Just In: Cloud being converted to an Expedition Vessel

Just received an email discussing the changes being made to the Cloud during an extensive refurbishment in August 2017.

Seems the Polar itineraries are so popular on the Explorer, SS is going to convert this ship.

Here is the press release:

SILVER CLOUD TO JOIN SILVERSEA'S EXPEDITION FLEET

To our valued Venetian Society members,

Silversea Cruises will announce that it will move Silver Cloud to its luxury expedition fleet in November 2017. Destined mostly for polar waters, the elite 296-guest ship that launched the ultra-luxury cruise line will be converted into an ice-class ship during an extensive refurbishment scheduled to start in August 2017.

As an expedition ship, the all-suite Silver Cloud will accommodate 260 guests and also sail on itineraries to non-polar regions. When sailing Arctic and Antarctic itineraries, the guest complement will be restricted to 200. Silversea is a member of the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) and the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO), and adheres to each organization's guidelines to ensure sustainable tourism. These include such measures as limiting the number of guests going ashore in certain areas of the Arctic and allowing for a broader range of Antarctic landing sites for expedition ships with no more than 200 guests.

"Silver Explorer's polar expedition cruises have proven hugely popular with our guests," said Enzo Visone, Silversea's CEO. "By converting Silver Cloud into an ice-class ship for our expedition fleet, we will be better positioned to meet the increasing demand for comfortable adventure travel, particularly to the Arctic and Antarctica, places that are best explored by small ships specially equipped with ice-strengthened hulls."

Silver Cloud will be the only luxury ice-class expedition ship offering five dining options: The Dining Room, the Relais & Châteaux® restaurant, La Terrazza, The Grill, and in-suite dining. The ship will have the highest space ratio and highest staff-to-guest ratio (nearly one to one) among luxury ice-class expedition ships. For the expedition team alone, there will be on average one team member guiding no more than twelve guests each. Plus the ship will be augmented by a fleet of 18 Zodiac crafts for up-close explorations.

The luxury expedition line currently has three all-suite expedition ships, Silver Explorer, Silver Discoverer, and Silver Galapagos. Collectively, they explore over 500 far-flung destinations, from Africa, Australia's Kimberley Coast, and the Russian Far East, to the Galápagos Islands, the British Isles, and the polar realms.

Guests are enriched by an onboard program of destination lectures, photo presentations, and daily recaps. Exploratory excursions are complimentary, and led by a team of experts, including marine biologists, ornithologists, geologists, botanists, historians, and anthropologists.

These expedition cruises offer a comfortable, intimate and convivial onboard lifestyle where guests can feel at home as they explore secluded lands. Guests enjoy ocean-view suites, gourmet cuisine, the personalized service of a butler, and a generous selection of all-inclusive shipboard amenities, including complimentary beverages, wines and spirits, a stocked in-suite beverage cabinet, and complimentary Wi-Fi for each guest.

Silversea's 2017 schedule will be announced in the coming days.

Got that too...some mixed feelings! 200 guests on Silver Cloud to the Polar regions will be quite nice. But I will miss Silver Cloud on regular Med voyages; we think it's a perfect size for that.

Wow the Cloud...

An expedition ship.

Not sure what to say.

Its a lovely ship.

YIKES !!! 200 people in zodiacs ! :eek:

WOW times two!! Yes, this is very interesting. Having been on the Silver Cloud for three different cruises, total of 41 days, we enjoyed our experiences on her up and down the Norway coast, up and back for the Amazon River and then around in the Caribbean. Fun times and great memories.

And, getting ready next month to make our final payment for an early February 2016, ten-day cruise on the Silver Cloud along South Africa coast to Mozambique. Know that the Silver Cloud will get a wide variety of fixes, including new teak flooring and many "back-of-house" upgrades and updates, etc. This will take place Oct. 20-Nov. 10, 2015.

Glad to see that the Silver Cloud has a future!! That is the general prediction the Captain had indicated to us in February and he said that the owner really likes this ship. Now we know the realities and details. This is an interesting strategy. While we have not a cruise on an expedition ship, we did get to tour one of those ships in 2010. Offering customers BOTH the nature experiences AND more ship room/comfort would be great. The current expedition ships are little cramped in places and limited with the dining options. This could be a great "re-positioning" for the Silver Cloud.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 185,795 views.

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

So is the Wind to follow?

Melissa

Zodiac relays and shifts will truncate the access and flexibility common to the smaller ships.

Ashore numbers are usually limited both north and south, so longer stays at fewer sites may be the new black.

I guess the apparent success of Seabourn's very soft offering and the need to find an exit strategy for the smaller older ships made it an attractive concept, time will tell.

It seems Venetian Society members in Australia are not valued as are those in the Northern Hemisphere.6 voyages on the Explorer,3 more Expedition cruises booked and ignored.

Well we are going to experience Expedition cruising with another line next year.So if any good they may get preference.

It seems Venetian Society members in Australia are not valued as are those in the Northern Hemisphere.6 voyages on the Explorer,3 more Expedition cruises booked and ignored.

Living in the Northern Hemispere does not always mean you are a valued member. No message here in Sweden.

Or the UK

I will miss her! Sniff.

Living in the Northern Hemispere does not always mean you are a valued member. No message here in Sweden.

Well, only a short time after I wrote this, the message from Silversea appeared in my mail box. I am again a valued Venetian Society member.

And like many other members I will miss Cloud. A beautiful ship where some of my best cruises have been.

I think too many the loss of a smaller ship from the main fleet and also therefore prime iteneraries represents a loss of both a much loved ship plus a move towards the average ship in the main fleet getting bigger.

SS was originally all about high quality and small ships. A double dissapointment really.

Jeff

After reading the news in this post this morning I was a little confused. Silversea Expeditions always had the edge because of its strong commitment to a real expedition experience. Hence the reason we travel with them for expeditions and use the other not to be named company often for "regular" cruises. So I was slightly disappointing with this move . Having traveled with Conrad, the line's Director of Expeditions a few times now I decided to email him and ask the burning question: What are you guys thinking?

Basically Conrad came back immediately with a response. He is very enthusiastic about this development. He explained that Silversea has no intention of offering a watered down expedition experience. Hence the fact that the ship will receive an ice class rating, a new mudroom, 18 Zodiacs and a large team of 19 Expedition Staff. He assured me that this will not be anything like the - not to be named - competition where they offer 450 persons the change to go to Antarctica in a soft expedition experience.

As he explained the ship will carry 200 persons maximum in the Polar regions, therefore with such a large staff compliment and 18 Zodiacs the company will still be able to offer the maximum landings , in fact in some cases with the amount of boats and staff, they will be able to offer landings and zodiac cruises at the same time. He reminded me that on the Silver Explorer they already to a rotation system to allow for maximum of 100 persons ashore at a time. So in reality nothing different than on the Explorer, especially as they will have more Expedition Staff and more Zodiacs.

He also mentioned that the decision to stay below 200 guests was taken to allow the ship to remain in the same category as the Silver Explorer, which means the Cloud can go to all the same places as the Explorer. He also reminded me that other companies have been doing expedition travel with ships of up to 200 for many years and it is very successful.

I think it will remain to be seen if this is good, but I sure like the idea of a real luxury ship like the Cloud offering expedition cruises.

Let see if they can pull this off. I for one hope so, and if their expeditions on the Cloud can match what they have done with the other expedition ships then it will be an amazing product.

The passenger count on the new Cloud will be roughly equivalent to Hapag Lloyd's ship Hanseatic which many regard as the finest expedition cruise ship afloat. However, the Cloud is rather larger so should be able to ride those huge waves in the South Atlantic quite well.

It's good to know that we in the British Isles are in a far-flung destination and should be visited on a luxury expedition line.

It almost makes us sound exotic.

I believe SB Quest keeps the limit quite a bit under 450 for Antarctica. And I'd guess the hull rating would be closer to Quest versus SS or H-L expedition ships. Something had to be done with Cloud. Oh well.

Lots of interesting possibilities here... Yes, the Cloud is one of our favorites. Economically this may make lots of sense for SS.

Cloud needs an overhaul but even in its current state it's a step up from Explorer in terms of luxury. Cloud will make a very luxurious expedition ship that will feel very spacious at 200 pax. I'd sail on her in this new iteration. The dining options alone will be amazing for an expedition ship.

This may allow SS to use Cloud as a replacement for Discoverer once the lease is up - promote from within rather than keep paying a lease.

Larger ships are probably more profitable than smaller ships due to economies of scale. Cloud will be a large expedition ship and the new build will be larger as well. Both may be more financially viable assuming they can fill the suites.

By using Cloud on polar routes they don't have to worry about whether the A/C goes out again. :)

Conrad has a good point in that the 200 pax capacity would allow them to function much as they do now, by landing half of the pax at a time and alternating groups. Not everyone is ashore at once on Explorer either, so minimal difference as I see it. Over 200 would be different.

Certainly looks like a good move from their perspective. Time will tell if it's a good move for pax, but I see some positive things here.

The Cloud is a good ship and will bring greater comfort to expedition travel.

We have 100 days on SS and did not get the email.

I do hope that Silversea will keep a small ship for cruises that are not expeditions. Twould be a shame if pax could not sail under London tower bridge or sail up the Neva river.

I do feel that the discoverer is not as charming as the explorer.

And it has lots of other issues that crew don't particularly like.

Makes sense to keep the business in house.

Too bad our US government can't get icebreaker ships to arctic as easily as cruise lines can.

JP it is interesting to see what SS may do when the lease on the Discoverer.I am thinking that maybe the Cloud replaces the Explorer at the poles and the Explorer takes over the Discoverer's voyages.I personally would be happy with that.

With the Cloud doing the poles I would be interested in doing the Cape to Cape cruise in a bit of luxury.

Still not a valued Venetian here below the Equator.

Jpalbny, bingo! Our thoughts exactly. Some of the Discoverer ports are so difficult to get to, the audience is limited. A larger Cloud can do mixed cruises.

JP it is interesting to see what SS may do when the lease on the Discoverer.I am thinking that maybe the Cloud replaces the Explorer at the poles and the Explorer takes over the Discoverer's voyages.I personally would be happy with that.

With the Cloud doing the poles I would be interested in doing the Cape to Cape cruise in a bit of luxury.

 

Still not a valued Venetian here below the Equator.

That was my first thought too. The flaw I see with that plan is that it seems a waste of a class 1A ice-rated hull (Explorer) to use it only in the Kimberly and the South Pacific (Discoverer's itineraries).

I'm sure that Conrad has ideas...

While we will miss the Cloud in the Med and other ports, we are excited about the possibility of going to Antarctica on the Cloud.

This sounds very interesting indeed. I wonder when pricing will be released.