Just returned - First Silversea Cruise

Hi,

Just returned from our 15th cruise, our first on Silversea. I must admit, it was a bit of a disappointment. We were on the Silver Cloud. The service was underwhelming, the dining room seemed understaffed and overworked. Our Butler was nice, but did not even respond when we called her line. We did not call often, but when we wanted some snacks in the afternoon when we returned from our touring, we ended up having to call room service. She would then bring our snacks and state that "she did not get the call." We had asked for one or two other little amentities, and we had to ask at least twice to receive them. The food was okay, nothing special. La Terazza was good, Hot Rocks was a waste. If they are going to do a steakhouse, then do it properly. Our cabin was very nice and roomy. There was a lot of storage space and was kept very clean. Since the bulk of our time was spent touring, the size of the ship make it very convenient. Would I call Silversea a true "luxury line", no, nor would we elect to sail with them again.

Barbara

Thanks for sharing your perspective and sorry you didn't enjoy SS enough to return. We absolutely can't wait for our first cruise aboard the Cloud next month! I hope we have a much better experience than you did.

Would be interesting to hear.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Keith

Barbara,

Sad to read of your dissapointment on your first SS cruise particularly as you were soooooooo looking forward to it a couple of weeks ago. :(

From your previous posts am I right in saying this was your first and only toe into so called smaller ship 6*?

barbon2, thanks for sharing your Cloud experience and also sorry to hear your were generally disappointed. Glad to hear you enjoyed our fav dining venue on any SS ship, La Terraza. Did you take any SS excursions? Like Stumblefoot says above, we also can't wait to board the Cloud (have been on the Whisper, Shadow, Spirit) for our first time in about seven weeks.

Imo the most important question here is what cruise line does the op like that they have actually sailed on. Hard to understand BIG complaints about SS in comparison to actual experiences on other lines.

Looking at the OP's profile, she apparently sails celebrity and HAL.

Hi,

Our last cruise was on Crystal, so we did have a small ship experience. Yes, we do a lot of Celebrity and HAL but decided to do a smaller vessel for Europe as we did on Crystal last year. I certainly am NOT comparing the larger mass market lines to Silverseas. I thought the service and atmosphere would be similar to the Ritz Carlton. We stayed at the Hermitage in Monaco and that is what I consider upscale.

As a long time poster on these boards, I know as soon as you post a negative review that you will receive a great deal of "feedback". The service WAS sub-par. I did not go into individual details, but I will fill you in on our first day's experience. We when got to our cabin, the air conditioning was not working. We told our bulter, this was about 5pm. She stated she would take care of it immediately. When we changed for dinner, we again had no air. She said "oh i will call now". At 10 when we returned to our stateroom, still no air. We asked her what they said, she became flustered and said again I will call now. We called the front desk, an electric maintenance man came in and asked if "we had unpacked yet" that the air was not working. Yes we had unpacked. He said it was a shame we did not report it earlier. WE DID!. He said he was on duty all day and did not receive ANY calls. Long story short, they moved us across they way. Service, Butler, non-existant. And yes, I enjoy Celebrity but have never encountered a Butler on this line as poor as the one we had. We have always had wonderful Butlers. I can go on with more incidents, but this is just one example. Ship size, fellow passengers is what I expected. Hasseled dining room staff I did not expect, nor should the service been as it was. One lunch at the pool I was torn between ordering a hot dog or a salad. My husband said get both and eat what I wanted. The server then brought me a salad with a hotdog on top. I asked if I could have a roll. He then argued with me that I ordered it that way. That is UNACCEPTABLE. Anyway, as I said, we enjoyed our cruise. We are looking to do smaller ships now, and I am hoping that Seaborne will fill the bill.

As for the poster who asked about tours. We used Riviera Premium tours in the Monaco area, Romeinlimo in Florence, and Barcelona Day Tours in Barcelona for a tour and also the next day for airport transport. All three were excellent. We did one Silverseas tour in Genoa Italy, we could not get into Portifino, the winds were too high. The tour was okay. You cannot judge this by me, I do not care for the regiment of a bus type of tour.

As for the poster who asked what line we like, we happen to like Celebrity. The service has always been excellent, the food good and the specialty restaurants have been excellent. We have had beautiful suites on the ship (the suite on Silversea was lovely). Silverseas market's itself as upscale and it was nice, but not as upscale as I had anticipated.

Barbara

barbon2,

Thank you for your honest review. Your opinions are just as valid as any rave posted. I think SS needs to pay attention to reviews such as yours in order to learn where they need to improve the product because obviously, they have lost a well qualified future passenger.

Many thanks, Barbara. There are clearly a variety of experiences CC members have with Silversea, and those such as you report gave us pause when determining whether to complete a booking for a cruise on Silver Cloud. However, with so many experienced cruisers here expressing enthusiasm for the line, we decided to give it a try, and we leave today to complete our travel to Europe from the U.S. prior to embarking.

For what it is worth, we felt the level of service on our last (and only 3rd) cruise - on Seabourn - was wanting. Our impression was that the better trained staff may have been moved to a newly launched (and bigger ship), leaving us with many trainees. I suspect that some of the issues you raise are industry-wide. I guess we'll soon find out for ourselves!

Thanks for answering our excursion ? Barbara. We absolutely loved Barcelona Day tours back in fall 2010. And like Wripro/Henry has recommend Jorge for Lisbon to dozens (probably more like hundreds of CCrs) we have also recommended BDTs to at least a half dozen CCrs.

Wes,

When you recommend someone great like Jorge the recommendations become exponential. He is one who is truly worth the praise.

Wes,

 

When you recommend someone great like Jorge the recommendations become exponential. He is one who is truly worth the praise.

Thank you both - Wes and Henry - we have a tour booked with Jorge in Lisbon.

To OP (Barbara) - have you considered trying Oceania? I think - of course, this is very subjective - that they have the best food at sea and generally excellent service.

Caveat - one must book PH or higher to get a nice cabin.

Expand your horizons :)

That is interesting that you like Celebrity. We had a friend go on Celebrity Silhouette

a few months ago and said the food was "horrible". So I guess it shows that everyone

has different experiences.

Another friend that cruised on Silversea twice and then HAL- said there was no comparision

on food and service on HAL- compared to Silversea.

Silversea was by far superior in everyway.

This is a bit discouraging- I hope that this was an isolated case.

It's a great pity when poorly trained or inefficient staff cast a shadow over the whole experience. It may seem like nit picking or unrealistic expectations but we know exactly what it's like to be repeatedly asking for things to be taken care of with no result. It's not unique to one particular cruise line, it's just bad luck and fortunately quite rare.

We've had very chaotic and/or slow restaurant service, due mainly to a large number of new recruits not getting adequate supervision and direction, and a very lacklustre cabin steward who was, to be frank, pretty clueless (Regent both times). It can happen and it didnt spoil the whole experience, just knocked the gloss off a bit.

Sounds like the main problem was a bad butler. I believe the maintainence man when he said he had not been called, considering the but let's lack of good service the rest of the cruise.

That colors the whole experience.

We have cruised celebrity in the past, though not recently. The food was not nearly as good as that of regent or silversea, but just my opinion. I still think regent's food overall is better than silversea, with the possible exception of La terraza in the evening. I don't care for hot rocks at all, again just my opinion. Different people like different things.

I appreciate the OP's honest review. Too bad silversea has lost a customer.

Thanks for all of the feedback. Again as a long time poster, I had also in the past been "defensive" of a ship I loved. I guess I have mellowed with age :), to each their own and each experience is different. If there was the "perfect" cruiseline that fit everyone's likes and needs, we would never be able to get on it.

All and all, we had a wonderful time. The cruise was lovely, my intent was not to "bash" the line in any way, just to write a little review of my thoughts.

I think since we have started crusing, things have changed throughout the industry, both service and product wise. With a changing world and economy, everyone is trying to seduce as many customers as they can, and in may ways have made certain trade offs.

To all who have cruises coming up, bon voyage, and to the rest of us, let's get planning on our next cruise.

Barbara

The one piece of advice I would give to anyone experiencing service that is lacking is first to make your feelings known to the specific crew member to give him/her a chance to improve things. If that does not work go immediately to his superior, be it the head of housekeeping, the maitre d' etc. If that does not yield satisfaction a talk with the hotel manager is in order, and the sooner the better in order that most of your cruise is trouble free.

In April 2012 we did the Silver Shadow from Singapore to Hong Kong. Our displeasure with the food, service, and overall condition of this ship was not appreciated on this board. We had previously sailed, Seabourn, Crystal, and Regent. I expected quite a bit as this was the most expensive cruise of the 3 luxury cruises. I will add that we have cruised Celebriy and do not like the big ships, find the crew to be very pleasant, the food was better than Silversea, but it is a mass market line, and do not find that aspect to be very pleasant.

I was bashed on this board for my opinions, and my take on the trip. I tried to be honest.

Now, I have book a silver suite on the Whisper from Barbados, and hope it is a fantastic cruise. Again..expensive..in November of this year. I sincerely hope our experience on the Shadow was isolated.However out of kindness, let people tell their experience, it is not a personal attack, just does this line live up to the reputation they advertise.

I do read this board, but seldom post, but will be hopefully optimistic this our next Silversea cruise this year will be a delightful experience and I can come back here and say how it was worth every$$$$$$

Sorry you were bashed. It is often better to ignore people who launch personal attacks. They may lack the courage of their convictions and are jealous that you do! You are entitled to your opinion. We have also sailed on the comparable cruise lines and our experience was very different from yours. Se la vie.

Thanx for coming back to the boards and have a wonderful trip! Hope it is better for you.

I, too, wish you a wonderful trip. Duct Tape is absolutely right; bashing is not acceptable. the only thing I can come up with is that some SS loyalists feel like "our" cruise line is like a part of our family so they get very defensive. I sort of get this, but I hope we will all be a little kinder.

The Whisper is our favorite SS ship, and being in a Silver is beyond wonderful.

Please let us know how you feel about your upcoming trip. No bashing allowed!

I, too, wish you a wonderful trip. Duct Tape is absolutely right; bashing is not acceptable. the only thing I can come up with is that some SS loyalists feel like "our" cruise line is like a part of our family so they get very defensive. I sort of get this, but I hope we will all be a little kinder.

 

The Whisper is our favorite SS ship, and being in a Silver is beyond wonderful.

Please let us know how you feel about your upcoming trip. No bashing allowed!

You are so sweet. I am looking forward to it, and decided to splurge with the Silver.

In April 2012 we did the Silver Shadow from Singapore to Hong Kong. Our displeasure with the food, service, and overall condition of this ship was not appreciated on this board. We had previously sailed, Seabourn, Crystal, and Regent. I expected quite a bit as this was the most expensive cruise of the 3 luxury cruises. I will add that we have cruised Celebriy and do not like the big ships, find the crew to be very pleasant, the food was better than Silversea, but it is a mass market line, and do not find that aspect to be very pleasant.

 

I was bashed on this board for my opinions, and my take on the trip. I tried to be honest.

 

Now, I have book a silver suite on the Whisper from Barbados, and hope it is a fantastic cruise. Again..expensive..in November of this year. I sincerely hope our experience on the Shadow was isolated.However out of kindness, let people tell their experience, it is not a personal attack, just does this line live up to the reputation they advertise.

 

I do read this board, but seldom post, but will be hopefully optimistic this our next Silversea cruise this year will be a delightful experience and I can come back here and say how it was worth every$$$$$$

As duct tape and CruisinPashmina have said, some feel the need to over-react to adverse comment and that is detrimental for all of us. When those that do so but seek balanced and a range of feedback themselves about other lines presumably they visit other boards and they will hope to gain a balanced view when they go there but they don't seem to get that they "bully" away and try and prevent that range of views from being expressed here. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps they anticipate their next SS sailings to intensely it's a way of covering their eyes and ears to stuff they really do not wish to hear from others. As said by duct tape you must simply ignore! In time companies like SS will start to recognise that a very high number of their customers are highly influenced by the comments they see and find credible on the web and they will start taking it all a bit more seriously and respond to customer concern.

You sound like a nice and really well balanced person so I hope - no I'm sure (!) you will enjoy Whisper from Barbados. There is something about "those two" - not too big - not too small and although I've never tried a Silver Suite I have a strongly held view it offers the best luxury bang for buck.

Enjoy your cruise and report back! :)