Randyk47

The only breakfast and lunch buffets are in La Terrazza.

7 PM is the standard opening time for the evening dining venues. As far I can remember there is no difference between at sea or in port. Once or twice they extended the hours….for us mostly in Egyptian ports….to accommodate late returning tours. I can’t remember vegetarian options in Silver Note but I wasn’t looking for them. I have never counted but there are only roughly a dozen tables in Silver Note as it really is one of the smallest venues on the ship. There are maybe five or six tables of various sizes along the wall and the rest are spread across the floor. If sitting in one location or the other then I’d suggest getting in touch with the maitre d’ once you board the ship. I don’t know if any reasonable way to request a specific location ahead of boarding.

I agree. Luckily we just made it under the wire to book both business class flights and the popular cruise we wanted at the end of the year. Cruise is not full but the deck and cabins we wanted were still available but booking up fast. I guess if absolutely necessary and unavoidable we’d book economy for a U.S. based flight but no way for an International flight.

First of all Priya was fantastic. Great and attentive service by she and her staff. We ate there on the fourth or fifth night of the first leg and had a great meal. There was one empty table that night but as dinner ended a few people started to filter in just to listen to the singer. She did a great Billie Holiday like voice.

Glad to hear they hopefully did get charged. We had 500 new to Silversea passengers on the first seven days of our two back-to-back cruises so a lot of lessons were probably learned.

I have seen a number of posts on cruise blogs, maybe even here, that recommend booking every by reservation restaurant you think you might want to eat at then sort it out once you get on board. That recommendation seems to be made especially for first time Silversea passengers who are not familiar with the dining venues. The missing next step seems to be is taking the time to cancel a reservation if you find the venue or menu is not to your liking.

They supposedly do that for tours but not sure they do it for the fee restaurants. If they do then there were some large bills that went out. For instance, our La Dame reservations was for 8 PM on a formal night. One table, actually several tables, had been shoved together for a party of 10. We had a very nice leisurely dinner that lasted until nearly 9:30 PM and nobody had showed up for the large table. Unless they arrived very late I suspect they were no-shows as witnessed by the maitre d’s frustration about being fully booked but with only half the tables occupied. Make for a nice quiet dinner for us with great attentive service.

The problem is that reservations are for a period of time. For instance, you book a 8 PM reservation but that actually gets translated into between 8 and 9 PM on the restaurant’s schedule. Reallocating the reservation after 9 PM might be fine but for us 9 PM is too late to start a relaxed dinner.

We really liked our dinners in Silver Note this last cruise. One night they had a poached lobster starter dish that maybe was the best lobster we’ve ever had, certainly the best poached version. Also very good was a rack of lamb dish and actually got Mrs K to try lamb for certainly the first time in our 25 years together and maybe only the second time in her whole life. She actually liked it and may try it again on the Shadow later this year. As for La Dame we only ate there once but it was excellent. Interesting side note was it was very hard to get into La Dame during our two back-to-back 7-day cruises. In talking to the maitre d’ staff they were a bit frustrated that people had booked La Dame full for virtually every night of the two 7-day cruises but the show rate was sometimes as low as 50%. Put them in a bind as they have to turn people away in fear the parties that had reservations would show up. It also is an issue, though I don’t know how much of one, that they do a certain level of prep based on reservations then the effort and potentially whatever was prepped is wasted. I guess the downside of 7-day Caribbean cruises is you get a higher percentage of first or one time Silversea cruisers than on longer or more distant cruises so they book restaurants then sort it out once on board and unfortunately don’t cancel existing reservations. According to the hotel manager we were running about 10-15% Venetian Society members for each leg so a fair amount of newbies.

Other than the size of the cabin there is no difference in the level of service. You can get canapés in the afternoon though admittedly there is no espresso machine in the verandah suites but you can call for it. We’ve cruised Silversea in Medallion, Silver, and Verandah suites and been perfectly happy in our Verandah suites. We have never eaten any major meal in any category if cabin and actually figure we spend only 10 maybe 11 hours a day in our cabin at the most and that’s for cleaning up or sleeping.

What Terry posted. 👍😀

Interesting we can have different experiences on the same ship. We were just on the Dawn January 16-30. It was one of the smoothest and quietest cruise ships we’ve ever been on in 400+ days of cruising on probably 25+ different ships including three in the Silversea fleet. Our cabin was on Deck 8 and we never hear the thrushers or the anchor the one time we anchored. There was one night when the captain warned there might be rough seas. The crew went around and lashed down deck furniture, plants, etc., but if it happened we were never aware of it. Even our cabin didn’t have the typical squeaking and rattles you frequently hear in a cabin even on relatively calm seas.

Yes, there are small free DIY laundromats on each deck. Mrs K uses them for her underwear, bras, etc., that she doesn’t want to send through the ship laundry.

To second les37b’s comment about receiving the free laundry during a cruise where you reach 100 days it can and does happen. In our case we had booked two 7-day cruises back-to-back and we would have reached the 100 days near the end of the second leg. There was nothing in our cabin announcing we were eligible when we boarded so I asked our butler about the privilege. He said he’d check and the next day we reached a message on the TV thanking us for being loyal passengers and saying we now qualified for free laundry the whole cruise. I came away with the feeling that if we hadn’t have asked it wouldn’t have happened, at least during the first leg, so don’t be shy.

The only time we got free laundry before we reached 100 days was when we booked a Medallion or Silver Suite. Personally I don’t know if there is a package available to TAs to “upgrade” their clients or not. There supposedly is something like a “VIP” package TAs can book but we’ve never gotten it or personally know anybody who has. If it exists it certainly doesn’t appear to be a package a passenger can book.

Is that an issue just overseas because of country requirements? The reason I ask is that it couldn’t have been any easier in Ft Lauderdale boarding the Dawn. Started boarding process at 1 PM with a pretty standard health questionnaire with a few Covid related questions, then a quick touch less temperature check, a glance at our CDC vaccination card, finish the rest of the standard check in, and we were in the Dawn by 1:15 PM.

We experienced a “junior” butler on another line and walked away underwhelmed. Really played the same role as a lead or senior cabin steward on other lines.

We had done a partial transit 17 years ago on the old Celebrity Galaxy and really enjoyed just going through the Atlantic side though getting up at 5:30 AM wasn’t a lot of fun. In as much as there are only five or so ports this is going to be a lot of sea days.

We booked the precursor cruise December 27 2023 - January 15 2024 to the World Cruise. A trans-Panama Canal cruise was on our bucket list and the timing on this transit works for us and our friends/cruise partners. This will be the longest cruise we’ve taken by one day, the other being 18 days on the Spirit Rome to Dubai five years ago.

We had the same observation on the Dawn. We only have 14 cruises on Silversea but the Dawn was the first time we have not had one staff or crew from a previous cruise that we recognized. It had been three years since our last cruise so I guess even under the best of circumstances it should be expected to have a few or maybe no holdovers but Covid I think made it worse. While not a big deal the name recognition got better by the end of the cruise but it seemed slower than before. We easily had a 10%+ influx of new crew and staff in San Juan mid cruise and though some also left the ship I think they are still rebuilding/recruiting new crew.

Interesting that you bring up the crew situation. We just got off the Silver Dawn Monday after 14 days on her. While service was good to excellent but it clearly was not up to Silversea pre-Covid standards across the board. Of particular note was the service on the pool deck and La Terrazza in the morning. The rest of the venues were right up there with our previous experience. I saw at least half a dozen times when experienced staff had been paired with new crew doing on the job training. We saw at least 60 crew get on in San Juan but also think several got off as our room steward was at end of contract though he had signed to join the Nova later this year. We were also short bar tenders on the second leg of our back-to-back but that may have been caused by some unexplained exit of a married couple who were both lead bartenders. As for ex-Crystal crew we were told by one crew he had been on Crystal and there were seven others on the Dawn.

Should have read: … we certainly didn’t take advantage of the offered tours.

Terry - Yes, we certainly didn’t take advantage of the afford tours. Part of that is Mrs K and I have some 300+ days in the Caribbean on a combination of Carnival, Celebrity, and Holland America starting back in 1993. While we did get off the Dawn at most stops it was move to get some land time and visit a few favorite places like Gladys’ Cafe in St Thomas. We’ve been getting a drink and a lunch snack there since 1998 on every visit. Our friends and cruising partners were dedicated scuba divers in the Caribbean for years and years until his hip replacement and have been to most of the Caribbean islands several times. The one tour we took was chocolate making in St Lucia and that was fun. Still thought it would have been nice if Silversea had offered a no-excursion discount.

It will probably take five years to see if A&K Travel Group have the finances and will to do what needs to be done. Even if they started a new build as soon as they bought Crystal we’re still talking two to three years to bring it on line and I haven’t read they have gotten that far. Acquiring existing ships is an option but I’m not aware of any available smaller ships that are luxury class worthy. Most of the ships cut from other lines during the pandemic are too old or too big for that market.

Want to echo Lois and Terry’s comments about the cost of included tours potentially being removed and a corresponding price drop. We just got off the Dawn…..boarding as Lois was getting off….and only took one shore tour out of the dozens offered at the 12 stops of a 14-day cruise. We actually were booked to take two but the sea conditions at our one tender stop were too dangerous for the mobility challenged husband of the couple we were cruising with so cancelled that tour. Seems to me it would make sense to offer included tours as a separate package like the piece parts of a door-to-door booking where you can drop flights and limo transfers or go back to paying for only those you want.