Seabourn Cruise Review

Seabourn ships are small enough to cruise where most big ships don't. Seabourn Sojourn pictured in Norway. © Ralph Grizzle

Read our overview of Seabourn here, or to read reviews of specific vessels click the links below:

Seabourn Overview

For almost a quarter century, the Seabourn name has been synonymous with luxury cruising. Founded in 1987 by legendary cruise mogul Warren Titus (who’d also founded Royal Viking Line 15 years earlier) and Norwegian businessman Atle Brynestad (currently owner and chairman of SeaDream Yacht Club), the line early on established a distinct cruising style: quiet, refined, and genteel, with nearly clairvoyant service, exceptional food and wine, and itineraries that concentrate on intimate ports where the big ships don’t go.

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These are not cruises for people who like their vacations dramatic, ostentatious, or fast-paced. Aboard Seabourn, relaxation rules and distractions are few. Seabourn guests tend to be mature, well-off individuals who prefer to take their vacations at their own pace and just want nice surroundings and a capable staff that can anticipate their needs.

Check out our Seabourn video ship reviews.

Families with kids are extremely rare, and there are no activities or facilities for children at all. Though onboard dress tends toward resort casual, optional formal nights tend to be very formal indeed, with lots of tuxedos and gowns.

Activities Aboard Seabourn

For adults, activities tend toward the low-key, such as wine tastings, computer classes, exercise classes, spa seminars, or talks by noted authors, historians, diplomats, chefs, wine connoisseurs, film directors, and the like. Entertainment is similarly low-key, focused around music, dancing, casino gambling, and a variety of cabaret acts in the main lounge: comedians, musicians, puppeteers, etc.

Seabourn ships feature marinas that are lowered into the water for waterspouts activities.

For more active activity, each ship has a water sports marina that can be lowered from the stern, allowing guests easy sea access for kayaking, water-skiing, windsurfing, and swimming. Weather and sea conditions permitting, it’s used at anchor on designated “Marina Days,” and on days when the line puts on one of its signature “Champagne and Caviar in the Surf” beach barbecues, which include a red carpet in the sand to greet guests as they’re dropped off by landing boat, a huge gourmet spread, a full bar, and uniformed waiters who wade around in the surf, serving iced champagne and caviar from a customized life-ring.

Dining Aboard Seabourn

Onboard dining is a similarly exceptional experience. Aboard all six Seabourn ships, the main restaurant serves dinners in single open seatings, with guests able to arrive anytime they like during dinner hours and find seating for their party. Dinner service is attentive and high-style while remaining unobtrusive — the perfect blend. Restaurateur Charlie Palmer, proprietor of a dozen fine-dining establishments in New York, Las Vegas, DC, and California’s Wine Country, oversees the line’s menus and trains its chefs in his restaurants’ kitchens. Five entrees change nightly, but the kitchen will whip up a custom dish for you if nothing strikes your fancy. And wines, of course (as well as almost all other beverages on board), are complimentary.

Elegant and intimate: Seabourn Odyssey's main dining room. © Ralph Grizzle

If you want an alternative to the main restaurant, all Seabourn ships also offer Restaurant 2, serving an array of small plates prepared creatively and served mostly two to a course over five or six courses.

Aboard the three older Seabourn ships, Restaurant 2 takes up part of the indoor/outdoor Veranda Café casual restaurant, which serves buffet-style breakfast and lunch and full-service dinners, and a third, open-air venue, the Sky Grill, serves a steak-and-seafood menu when the weather cooperates, by reservation only.

Aboard the newer, larger Odyssey, Sojourn, and Quest, Restaurant 2 has its own dedicated, high-style space, and the casual restaurant is known as The Colonnade, a super-stylish space.

Seabourn Staterooms & Suites

For detailed information on staterooms and suites, see the individual ship reviews below or continue reading Ralph Grizzle’s A Luxury Cruise On Seabourn Odyssey: Suite 622.

Seabourn Ship Reviews

I am traveling comfortably on a luxury cruise in Veranda Suite 622 on Seabourn Odyssey.

My suite, situated on the port side, measures 300 square feet and features a sitting area, a truly functional table for dining or working, a somewhat-small-flat-panel-television for a luxury ship, an iPod docking station, queen-size bed, walk-in closet with safe, and a fully stocked bar and refrigerator. The earth tones suit my taste just fine.

Seabourn Odyssey is much less bold brass and gaudy glitz than it is refined style and enduring elegance.

Suite 622 measures 300 square feet and features a sitting area, a truly functional table for dining or working.

The LG flat-panel TV, despite being less large than I would expect on a ship fresh from the shipyard, is, however, highly interactive, and with more than a few weeks’ worth of free movies on demand.