I'm Gary Bembridge, this is another of my cruising tips for travellers. I want to
talk about what Seabourn cruises does differently to other ultra luxury cruise
lines out there. Seabourn was founded over 30 years ago, it's part now of the
big Carnival Corporation, so obviously that includes other cruise
lines like Holland America, pPrincess Carnival of course a whole bunch
of other cruise lines. Seabourn is a small ship ultra luxury
cruise line, and so its main competitors are things like Royal Caribbeans Silversea
cruise line and Norwegian cruise lines Regent Seven Seas. They have a relatively
small fleet with six classic cruise ships and two expedition ships on their
way. In the classic fleet there are all suite ships and they range in size from
458 passengers to 600 passengers. It's an elegant but casual experience onboard. So,
let's take a look first of all at what Seaborn does very differently to the
other ultra luxury cruise lines and I'll take a little look at what they do the
same. One of the big signatures on Seabourn is known as Seabourn Square. It's
something that I'm calling out right at beginning of this, because I think it's a
really great and a very simple innovation but it really works well. It's
the hub of the ship and they've created in all their ships
Seabourn Square, which is where they brought together their guest services,
their future cruise sales, their shore excursions and it's a really great
lounge area, there's a really nice cafe bar there where you can get great
specialty coffees which are all included in the fare and drinks, which always includes
a little snacks there during the day. They also have all sorts of other things
in here, so if you want to play games in here, they also have the press reader
service with various devices you can read papers from all around the
world. It's a great hub, it's a great place to go, the shops are in here so
it's very social. It's a real buzzy part of the ship, and it's great to go into
Seabourn Square as you'll catch up with people, meet people. So Seabourn square is definitely
something that's a signature of Seabourn, and they do very differently to other
cruise lines. The second thing that Seabourn does very differently is the
partnerships that they have, a whole range of partnerships covering
many many aspects of activities and dining on board the ship. So let me talk
about the ones that they do that are very different. First of all, one of the
partnerships they have is in entertainment with Sir Tim Rice, the
famous lyricist, and he has created a show which Seabourn is rolling out across all
of their fleets which is called an evening with Sir Tim Rice, and here it
brings alive famous songs from a wide range of musicals and it's narrated by
him. In the dining area they have a partnership with a very well-known
celebrity chef and restauranteur Thomas Keller, and you see his influence in a
number of ways across the ship. They have a very specific restaurant, which is
called the Grill by Thomas Keller, but he has also created dishes which are in the
main restaurant and even in the informal dining in the Colonnade out on the patio.
So right across the restaurants you'll find dishes which are created by Thomas
Keller. They also have a partnership in the whole wellness and fitness area with
Andrew Weil, he's very well known in the US and they run a whole lot of fitness
classes, wellness class, yoga, mindful classes on board and they have this very
specific person running that program which is the mindful living coach. When
it comes to drink, they have a partnership with a mixologist called
Brian van Flandern, and they have a whole new menu of really fantastic cocktails
right across the ship. Two of the partnerships which I am
really big fans of are the following: first of all they have a partnership
with Molton Brown which create the most amazing toiletry products, and they have
a very specific molten Brown Seabourn product with its Seabourn fragrance
which you have in your cabin and around the ship. The second partnership which I
think is a really great one when it comes to excursions, which they have a
partnership with UNESCO. This shows up in a number of different ways. There are
over 250 Shore experiences across the fleet covering 170 UNESCO designated
sites. There are two groups of excursions that are created in partnership with
UNESCO, the first of these are excursions that were specifically created as a
result of this partnership and these are called the
Seabourn World Heritage Tours and here they will go and visit different UNESCO
sites and on some of them you'll actually have a real expert, for
example one i went on recently we had a lecturer from one of the local
universities taking us around some of the historical sites. The second group of
excursions are called Seabourn Discovery tours, so these are tours that did exist
often world heritage sites but have now been upgraded with the attitude and
more influence and more input from UNESCO. Also depending on the cruise
you're on, speakers will be brought on board with specific UNESCO heritage and
knowledge and that they will run lectures as part of the Seabourn
conversations program. Seabourn conversations being the ongoing
enrichment program that takes place across all cruises on Seabourn.
Seabourn has some partnerships with real leading lights in their area to
influence and bring alive in a different way the onboard experience on the ships.
The other thing which is very unique and different on Seabourn, is a couple of
special events or signature events that they have and I want to talk about.
First of all evening under the stars, these are events out on the pool deck
and it's sort of like a big food hall is created and all the officers serve you.
So there's all lots of different stations out on the deck, and a huge
range of food deserts, all sorts of things going on, cocktails being made and
it's one of their big signature events, and normally happens at least once on a
cruise. The other big signature event that Seabourn have which tends to happen in
places like the Caribbean is Caviar in the Surf, where they will come up with
beautiful silver trays and serve it as it the name suggests right
there on the beach in the sea. The next area that Seabourn does slightly
differently to the others is in the area of speciality dining, and there's two things
that I really want to draw attention to, and again it differs a little bit based
on what ship you're on. First of all you have that Grill by Thomas Keller. This is
really a way of recreating the famous american diner and the menus of the 50s
and the 60s, and he has reinvented many of the famous dishes and it's
beautiful venue on most of the ships, beautiful decor, so it's a really
great place to dine. Speciality dining is included within your
fare. The other speciality dining option, which I really like, is Sushi. So they
have a sushi restaurant on many of the ships and it's included in the fare. It's
open most days for lunch, open for dinner and magnificent sushi and certainly it's
normally hosted and run by Japanese real sushi masters. Let me talk a little
bit now about some of the things that Seabourn do extremely well, but are quite
similar or the same as some of the other ultra luxury cruise lines. Well first of
all, let's talk about the overall experience.
It's ultra luxury, it's very premium, it's elegant and it's refined. This is very
similar to the other competitors. The cruising experience is fairly
traditional. You'll find on board the ships, even those smaller ships, there's a
good passenger to space ratio, there's a very high crew to passenger ratio, so you
get very high levels of service and service is not stuffy, it's quite informal.
It's immaculate and smart but it is not fussy and in-your-face. You
have high quality food, you have a very luxury experience ,everything's very
premium, very detailed conscious and very high quality -
as you'd expect for an ultra luxury line and the sort of fares that you're paying.
The dress code, as with the others ,is elegant, it's relatively casual, so it's
not lots of dressing up and people will tend to dress quite smartly - but it's not
a very strict formal dress code. Most evenings are called elegant casual, you
will have the gala formal nights but again it's not massively strict, just up you, you might
find people dress up in suits and ties, but it's not overly formal. As with all
the other ultra luxury lines, the fares are pretty all-inclusive. So you'll find
your drinks, speciality teas, coffees, dining, gratuities are
all included, the things you're going to find extra will be Wi-Fi and
excursions. They are really the only extras that you will have on board. When
it comes to accommodation, it is all suite accommodation. What they don't have
which some of the other lines have is butters in every single suite, you don't
have butlers for every single suite but it is an all suite experience and on the
new ships it's also all balcony experience. The other thing which is
fairly similar is like many of the ultra-luxury lines it's moving
into expedition cruising. It did do some and ships would head down say
into the Antarctica region, but it doesn't have the size of ship able to do
landings and they're now moving into expedition cruising specifically. Seabourn
are an ultra luxury small ship cruise line, they do a whole bunch of things
that are very different to their competitors.
I love Seabourn. It's a really beautiful experience, great ships, great service and
those little extras are really quite fantastic. Remember I have loads more
videos with lots of stuff about cruising, Seabourn, all sorts of cruise lines ,so
why don't you watch another one of those right now?