20 Nights 20-Day France, Italy & Maltese Gems Cruise

Seabourn, Viking and Oceania

Having recently sailed on extended itineraries on Seabourn, Viking and Oceania, I thought it would be helpful to compare our experience on our recent 21 day Seabourn itinerary on Ovation, from Rome to Barcelona, to our most recent experience on Viking and Oceania. In our opinion, extended itineraries give you a better feel for the cruise line overall. Our experience on Seabourn was far, far above our experience on our 22 day Viking Jupiter itinerary last spring. We have now completed 6 ocean cruises on Viking and in our opinion, our most recent experience was a disappointment in comparison to our previous cruises. Although Viking does boast a happy and energetic crew which provides great service, the food and beverage was not close to previous standards and was very disappointing for an upscale line. We stayed in a penthouse veranda which does not compare near as favourably in layout or size to a standard cabin on Seabourn, which has a walk-in closet and much larger double vanity bathroom. We sailed on an 23 day Oceania Riviera itinerary on a cruise prior to Viking. Although Oceania offers a superior main dining room (MDR) culinary experience, Seabourn is fairly close in that regard. Oceania boasts the best food at sea and, in relation to their MDR offerings, they certainly kept that promise. Oceania’s refurbished veranda cabins on Riviera are much smaller than Seabourn but have a great layout and are tastefully decorated in modern colours (be aware that cabins below PH on sister ship Marina have not been refurbished to the same standard as Riviera). Unfortunately, food and service in their specialty restaurants was surprisingly subpar and a real disappointment in comparison to their MDR. Riviera carries twice the passengers as Ovation and therefore service is not as personal nor refined as Seabourn. This was our 5th extended itinerary with Seabourn. In our opinion, Seabourn offers a truly upscale experience in all aspects of the cruise in comparison to both Viking and Oceania (service, atmosphere, specialty restaurant, excursions, entertainment etc.). Service on Seabourn is consistently excellent, no matter which venue you are visiting. With only a 600 guest capacity on Ovation, service is both attentive and professional, a tribute to both the crew and management. If we were to rank the 3 cruise lines, our hands down favourite would be Seabourn, followed by Oceania with their excellent MDR cuisine and, a distant 3rd, Viking. We have 2 additional extended itineraries booked with Seabourn in the next 11 months which is testament how satisfied we were with our most recent cruise experience.

Uneven but still very good

The best part of this trip were the rooms. All very large with walk in closets . Bathrooms had 2 sinks and bath tub and separate stall showers. Nice small ship makes everything easy. Food is very good but uneven. Some meals great others not so good. Solis restaurant where we ate twice was outstanding. Service in main dining room was poor. Eat anywhere any time did not work well as staff were frequently overwhelmed. Service in the rest of the ship was excellent. Liquor plentiful. Shows were good for a small ship. As other reviewers have mentioned when they made these ships bigger they became too crowded particularly around the pool People frequently reserved beach chairs. Pool and gym were adequate. If you drink a lot the additional cost to be on this ship is justified . Deserts at meals were surprisingly bad. Food consistency varied from meal to meal

A wonderful first experience with Seabourn

We boarded in Barcelona and from the moment we stepped on board we treated special and waited on. Our cabin was very nice, the bed was comfortable and the additional sitting area was very nice. Our cabin had a walk in closet that had plenty of hanging space and drawers also. The bathroom had a double sink, a tub and a shower, although the shower was a little tight but manageable. Our balcony was nice sized as well. We found a bottle of champagne on ice in our cabin and some welcome canopies were brought to our cabin shortly after we arrived. The Internet on the ship was not as fast as I would have liked. Every day our pictures taken on our excursions took a very long time to sync with our cloud account but we managed. The breakfast venue was called the Colonnade and was a buffet with a nice selection of breakfast items. You can also order eggs, omelets, pancakes or waffles from the servers that came by and brought our drinks. We sat in the same area every day and the servers very quickly got to know our preferences for coffee, cranberry juice and how we liked our omelets. The Colonnade also served a lunch buffet and dinner buffet. The one thing I was a little unhappy with was the time it was open for each meal. Lunch was served daily from 12-2 which proved to be a problem as we frequently got back from our excursion around or after 2pm as many of our ports were very small and we had to use the tender boats to get ashore and back to the ship. They ran often but we ran into some weather issues that delayed the tenders for safety reasons. It would have been nice if they extended the lunch time due to that. There was a lunch buffet out on the pool deck that was open later but there weren't enough tables to serve everyone. We were able to order room service for lunch but by the time it came we were eating a very late lunch. Several times we weren't hungry when it came time for dinner so we would eat a much later dinner. The staff at every dining venue were really excellent. They were very attentive but also gave us our privacy. The food was really quite YUM. There was a Sushi restaurant which we tried for lunch several times. It was also open for dinner. The main dining room was called the Restaurant and could easily accommodate all the passengers. The food and service at the Restaurant was absolutely top shelf. The other restaurant was called Encore and it was very nice but we really preferred the Restaurant. The ships layout was very easy to learn. The entertainment on the ship was truly magnificent. They had a house band, 4 singers and a couple that danced during the shows. They also brought on performers for certain nights and they proved to be excellent. There was a self service laundry room with 5 or 6 washers, dryers, a steamer and ironing board and irons. The ship also provided laundry service for a charge unless you were a frequent cruiser with Seabourn. Overall this was a great experience for our first cruise with Seabourn. I want to add that we were surprised to see children on this cruise. There were not any activities for them and the pool was small as it is a small ship. Most of them were well behaved but I really think they would have enjoyed cruising on a Disney ship or Royal Caribbean as they have plenty of activities for children and special pools for them.