We are loving our cruise aboard the Seabourn Encore, and it is now day 20 of our 34 day cruise as I write this, so we are now into the second half of our cruise. We booked this as a full 34 day cruise from Athens to Singapore, but it could actually be booked in 2 segments of 18 days (Athens to Dubai), while our current and second cruise segment continues on for 16 days from Dubai to Singapore. While some of the Athens boarding passengers like us remained on for the Singapore segment, quite a few passengers debarked in Dubai, including some 60 crew members.
We had about 50 new passengers joining us in Dubai yesterday, along with 50 or more new crew members, so we are learning some new names and faces. This sailing there are only around 350 passengers for the 600 passenger ship, so it’s even less busy than the first sailing we were on from Athens. We hated saying goodbye to our friends sailing since Athens, as we made some great friendships with them as well as the crew, but we were glad for them (especially the crew) who could be home for the Christmas and other holidays. To our departing friends, I hope you had/have a wonderful trip home, and Happy Holidays to you! Hope we see you again on another Seabourn Cruise in the future.
I’m getting quite a bit behind in my posting as there is so much to do aboard, even with having so many lazy (but actually busy) sea days! We had six sea days after our long day trip to Luxor, so it was nice to relax aboard for a few days. This cruise is similar to taking a trans-Atlantic cruise with all of the sea days, but in a different part of the world, and in luxurious Seabourn style.
Seabourn has such a variety of activities to do, from trivia contests (which involve various passenger trivia teams – some quite serious about their trivia!), to lectures about the history and current lifestyle and events of the ports being visited (not simply shopping talks like many of the other cruises lines do), wine tastings, shipboard parties, Seabourn Signature Events, production and guest entertainer shows, live entertainment in the lounges etc. Plus as we sail along to warmer climates, a visit to the poolside on deck 5 or the outdoor area of Seabourn Square on deck 7 has become a daily ritual. I even make it to the gym on most sea days, although we get plenty of exercise from the port days.
Steve (DOS) and I actually won the number one prize in the Arabian Nights dress contest aboard the night of the Salalah, Oman port! We had bought the outfits (Arabian Robes and hats and one of the market (souks they call them) and wore them to the pool party. It was so much fun, and people were taking photos of us all around the pool!😀
I’m going to pause and scale down my commentary for a bit, as it takes so long to write and post, and I can’t keep up with posting due to to the many ports, and busy sea days which keeps cuts down on our blogging time. I don’t know how professional bloggers/Vloggers find the time to post their daily events in the midst of doing the onboard and port excursions, and then summarizing that same evening! I’m just a simple amateur blogger who does this for fun, but even that takes lots of time, and Steve DOS and I don’t want to miss out on the fun! Below I’ll post post a few galleries from the last 4 ports we have visited since my last post on Luxor Egypt, and I’ll add and update some of these galleries with more photos and commentary when we get home in early January.
Salalah, Oman
Muscat, Oman
Khor al Fakkan, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Ras al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Well folks, thank you for reading this far! The next stop will be about our day in Dubai, UAE and starts the second segment of this cruise which will end in Singapore December 23.