Randyk47

I could probably do a Vista but Mrs K has mild claustrophobia and feels closed in without a second exit from the cabin. As it is we use the stairs not so much for exercise but for the same reason we don’t book Vistas. Doesn’t help I took her on her first cruise for our honeymoon and I booked an upper level verandah suite. Got her used to the idea and 400+ cruise days later it’s been verandah suites. On Silversea that’s meant Silver, Medallion, and several standard verandah suites. We usually travel with our best friends and cruise partners so actually “camp out” on the pool deck if not off the ship on tours.

I agree. The PA system is not overworked on Silversea. Depending on the captain but some captains make a daily noontime position report others don’t. The CD will sometimes follow him with entertainment information for the day and evening but again not always. Certainly not the same as on Holland America where they frequently hawked things like t-shirt sales by the pool, art auctions, gold by the inch, etc., etc.

Exactly our experience for our Dawn cruise this past January.

We’re booked on the Silver Nova for a 23-day cruise Ft Lauderdale to San Francisco for next April. We went ahead and booked door-to-door but added a pre-cruise hotel to our booking. I just now went to the page for that cruise and indeed the hotel icon and green check are not shown for that cruise as part of door-to-door. Of course of the system is probably “smart” enough to see I’m looking at the page from the US so travel time and distance typically wouldn’t be an issue and maybe not included.

True but the Cloud or Wind aren’t exactly the newest ships with the best ventilation and are certainly not the Nova.

Since no other Silversea ship has cabins close to the Connoisseurs hard to say. However, it would seem to me barring some strange vortex effect the smoke from the outside smoking areas would be blown to the stern not up while underway. Not sure about when docked or at anchor. If really a concern maybe moving as suggested would be a good choice.

I kind of wrote our cruise off as being a close to home “try it, you’ll like it” cruise for many on the Dawn. In fact few stayed on for the second leg like we did and most that did were returning Venetian Society passengers. I say close to home as not only a lot of new to Silversea passengers but also virtually no International passengers. Probably the most North Americans I have seen on a Silversea cruise in 12 years. Thirty years ago I took a “try it, you’ll like it” cruise out of Florida. Seemed to me at the time it was low risk, warm weather, and easy to get to from Washington, DC where I was living at the time.

I can’t say we felt crowded but our cruise in late January was very close to 100% booked. We were on the Dawn for two back-to-back 7-day cruises Ft Lauderdale to San Juan then back to San Juan. Interestingly, according to the HD, both legs had very high new to Silversea passengers and obviously very low returning Venetian Society members. We had to zero out the ship in San Juan at the end of the first leg and there were only 40 of us who had to sit in a separate area waiting for Customs and Immigration to say we could board again. I assume a few had gone ashore and were not present but not many. While there are always newbies I can’t remember a Silversea cruise we’ve been on with about 10% returnees. Point is that means Silversea, at least for these 7-day close to home Caribbean cruises, is attracting a lot of new potential customers. At the same time neither leg was a “bargain” or had any significant Silversea incentives like OBCs, airfare, etc., so new passengers were paying pretty much full price minus any external TA incentives.

Technically the whole ship but formal night is most strictly enforced and followed in Atlantide and LaDame. The least formal would probably be the Hot Rocks Grill and Spaccanapoli where casual dress is allowed for formal nights. The other restaurants are somewhere in between formal and informal. Over the years, at least the 12 years we’ve been cruising on Silversea, formal night has become a lot less formal with still some to many tuxes and gowns to even sports coats and ties and cocktail dresses/fancier tops. It also depends on the itinerary or region. We’ve found Europe based itineraries to be more formal than Caribbean itineraries but that’s a relative statement and not to say European itineraries are extremely formal.

Pretty apparent that a number of seasoned CDs decided during the Covid pandemic it was time to retire. Two we had sailed with a lot had already told us they were pretty close to hanging it up before the pandemic so while disappointed we were not surprised to hear they indeed had retired.

There are upgrades and then there are moves. A true upgrade to me would be getting moved to say a verandah suite to an upper tier suite like a Silver or Medallion. I have never done the math but I’m guessing 80% +/- of the cabins on Silversea are verandah/vista suites that are more or less all the same except for location. I don’t see moving within the verandah/vista cabin category an upgrade or certainly not a significant move.

I think you are taking my comment from two years ago out of context. At the time we were nose deep in the pandemic and my comment was about being able to cruise at all. The cabin location really wasn’t an issue considering the situation.

At this point they have virtually eliminated masks. The only people wearing mask on our cruise were the staff and crew that had just joined the ship. The policy was new crew members have to wear a mask for their first five days on the ship. I don’t recall seeing any passengers wearing mask inside, outside, or on tours. They did say if you wanted a mask you could get them at reception. We had brought our own but never wore them.

True and that’s the way it was on Holland America years ago but we haven’t cruised with them since we switched to Silversea 12 years ago. Back then there were people who didn’t or couldn’t download their luggage tags so they’d wait until the cruise terminal and have the porters take care of it. Those luckily were usually a small percentage of passengers or it would be a nightmare. Holland America used to mail out a blue documents folder with luggage tags, etc., and it was popular to post about the “documents dance” upon its arrival. They went to only download documents even before we left them and I have no idea what they do today post-pandemic.

Again you’re not dealing with potentially a thousand or many more passengers trying to get off at the end of a cruise. We have never been faced with wading through a sea of bags trying to find ours at the end of a Silversea cruise. As much as we dislike having to leave a cruise it still isn’t with the same drama and hassle of a mass market disembarkation.

I have tried both in-house and external agents and while the in-house Silversea agent was good I have gotten much better support and incentives from my external TA. Been with the same external agent for 10 years and won’t change until we quit cruising or she retires. 👍😀

Have to say while a bit disappointed there are no pre-cruise Silver Boxes, luggage tags, etc., anymore I really didn’t miss them when we boarded in Ft Lauderdale this past January. The porters were right there with luggage tags and fill them out with our suite numbers in front of us. I can’t imagine how this works with mass market lines and their big ships but on Silversea it was not an issue. Boarding a Silversea ship from when we first cruised with them in 2012 until our most recent cruise has always been a delight compared to our previous embarkation experiences on other lines.

Our Shadow booking is now fully transferred to the Silver Nova doing basically the same trans-Panama Canal itinerary but in April 2024. We are now staying on the Nova all the way to Vancouver, BC so a 23-day cruise for less than the 19-day Shadow cruise. It turned out to be a “fruit salad” offers, discounts, incentives, etc., etc. and we got all of our other arrangements like business air and cabins of our choice. Kind of sad not to be celebrating New Years on a cruise, which we have always wanted to do, and sorry about not meeting many you all but it had to been changed. Maybe next time.

The expedition cruises are a lot less formal and, in fact, as I recall formal nights are actually optional. Even on the regular fleet formal nights have really been toned down and we see a lot fewer gowns, tuxes, etc., than when we started with Silversea 12 years ago. Personally I have stopped taking my tux and all the accessories and feel quite at home with a dark suit. A coat and tie for men and a dressier top for women seems to be becoming the standard.

Our party of four lucked out and caught a limo that had just dropped people off at our hotel. The driver asked if we needed a ride to the cruise terminal and offered less to do it than two cabs would have cost. It did mean we got to the terminal about noon but at the time we figured we were at least there. Because of our early arrival we were in the first group and they started check-in around 12:45 PM and we were on board by 1:15 PM.

I would imagine since the menus are generally based on all the same basics bought for the whole fleet, maybe the whole of RCL, the differences from ship to ship are driven by the head chef and their staff. There are probably some regional adjustments made based on what might be available in one area of the world versus another.

In the strange workings of Silversea we finally got our cruise on the Shadow changed to the Nova. Strange workings you ask? When moving from the Shadow to the Nova for the same itinerary but four months later we lost our business air offer and would have to be placed in guarantee status for our cabins. But…here comes the strange….if we stay on the Nova three more days to Vancouver, BC we get the business class air back and can pick our cabins right now. Oh and to add a bit of flavor to the mix staying in three days with their various offers is less than if we got off in San Francisco. Now I haven’t seen the numbers so I’m just going by our TA and even she thought it was strange.

In the strange workings of Silversea we finally got our cruise on the Shadow changed to the Nova. Strange workings you ask? When moving from the Shadow to the Nova for the same itinerary but four months later we lost our business air offer and would have to be placed in guarantee status for our cabins. But…here comes the strange….if we stay on the Nova three more days to Vancouver, BC we get the business class air back and can pick our cabins right now. Oh and to add a bit of flavor to the mix staying in three days with their various offers is less than if we got off in San Francisco. Now I haven’t seen the numbers so I’m just going by our TA and even she thought it was strange.

For sure. 👍😀

Finally Lois! 😀👍