Friday night the sixth of February started with dinner at a nearby delicatessen called The Federal. If we thought that Sal's Pizza misrepresented New York fare, then The Federal was criminal. I ordered a chocolate egg cream and there was quite a bit lost in translation. One thing we learned on this trip is that American food, or what passes for American food is what you are going to find wherever you go. Of course, proximity to water and the abundance of sheep, outnumbering people ten to one in New Zealand, speak to the food you are most likely to encounter. Of course, it's not so baaaaadddd! (That one is for you, Felice.)
After a quick breakfast at the Coffee Club (you can tell that by our choice of breakfasts that we eat to live and not live to eat), it was back to the room to finish packing. We were surprised by a knock on the door and an individual came to tell us we had overstayed our welcome. Felice was able to negotiate a few more minutes for our departure. A quick taxi to the ship, where we waited near the pier for entry. Finally, when it appeared that people were actually being allowed to get on the ship, we went to registration. For those not initiated to cruising, it is my opinion that the worst two parts of a cruise are registering to get on the ship and getting off the ship. The only other part of a cruise that could be worse is the potential for a long period (up to almost 100 hours) at sea where the ship is in high waves and sea sickness rears its ugly head. Even for this prestigious cruise (more about prestigious in a moment), the check in was time consuming and not fun, but you do get to see your fellow passengers for the first time as you stand in the snake line, inching to the counter. It was on this line that we met a couple from Seattle who saw my UofA hat and new that the "A" was the symbol for The University of Arizona and not Alabama, Arkansas or Auburn as many others thought. Their two daughters had attended the UofA and by chance one of their daughters was named Felice. This couple became friends who we will be in contact with as soon as the second week after the cruise. A real positive point of cruising is that you always seem to make at least one good friend that you contact many years into the future and this couple will likely be ours from this cruise. After getting on board, we were told our stateroom was not yet ready so we should have lunch and by then we could go to our stateroom. At lunch we me a couple from NZ who took us under their wing since this was our first cruise on Seabourn and we had so much to learn. I came away understanding that Seabourn was a high service line, where the employees were highly paid and trained to learn your name and greet you by name as much as possible. We were told that there is no request too big that they will not accommodate. I also learned that whenever you order meat, you should order double cut and be prepared for the finest meat you have ever had.
Our ship, the Seabourn Odyssey, in Sydney Harbor.
Lest any reader begin to think that I am about to go major snob here because we are on an expensive cruise line, let me give a little context. Felice was chosen to host the cruise by The Ensemble Travel Group, the travel company that her travel agency affiliated with in 2012. http://www.ensembletravel.com/
In exchange for being Ensemble's "feet on the ground" as well as planning a cocktail party and hosting a tour for cruisers who purchased the cruise from Ensemble, she was provided a subsidy that allowed us to be on the cruise. So when I speak of the folks on the cruise or their attributes, please do not think that I am putting ourselves into their class. This was a working vacation of sorts and I can assure you that there was real work involved.
Once lunch was done it was off the cabin to pick up our supplies to go to work. We met with the front desk to confirm which Ensemble travelers made it to the cruise and give them welcome letters to send to the travelers. Then we met with the beverage manager to plan the cocktail party timing, location and provisions. Then we met with the Excursion people to discuss getting our folks off to their exclusive excursion in the city of Dunedin. While we were there we also set up an internet account to communicate with the Ensemble folks in NYC and London so that we could email periodic status reports. As an aside, even arguably the most prestigious cruise line in the world still hasn't figured out or chosen to figure out how to provide high speed internet at a reasonable price to its cruisers. For example, the package we chose to purchase was $20 for 2 hours of slow internet. Of course, if we wanted unlimited internet for the cruise (and adjoining cruises-yes there were folks that stayed for another 16 days) it would only cost $399. That was a bit steep for us. We resorted to preparing all of our emails off-line, logging in, hitting send and then getting off as quickly as possible.
After all of this hard work, we took a ship's tour and then relaxed for a bit and before you knew it, dinner time was at 7:00. Our first dinner was quite informative, as when you walk into the dining room, you are greeted by a waiter, waitress, helper, etc. who takes you by the arm and shepherds you to the front desk and then to your table. We dined with 6 others and this could be called our indoctrination meal. The first question asked is, "Is this your first time on Seabourn?" This is a question to qualify you as a player or potentially a pretender. Pretender it was. Then, the second question was, "Where are you from?" The third question was always, "Before you retired, what did you do?" A question designed to illicit the source of the millions that allowed such travel. Felice and I seemed to get a special comment after our answer that we never heard asked of others which was, "You are way too young to be retired." You see, the demographics of this cruise was as follows:
Under 30 10
30-65 150
Over 65 290
I can assure you that we were on the very young side of most of those folks 30-65 as were rarely met anyone younger than us. At this dinner we also learned that most of our fellow cruisers had a second and sometimes a third residence. We also learned that while there were a few of our fellow cruisers who had a tendency for braggadocio (like the gentlemen who took two different companies and grew them both a hundred fold in value), most were understated. These were not the 1% as there was very little old money and they tended to be more the ones who took a family business to the top and retired or slowed down around age 65 or so. They were all great to be with, but you can be assured that Felice and I were careful to not reveal that a cruise like this one was really out of our price range and that we were working stiffs when it came to this cruise.
Dinners (which start no earlier than 7:00) were long, starting with white wine, an appetizer and a main course, during which red wine was served. Dessert followed and there was always a souffle on the menu. You could usually count on being done between 8:45 and 9:15 as the show started at 9:30 or 9:45. Because of my onion allergy, I always had to order the night before, but that allowed for a major surprise each night as I rarely remembered my order. As an aside, this cruise was one that provided all alcohol and coffee drinks for free. And we are not talking about cheap alcohol, but rather top notch stuff, as I understand it. The first question our stewardess asked us is what alcohol we wanted in the room, but given our drinking status, we asked her to remove it all, including the Fosters' Beer and just give us diet soda, club soda and cranberry juice. We certainly didn't break the budget for them on alcohol, although we did have a touch of both red and white wine each night at dinner and I usually had a Bailey's on the Rocks at the shows. Felice did partake in all of those fancy coffee drinks as well. Suffice it to say, we had our year's worth of alcohol. Shows were very good as well with each night being a different performer and included a concert pianist, professional vocalist, a couple of comedian and a singer/dancer group. It wasn't Broadway, but they were good and certainly not as poor as our recent experiences on other cruise lines.
Now that we were indoctrinated, it was time for a good night sleep and prepare for our first day in a port. Note that jet-lag had no real affect on us going to NZ, a fact that unfortunately was not the case coming home. More about that later.
After a quick breakfast at the Coffee Club (you can tell that by our choice of breakfasts that we eat to live and not live to eat), it was back to the room to finish packing. We were surprised by a knock on the door and an individual came to tell us we had overstayed our welcome. Felice was able to negotiate a few more minutes for our departure. A quick taxi to the ship, where we waited near the pier for entry. Finally, when it appeared that people were actually being allowed to get on the ship, we went to registration. For those not initiated to cruising, it is my opinion that the worst two parts of a cruise are registering to get on the ship and getting off the ship. The only other part of a cruise that could be worse is the potential for a long period (up to almost 100 hours) at sea where the ship is in high waves and sea sickness rears its ugly head. Even for this prestigious cruise (more about prestigious in a moment), the check in was time consuming and not fun, but you do get to see your fellow passengers for the first time as you stand in the snake line, inching to the counter. It was on this line that we met a couple from Seattle who saw my UofA hat and new that the "A" was the symbol for The University of Arizona and not Alabama, Arkansas or Auburn as many others thought. Their two daughters had attended the UofA and by chance one of their daughters was named Felice. This couple became friends who we will be in contact with as soon as the second week after the cruise. A real positive point of cruising is that you always seem to make at least one good friend that you contact many years into the future and this couple will likely be ours from this cruise. After getting on board, we were told our stateroom was not yet ready so we should have lunch and by then we could go to our stateroom. At lunch we me a couple from NZ who took us under their wing since this was our first cruise on Seabourn and we had so much to learn. I came away understanding that Seabourn was a high service line, where the employees were highly paid and trained to learn your name and greet you by name as much as possible. We were told that there is no request too big that they will not accommodate. I also learned that whenever you order meat, you should order double cut and be prepared for the finest meat you have ever had.
Our ship, the Seabourn Odyssey, in Sydney Harbor.
Lest any reader begin to think that I am about to go major snob here because we are on an expensive cruise line, let me give a little context. Felice was chosen to host the cruise by The Ensemble Travel Group, the travel company that her travel agency affiliated with in 2012. http://www.ensembletravel.com/
In exchange for being Ensemble's "feet on the ground" as well as planning a cocktail party and hosting a tour for cruisers who purchased the cruise from Ensemble, she was provided a subsidy that allowed us to be on the cruise. So when I speak of the folks on the cruise or their attributes, please do not think that I am putting ourselves into their class. This was a working vacation of sorts and I can assure you that there was real work involved.
Once lunch was done it was off the cabin to pick up our supplies to go to work. We met with the front desk to confirm which Ensemble travelers made it to the cruise and give them welcome letters to send to the travelers. Then we met with the beverage manager to plan the cocktail party timing, location and provisions. Then we met with the Excursion people to discuss getting our folks off to their exclusive excursion in the city of Dunedin. While we were there we also set up an internet account to communicate with the Ensemble folks in NYC and London so that we could email periodic status reports. As an aside, even arguably the most prestigious cruise line in the world still hasn't figured out or chosen to figure out how to provide high speed internet at a reasonable price to its cruisers. For example, the package we chose to purchase was $20 for 2 hours of slow internet. Of course, if we wanted unlimited internet for the cruise (and adjoining cruises-yes there were folks that stayed for another 16 days) it would only cost $399. That was a bit steep for us. We resorted to preparing all of our emails off-line, logging in, hitting send and then getting off as quickly as possible.
After all of this hard work, we took a ship's tour and then relaxed for a bit and before you knew it, dinner time was at 7:00. Our first dinner was quite informative, as when you walk into the dining room, you are greeted by a waiter, waitress, helper, etc. who takes you by the arm and shepherds you to the front desk and then to your table. We dined with 6 others and this could be called our indoctrination meal. The first question asked is, "Is this your first time on Seabourn?" This is a question to qualify you as a player or potentially a pretender. Pretender it was. Then, the second question was, "Where are you from?" The third question was always, "Before you retired, what did you do?" A question designed to illicit the source of the millions that allowed such travel. Felice and I seemed to get a special comment after our answer that we never heard asked of others which was, "You are way too young to be retired." You see, the demographics of this cruise was as follows:
Under 30 10
30-65 150
Over 65 290
I can assure you that we were on the very young side of most of those folks 30-65 as were rarely met anyone younger than us. At this dinner we also learned that most of our fellow cruisers had a second and sometimes a third residence. We also learned that while there were a few of our fellow cruisers who had a tendency for braggadocio (like the gentlemen who took two different companies and grew them both a hundred fold in value), most were understated. These were not the 1% as there was very little old money and they tended to be more the ones who took a family business to the top and retired or slowed down around age 65 or so. They were all great to be with, but you can be assured that Felice and I were careful to not reveal that a cruise like this one was really out of our price range and that we were working stiffs when it came to this cruise.
Dinners (which start no earlier than 7:00) were long, starting with white wine, an appetizer and a main course, during which red wine was served. Dessert followed and there was always a souffle on the menu. You could usually count on being done between 8:45 and 9:15 as the show started at 9:30 or 9:45. Because of my onion allergy, I always had to order the night before, but that allowed for a major surprise each night as I rarely remembered my order. As an aside, this cruise was one that provided all alcohol and coffee drinks for free. And we are not talking about cheap alcohol, but rather top notch stuff, as I understand it. The first question our stewardess asked us is what alcohol we wanted in the room, but given our drinking status, we asked her to remove it all, including the Fosters' Beer and just give us diet soda, club soda and cranberry juice. We certainly didn't break the budget for them on alcohol, although we did have a touch of both red and white wine each night at dinner and I usually had a Bailey's on the Rocks at the shows. Felice did partake in all of those fancy coffee drinks as well. Suffice it to say, we had our year's worth of alcohol. Shows were very good as well with each night being a different performer and included a concert pianist, professional vocalist, a couple of comedian and a singer/dancer group. It wasn't Broadway, but they were good and certainly not as poor as our recent experiences on other cruise lines.
Now that we were indoctrinated, it was time for a good night sleep and prepare for our first day in a port. Note that jet-lag had no real affect on us going to NZ, a fact that unfortunately was not the case coming home. More about that later.
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