Cruise Help- UPDATE: Booked on Seabourn Encore! Any tips or experiences welcomed!

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Looking up the Seabourn Encore, the lines ships have grown considerably. I was thinking you would be on a 15,000 GT ship but I see they are now nearly 42000 GT.

If looking from their back in the day ships for sure it's much larger but their current fleet isn't too too much different (just over 32GT vs almost 42GT).

We did end up joining a private FB group to sorta get in real time updates and reading throughout the comments the more early adopters to the cruise line mostly favor the smaller ships of Sojourn or the earlier iterations of the cruise line with even less passenger count. But there's enough high praise for crew to passenger count, service and more that for new-timers like us there wouldn't be much difference. I

Their Expedition line is back to smaller size and passenger count.

All I can add is have a good time!

Thank you! My husband can't stop talking about how much he's looking forward to this experience.

 

[dvcgirl67]

So we've determined we're going with Seabourn Encore with the itinerary of Adriatic & Greek Treasures July 16th 2023- July 23rd 2023



The price I had mentioned was with Seabourn's present discount of a 2 room category upgrade (for us a V3 for the price of a V1). We've booked with a travel agent and selected our room on Deck 6 (travel agent was able to get us an additional discount on top of what Seabourn was offering giving us) with little under $300 off Seabourn's price in addition a $225 on board credit for the cabin.

We've booked our flights home from Athens (on British Airways) at this time for July 25th which gives us a little bit of time there. On the way there we're planning on booking a flight that will arrive in Venice on July 15th presently speaking with a hotel stay that night in Venice. Husband went and booked this one arriving in Venice on July 14th now with Air France.

We're super super excited

Good for you! Based on our friend's experience on Seabourn, you're going to have a lovely time. Be prepared though....once you vacation on this level....it's tough to go back . These same friends introduced us to the Auberge resort in Cabo called Esperanza. They own 12 weeks on the fractional ownership there ( a 3 bedroom villa)....and gifted us a week. We were blown away and have been back on our dime twice...it's pricier as far as a "per night" stay....but, it's soooo worth it. The service is off the chain. And that's what my friend said about Seabourn....the service was incredible. We haven't been to Greece...so will look for your trip report next summer .

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Good for you! Based on our friend's experience on Seabourn, you're going to have a lovely time. Be prepared though....once you vacation on this level....it's tough to go back . These same friends introduced us to the Auberge resort in Cabo called Esperanza. They own 12 weeks on the fractional ownership there ( a 3 bedroom villa)....and gifted us a week. We were blown away and have been back on our dime twice...it's pricier as far as a "per night" stay....but, it's soooo worth it. The service is off the chain. And that's what my friend said about Seabourn....the service was incredible. We haven't been to Greece...so will look for your trip report next summer .

I told my husband in a loving way of course it's his fault It's a bit like Vegas now. We were totally fine with Excalibur or Hilton Grand Vacations (located one street behind the Strip) but now having stayed at the Wynn once and the Encore twice it's not that we wouldn't go back to Excalibur it's that I think we would think the whole time how we miss The Wynn/Encore. We liked Bellagio well enough but actually prefer Encore.

So with this cruise I told him there's no going to actual Carnival ships (my only experience with one was the Glory in the early 2000s), we're not likely to want to cruise in a line or stay in a room category that is not as encompassing with the level of service again...and it's all his fault . Our DISer friends had hoped we would choose DCL but for us personally it's not the best fit right now at least.

I plan right now do a trip report for sure! It doesn't appear many DISers do Seabourn (side note I wish there was an OTHER CRUISE LINE subforum here even if it was just in the Community Board) but figure I could give our eperience plus it's fun to share in the adventures.

We've been talking about Greece for what seems like 2+ years now. There's also a Scandinavian/Northern Europe itinerary with fjord's from Norway or Iceland ones that are looking really neat to us too for a future one. I think we would choose that over Alaska. Sadly Icelandair only had non-stop from our home airport for a few short years but that would have been perfect with one that starts in Reykjavik and from the FB pictures people absolutely rave about it and Greenland tours as well.

 

[Turn the Page]

Good for you! Based on our friend's experience on Seabourn, you're going to have a lovely time. Be prepared though....once you vacation on this level....it's tough to go back .

We are now silver medallion members with Delta and we qualify for free upgrades on domestic flights. We have Delta Comfort + seats for our upcoming trip to Europe and while we don't qualify for an upgrade on the international leg we are for the domestic leg. I suggested to DH that perhaps we shouldn't take it as if we get first class on our 2 hour flight to Boston we will get super spoiled and be cranky for the 8 hour transatlantic leg in our lowly comfot plus seats. He looked at me like I had three heads and said we were totally taking the upgrade on the first leg if we were lucky enough to be offered one.

Which I guess means the next time we fly to Europe and one of us insists on first class I can surely blame it on him, right?

 

[kdonnel]

We are now silver medallion members with Delta and we qualify for free upgrades on domestic flights. We have Delta Comfort + seats for our upcoming trip to Europe and while we don't qualify for an upgrade on the international leg we are for the domestic leg. I suggested to DH that perhaps we shouldn't take it as if we get first class on our 2 hour flight to Boston we will get super spoiled and be cranky for the 8 hour transatlantic leg in our lowly comfot plus seats. He looked at me like I had three heads and said we were totally taking the upgrade on the first leg if we were lucky enough to be offered one.

Which I guess means the next time we fly to Europe and one of us insists on first class I can surely blame it on him, right?

I have found the best use of silver medallion is getting to select exit row seating at booking.

As a silver medallion flying out of Atlanta, my wife and I NEVER get an upgrade to first or comfort+. There are way too many Delta frequent flyers with higher status flying out of Atlanta for lowly silvers to get an upgrade. On our last flight we were 40th and 41st for an upgrade for the 1 seat.

But we have got a lot of value getting to select exit rows at booking. You generally get more leg room in an exit row than you do in first.

If you are flying out of a smaller airport with not as many Delta frequent flyers you might have a small chance as a silver, good luck!

 

[Turn the Page]

I have found the best use of silver medallion is getting to select exit row seating at booking.

As a silver medallion flying out of Atlanta, my wife and I NEVER get an upgrade to first or comfort+. There are way too many Delta frequent flyers with higher status flying out of Atlanta for lowly silvers to get an upgrade. On our last flight we were 40th and 41st for an upgrade for the 1 seat.

But we have got a lot of value getting to select exit rows at booking. You generally get more leg room in an exit row than you do in first.

If you are flying out of a smaller airport with not as many Delta frequent flyers you might have a small chance as a silver, good luck!

We are flying out of Detroit which I guess is smaller than Atlanta.....by like 2 gates maybe. I mean really, it's still a hub. The app shows there are currently 11 first class seats available for the DTW to BOS leg but I don't know what number we are on the list.

 

[luv2cheer92]

We are flying out of Detroit which I guess is smaller than Atlanta.....by like 2 gates maybe. I mean really, it's still a hub. The app shows there are currently 11 first class seats available for the DTW to BOS leg but I don't know what number we are on the list.

Size maybe, but I don't think Detroit has anywhere near the number of people. Atlanta is the busiest airport in the entire world, Detroit doesn't even crack top 10 in the US.

 

[Turn the Page]

Size maybe, but I don't think Detroit has anywhere near the number of people. Atlanta is the busiest airport in the entire world, Detroit doesn't even crack top 10 in the US.

Whoa. Ok you are correct. Atlanta is roughly 3 times as busy Detroit. I had no idea.

 

[kdonnel]

We are flying out of Detroit which I guess is smaller than Atlanta.....by like 2 gates maybe. I mean really, it's still a hub. The app shows there are currently 11 first class seats available for the DTW to BOS leg but I don't know what number we are on the list.

Out of Detroit I believe your odds are almost as low as my chances out of Atlanta.

You won't be ruined by an upgrade and be disappointed in all further air travel in cattle class.

Edited to add:
We did get upgraded once. On an ATL-MCO leg. The flight was on a 767-300 so lots of Delta One seats. Of course it was also during the height of the pandemic, before the majority of people had returned to flying.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Atlanta is really a main hub for Delta. While we didn't choose that airline most of our stops for the flights we saw to Venice went through Atlanta.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I have found the best use of silver medallion is getting to select exit row seating at booking.

My husband selected our seats for our flights already.

On the flight from Chicago (which we don't live there but there's not many economical flights out of KC to Europe so we'll get to Chicago on our own) to CDG on AirFrance he was able to pick the more leg room seats which one full row across the plane that was the exit row seats so he picked that. During the booking it didn't charge him for what was listed as my seat right next to the door.

However on the flight from CDG to Venice he just chose normal seats and the flight time is less than 2 hours so not bad. I forget what he chose for British Airways.

We've never flown either of these airlines. I would have preferred Delta TBH, United was another one that would have worked. But price-wise and flight-time wise these two airlines worked better.

 

[Turn the Page]

We fly Delta exclusively because we live 5 hours away from Detoit and out local airport, which is 15 minutes from out house, only has Delta flights to Detroit and that's it.

We were supposed to fly out of our local airpot but Westjet got into a staring contest with Delta and started messing with the flight schedules after we booked and it ended up being such a nightmare that we just decided to drive down to Detroit and 2 weeks after making that change they announced they had reached an agreement and returned the local flight schedule back to normal and the entire situation makes me cranky so we're focusing on the fact that flying out of DTW means much less chance of large problems delaying our departure.

 

[Turn the Page]

My husband selected our seats for our flights already.

On the flight from Chicago (which we don't live there but there's not many economical flights out of KC to Europe so we'll get to Chicago on our own) to CDG on AirFrance he was able to pick the more leg room seats which one full row across the plane that was the exit row seats so he picked that. During the booking it didn't charge him for what was listed as my seat right next to the door.

However on the flight from CDG to Venice he just chose normal seats and the flight time is less than 2 hours so not bad. I forget what he chose for British Airways.

We've never flown either of these airlines. I would have preferred Delta TBH, United was another one that would have worked. But price-wise and flight-time wise these two airlines worked better.

Just something to watch out for, if you have reservations on different airlines like that sometimes if there is a problem like a schedule change or delay on one leg of the journey that affects another leg on a different airline they may not be obligated to rebook you on a different flight.

Heck, at one point we were on 2 separate reservations, both with Delta, and schedule changes on the first leg meant we were getting in to JFK 5 hours after our connection left and the customer service rep tried to tell me that since they were separate reservations and the schedule change doesn't affect the second reservation then there was nothng they would do. I ended up having to cancel the original booking and rebook on a single reservation to avoid that issue.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We fly Delta exclusively because we live 5 hours away from Detoit and out local airport, which is 15 minutes from out house, only has Delta flights to Detroit and that's it.

We were supposed to fly out of our local airpot but Westjet got into a staring contest with Delta and started messing with the flight schedules after we booked and it ended up being such a nightmare that we just decided to drive down to Detroit and 2 weeks after making that change they announced they had reached an agreement and returned the local flight schedule back to normal and the entire situation makes me cranky so we're focusing on the fact that flying out of DTW means much less chance of large problems delaying our departure.

That sounds very stressful.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Just something to watch out for, if you have reservations on different airlines like that sometimes if there is a problem like a schedule change or delay on one leg of the journey that affects another leg on a different airline they may not be obligated to rebook you on a different flight.

Heck, at one point we were on 2 separate reservations, both with Delta, and schedule changes on the first leg meant we were getting in to JFK 5 hours after our connection left and the customer service rep tried to tell me that since they were separate reservations and the schedule change doesn't affect the second reservation then there was nothng they would do. I ended up having to cancel the original booking and rebook on a single reservation to avoid that issue.

Yeah quite true and a good point. We're actually more used to SWA which doesn't have codeshare with other airlines. That's 99% of what we fly.

We've seen they codeshare with each other with these airlines. Actually if we had booked AirFrance some of those flights were on Delta for the long haul flight or KLM. British Airways some of the flights were Virgin Atlantic IIRC. Then there was Lufthansa operated flights, etc.

For the flights we chose on AirFrance to get to Venice and the flights we chose on British Airways to get from Athens back home each were operated by the specific airlines themselves. They were also on just 1 reservation going to Venice and 1 reservation going from Athens back to the U.S.

I should though doublecheck about their customer obligations should delays or cancellations occur as far as what their COC is.

 

[evilipoo]

We just started looking at trips for 2024 and are interested in the Adriatic. Wondering how you liked Seabourn and how it compares to other lines?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We just started looking at trips for 2024 and are interested in the Adriatic. Wondering how you liked Seabourn and how it compares to other lines?

Hi there! We loved Seabourn a TON and are actively looking at going on another cruise with them likely in 2025 as our 2024 travel schedule is already full. We're still on two Seabourn FB pages so we get updates from everyone else's travels and news about the company.

We don't have much experience with other lines. I myself have only done Carnival Glory oh close to 20 years ago now and my husband had only done one other cruise when he was a teen.

If you're up for some reading our trip and to get information on how Seabourn is like you can check out my trip report
https://www.disboards.com/threads/f...kling-with-your-apple-juice-happened.3926092/

I'm getting ready in the next few days to do more updates to it. I did add quite a lot of information in there but that's normal for me plus there's so much representation for Disney and Royal Caribbean as well as HAL, NL, Carnival, etc not a whole lot of information about cruising other lines. I did include things like what we bought for the trip for travel, our flights and our pre-cruise stay in Venice (and I will be adding in our post-cruise stay in Athens as well).

If you want to jump right to the cruise start point you can go here https://www.disboards.com/threads/f...ur-apple-juice-happened.3926092/post-64960094

It is quite true though if you go with these high end cruise lines you will want to keep cruising them Just to let you know today is the last day Seabourn is running a sale where you can get the deal that we got, it's on 2024 sailings too! They may extend the sale as I've seen in the past but I wanted to mention that just in case.

 

[evilipoo]

Thanks so much for the info and links!