Dolcevita Diva

Have a marvelous cruise - look forward to hearing your thoughts! I enjoyed this ship but know that some others do not care for it. In light of the norovirus issues on the last voyage, it would seem that in addition to enforcement of use of the hand-washing stations, there will need to be greater care taken with the refillable water bottles issued to each passenger (e.g. not allowing passengers to refill their own at the refill stations). Will be curious to hear if they're taking this into consideration.

Now that you mention it...perhaps they're also seeking to increase on-board revenue by boosting visits to the infirmary, sales of sea bands, etc.? 😁

😮😨🤢

It was reported elsewhere by several passengers that Barbara M and her husband were vacationing aboard the March 23rd Silver Cloud 12-day expedition voyage in Africa, so the leadership change may have been decided some time ago but the announcement held until after her return. The tidbit of information that @Lonedaddy shared above about Silversea's new brand President, coupled with a new VP of Transformation who used to be in charge on on-board revenue at RCL certainly indicate that a new leadership team that is highly focused on driving revenue and cutting costs is being assembled. Not unusual following an acquisition; I think we had all just hoped otherwise when their earlier moves post-acquisition were significant investments in new ships plus Barbara's promotion. From the press release: Notably, he was chief operating officer for the Group’s former luxury cruise line, Azamara, delivering the line’s most profitable year while it was part of the Royal Caribbean family of brands

And Silversea's recent approach of changing some included excursions to select excursions provides additional impetus to book your excursions as soon as you put a deposit on a cruise.

Arts Cafe will also be open. But- last year I found boarding (Nova) in Lisbon at the early part of the boarding window to be the most crowded, hectic scenario in more than 20 years of sailing with Silversea. There were 5 buses of passengers from the Silversea hotels. The queues for security were long and people were crowding against each other unnecessarily while in line. I prefer to ask for a late checkout at the hotel and enjoy a late breakfast or leisurely lunch ashore before heading to the ship around 3 pm.

At the same time the latest fares appeared, I read elsewhere that a new promotion is scheduled to begin in mid-April.

Although the Nova has the larger containers filled with their private label Otium products in the veranda suites, you can request Bulgari instead.

One of my options had a different rewards structure and label than Lonedaddy's, so they appear to be testing multiple options. One of my options had a $95 annual fee, but the sign-up offer was higher with a $400 credit. Earnings were 3% on Silversea, 2% on other travel and 1% on everything else. The additional benefits section included travel protection (insurance). This option has a much better value proposition than the ones shown (but still not as good as the bennies I get from AmEx Platinum). But they're using a very basic survey structure vs. more sophisticated conjoint analysis, so hopefully this is just a trial balloon to see if this warrants further investigation. If they're actually going to use findings from this simple survey format to decide on a new rewards credit card, their low-budget survey approach is another example of cost-cutting.

Sadly, they misspelled their own brand name in one of the questions. Between this communication and the typos in the recent flyer about the new fare structure, RCL really should invest in better proofreading.

JP, belated Happy Birthday to you!

Oh my word Lois. My condolences to you and your family.

@QueSeraSera- I am so very very sorry and know how heartbroken you must feel. Hopefully you can take comfort in the wise words you shared with me recently:

If you're unable to obtain a reservation to dine at Silver Note, you can still stop by after dinner elsewhere to have a beverage and enjoy the show.

I was highly amused to receive an email from LinkedIn this morning recommending a new job posting for Head of Investor Relations by Royal Caribbean Group as a "top job pick for you." A bit surprised that they're just now beginning the search for his replacement. Perhaps he'll fill a dual role for a while until his replacement at RCCL is in place.