So a summary of the cruise.
As I travelled alone, I received a dinner invitation every day to join someone in the dining room but never got invited to the Grill. Many of the others got invited but not every day. I suppose I accepted about half of the invitations depending on who it was hosting and I met some lovely people and some absolute idiots. I was a first time Seabourn cruiser so never got invited to a table with the Captain or anyone very important. The number of people that didn’t get off every day in the Antarctica because they were a bit tired and we’d see more penguins another day amazed me. I’d paid a lot of money to do this and I was going to see everything I could.
The food I thought was a bit variable – some meals were great and others were quite average. I thought it would be a lot better and more like what was served in the Grill. When you go to dinner, they offer you a red and white of the night and you can ask for others but it’s not the same as choosing off a wine list. The portions weren’t huge but very adequate. I was also surprised they didn’t have a better range of gins. Most of them were just the standards Tanqueray, Gordons, Bombay Sapphire etc.
When you go to the restaurant for dinner, you are always escorted to your table – someone puts you on their arm and off you go.
I know this all seems so long ago now but almost every American I met asked about the fires
I know I don’t feel the cold but I had my room setting on the lowest setting but I was always hot. There was just a duvet on the bed and at least it was in a proper cover. I did have the balcony door open when I could but sometimes when it was blowing a gale it just whistled and you could hear it outside in the corridor. I also didn’t need as many layers as they said and as many changes of clothes and ended up giving some of the thicker clothes to the crew when I left. I also purchased my own rubber boots before I left because it was cheaper than hiring them and gave those to the crew as well.
I did like the fact everything was included so you never had to sign for anything but I did find that meant that people wasted a lot. A couple of people I dined with chose two desserts and only had a taste of each and then left them. A lot of drinks were ordered and never consumed.
Whenever there was a briefing or get together there were always crew coming around with nibbles and taking drink orders- nothing was too much trouble.
As with any race found some of the Americans were charming but there were quite a few who just walked into the coffee place and said get me a coffee and 2 doughnuts and no please or thank you. There was one American who that I had the table with me one night who stood up at the beginning of the evening and said he was a proud Republican and a friend of Dick Smith. I presume I was supposed to be impressed. He was complaining that his wife didn’t like it if her bank balance was under 9 digits and he also worried if he was in the house on his own and got in the elevator he was concerned if the elevator broke down. He also told the guy in The Grill that he wasn’t making the Caesar Salad properly (one of their signature dishes).
I was surprised they didn’t ban people facetiming in the lounge and public areas and it was both Americans and Australians but it was incredibly annoying
The captain was great – he had a good sense of humour and always gave good updates about what was happening.
I used Flexiroam as an eSIM but I just found it really clunky and would prefer to get a local SIM.
