Fletcher

1 hour ago, Rothko1 said:

 

 Nothing beats a 32 ounce Tomahawk...

I think George Armstrong Custer said that.

Whenever I see the words 'tasting' and 'menu' conjoined I run a mile.  Ditto the phrase 'fine dining.' This style of eating has virtually taken over the world's smart restaurants and that has been a colossal turn-off for me. These multi-course tasting menus can be prepared mostly in advance, the food sits for hours in those deadly sous vide things, they have aggressive portion control, they are artfully presented, often leave the diner starving by the end or bored to death because they take so long to serve. They have been created by accountants to produce high profit margins.  Michelin has encouraged them so there is now a thing called 'Michelin cuisine' which has replaced French cuisine, Italian cuisine and so on.  It all looks identical, from Tokyo to London to New York - a blob of this, a smear of that, a foam of this and half an asparagus stalk. There is a glimmer of hope that some restaurants are abandoning them and returning to carte style of dining.  So when I see Silversea offering tasting menus in their pretentious Dame restaurants I think they are a few years behind the curve.  The latest surcharge is a total joke though I'm sure there might be a few gullible people out there who enjoy fancy cutlery and glassware . . . 

Santorini today:

https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/ellada/naigaio/kyklades/santorini-firostefani.html

For Santorini you might be wise to check the number of cruise ships in port that day - the island is infamous as one of the most heavily over-touristed places on the planet.  It is also awkward to visit because of very limited transport up the cliff to the villages, especially critical if you have maybe 5000 or even 10,000 people all wanting to do the same thing.  We are there in October and plan to stay on the ship.

https://www.cruisetimetables.com/#ports

2 hours ago, Lirio said:

I know Manaus pretty well but never went to Santarem. What exactly are you looking for?

Hello Lirio - any idea which hotel Silversea favours in Manaus?  We're there next April on the Wind.

On one cruise we befriended a couple - they were a little bit older than us and looked bohemian which we like as we come from what you might call a cultural/media background.  We enjoyed several dinners with them.  They turned out to be Lord  and Lady Cobbold, owners of Knebworth House, one of the UK's biggest stately homes which sits on a vast estate north of London.  Several years before Lord Cobbold introduced the idea of a rock concert in his Park which became a sort of Glastonbury style event - he and his wife had many stories about the rock stars who performed for them and also various artists who visited Knebworth, including nearish neighbour Stanley Kubrick who filmed there with Tom Cruise.  Every day and every night for dinner Lord Cobbold - or David as we called him - wore exactly the same thing, jeans and a Pink Floyd t-shirt.

You can't tell a book by its cover.

Formal nights are when many people look cheap.

I was on the Cloud recently and we were in Saudi for a week. We were told by Silversea to get our own e-visas and the process was simple, as long as your photo was the right size.  It cost around £100 per person.  It is my understanding that passengers who only make a day stop in Jeddah will get their visas on arrival.  Better check this of course but that was what happened when the Spirit last went there. UK citizens do not need a visa for Bahrain, Qatar, UAE or Oman.

The first tranche of my photos from this trip are now up on Flickr, covering Oman, Djibouti and Saudi Arabia.  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/up70mm/albums/72177720309694074

5 hours ago, SLSD said:

I always enjoy your commentary on the itineraries you choose.  May I ask which upcoming Silversea classic cruise you have chosen?  

Thank you SLSD.  It's the Spirit, Athens-Athens, 18 October.  I'm there mainly for the overnighter to Jerusalem.

I haven't looked at a 'dress code' thread for months, maybe years, as it's a sad topic and a conversational cul-de-sac.  However, I have read through this one as I am about to embark on my first 'classic' Silversea ship - ie, not an expedition ship.  Reading through this, whatever your views on the topic, whether you conform or not - and Silversea allows for both -  many will think, 'Why am I going on this ship?' It's a total turn-off.

Just a little update - we have booked this cruise on the Wind in April 2024, sailing from Manaus to Lisbon, just about our longest cruise ever.  The Amazon sector looks properly expedition with zodiac tours into backwaters.  It's going to be on the rainy side of wet and we are looking into anti-malarial stuff. That's pills for her, Jack Daniel's for me.

The backpacks are rubbish.  A Rubik's cube is easier to solve.

I found Greenland to be a seriously surprising place.  Not what I expected at all. To begin with was some spectacular scenery. That was a given. Hardly any wildlife on our visit. That was a disappointment.  We loved the ruined church of Hvalsey up the fjord. The big shock were the towns and all those Soviet-Style apartment blocks where everyone lived. The people seemed battered down by the elements, by the economy, by everything. The teenagers hung about and they all seemed to have lost their teeth. The adults hung about smoking.  No one had anything to do. Fishing had almost died out. This was life on the edge, part of Europe, part not of anywhere.  Don't ignore this aspect of Greenland, @RyanJCanada Show us like it is.  

xxxx

5 minutes ago, RyanJCanada said:

Congratulations on your work on the movie industry - not an easy field to break into. I’d love to do a screenplay or TV series at some point, but I think that’s a ways off for now. Thanks for the tip on how to find your past trip report - I’d checked out your profile but couldn’t find it there. That would make good reading for our at-sea day today.

Good morning Ryan - Here's a link to my Cloud blog:

7 minutes ago, RyanJCanada said:

I definitely do a lot of 'novelist'-type work, but it also extends to story writing for video games and other kinds of interactive fiction (like video games and game books). Got into that field largely by accident but it's turned out to be more lucrative than traditional novel writing.

 

Glad you're enjoying the thread! Any particular highlights from the cruise from Muscat to Athens?

Thanks for that.  Very interesting.  As a lifelong movie fan - who turned that hobby into a career - I have never ever looked at video games though I know how popular they are.  It's a generation thing.  As for the highlights on my Cloud trip - well, you could read my own blog which is on this Forum, back a page or two.  A nice contrast of styles I'd say and I wish more of us would do it.  

9 hours ago, RyanJCanada said:

Thanks, Jim - kind of you to say! I’m a commercial fiction writer so I write a lot, and by this point I’m fairly quick at it. I often have sizeable quotas (5,000 to 7,000 words a week) so I need to get my thoughts down quickly. 

If you have three minutes I'd like to know - in 2000 words or less - what a 'commercial fiction writer' is. We might call that 'novelist.' Enjoying your thread and I'm sure you are enjoying the rather miraculous weather.  We were just on the Cloud from Muscat to Athens, still suffering withdrawal symptoms despite its many drawbacks.

We were on the Cloud recently and while in some areas it was definitely showing its age (the corridors looked especially dowdy) we were happy with the contemporary interior of our veranda suite.  The bathroom looked old but it worked beautifully.  We are seriously considering a cruise on the Wind and have recently been shocked to learn that the veranda suites have never been renovated or refitted, so this ship will seem even older than its sibling, the Cloud.  Is the Wind now the runt of Silversea's litter?

15 hours ago, jpalbny said:

Thursday June 15th. Kiel Canal transit.

 

A lazy morning but we were up in time to get our last bag of laundry out well before 9AM. Breakfast in Panorama then trivia where we did very well, except for the one 3-point question about Christiansø. Oh well, we've accumulated 150 prize points so we'll take it!

 

We returned from trivia to this rude awakening. Those pesky suitcases! 

 

 

We went out to walk laps outside, then went to lunch instead. 

 

We were close to the canal entrance by 13:00 and saw all the pretty sailboats. 

 

 

But a long delay until we could actually enter the locks. So we had time for a nap. Some time later, we are finally approaching...

 

 

Finally at 15:30, they let us through! 

 

 

Lots to see as we sailed through. The Holtenauer Hochbrücken is just beyond the entrance. 

 

 

Further on, the landscape is a bucolic setting with fields and forests that looked gorgeous in the bright sunshine. 

 

 

We did more laps, which were interrupted with the occasional photo stop.

 

 

 

This looked like a fun place. A break in the grain fields for some grape vines. Picnic tables. I don't know what they served but I'd like to find out.

 

 

Another ferry stop. There are fourteen that cross the canal. The boats are really fast! The distance is short, and they have to dodge all of the canal traffic!

 

 

We packed most of our stuff then got ready for the captain's farewell. Then the last dinner on board. 

 

I had booked Hot Rocks for us and RachelG, and we were joined by LAexNY so it was a really fun meal. The company was fantastic and the scenery was beautiful. We had a great sunset too.

 

 

 

 

It's now after 23:30 and there is still a little light in the sky as we enter the lock at the exit into the North Sea.

 

 

Good night for now. We have two days in Hamburg before we fly home on Sunday. Will be sad to see this adventure end, but we did book two more. 

I'm surprised by the photo of your cabin.  It looks like the older, original design before any of the refurbs.  Our cabin on the Cloud last month seemed much more modern and like the pics on the website for both ships.

As this thread is distinctly wayward may I pop in with two questions about the Wind?  Is there a proper outside seating area on the back deck behind the Panorama Lounge and can you access the forward-facing Observation Lounge from inside the ship or - as on the Cloud - you have to go outside to get there?  Thanks. 

On 5/21/2023 at 1:10 PM, Pack Leader said:

Apologies if this has been done to death. Currently on Regent Voyager (thoughts posted elsewhere) and passengers here are telling me, in the main, that Silversea are better, "more for the passenger"  Voyager seems great and although nothing is perfect the Regent product is very good. I understand that Silversea now include shore excursions so they are even more comparable to Regent price wise. I thought Silversea were more formal? Quite enjoy, given that this is a fly cruise,  the lack of formal wear to pack for my wife and I.

 

For those who have sailed both lines in recent,  post pandemic times, how would you compare the experiences?

Thanks 

I've been reading some horror stories about Voyager - looking very old, rattles and vibrates, poor food.  Toying between Voyager and Silver Spirit with similar itineraries in the Eastern Med later this year.

1 minute ago, lincslady said:

If it was a British line, like Fred Olsen, there would be a Committee already looking for what they call 'compo'.  All saying things like 'Sousse was the only reason I came on this cruise'.

If you wanted to see El Djem then, yes, Sousse would be the only reason.  That might even be me.

Cloud on the horizon

After my blog from the Cloud sailing from Muscat to Athens, the Cloud sailed on into a rather turbulent cruise.  After two scheduled stops in Greece and one in Albania, Sousse in Tunisia was cancelled because of bad weather and replaced by Trapani in Sicily.  The two Algerian ports were successfully visited but Motril/Granada, perhaps a highlight for some, was cancelled because of a threatened strike at Lisbon port.  The Cloud will now arrive in Lisbon tonight, two days earlier than scheduled.  Bet there are some grumpy people on board.  

Thanks @jpalbny.  Yes, in many ways that is the better itinerary as it covers Madagascar more thoroughly.  We fancied the earlier cruise because we would miss Christmas in the UK and we also liked the idea of getting to Rodriguez Island.  We're still in the thinking stage.