Randyk47

Silversea classic ships have small casinos. Typically they have one or two blackjack tables, a roulette table, and a dozen or so slot machines. They usually have blackjack tournaments but that’s somewhat driven by seadays when they can have the casino open.

It is mind boggling but speaks to the scope of the SpaceX StarLink project. My son, who is a related IT business, says the satellites are surprisingly small at about 500 pounds each. The satellites have an expected life of five years so it sounds like there will be new and replacement launches forever.

Exactly the same experience on the Dawn in January. After three or four contradicting announcements concerning our stop in San Juan, PR which was actually the start of our second leg of two back-to-back 7-day cruises we were finally told we’d have to disembark and present our passports to US Immigration and Customs. About 30-45 minutes off the ship and we were allowed back on. We were not required to vacate our suites and I don’t know if they deep cleaned the cabins of departing passengers. There was a card in the little holder outside our cabin that said “InTransit Passengers”.

Watching this thread with interest. We are months and months out from our Silver Shadow cruise which will be the first one we have booked using the door-to-door option. We booked on board the Dawn in January and when we were quoted the airfare for first/business class flights it was right in line with what we had just paid so went with that option. A little scary as we have always arranged our own flights but the majority of those were to and from Europe so we liked the control and actually couldn’t get better fares and connection through Silversea. However, the flights for our upcoming cruise are all US domestic and our airport is not a major hub so flight choices are relatively slim. Not much Silversea can do to make too much of a mess.

We had the same experience as Lois in Port Everglades boarding the Dawn getting on the ship as Lois was getting off.. We got there a little early because of an opportunity to catch a limo that had dropped disembarking Dawn passengers at our hotel. Anyhow, we arrived around noon and really didn’t have an issue turning in our luggage and finding a place to hang out outside the terminal. We were at Terminal 19 rather than the bigger Celebrity terminal we’d used on Silversea back in 2020 but it was fine. Periodically one of the RCL shoreside staff would come by and give us an update on when they would start the boarding process. They actually started the check-in process around 1 PM and we were on board by 1:15 PM. This was our first cruise post-pandemic and I expected more of a potential hassle but it was quick and efficient.

We have only flown through CDG once and it was okay…kind of. We were coming home from Dubai at the end of an 18-day cruise on the Silver Spirit. Great cruise but the flights home were exhausting even in first/business class. Landed in CDG at something like 5 AM to catch a connection to Atlanta and eventually home. The airport was virtually deserted which was fine but the staff, particularly the security staff, were rude. I don’t know if it was because we’d flown in from an Arab country, though we were on Air France, but it seemed like we were subjected to extra security even though we were just transiting and not going landside. Once we got through the hassle everything was fine but I can’t say it was one of my favorite. Guess it didn’t help that the stop in CDG was the first leg of a 26-hour trip home that had started in Dubai at 2 AM.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread but as I recall SpaceX is focused on launching StarLink satellites over the major land masses but has plans to eventually provide coverage over the oceans. One of the voids right now is the Atlantic. Last article I read was that SpaceX just launched 52 new satellites on 17 March and that was their 18th launch of the year. There are something like 3,700 StarLink satellites in orbit out of the 12,000 they have approval to launch and have further plans for up to 30,000 satellites,

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.

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.

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.

I think they meant Vista. 😬

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That is pitiful and disappointing.

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.

288

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.

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.