All cruise lines aren’t the same, and that’s a good thing. Families with small children are seeking a far different experience for a summer vacation than newly-weds taking a 5-day jaunt into the Caribbean.
And retired couples who’ve spent their lifetimes saving for an ocean voyage are looking for a certain standard of relaxing luxury teens would find, well, boring.
But many travelers may not know even the upper end cruise lines are different in how they cater to their elite clientele. You can almost put your wallet away once you step onto a Seabourn ship, knowing top-quality meals, drinks and entertainment are all included in whatever price you negotiated to get onboard.
And, yes, prices can vary depending on where you sign up and when you book them. But that’s another column.
Oceania, which some cruise critics consider a notch or so below the “ultra-luxury” Seabourn line, is not so inclusive. You have to purchase drink packages on Oceania, and prices can be pretty steep, depending on whether you want booze only with meals or if you want to knock it back all day long.
On Seabourn, you can have champagne. with caviar lounging around the pool, and you won’t fork out a penny more. This “all-inclusive” angle influences whether some lines are classified as 6-star “ultra-luxury,” while others are only “premium.”
I have cruised both on Oceania and Seabourn and can attest they both offer travelers a very high-end experience. Oceania has some real plusses that Seabourn lacks, and vice versa. Trust me, you’ll feel like royalty on either of these ships.
I boarded Oceania’s newest Vista ship in spring 2024 at Civitavecchia, Italy, and spent 10 days hopscotching across the Mediterranean between ports in Italy, Spain, and France before anchoring for final adieus at the stunning island of Malta.
And in the end of summer of 2023, only weeks before the earth-shattering Oct. 7 attack on an Israeli kibbutz, I spent seven summer days aboard Seabourn’s Encore, leaving from Athens and ending in Haifa. This time, our ocean liner explored the Mediterranean between Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus.
The first thing worth noting about the two ships is their size. Neither is as large as some of the biggest cruise ships that can accommodate thousands of passengers and crew and that can boast 20 or more decks. If you’re looking for a behemoth party ship, that’s not what these premium and ultra-luxury ships are about. They specialize in smaller, more intimate journeys, with the newest craze being a yacht-like experience.
With its capacity of 1200 passengers, the Oceania Vista holds twice as many passengers as Seabourn’s Encore at 600 guests. A chilled bottle of champagne awaits newly boarding passengers in veranda staterooms on both ships. Both are comparable with comfortable sitting areas and spacious balconies, and refrigerators stocked with drinks.
On Seabourn, your stateroom is also stocked with your choice of booze. Not so with Oceania, but they do let you bring on your own.
Seabourn’s Encore also boasts a sizeable walk-in closet, which is a real plus. But the Vista’s concierge level veranda suites may have an even bigger advantage – complimentary laundry service.
On a 10-day cruise, passengers on our ship were offered three opportunities to get clothes cleaned and returned folded and even pressed, if requested. The problem is the time the service took to get the clothes cleaned allowed me to use only twice on a 10-day cruise. But that was enough and more than what Seabourn offered by far.
It’s the one big downer about Seabourn’s Encore. Moods can turn quite foul when passengers have to wait in line in the laundry room, especially when someone cuts in line or hogs the machines. Passengers told stories of at least one woman getting kicked off a cruise for unruly behavior over a clothes dryer.
Seabourn should take a hint from Oceania and offer complimentary laundry in its fares to avoid unpleasant laundry scenes. At the very least, it needs to provide more than one laundry room to accommodate several hundred people. Oceania’s Vista has laundry rooms on decks 7-11. That alone should give the cruise line ultra-luxury billing.
Both cruise lines offer gourmet cuisine, world-class wines and spirits, and plenty of opportunities for the well-heeled to drop hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, for the best of the best Champagnes and Bordeaux.
Oceania offers a package that allows passengers to pay extra to have alcohol with meals, at about $40 per person; or to have it whenever you want it at any time of the day or night. On my cruise, that option came to about $70 per person per day.
The caveat in all of this is the company sometimes offers hundreds of dollars in cabin credit incentives that can cover some drink costs and onshore excursions. But this all can be confusing, so it’s best to clarify what the incentives can cover and what they can’t.
You can’t go wrong with the food on either of these ships.
The Vista’s grand dining room is a marvel to behold with its gold and white color scheme lit with a series of massive crystal chandeliers.
The main dining room of Seabourn’s Encore is equally posh and inviting with attentive waiters and sommeliers ready to help select the right wines for each course of the meal. Yes, you can have Prosecco with your snails, a white Bourgogne with one of a half dozen salad choices, and a Merlot with your filet mignon, rack of lamb or duck confit. It’s all in the fare.
Both the Seabourn and the Oceania vessels have multiple restaurants and no long, breakfast, lunch or dinner lines. And on both vessels, there’s ample food for those preferring to while away hours around the pool. That’s where Seabourn comes out ahead.
Afternoon caviar and champagne is, as you guessed, ready for the asking. And it’s all in Seabourn’s all-inclusive fare.
The biggest downer I experienced with Oceania had nothing to do with the on-board experience but with buying the tickets. I thought I was getting a trustworthy deal going through a recommended travel broker only to realize he was tacking on $1500 in hidden commissions.
But that’s a story for another column on cruising the world — coming soon.
Joyce M. Davis is PennLive’s Outreach & Opinion Editor. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @byjoycedavis.
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