Recently I spent 20 days aboard the lovely Seabourn Spirit sailing through India and Malaysia and I reported extensively on those ports in this blog. However, I did want to do a final reflection on the overall Seabourn experience. For many years, Seabourn has been ranked among the top small-ship luxury cruise lines. Having now enjoyed the “The Yachts of Seabourn” personally I can tell you why: The stellar service they provide. At times the food wasn’t …
Right now I am looking out our balcony door and it is raining. A fairly heavy rain. Chet notes the fresh water is washing the salt spray off our windows. We have been on this ship for 18 days and it has not rained, except once or twice at night (and I am not even sure about that). It is 5:30 p.m. and getting dark here in Malaysia and I feel cozy in my small suite that …
“Where is yesterday’s blog?” the captain asked me this morning. We were privileged to have a private dinner with the new captain of the Seabourn Spirit, Capt. David Bathgate, a couple of days ago and he has been reading our website since. Argh! I was “caught out” (as the Brits and Aussies say). Yes, I am behind. It is hard to stay at the computer and write when there are so many lovely things to do on …
On Dec. 15 we entered the multi-island country of Malaysia and spent the day on the northern island of Langkawi. The best way I can describe this pretty little island is to compare it to Cancun or Huatulco, Mexico…it is a manufactured resort. By that I mean that 20 years ago it was mostly rice fields. The government decided to develop it for tourism and declared it duty-free. So resorts and attractions were built. We did a …
On Dec. 14, we were in Phuket, Thailand, for the afternoon and evening. Thailand is one of my favorite Asian countries and I wish we were spending more time here. As there have not been a lot of shopping opportunities on this cruise, many passengers were catching taxis into the town to getting their shopping fix or to eat genuine Thai food. However, we opted to see one of the great sights of this part of the …
Today is the final day at sea on this Seabourn Spirit cruise. This is our eighth day at sea on this 20-day cruise and everyone I talk to is regretting it. We have all come to love these sea days, maybe because it is on these days that we really get to know one another. For example, today our Trivia Team, “The Latecomers” finally gathered a full complement of 10 players…Peter, Jim, Chet, June, Tony, Jenny, June, …
On this 20-day itinerary on the Seabourn Spirit, we will have had 10 days at sea. Today is No. 9 sea day. Tomorrow is our last sea day…sigh. People often ask us what people do on sea days. How do they pass the time? Chet and I discovered long ago that we both love sea days. We love the fact that there is absolutely nothing that we have to do (that IS the meaning of vacation, isn’t …
Many of the people on our cruise had already been to India, but most had visited the “Golden Triangle” in the North – New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur – where the iconic Taj Mahal is located. Few of them had been to the Southern tip of India, where we made our last two cruise stops. First, on Dec. 8, we visited Mangalore. Overall, this port was fairly unremarkable except for our visit to the Achal cashew factory. …
We have been traveling for ten days now on the Seabourn Spirit, and mostly I have been writing about the fascinating ports we have visited. So, let’s talk about the ship. The Spirit is one of three small ships that Seabourn owns (the others are the Seabourn Legend and Seabourn Pride ), along with its two new larger ships, the Seabourn Odyssey and Seabourn Sojourn. The new Seabourn Quest is being introduced next year. Together, these are …
On Monday, Dec. 6, the Seabourn Spirit docked in Mumbai, India…formerly known as Bombay…a city of 20 million plus people. This is our first call in India (there will be two more) and for this we all had to obtain Indian visas in advance. No one could sail this itinerary if they did not have an Indian visa. We obtained our visas about six weeks in advance through a visa service and the fees were about $265 …
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