At the end of each sailing I like to look back and consider the entire experience. Invariably, I will ask family members or traveling companions “What was your favorite part of the cruise?” after we have disembarked the vessel. Normally, the answers are fairly predictable. Answers might include a camaraderie created with other passengers, crew members or someone met ashore. Memories created in a newly preferred port, menu items unique to the ship or a special place to read a book might be on the list too. But the question always calls for one answer. Just one. As the final minutes of our 10-night sailing of Seabourn Quest come to a close, and the night we sail through will quickly become day, it is clear, for the first time, that one answer will simply not be enough.
After a whole bunch of sailings on a number of lines, this particular sailing requires multiple answers. If you’ve been following along on our SeaLog of sailing Seabourn, you know we have gone into a lot of detail on a number of areas that make up the Seabourn experience.
- Room Service- Absolutely the best on any cruise line we have ever experienced. Here’s the difference: While other lines may or may not do a good job delivering food to staterooms, Seabourn goes out of their way to create an in-suite dining experience. Food arrives as though they had prepared it in the hallway with hot food hot and cold food cold. Ice Cream had not melted. Entree’s were often too hot to eat immediately. Even at peak ordering times, a pleasant voice answered the phone promptly then called back later to be sure everything was alright, much like a waiter might check back at a table shortly after serving the main course.
- Accommodations- All-suite staterooms with accompanying suite-level service has everything any other line has ever offered us plus included in-suite beverages kept replenished without fail throughout the voyage and an entertainment system with 500+ included films. Our larger-than-average balcony hosted several white tablecloth and silver service meals. This one makes the favorite list too because of the easy division of living space that allowed me to work at all hours of the day without disturbing Whitney who might be sleeping or working in her world of photography (See Facebook Galleries)
- Itinerary- On a big ship cruise, where we go is often secondary to the experience on the ship. I had come to accept that and never really thought too much about it until Seabourn. Our sailing was very port-focused and supported by a way of going to and from shore that simply blows away previous experiences. Throw in a couple signature Caviar in the Surf events (like other lines beach barbecue on steroids) and the itinerary takes center stage in the experience
- Entertainment, like dining, is surely a subjective part of a cruise where what one person likes, another might not. On many big ship lines we skip it altogether, tiring of the Vegas-like reviews that seem to be the same from line to line or diluted Broadway/ big name entertainment options that hardly do justice to the original. Normally, 500+ movies in-suite would be more than enough compensation for an inadequate entertainment staff. Normally, other events handled by the entertainment staff like bingo, pool games and the like would take up their time. On Seabourn Quest, a really talented but small group of entertainers provided a diverse array of entertainment events. Walking through “the club” a venue close-by the casino operation, I was stopped dead in my tracks as the ship’s band performed at a level I had not seen before. Production shows were very much like what might be performed for kings and queens by their royal court and, most importantly, were enjoyed thoroughly by passengers with (unlike a big ship show) not one person walking out mid-show because they did not care for what they were experiencing.
- Crew Members get a nod, not with a cute story about getting to know someone from another country or some special thing one or more of them did for us. Crew members on Seabourn Quest are recognized for being really, really good at their jobs. Most impressive service came from on deck pool staff who never missed a beat. Always adequately staffed, beverages were offered within minutes of passengers arriving and kept filled throughout the day.
- Crew Members again but for a different reason. The high guest to crew member ratio in the industry allows passengers who want to have a conversation with a crew member to do so. I spent a lot of time on this cruise people-watching as I normally do, just to see what actual guests aboard a ship are doing, reacting to, enjoying or not particularly caring for. Often, crewmembers would linger far longer after performing a service to engage in conversation with passengers.
- Seabourn Square is the equivalent of another line’s Pursers Desk but my what a difference in how they operate. There are hundreds, not thousands, of passengers on this ship, so Seabourn has the ability to provide an area where passengers that have business with the ship can come in, sit down at a desk, and talk to someone who invariably takes care of whatever it is they came in to talk about. This is also the area where a marvelous coffee bar is located and highly-trained baristas who remember what you like work. The ship’s library, fully-stocked with the latest covers, Internet Cafe, Future Cruise Sales desk and an abundance of comfortable seating are also located here.
Often the mark of a good service organization is not what happens when operations are running smoothly but what happens when things go wrong. How they handle a situation when a customer is not happy, often defines the organization. Cursed to expect excellence due to a previous career in the restaurant business, service one night in one of the ship’s dining venues, the Colonnade, was a bit slow after the main course was served. We had finished and were looking forward to one of the fabulous dessert creations prepared for that meal but our plate remained from the main course. Thinking “Everything here is so good. I might not get another chance to test how they handle things when something goes wrong”, I complained.
Here is where Seabourn blows away other lines.
Rather than finding some manager to come talk to me, the waiter removes the plates and returns in less than 30 seconds with dessert. Done. Impressive. High marks, maybe the highest, for that dining venue.
I’ll get more into details on other areas and wrap this up once we have disembarked the ship, are back on land and can look at the whole experience from a land based perspective. A Seabourn cruise, in many ways, is everything any cruise line ever wanted to be, every experience we ever had that created great vacation memories and one that will be remembered as a milestone event like no other sailing, amplified.
Related articles
- Major cruise line vs the Seabourn experience- part two (chriscruises.net)
- The Seabourn Experience defined (chriscruises.net)
- Seabourn cruise even includes thrill ride, no charge (chriscruises.net)
- Sailing Seabourn: Check the attitude, set the stage (chriscruises.net)
- At sea, there is dining and then there is Seabourn (chriscruises.net)
