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A HAL'er Goes to Sea


Randyk47

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Realize this is the HAL board but this is where I "live and play" so I wanted to share that WE'RE OUT OF HERE! Leaving for the airport in a couple of hours and off to Barcelona to catch the Silver Wind. Yes, we're crossing the line and trying a different line. It was a matter of timing and itinerary, not any specific problem with HAL. Will fill you all in on the differences once we return. Take care, keep the faith, and by all means live long and prosper! :)

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I'm so looking forward to your comments. Very interested to see what you think of your cruise.

 

Travel safely and have a really great time.

 

Fair Winds and a Following Sea.

Travel safely.

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Have a great cruise Randy, I too am very interested in your opinion of Silversea. Several of the more luxury cruise lines with being all inclusive really are not that more expensive although on the surface they seem to untill you really compare. Silversea has some amazing itineraries and their much smaller ships get to ports others cannot. I am sure you will really enjoy :)

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Randy, Hope you and your wife have a wonderful cruise. We are in Fort Lauderdale, getting ready to board the NA. Linda, George and Cloe

 

Linda, George and Cloe:

You guys have a great cruise on a great ship the m.s. Nieuw AMSTERDAM!

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In Dallas cooling our jets waiting for the overnight to London and then on to Barcelona. Luckily we have club access so it's not too bad. One consideration was taking Silversea air or booking ourselves. We went with booking our own flights because we had the miles to upgrade to first class. Silversea's air was not bad actually and if we'd not had the miles we would have taken as it was a better deal than we could buy ourselves. Mrs. K gets to fly on Boeing 747 for the first time in her life so that as an extra benefit that cost us nothing.

 

Thanks for all your kind wishes.

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We tried this several times....switching to 'try out' new lines etc....I guess kinda like the cow starining his neck to get the grass on the other side of the fence. Anyway, spent most of the 'try out' cruise times wishing I were on hal.

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Quick note to say we made it to Barcelona with no problems. Right now we're cruising a glassy Med to Marseilles. We were late getting out of Barcelona due to fog.....so bad you couldn't see the water surface from our veranda. They closed the port so nothing the ship could do but wait. So far the Silver Wind has been fantastic. Different than HAL but not in a bad way. Later....... :)

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Randy, thanks for taking a luxury cruise for all of us here on the HAL Board. Your reports will be so interesting, especially your impressions of the service and interactions with the dining room staff, stewards, bar staff, etc. This board was getting a bit repetitive until you decided to try Silversea!

 

Mrs M

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Sorry Randy - I'm 'late to the table' so to speak as we just got back and have been busy. I hope the two of you have a fabulous cruise.

 

Looking forward to your impressions. We saw one of their ships at several of our ports on our last cruise. Enjoy:)

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Greetings from Montecarlo! We haven’t gotten off the ship yet this morning so all I can say about it so far is that it looks like you’d imagine and expect from postcards and movies. We’re docked literally in town with private yachts all around us. Truly magical so far and a big difference from the industrial feeling of yesterday’s Marseilles .

 

Today is a bit of a laid back later start for us as Mrs. K is off to the spa this morning so that gives me time to do some comparisons and impressions of Silversea versus Holland America. First off we’re on the Silver Wind, one of the original ships built for the line in 1995. That would make her roughly the age of the S class but I’d honestly have to say you’d never know that she’s that old. The level of maintenance is obviously very high and from talking to the staff they take their ships into wet and dry dock every couple of years to keep them in an almost new like condition. Cleaning, like on HAL, is continuous but not intrusive. The Wind is a small ship with a capacity of around 300 passengers and an equal number of crew. While we’ve never been on the Prinsendam I sense the Wind is more like her than say the Maasdam or Volendam. The main dining room, maybe not so creatively simply called The Restaurant, is just one level and is formal and intimate. I’ll do some other public room comparisons over the next few days…..even though there aren’t many of them we haven’t had a chance to visit or spend much time in them so far. I should mention the staff and level of service. The staff comes from all over the world, some 36 countries are represented on our cruise. The wait staff is from Malaysia and the Philippines and I think would make most HAL’ers feel very much at home. The level of service is friendly, efficient, prompt, and exact. It’s not stuffy or pretentious; it’s just very good and reminds me of my early cruises on Holland America back in the early 90’s. More later……

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I may be jumping around here a bit but as I said earlier we really haven’t been able to see or experience all of even this relatively small ship so far so I’m sharing and comparing the parts of the ship we’ve become most familiar with in our three days on board. This is a very port intensive cruise with something like 10 ports in 14 days so we’ve been kind of on the run since we boarded. Anyhow, one of the comparisons I’d like to mention is the pool area, which is Deck 8 on the Wind, versus the Lido on HAL. Big props and a plus to HAL because I don’t think there’s any pool area as nice on any other cruise line I’ve been on including now Silversea. The pool area on the ship is what I guess you’d consider the more traditional open area with the pool and two “Jacuzzis”. There is also a very nice grill and bar at the pool but it doesn’t have that kind of in-door/out-door feeling of HAL. You might be asking or wondering where the Wind’s “Lido Café” is and the simple answer is that there isn’t one on the pool deck and I’ll explain that in another post. It’s been cool so far on the cruise with temperatures in the 50’s in the morning and not quite 70 during the day so a dome over the pool area would be very nice and would make the area more usable. Since our cabin is actually on the same deck, forward of the pool, we actually feel like we have our “own” snack and bar area some 40 feet away so it’s been kind of handy. With the cool weather it’s really been kind of ours without a lot of business. It’s not an entertainment like venue so we’re not bothered by noise or a lot of foot traffic. The four Medallion Suite cabins on this deck were added years ago in a major dry dock and from the looks of it they took probably senior staff quarters and maybe office space over. Medallion Suites on Silversea, or at least on this ship, are very comparable with HAL Deluxe Suites. No Neptune Lounge but there is a butler and unlike our Celebrity experience this one is very good and truly takes care of everything without being intrusive. You Deluxe Suite cruisers on HAL would feel very much at home. The Medallion is something like 20-25 square feet smaller than a Deluxe on an R or S class HAL ship but the space is very well designed and you really don’t notice the “smaller” room. With amenities like a coffee machine in the room, the all marble bathroom with tub and separate shower, large veranda, and the quality of the finishes in our cabin a bit higher than HAL I’d give maybe a little plus to Silversea over HAL.

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Randy, Loving this thread. Thank you for it.

 

I was invited to lunch on Silversea some years ago. I think it was a larger ship than yours and I toured the cabins. The ship is beautiful but I'm wondering......... do the cabin stewardesses still wear black dresses and white aprons? I still have that image in my mind. :D

 

Enjoy Monte Carlo..... we had fabulous time there and GREAT lunch ashore. Everything is immaculate and so beautiful. Have fun!

 

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I haven't forgotten you all but the last couple of days have been busy to the point of hectic. :) We docked in Livorno yesterday and it is the gateway port to Florence (AKA Firenze) and Pisa. We took the train into Florence yesterday morning at 9 AM and didn't get back to the ship until about 10:30 PM. Totally pooped but in a good sense and had a great day in Florence visiting some famous sites and doing a little shopping. Today was Pisa and we took a ship's tour to the Field of Miracles which of course features the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. All I can say is wow! You'll just have to wait a few weeks for the detailed tour report on our website. :)

 

So as to keep the notion of comparison between HAL and Silversea going I thought I'd quickly mention food. We're by no means food snobs and also realize food is a very subjective subject. Have to say our meals on Silversea, from breakfast to dinner, have been great to excellent. Breakfast and lunch has been way better and dinners have been at least equal to or better than our HAL cruises. Now before I get flamed have to say our dinners on the Maasdam last year were "home runs" and certainly as good as we've had on the Silver Wind so far. The Veendam before pales by comparison so cruise to cruise and ship to ship I've kind of accepted or expected some variation. Hard to say there's a "winner" between the two lines right now but Silversea might be slight overall winner this highly subjective comparison. Time to relax....tonight is formal night so going to rest. Later........

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