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Randyk47

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Everything posted by Randyk47

  1. We’re not foodies per se but on the whole we really enjoy the food on Silversea. We actually use cruises to try different dishes than we fix at home or get at our favorite restaurants. Kind of a low risk “try it, you might like it”. Worst case is that we get a meal that we really don’t like but have the option to order something different. That hasn’t happened often and, in fact, I can only remember one time my wife ordered something and it just wasn’t right for her and she got a replacement. Certainly we’ve tried dishes that were probably fixed well but turned out not to be to our taste. On the other hand we’ve tried dishes that were new to us and turned out to be great and found their way onto our at home options. Have to add we really enjoyed the pizzas on the Dawn a month ago. Reminded us more of the pizzas we have eaten in Italy than the American style ones we get at home. Even our best friends and cruise partners, who rarely eat pizza at home, liked the Dawn pizzas and ordered pizza several for lunch on our 14-day cruise. Hamburgers? Yup, we can and do fix great hamburgers at home and have to say in the past the Silversea hamburgers haven’t been all that great. That changed on the Dawn and the burgers were actually pretty good.
  2. Years ago I was stationed in Germany and heard a lot about the Seychelles back then. The Germans I worked with considered the Seychelles to be what Hawaii had been like before it became so heavily developed as a tourist location. I don’t remember the exact circumstances but about the time I was researching a possible vacation there was some kind of unrest in the Seychelles. What ever was going on it put the Seychelles “off limits” for me so it never happened. Haven’t really looked at potential cruises that might visit but worth thinking about.
  3. Well…kind of. We had a supposedly confirmed “reservation” for the Silver Note for dinner for four at 8 PM prior to the cruise. When we actually boarded the reservation had changed to 9 PM. When we asked about it they said something along the lines that the reservation was actually for a time period not a specific time and 9 PM was within the “time period”. Our butler worked the issue and we were able to be seated at 8 PM.
  4. As a matter of habit we haven’t been contacting our bank or credit card companies about our cruises unless we were going to Europe. Might talk to the bank about our next cruise. Not Europe but 19 days so for us a long time away from home.
  5. I’ll have to go back and check but I think our last night on the Shadow is actually an overnight in San Francisco. In my younger years I was living in the Seattle-Tacoma area and San Francisco was one of my favorite cities to visit. Back in the late 70’s I was attending the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, CA and used to drive up to San Francisco every time I had a spare minute. Not really a foodie but the choices of restaurants in San Francisco were incredible and I think the credit card company sent me my bill in a box rather than an envelope. 🤪😬 In a case of bad timing my son just sold his condo in San Francisco two weeks ago and is now a resident here in Texas….part of the California exodus. He and I had always wanted to go to the House of Prime Rib on Van Ness in San Francisco but could never get the time worked out. Work permitting he might even fly in to San Francisco next January while we overnight just so we can make that happen.
  6. Thanks Turtlemichael for the warning. Mrs K does most of our banking in line but typically not on a cruise or actually away from home for that matter. We do have an upcoming 19-day cruise at the end of the year and that might an issue.
  7. Short of jointly picking a cruise I think we will always be one cruise off of actually being on the same ship at the same time. 🤪😀 For those of you who don’t understand what Lois and I are up to it goes back to when Lois was just considering Silversea several years ago. Myself and many others answered her question and offered advice and experience. At the time we said we hope to meet and cruise with her in the future. Subsequently Lois has taken several Silversea cruises and is now one of the resident experts. The funny thing is that probably four or so times one of us has been getting on either the Wind, Spirit, or Dawn in the Med or Caribbean while the other is getting off. We’ve obviously had the same general interest in ships and itineraries but not the exact same timing, Close but no cigar. Maybe some day.
  8. Actually the only firm booking we have is the 19-day Shadow trans-Panama Canal cruise. It starts in Ft Lauderdale and ends in San Francisco. Leaves Ft Lauderdale December 27 and ends in San Francisco January 15, 2024. A full transit of the Panama Canal and New Years on a cruise ship have always been in our bucket list. Will be our longest cruise by one day.
  9. Really can’t say our experience on the Dawn was typical or unusual but it was the lowest percentage of Venetian Society passengers we’ve ever experienced on Silversea. Our cruise, actually two 7-day back-to-back cruises, were 92-95% passenger capacity with less than 10% Venetian Society members. I’m guessing that the low percentage of Society members was probably driven by the two legs only being 7 days and it was in the Caribbean. Certainly our Med cruises have been dominated by Society members and several cruises have been 50-60% returning passengers. The upside for Silversea is that these shorter Caribbean cruises are a great way to attract new passengers to Silversea and obviously there were a lot of newbies on board. We booked our next cruise with the future cruise consultants….there were two on the Dawn….and they were busy every time we walked by. Bottom line is if our cruise was any indication Silversea bookings are alive and well.
  10. We got our e-docs for our January Dawn cruise about three weeks before the cruise. Not sure if Silversea is getting better or not but it’s not been a problem so far. Still miss the Silver Box but very few cruise lines mail out documents anymore.
  11. While I would love to do a South America itinerary it probably won’t happen. First of all my wife’s hematologist has recommended against her getting the yellow fever vaccination because of an autoimmune blood condition. Secondly, she works for the Federal government and is subject to getting some potential overseas travel reviewed and approved. A real pain and it has caused us to cancel or not book a few cruises. Not sure of South America travel restrictions at this very moment but suffice to say it has been an off and on situation over the past couple of years. Makes it hard to seriously consider.
  12. This thread got me thinking back about speakers we’ve had or actually more correctly not had on Silversea. The majority of our Silversea cruises have been in the Med and in my mind that is one of the most interesting and history filled regions in the world. A few of our cruises in that region have had excellent speakers yet others have had no speakers. It’s really been hit or miss. There may have been speakers on our Silversea Caribbean cruises though having literally cruised a few hundred days in the Caribbean I haven’t paid much attention. In fairness to Silversea I have to say our previous speaker experiences on the mass market lines in the Caribbean were more about the speaker hawking shopping opportunities and who you should shop with in a port. Some of those speakers would throw in some historical or cultural information but the underlying purpose was to get you to shop at stores they had “kickback” arrangements with.
  13. That is pitiful and disappointing.
  14. We have not had success booking any flights with Silversea in the past. We have never actually asked about domestic flights as we’ve been able to leverage frequent flyer status and miles so that’s not even been considered. For our several European cruises we’ve gotten quotes from Silversea and without fail been able to do better ourselves. The biggest issue seemed to be when coach fare was included the upgrade to business/first often cost more than we could book business/first ourselves. In those cases we took the flight credit which worked to our advantage. For our upcoming trans-Panama Canal cruise on the Shadow we did book as a door-to-door and left the business/first flights in place for at least the time being. The quoted costs for the Silversea arranged flights were right in line with what we could do ourselves so figured let them book those. Luckily the cruise starts in Ft Lauderdale and ends in San Francisco so those are domestic flights and routes we’re very familiar with. Living in San Antonio and having to fly to a major hub for most longer haul domestic flights there are very few options available with only Delta, American, and United offering business/first. We’ll see. I suppose Silversea could come up with something strange like flying in and out of Chicago to get to Ft Lauderdale then back from San Francisco despite Houston becoming a major hub for airlines like United. Flights through Chicago in late December then mid January would not be attractive.
  15. I agree….I see no reason to have one copy much less two. Having spent 42 years as a Federal employee I’ve seen a lot of useless or pointless “red tape” and admittedly have usually just shrugged and complied. Kind of an “easier to go along to get along” than understanding or agreeing. Will say my wife still works for the Federal government and the post-Covid guidance is still written in pencil or on a chalk board. She is the chief of staff for her part of an agency and I’ve lost track of the number of times she’s written implementing guidance for her staff only to have it change within days or weeks. About as firm a jell-o on a warm day.
  16. I’m pretty sure there were no bow ties on the daily schedule on our last cruise on the Dawn in January. Based on our previous experience I guessed right that our first formal night would be the second day which was a sea day. The second night was not so clear as this was for us the second leg of two 7-day cruises done back-to-back with no sea days. When I asked I was told, in kind of you should have known way, that formal nights were always the second day of a cruise. Okay fine maybe but this was our first time doing back-to-back 7-day cruises with Silversea so no experience. As an aside it was interesting that these shorter cruises obviously aren’t as attractive to Silversea regulars as we had the lowest percentage of Venetian Society members on both legs as I can remember over our 11 years with Silversea. Made the cruises a bit different and interesting as the less experienced crowd was pretty obvious up to and including a fairly large group that had to be cautioned about their behavior.
  17. As I posted earlier I really don’t see a need for printing out copies of our vaccination cards and indeed if it was a requirement I missed earlier this year it wasn’t an issue in Ft Lauderdale in January. What I would like to know or have clarified is if this is a new or changed requirement. I certainly don’t want to show up in Ft Lauderdale this coming December and be caught up in some administrative hassle because I don’t have copies. Making copies is no big deal in and of itself so at this point, assuming no change in the language on MySilversea, I’ll just do it. In some ways it’s like the cruise tickets which we always print out and carry with us but in 11 years and 15 Silversea cruises have only had to produce once and that was to the port authority in Greece to get to the terminal not Silversea staff. Better to be prepared than to go through the hassle at the terminal no matter how silly or useless it seems to be. Might add that right now my wife and I are update to date but our next cruise is 290 +/- days from now and I have seen no firm guidance on what if any boosters will be required or even available this year.
  18. They “looked” at ours but it was more of a glance than examining the information and they certainly didn’t record or write down any information. I don’t remember but maybe we put down our last booster shot date on the health form. It doesn’t seem very rigorous or detailed. Might add that face mask were seldom seen. The most wearers were crew and staff and we were told personnel joining the ship had to wear their masks for the first five days after they got on. We saw very few passengers wearing them.
  19. Now I wonder if that is a change and I’m pretty sure I read the requirements before our last cruise. We certainly weren’t asked for any printed copies of our vaccination certificates to get on the Dawn in January.
  20. Same here. I have to ask what country/port?
  21. Randyk47

    Formal night

    I think we could give you at least a guess if we had more information. Looking up a cruise by the cruise number you posted is hard. How about at least posting the ship and sailing date.
  22. To the best of my knowledge neither the my state or local government has by name records of vaccinations. We have used the same pharmacy for all five of our vaccinations from the initial to the most recent booster and they have that information on file. I believe they report at least numbers of vaccinations given to the local government but not sure that is a by-name report. We also were encouraged to register with the Federal database when we got our first vaccination and have kept that up to date. I guess one or both could produce some kind of printed record though I have never checked or been asked for anything other than my CDC card.
  23. My “mistake”, if you want to call it that, was on our honeymoon. My bride had never cruised before so l booked a nice suite, very comparable to Silversea Silver Suite, for a 11-day cruise. Kind of set the tone and the expectation for our 25 years of cruising. We have had Silver and Medaliion Suites on Silversea but she will cruise in Deluxe and Superior Suites as we have gotten a bit more conservative since I retired. No way no how would she cruise in a non-verandah cabin.
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