Joanandjoe

We're excited to be in the process of booking a NYC to Barcelona cruise (4/16/20) on the Splendor. Anything that starts or ends at the New York docks, less than 10 miles from our house, is a big plus; and a new ship is an even bigger plus. We love Transatlantics!

We've been on Navigator, Voyager, and Mariner multiple times, and have a 20 day cruise on Navigator next August. We haven't yet booked Explorer. Somehow, we haven't yet found the right combination of itinerary, dates, and prices for Explorer. Maybe in 2021.

We were on the same cruise as Flydc and Sequay, although we never met them. We've written a lengthy review of the cruise, which we rated as three stars; but it hasn't yet been posted by CC. Maybe in the next day or two.

We are quite surprised by their comments on several of the restaurants. If there were pool deck buffets, we might have enjoyed them - but communication was so poor that we never heard about them. As for the pizza restaurant, Scaccanapoli, I guess the other two were lucky, while we were unlucky. We came into the restaurant a bit after 3:30 (so the grill was closed), and said "we're very hungry: how long will it take?" They said 10 minutes, and didn't mention that they had ice cream. (We found that out on the next to last day of the cruise, when Joan ordered ice cream at the grill and they went up to Spaccanapoli to get it.) After 20 minutes, we asked "where's the pizza", and were told that a large group had ordered just before us. We looked around a pillar, and saw a group of 11 people eating pizza. Why didn't they tell us either about the group or about the ice cream? We finally got the order after 35 minutes, and it was incorrect. The pizza margarita was burned, and they brought a ham pizza when we had ordered mushroom. Inedible for us! In short, other than food allergy foul-ups (which we also had on this cruise), Spaccanapoli was quite possibly the worst food experience, both in service and food, we've ever had on a cruise ship. We did not try it a second time.

While I'm happy that other people had good experiences at Spaccanapoli, our awful experience shouldn't have happened on a luxury cruise ship.

We left Copenhagen yesterday. Your advice, DV, helped make it a great 3 1/2 day stay.Thank you for your help. You give a lot of great advice, but seldom get the thanks you deserve. J & J

Langolinie?

DV, thank you for your posts, which we are using now while we are in Copenhagen today. Our ship, the Silver Spirit, leaves in two days (Tuesday, 24/7) from berth C192 at Langolinie.

I assume that Langoline is a different cruise terminal that Oceankaj, where larger ships such as the NCL ship we saw today (while on a harbor cruise), and that Langolinie is closer to the city center. (Our hotel is at 23-39 Vertrobrogade). Please confirm that this is correct. Thanks. J & J

My wife and I are on the Baltic Spirit Cruise Aug 24 Copenhagen to Stockholm.

Thanks Again

Neilio

Hello, Nelio. We will be on the 7/24 cruise, and don't see you either on the roll call https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2542126&page=2 or on the Meet and Mingle list. Please sign up for both.

Mayflower 1, thanks for the review. We, too, were worried about the bad reviews from the shakedown cruise. Thanks for letting us know that the ship is OK. J & J

We'll be taking our first Silversea cruise 3 weeks from today, 7/24 Silver Spirit Copenhagen to Stockholm. If we like the cruise, we may try to book another Silversea cruise.

We can't find a tread describing the benefits, if any, of booking a cruise while one is on a ship. On other lines, we've had discounts, reduced deposits, shipboard credits on our current cruise, and even a free cruise video. In some cases, we've even gotten the on-board discount for cruises booked before or shortly after the cruise.

We would appreciate an explanation of the benefits of booking on-board a Silversea ship. Thanks.

I don't know the answer as to how to get your card; but Danish Viking on the Wonderful Copenhagen 2018 edition thread will know. See https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2616429&page=10. If you have a smart phone, it's possible that the card can be loaded directly onto the phone.

Out of curiosity, I booked us on the Princess 6 pm canal tour on the 8th. It all went through with no issues. It will be interesting to see if they cancel us.

Yes, check again with Princess. We have a late evening departure on another cruise line (Silversea), and they do offer the early evening canal tour.

It takes about 4h more or less, and you where told right the scenery is great!

Our cruise docks at 2 pm on August 3; so I guess that means the entire sail-in will be in the daytime. Is that correct?

You get a text message so your old Nokia 3210 will most likely work as well but send them a email and ask if you can use your phone.

 

So say that we are Cash free is an overstatement.

Only in special areas with social problems are they allowed to say no to cash after 20:00 or around that time.

Thanks. Good news on the cash, bad on the text message. Neither of us has a phone that will work in Europe, so we can't even get a text message. Does that rule out the Copenhagen Card? When we were in Copenhagen in 2003, we were able to get a Copenhagen card somehow. Ironically, I had an international phone (supplied by my office) 15 years ago, but don't have one now.

Re City Pass - I wanted to check that I could have 2 passes on 1 phone as I was a bit confused by the "don't send a pass to another phone" comment. I had a message from the DOT indicating that there was no problem with that. Just posting this in case anyone is interested and does not want to turn on multiple phones.

Also regarding City Pass, what does one do when neither of us has a smart phone. (We technical dinosaurs are rare, but we do exist.) Also, in a country (Denmark) that is nearly cash free, will lack of smart phones be a problem? Thanks

Thanks for the help. DV and others, regarding transportation from plane to hotel and hotel to cruise port. Hopefully, by mid July, Joan will be fully recovered from her February knee surgery, and public transport won't be a problem. Still, she prefers taxis anyway, so that's what we'll probably end up doing.

Another poster indicated that Celebrity will probably charge a lot of money for shuttles to town. I'm surprised: most cruise lines don't charge for this. Check with Celebrity. Sure, cruise lines charge when the port is very distant from the city it serves (Civitavecchia to Rome, Livorno to Florence); but not usually within a city. I don't think we've ever been charged for a shuttle.

I can't seem to find a web site that shows which cruise port will be used for my ship, the Silver Spirit, when I board her on 24 July. Can anyone help?

Also, what's the best way to get from the airport to the Comfort Hotel Vesterbro, for an SAS flight (#910) that arrives at the airport on 21/7 at 7:15 am? Ideally, one could take a train. However, with my bad back and my wife's bad knees, we'd need a lot of help with our luggage. I don't know whether public transit will work for us. Similarly, I don't know if we can get from the hotel to the pier by public transit mid-day on 24/7. Any suggestions?

Hopefully all of these inaugural voyage problems will be solved long before we board the Spirit on July 24!

What is Ritz Yacht Club? Is it a new line, or a new name for Sea Dream? Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to look at itineraries without getting on their email list, which we'd rather not do.

HoHo boats are not relevant in this case since the ships berths at Frihamnen.

Please explain what you mean. Is there more than one cruise port, and is the ho-ho boat only at one of the ports? Our ship, the Silver Spirit, is expected to dock at F650 Frihamnen from 2 to 3 August. If the Ho Ho boat does not dock at this portion of the port, how does one get to the various sights of Stockholm with a Stockholm pass?

We will be on our ship the night of 2 August, and then will spend 3 nights at one of two hotels: The Hilton Stockholm Slussen or the Clarion Collection Hotel Wellington. At this point, more than 3 months from our Stockholm sojourn, we don't yry know which hotel would be more convenient for what we want to see.

Thanks, Randy and Unfathomable. I guess those of us who like baths, rather than showers, are losing out, both at Silversea and at Regent.

How can one tell which staterooms/suites are in the new section? For our 7/24 cruise on the Spirit, we'll be in 727, wich we assume is forward of the new section. J & J

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Thank you. The information probably was there all along, and I didn't notice it. Putting the information in tiny letters under the date isn't a place where I would have looked,

We have reservations for our two formal nights at La Dane (where I probably would have worn a tie and jacket and Joan a caftan anyway) and La Terrazza. What is the dress code for La Terrazza when it isn't formal night? Joe

Our sailing is Aug 24-31 (Spirit). When we checked my.silversea last night under the "view now" and then "dining" icon there is now Formal under the Aug 25 date. That was recently added as we go in periodically to review.

 

Safe Travels

Neilio

Where is "view now" on My Silversea? We'll be on the Spirit 1 month before you (7/24). I'm on My Silversea in another tab, and I don't see anything that says "view now". Nothing on the 10 nights of my cruise shows a dress code when I click on the dining tab.

When does My Silversea show the dress code? Unless I'm missing something, the code is not yet shown for my 7/24 cruise on the Spirit. It certainly would have been helpful to have this information before I made our dining reservations.

Looking at the Amsterdam to New York sailing in August 2019 and all the suites are identified as Wait Listed. What are the chances of any of the Wait List clearing for someone who would book this month?

We booked that cruise when bookings opened. It is the last segment of an 89 day NYC to NYC :Grand Arctic Quest" cruise that begins on June 18, 2019.. At some point after we booked, Regent apparently decided to wait list every category for that segment, in the hope that they would fill the ship with cruisers for the full 80 days. See posts 7 to 10 on the Grand Arctic Quest Roll Call, https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=55790515#post55790515 . The roll call for Amsterdam to NYC is at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/show....php?t=2601925 . We hope that both you and the other couple who want to be on this segment will be able to join us.

. We are also on The ' New ' Spirit in July and will await its Dining with some interest.

Which Silver Spirit cruise will you be on? We'll be on the 7/24 Copenhagen to Stockholm cruise (via the Gulf of Bothnia to some very small ports), and there are only 3 couples on our roll call. J & J

Another annoying fact, we are now at easter good friday docked in St. George´s, Grenada. Even until 11 PM. Everything, maybe apart from Pizza Hut, and a few other tiny tourist shops, is closed.. the city is like dead.... no one on the streets. The locals at the port information told us this is normal for the easter holidays. So la Terrazza for lunch was so super full.. and its also raining today...

 

Why did Silversea schedule us to be here that long on this day.. Why not in another island today with more things open. Or maybe even a day at sea....

I doubt that you can find an island in the Caribbean where things aren't closed today, Sunday, and (if the island is British) Easter Monday. Cruise lines don't seem to consider such things as holiday closings. On our only Oceania cruise, we started in Montreal on a Monday holiday where everything seemed to be closed, spent the following Monday on another Monday holiday in St. Pierre where even the cafes were closed, and the next Monday in Dublin on a holiday where nearly everything was closed. Ugh! We're sorry to hear that Silversea doesn't do better than Oceania with respect to holidays.

Thank you for your comments on the Muse, which are likely to apply to our cruise July 24 on the "Musified" Silver Spirit.

Your comments on the Japanese extra cost restaurant were a bit surprising: if the food is like that, it certainly isn't worth paying an extra charge. We're also shocked that you had to ask for flowers, fruit, and sparkling wine on arrival. On Regent, our primary (to date) cruise line, this stuff comes automatically.

There's another thread about whether one gets restaurant menus in advance, either automatically or after requesting them. What has been your experience? If you aren't getting menus and haven't asked, please ask, since other cruisers might appreciate knowing (on the other thread) whether you receive the menus on request.

Smooth seas! J & J