for the first of the Modern era in 1896. It was closed but I managed to get a few photos at a distance. I then walked to Lycabettus Hill and took the funicular to the top. The walk there was very pleasant, getting a little out of the inner city hustle and bustle.

Today was a little cool and windy, which turned out to be a very good thing as far as the view from the top. There was no pollution and the views were stunning.

I then headed back to the ship by train and bus. I almost felt like a local! I arrived back to the ship, as always during the ‘food drought’ between 2 and 4 pm where there is no food available except for room service. (The room service guys are our new best friends – we use the service so often). The anytime room service menu is really good, with the usual burgers and fries, BLTs, Caesar salads etc, together with simple but very good cooked meals (chicken, salmon, steak).

Chris was still not well enough to venture out this evening so I headed off to the pre-arranged Indian dinner with our new friends. We had a great evening. The food was excellent and hot (spicy) as requested. Well done chef Rajit!

When I got back to the cabin at 10:30 Chris was feeling a lot better and managed some soup and chicken from room service for dinner.

Bye for now,

Steve.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aussie Gal]

Hi Steve,

 

I am enjoying your postings especially the photos. We have been up to the top of Lycabettus Hill but it was early in October a few years ago, when it was still very warm and the view was "smoggy"!

 

It is a good walk though and well worth the effort. Athens is a great city when it isn't hot. We were there in May this year and it was such a delight to walk around without the heat and humidity.

 

Jennie

[cands]

Hi Steve,

 

I am enjoying your postings especially the photos. We have been up to the top of Lycabettus Hill but it was early in October a few years ago, when it was still very warm and the view was "smoggy"!

 

It is a good walk though and well worth the effort. Athens is a great city when it isn't hot. We were there in May this year and it was such a delight to walk around without the heat and humidity.

 

Jennie

 

Hi Jennie,

I just had lunch with Lorraine, John and Colin, overlooking beautiful Navplion. All is well.

Cheers,

Steve.

[cands]

Day 17 – Navplion

Well, there’s not much to report today. We had a quiet day as Navplion is a repeat port. I took a stroll along the coast path and checked out the old township again. The weather has improved a bit today and it was possible to have lunch outside.

The sailaway was spectacular at sunset. We had room service dinner again tonight as Chris is still not 100% well. If he continues to improve we should be back to normal tomorrow.

We received the passenger list for this week.

Here are the numbers for anyone who is interested:

USA – 59

Belgium – 35

UK – 35

Germany – 22

Australia – 21

Canada – 6

Portugal – 3

France – 2

Ireland – 2

Austria – 2

Norway -2

Switzerland 1.

 

Cheers,

Steve.