Itineraries tend to Europe, South America and Asia. Picture just a few hundred kindred travelers of the CEO variety. Outstanding food and service though lacking dining options found on some competitors. All inclusive top-end quality. Silversea is cruising’s current “benchmark brand”. Imagine Top-quality “everything.” Worldwide itineraries include a number of shorter, one-week sailings. Evenings tend to be dressy. Per person food expenditures are among the highest in the industry. The Concierge desk can do just about anything in the way of private travel arrangements in port. Much of Silverseas reputation is based on the assumption that 300 passengers is small enough to make guests feel truly pampered and large enough to provide a wider range of amenities then smaller capacity rivals. The Concierge frequently arranges in-port experiences that go far beyond the norm. Culinary programs in small settings are featured on many itineraries. Like each of the top three lines, Silverseas is trying to offer more casual dining options. But this is still the most formal of the top lines. Don’t consider Silverseas if you are terminally young, hate dressing up, or are uncomfortable traveling with economic royalty. This is the line of champagne and caviar, of lux dreams realized.
Consumers are seeing new pricing strategies and some changes to the onboard product. This has already started to happen with a new, massive discounting program that will include more then 50 sailings at two-for-one rates.
Update August 2012: Silversea’s management is now on firm ground. The discount programs have been rather successful. Of all of the five-star lines, Silverseas has made the most significant commitment to market its cruise products abroad. Currently, just over 50% of Silversea’s guests are non-Americans. This should be an important factor as guests choose the degree to which they would like to vacation in an international environment.
“We had dinner the first night with a lovely couple. My husband and I thought he owned a sailboat but by the time dessert arrived we had figured out that he owned a fleet of tankers. That, I suppose, is Silversea.”
“Having sailed on each of the top three lines, we have decided that Silversea is best at providing an atmosphere of total luxury with a Concierge staff that really is willing to personalize the cruise experience ashore. We were able to set up a personalized itinerary with a private driver in Monte Carlo on no more then one days notice.”
“The two formal nights on a seven-night sailing out of Istanbul struck us as just about right. We don;t know why this line is always portrayed as sailing with a bunch of primping penguins.”
“What none of the travel books on cruising tells you is that Silversea actually creates its own shore excursions, operates them with smaller groups, and stays away from mass market sightseeing. That alone, is worth the price of admission, along with all of the other things we love about the line.”
“We had a great time on our recent cruise on the Whisper, don;t get me wrong. But we felt that ship was not as elegant as what we had experienced previously on Silversea. The lectures were wonderful. The Chef’s lecture series was a great idea but the equipment didn’t work so she had to speak without actually demonstrating. The toilets didn’t work properly for several hours. We had great difficulty securing reservations at the small, specialty restaurant. It was a great cruise but there were these annoying problems.”
“In a nutshell we were very disappointed with Silversea. And frankly we feel a little ‘ripped off’ by the experience.
Food: Boring, overcooked, lacking flavor. Could not wait to get off and eat elsewhere whenever we had the chance. The food in the specialty restaurants was much better on Celebrity and Royal! Don’t know if that’s still the case but that was our yardstick. Bottom line is we did not look forward to our meals on board after the fourth day! I could write several pages about the food but trust me – it’s not good.
Service: Great butler. The wait staff however was all over the board. A small number of veterans were mostly good. Then it seemed like about 50% of the staff had not been trained. Didn’t know even the basics like standing aside when a guest walks in their direction. At 6-2 I felt like I needed to bull my way through sometimes!
Ship: Deck space was too small on sea days with our capacity at only 385 / 415. Limited chairs, towels and service. Smoking allowed on the whole port side of the pool deck which polluted large areas. Cigars smoked on many varandas which sucked. They also did not enforce “no cigars” on the aft pool deck and we had sore throats 3-days into the cruise. All the public rooms had low ceilings and the decor was rather frumpy. Very bad Musak was canned into many spaces.
We meet about a dozen travel agents onboard and they all agreed they’d been hearing bad things about the food and service on Silversea for the past year or so. We have agreed not to take another chance on any cruises, expect possibly The World. At least in a resort or hotel you can escape bad food and/or service!
Summary: 3-star ship pretending to be a 5-star.”
“We like the larger ships in the fleet, the Silver Shadow and the Whisper, carrying 388 guests. This seems to us the perfect size. We wonder about the relationship Silverseas with Relais and Chateaux. It would be easier to understand the approach to food if we could be in the hands of a great celebrity chef. My husband loved The Humidor with its great sofas, good wines, and “enticing” selection of cigars. He met moire people sitting in there then I met in the Spa.” “Just got off the Wind after its $20 million dollar refurbishment. I thought it was a beautiful ship before – now its really nice. The cabins are all new and we love the new Observation Lounge. This has to be the best cruise line on earth.”
“We wonder about the new 60% off Silversea deals and the kind of crowd will attract. We noted that Le Champagne is now carrying a surcharge for the wine tasting dinners. That combined with the staff changes, makes us feel that we will try Seabourn or Regent.”
AN EXCLUSIVE CRUISE TRUTH CERTIFIED INSPECTION REPORT:
Silver Spirit Bridgetown to Buenos Aires
“We completed our latest Silversea cruise a few weeks ago. As always, we enjoyed it, and will continue to cruise with Silversea. I have to say, though, that in my estimation the line has gone from an A to an A-. The following observations, none of which are ‘big deals’, and maybe I’m just getting more finicky in my old age, but here goes:
- There are now two hamburger choices on the dining room dinner menu every day. Nobody sails Silversea and pays their prices to have a hamburger at dinner in the dining room. Others commented on this as well. The dining room lunch menu only changes every three or four days. It used to change every day. They used to offer petit fours and sorbet at dinner each evening. Not once on this cruise. The tours we went on were, in general, poorly organized. Example: Some tours required two buses, one you board in the terminal, the second once outside the terminal. Silversea provided a bus schedule, say every half hour, but didn’t communicate that there would be two buses or that the schedule was for the outside (second) bus. Therefore, many people got to the second bus late, and then had to stand around for nearly a half hour. There was a lot of complaining about this. Another example: At one port a tender to the ship only ran on the hour. The tour bus returned to the pier 10 minutes late for the tender, so nearly an hour to kill. The bus had meandered around town showing a few “extra” sites, and could have made it back to the pier easily in time for the tender. The Silversea rep on the bus said, don’t worry, another tender is coming right away, not true, then took off to, I guess, do some sightseeing. People were really furious about this lack of coordination. Staff used to make a genuine effort to learn your name and to use it, to be friendly. Not so much, it seemed to us, anymore. We have always, at least for last ten years, been invited to a dinner with one of the ship’s officers. Not this time. Another couple we met, long time Silversea guests and also in a Silver Suite, had the same observation. We don’t need special pampering, but it was a nice gesture, a way to recognize some of their better customers, and made for an interesting, enjoyable dinner. On every previous Silversea cruise, there was a captain’s farewell, the highlight of which was that the entire crew would parade around the theater or deck, depending on where it was held, guests applauding to recognize the crew, and we always thought it was a nice touch. They would also usually, as part of this, show pictures of various passengers taken during the cruise, which was kind of fun. No such farewell on this cruise.
So again, nothing that would preclude us from sailing with Silversea in the future, but I feel that what they refer to as “The Silversea Experience” has been somewhat diminished.