7 day Trip on Spirit Athens to Venice

[lenclan]

Hi everyone,

 

We are a party of 6 ( 3 couples) traveling for the first time on the Spirit in September. We are doing Athens to Venice 7 day cruise. Seems like you can make online reservations for dinners / trips 120 days in advance on my silversea website.

 

I have few questions for experienced cruisers:

 

- since we have 3 separate reservation and would like to dine all together- is three a way to book restaurants for all 6 of us? Or each couple should book separately using my silversea website. Do they take reservations over the phone?

 

- for a 7 day cruise what would you recommend? Which restaurant on a first night? Would you do one restaurant each night? or do main restaurant in between? Do you eat a lot on a shore? We have not been to any places we are visiting during this trip besides Venice.

 

- if anybody is familiar with that itinerary - Adriatic sea- please advice which trips to book. We are doing a private one in Athens and Venice. Do not know much about other stops.

 

Please help me plan!

 

Thank you!

[derbylane]

Hello, we just left Spirit in April and like the ship a great deal. The first night try to avoid the main restaurant, instead book Terrazza or Stars. The weather should be warm so the pool deck restaurant is a really fun place. It was originally called Hot Rocks now believe the Pool Grill. The Grill serves nice steaks and chops and believe if you give advance notice lobster tail. Stars is a night club, which I like a lot, and serves small plates in, I believe, five courses. Nice music. Last year visited the ports you will be visiting but on Silver Wind. We generally just walked around. All the ports are just fun; in Dubrovnik (sp) you can walk around the city wall, it is about a mile and great views. In Kotor we climbed the mountain. Prior to dinner have a drink in the Panorama Bar or go to the small Observation Lounge on deck 11. Make reservations for six and confirm your first night with the restaurant manager when you get on board. Have your Butler confirm the rest. My partner and I have about 500 days on SS and so the above is biased. I hope your party has lots of fun. Van (pardon gram and spell )

[Emtbsam]

Do not miss the Observation Bar on Deck 11 if you and your friends want to be able to speak to each other without a lot of background noise. The view is fabulous, the service lovely and the hors d'oeuvres are always interesting.

[derbylane]

Do not miss the Observation Bar on Deck 11 if you and your friends want to be able to speak to each other without a lot of background noise. The view is fabulous, the service lovely and the hors d'oeuvres are always interesting.

100% endorsement!

[lenclan]

Thank you, derbylane for a great overview! Can't wait for our trip after reading all these wonderful reviews :)

[Stumblefoot]

Lenclan,

 

Watch for my live report in late June / early July. We'll be on the Spirit with the same itinerary as your September voyage. Hopefully, you'll get lots of ideas of how you'd like to spend your time in the Ionian and Adriatic seas.

[Herman The Cat]

Hi everyone,

 

I agree with what everyone who has responded has said. A few additional comments below.

 

- since we have 3 separate reservation and would like to dine all together- is three a way to book restaurants for all 6 of us? Or each couple should book separately using my silversea website. Do they take reservations over the phone? I was just on the website looking to book our restaurant reservations for our upcoming voyage. In the past, you could change the number of people. It may be my computer, but that functionality seems to have disappeared and you can't adjust the number. We need to book tables for 4 as we are traveling with another couple. I don't think it is much of an issue to change a table from 2 to 4 (many of the tables seat 4 people), but from 2 to 6 is a bigger issue. I guess maybe book your preferred nights for 2 people, and then send a request to your TA to contact Silversea and have them change your bookings to 6 people. You'll need to provide the names of the other passengers and cabin numbers (if you have them or can get them). I think I'll try that as well. Let us know if this works.

 

- for a 7 day cruise what would you recommend? Which restaurant on a first night? Would you do one restaurant each night? or do main restaurant in between? Do you eat a lot on a shore? We have not been to any places we are visiting during this trip besides Venice. Since you are new to Silversea, I would probably suggest the main dining room the first evening so you meet the head maitre 'd, and you can let him know there will be 6 of you most evenings. It will help you understand how things work there and the overall flow. Old timers like us know the routine so we may not dine there the first evening. Our decisions on where to dine are based on the dress code and menu for a given evening. We do sometimes eat ashore...depends on the port, cuisine etc.

 

- if anybody is familiar with that itinerary - Adriatic sea- please advice which trips to book. We are doing a private one in Athens and Venice. Do not know much about other stops. I think only you can decide what interests you and what trips/excursions to book. I would suggest going to the CC ports of call board and then tripadvisor for each port to see what the top attractions are. We agree with derbylane that a lot of these ports are great for wandering around. We have been to Corfu and Kotor on previous voyages and both are great walking cities. The sail into and out of Kotor is beautiful and not to be missed. There is a town at the end of the fjord which is where you will dock. There is a Venetian fortress at the top of the hill that is worth the trek.You will need sneakers/rubber soled shoes due to the slick cobblestones.We did the "speedboat adventure to the blue cave" in Kotor. Unfortunately the waters were so rough near the blue cave that we could not get off the speedboat. The beach we went to, if its the same one, was not a sand beach but a beach with large smooth stones. You'll need water sandals. If I remember correctly, Corfu has two Venetian fortresses that you can hike up to also.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Herman The Cat