Review: SeaDream Yacht Club
Get away from it all in pampered style.
Monte Carlo, Monaco—Our taxi passes through the security gate into the marina. A man ushers us inside the reception building, and directs us to the yacht 500 yards down the slip, just past the Christina O, the famous yacht commissioned by Aristotle Onassis and named for his daughter. I look for the face I’ve seen a dozen times in the tabloids. Christina’s not on board.
Instead, there is a fine-boned woman on deck with Jackie O sunglasses and a cell phone to her ear: she’s either someone who paid US $445,000 a week (which doesn’t include provisioning, fuel, or tips) to charter the 325 foot motor yacht, or a guest of someone who did.
We walk farther along the slip to an even more impressive yacht, the SeaDream II, at 344 feet. After surrendering our passports at the welcoming table, my husband, Robert, and I climb aboard and are greeted by several crew members. One offers a cool scented towel, another a glass of French bubbly.
It’s a taste of what’s to come: nine days of pampered yachting, with the summer playgrounds of the Italian and French Riviera within our navigational reach.
It’s a beautiful sunny Mediterranean afternoon and we are in no rush to go to our stateroom and unpack, so we grab a table on the pool deck, introduce ourselves to another couple sitting nearby, and accept refills of champagne and canapes as more guests are welcomed aboard.
We got the last available stateroom, on the lowest level, right next to the crew quarters. I’m expecting something akin to steerage class on the Titanic. Not to worry. It looks like every other room: spacious, with large windows, a flat screen TV, and a white marble bathroom. Monogrammed pajamas lie on our duvet-draped bed.
Six of us meet back on the pool deck before dinner. The champagne and wine keep coming and no one is eager to descend below to the dining room, so our new acquaintance, Jacqueline, suggests we dine alfresco tonight. No problem. The crew sets up a table on the deck, overlooking the pool and the twinkling lights of Monte Carlo.
The sommelier has selected two complimentary wines for tonight, or we can order from the wine list. Two crew members hover as the dinner menu is presented. It’s impressive. At least three choices for each of the four courses. You could make it five or six courses if you wanted. The soups are fabulous, the caesar salad is one of the best I’ve ever tasted. Robert gets his filet just the way he likes it—seared and blue.
There are no Las Vegas-style shows or midnight buffets. However, we are invited to sing in the piano bar, or relax in one of the bar chairs or open air dream beds on the top deck, where Danny is pouring whatever you want to drink at the open bar as you flip through the collection of CDs and house music. He’s taking requests.
Care to gamble? Monte Carlos’s world famous casino is just a five-minute cab ride up the hill or you can skip the jacket and tie and let one of SeaDream’s croupiers take your money.
One morning, our captain invites us to come mountain biking with him. His thighs are taut. His calves are balls of muscle. He looks gleefully at the cliffs and rugged ridges of the Italian coastline. We decline, opting for gentler pursuits: the pursuit of the perfect pizza in the perfect piazza.
Another day we roll out of our duvets propelled by the promise of blueberry pancakes. We hear the chef is going into town to pick out some cheese and wine for cocktail hour. Wanna come? A group of guests follow as he weaves through the cobbled lanes of St. Tropez, through the fish market, and into a small square, and arranges for a cheese and wine tasting. The chef gauges our reactions as we sample the salamis, the cheeses, and sip first white wine, then rose. Some Puritan feels compelled to remind us that it’s only 10 a.m. Who cares? Vive la France!
John, a frequent SeaDream Ambassador/passenger, entertains us with delightfully off-color jokes at dinner. Our maitre’d, Sean, stands a respectful distance away, looking amused, never bringing up the fact that our group always manages to be the last table to vacate the dining room. Nobody’s rushed, nobody’s herded. It’s like it’s our own private chartered yacht.
But it’s not. We share the boat with 100 other passengers and 92 crew. Yet no one is jockeying for a deck chair. No one is waiting for a drink. There are no lines for the frequent tenders that ferry passengers back and forth to ports and harbors.
Although SeaDream Yacht Club is technically a cruise line, albeit a small one, their tag line reminds us that “It’s Yachting, not Cruising.” Despite being at the high-end price point for cruises, SeaDream sailings are booked up months in advance by people who appreciate that the SeaDream experience is as close as you can get to the experience of your own private yacht.
Start saving now. A SeaDream Yacht Club cruise could run you anywhere from US $2,800 to $12,000 per person for a week. However, when you consider what it costs to charter a mega-yacht , aren’t you happy to share the expense with a hundred or so of your new friends?
Visit their website for video tours, prices, and itineraries, or call your travel agent.
Copyright . Published 1 January 2007 in What’s New.
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