A week onboard the Seabourn Encore with a group of 220 Australians has set me back years. I have tried so hard to overcome my prejudices. I have met Australians who are lovely and great fun and I enjoy their company.
I was slowly coming round to thinking that Australians in general were not as bad as I had thought. But the past week has shown me the error of my ways.

Seabourn has found a niche in the world of ocean cruises and has become very successful because of it. They keep their ships small and they keep them exclusive. They specifically target customers who are a little older and a little more sophisticated than the average traveler. Just over 300 such travelers were enjoying a Seabourn cruise when on that fateful Sunday just over a week ago, two hundred and twenty Australians who were neither of those things boisterously climbed the gangway to join them for a week.
They headed straight for the bars and never left them for a week. It was clear from the very first moment that in this case opposites were not going to attract.

Dear reader, I might be two paragraphs too late, but I feel I should let you know I feel a rant coming on! I haven’t succumbed to a rant for years, but I do remember that some of you get a little over excited when I vent my feelings, especially when my venting is directed at Australians. So if you happen to be one of those sensitive souls, please avert your eyes now.

Seabourn has a dress code. After 6 pm shorts are not allowed in any restaurant or bar. Seabourn calls the required dress code “Country Casual”. The Australians assume that term refers to their country and turn up to dinner in shorts and flip flops.
The Seabourn customers, dressed to the nines and sometimes tens are appalled.

The Seabourn customer enjoys a martini with three olives before dinner and then orders a nice bottle of wine. The Australians have been drinking beer out of the bottle all day and see no reason to change that in the evening.

The Seabourn customer enjoys an after dinner drink while watching the show, and then retires to bed no later than 11pm.

The Australians are in the bar just getting warmed up at that time.

Apparently an entire week’s supply of beer was brought on board the day the Australians arrived. By the end of the following evening all of it had been consumed. Emergency rations had to be brought in at every port.

Each morning Seabourn prepares an extensive buffet breakfast which is available from 7.30am to 10am.

The Seabourn customer enjoys their breakfast and then likes to relax around the pool, carefully avoiding the sun, reading a book plucked from the reviews of the New York Times and sipping a glass of champagne.

The Australians always arrive late just as the staff are clearing away the buffet.

This is because they wake up a little worse for wear and order breakfast in their cabins. One hundred and ten breakfast trays had to be delivered to suites every morning, a monumental task for the crew. Having eaten their first breakfast, they then proceed to the breakfast buffet for a second breakfast. This is a fact. I am not making it up.
Arriving at the restaurant shortly after ten, unshaven and slightly disheveled in the same shorts and flip flops they were wearing the previous evening, they demand to be served. Having devoured a second breakfast they move en masse to the coffee shop where they have a flat white and a muffin or two.

Then, with a couple of hours to fill before lunch, they move to the pool deck where they collapse on a chaise in the sun and fall asleep with mouth open, snoring loudly.
They have never read a book in their lives, and now is not the time to start. When they wake they move into the pool carrying a bottle of beer with them and hang out there for the rest of the day.

When in port, the Seabourn customer likes to either take an organised tour round the archaeological sites, or make their own way into town for a nice lunch in a Michelin starred restaurant, followed by an hour on the beach relaxing on a comfortable chaise underneath a large umbrella.

The Australians don’t go ashore. They can’t find the gangway off the ship. Besides, they believe “Michelin starred” refers to some sort of fancy tire.
Dear readers, just check it out. There are no Michelin starred restaurants in Australia.

To be fair to the Australians (I am struggling here!) this is a large group traveling together. They know each other and they are here to have a good time. And why not. There are many places where they could have gone, and ships they could have traveled on, which would be perfect for the type of vacation they are looking for. But whoever decided Seabourn was one of those places was, if you will pardon the expression, batshit crazy.

To be fair to the crew and to the other passengers, the Australians have made this past week uncomfortable at best, and unpleasant at worst, for everyone else. The only people to blame for this is Seabourn. What were they thinking when they accepted this group?

I know you are thinking I am exaggerating just a little, and maybe I am. A few of them did find the gangway. But dear readers, the hotel manager took the unprecedented step of sending a printed note to each and every cabin reminding all passengers of the dress code while onboard the ship. It had no effect.

The Captain then took an even more unprecedented step. The day after the Australians disembarked, he sent a personalised letter, carefully worded, to every Seabourn guest on board in which he apologized for “the ambiance on this cruise” and acknowledged that he had a large number of complaints. He went on to say that he would like to offer a discount of 25% based on the amount we had paid for this cruise, to be applied to a future cruise of our choice.

He finished by saying that this credit was applicable only ‘for those guests not affiliated with the large group”.

I rest my case and this rant is now over!