Business Class tickets on Silversea to Northern Europe

Just received a brochure from Silversea. They are offering Business Class plane tickets to

all their Northern Europe cruises in 2018 for $599 each way if you book by September 30, 2017.

Regent is charging either $2,700 or $2,800 for Business Class to Northern Europe in 2018.

Yes… on Regent the Business Class tickets are included but their is a big difference in cost.

Being able to fly from the USA to Northern Europe for $1,200 roundtrip Business Class is amazing.

I haven't looked at Silversea's site yet, but isn't that $599 an upgrade from the included economy air? I know Regent used to offer similarly priced Business Class upgrades before they included BC in their advertised pricing.

Do both lines provide a 'cruise-only' price or what their air credit is?

That's what makes is so tough to comparison shop - who includes what on which sailings? It's crazy...

Mrstanley, we just came back (this past Monday) from a 17 day Northern Europe & British Isles (read 12 Norwegian ports) and for the first time in nearly two dozen (about half Regent, half Silversea) cruises took the Silversea BC air but our price was $499pp each way. We asked our TA to get Virgin Atlantic going and Delta returning--she did with no deviation fee. Caveat is unlike Regent which includes the price of excursions in your cruise fare we paid nearly $3K for our Silver Wind Norway excursions.

$599 pp sounds like a good deal but would check the itinerary vs Regent by cruise fare, then for Silversea add at least $2-3K for excursions unless u book private excursions predominately.

After we sailed on the Voyager Grand Voyage this Jan-Mar enjoying it immensely, we then looked at Regent Norway/Northern Europe itineraries--they thru 2018 did not favorably compare to what Silversea offered--so we booked Silversea for the itinerary first. A month later, SS offered the new BC air deal --believe Mark Conroy (formerly of Regent) is bringing these very attractive BC air deals to SS, packing them with attractive itineraries that are leading to increased SS bookings. We had 267 pax out of 290 on our Silver Wind cruise.

We have Regent air included in our Mariner 2019 Shanghai to Tokyo voyage, but with a $6Kpp savings we are planning our own FC/BC air at much, much less cost.

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Okay, so curiosity got the best of me and I checked out Silversea's web site - that looks like some aggressive pricing!

Example:

Silver Spirit, 12 days in June of '18, London to Copenhagen, $5,040 + $1,200 for BC air takes you to $6,240 per person, BC air inclusive.

Regent Explorer, 10 nights in Sep '17, $11,299 BC air inclusive, or

Explorer, 10 nights in Jul '18, $9,799 BC air inclusive.

Unless I'm missing something obvious, that's a big discrepancy. Silversea is running around $520 per diem and Regent is $980-$1,130 per diem. Huh.

PS - Just read Col Wes's post - even taking excursions into account, some of those Silversea fares look mighty tempting...

Just did some checking on Business Class flights for June 2018 roundtrip from either JFK or Atlanta to Copenhagen.

The lowest was from JFK on Norwegian Air Shuttle for $1,255. All other airlines range from $3,230--$3,697 from either

JFK or Atlanta.

Bill, very attractive comparisons.

Fyi..at link below is our Silver Wind thread--we loved this voyage (entertainment not anywhere as good as Regent, but cuisine, service is as good if not better in some venues) but we booked this Northern Europe voyage for the itinerary not entertainment.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2520670

Wes..are you paddling over to Shanghai? Curious to know how you plan to save money on your flights for that

cruise.

Just received a brochure from Silversea. They are offering Business Class plane tickets to

all their Northern Europe cruises in 2018 for $599 each way if you book by September 30, 2017.

Regent is charging either $2,700 or $2,800 for Business Class to Northern Europe in 2018.

Yes… on Regent the Business Class tickets are included but their is a big difference in cost.

Being able to fly from the USA to Northern Europe for $1,200 roundtrip Business Class is amazing.

Have to ask where you are getting Regent's pricing for Business Class since it is included. Are you going by the amount of credit that you would receive if you did not use air on Regent? What is the itinerary - how many days? This would help me look at both Silversea and Regent.

Silversea does have some aggressive pricing and they are a good cruise line (we have done three sailings on Silversea so do know a bit about it.)

Bill, I recommend the Silver Whisper (and the Silver Shadow - not sure if it is still on lease in Asia). I have sailed on the Spirit and was very disappointed in many things. When we toured the smaller ships we knew that they were not for us. The Muse looks good but the dining situation needs to be straightened out (not only my opinion but the opinion of several that have cruised on the ship). Food is comparable to Regent (we feel that the equivalent of La Veranda is better but the main dining room did not meet our expectations. Service is equal to Regent - Silversea has some former Regent crew members and Regent has some of theirs.

While I would not select Silversea over Regent for a relatively small difference in price, I might selective Regent over Silversea for itinerary (after we become Titanium on Regent and have time to enjoy our benefits:-). As Wes has mentioned, their excursions are quite pricey.

Mrstanley, having my wife paddle :)..seriously we now most often use the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card for large scale expenses (e.g.,travel, cruises) to earn Chase Ultimate reward points. For travel you get 3 points for every 1$ spent, so with large scale expenses charged your points add up. Plus, when we first got this card last year, we earned 100K points after spending $4500 within the first 3 months of getting our CSR card. We are using about 300K Chase points for Korean Air FC (value of a chase point is about 1.5cents so let's say two r/t FC tickets using chase points cost 300x1.5 about $4500 vs $12000 Regent wants for only BC air. We adore Korean Air FC experience (better than BA, Lufthansa). We add about $250 for our award pro who has skill-set to get the precise award seats we want the day they open up (about 331 days out from Mar

Hope this explanation makes sense.

Ps..we now prefer paying our Regent and Silver cruises with a CSR card as we get much more value than what the AMX-Platinum card bennies are.

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Please hop over to SS board and read about the cancelation of 3 months of Spirit and a month of Wind cruises next spring before you fall in like with a 2018 SS cruise. We were booked on one of the cancelled Spirit cruises and are now looking at a Regent one.

M

Please hop over to SS board and read about the cancelation of 3 months of Spirit and a month of Wind cruises next spring before you fall in like with a 2018 SS cruise. We were booked on one of the cancelled Spirit cruises and are now looking at a Regent one.

 

M

Good point! Silversea used to do that all the time (cancel cruises - generally for charters - but I thought that this had ceased. Thanks for the update - this is valuable information!

P.S. I have mentioned on the Silversea board a few times what we consider the issues on the Spirit. It sounds as if it will take over 2 months to make the ship into something they can actually be proud of. Still, communication to the TA's and passengers sounds poor.

Thank you Wes for the information regarding the Chase Reserve Card. Great that your award pro can get you the

flights you want using 300,000 points. Is this for both of you or per person?

mrstanley, your welcome.

Here is what our awards pro described as our best FC/BC option from ATL:

Korean Air is the only Asian airline that serves ATL. The have a nice product in both first and business and their prices are fantastic to the North Asia region, which includes Korea, Japan, and China. Prices for a round tip per person are 125,000 round trip in business (62,500 one way) and 160,000 round trip in first (80,000 one way). You could mix and match the options. Your routing would be ATL-ICN-PVG and NRT/HND-ICN-ATL. Incheon airport is a very good airport to connect and you can even do a stopover in Korea if you'd like. For what it's worth Delta does fly directly to Japan but their prices are going to be nowhere near as favorable as Korean.

mrstanley, your welcome.

 

Here is what our awards pro described as our best FC/BC option from ATL:

WesW - Who do you use for your award booking? I've used two different people (and can't remember their names without searching my records!) and wasn't that thrilled with either of them. I'm into the miles and points game big-time. Feel free to email me the name of your award booking service if you're willing to share it.

janet AT haskett DOT org

We us a points service as well as they will find seats in business and first. We have the Chase card and the Amex Centurion. Trying to use your points on your own can be frustrating so we pay a very reasonable fee for them to work on it. We have used our points to fly First or Busniess on Singapore, Cathay Pacific and Emirates. We have not paid full fare in years.

Wes, I would also like the name of your award pro as well. Thanks so much. Our email is mom181us at yahoo dot com. Sue

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In the Deviation thread, Wes posted that he uses juicymiles.com.

Thanks. I have read about that award booking service but have not used it. I will try it the next time I need a complex award booking.

Thanks Dave for the juicymiles mention from the deviation thread

LadyVol1, did send you an email with James (our contact) at Juicy

miles. For anyone else who may want to consider using an award service to snag your award seats--have found no one who is as timely in response to our award seat requests & who is as knowledgeable about all air alliances/mileage programs & award availability than James.

Plus, what separates juicymiles.com from other award services we have used as they provide a military discount.

pls see:

request@juicymiles.com You are more than welcome to provide my information as well (410-905-8046 and james@juicymiles.com) if you'd like on the back of the business card.

Regards,

James

Wes, we have used them and the Points Pro and both are excellent. We never use the cruise air programs including Regent as we come out far better ahead and usually they can snag first class seats on the best airlines. It is certainly worth the small fee.

We are points hoarders and charge everything we can with the cards. It is very easy to transfer miles from Chase and Amex to airline programs. Why fly business when you can fly First on some of these airlines and pay very little?

Very well said Purplelady1, absolutely concur.

Bill, I recommend the Silver Whisper (and the Silver Shadow - not sure if it is still on lease in Asia). I have sailed on the Spirit and was very disappointed in many things. When we toured the smaller ships we knew that they were not for us. The Muse looks good but the dining situation needs to be straightened out (not only my opinion but the opinion of several that have cruised on the ship). Food is comparable to Regent (we feel that the equivalent of La Veranda is better but the main dining room did not meet our expectations. Service is equal to Regent - Silversea has some former Regent crew members and Regent has some of theirs.

 

While I would not select Silversea over Regent for a relatively small difference in price, I might selective Regent over Silversea for itinerary (after we become Titanium on Regent and have time to enjoy our benefits:-). As Wes has mentioned, their excursions are quite pricey.

Jackie (and anyone else), we're considering a Silversea cruise next July, 7/24/18 on the Silver Spirit. The itinerary is Copenhagen to Stockholm, with stops in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland -- but not Russia. Regent does not offer a similar itinerary, and all of the ports other than Copenhagen would be new to us.

Please explain why you don't like the Silver Spirit. Also, given Silversea's uninformative web site, how can we get a handle on the cost of things that Regent includes (particularly for gold and up) and Silversea doesn't? That seems to be transfers, excursions, internet, laundry (or are there laundromats not shown on the deck plans?), telephone use, and other things that we haven't thought of.

Silversea seems to be a good deal; but when you add up what isn't included, maybe it isn't. Joe

Jackie (and anyone else), we're considering a Silversea cruise next July, 7/24/18 on the Silver Spirit. The itinerary is Copenhagen to Stockholm, with stops in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland -- but not Russia. Regent does not offer a similar itinerary, and all of the ports other than Copenhagen would be new to us.

 

Please explain why you don't like the Silver Spirit. Also, given Silversea's uninformative web site, how can we get a handle on the cost of things that Regent includes (particularly for gold and up) and Silversea doesn't? That seems to be transfers, excursions, internet, laundry (or are there laundromats not shown on the deck plans?), telephone use, and other things that we haven't thought of.

 

Silversea seems to be a good deal; but when you add up what isn't included, maybe it isn't. Joe

Hi Joe - good to see you on the board:D. First I want to say that we enjoyed our first Silversea cruise on the Silver Spirit enough to book another cruise (on the Whisper and later on the Shadow). There are issues on the Spirit that will probably be fixed when it is taken out of service for over 2 months next year. It seemed that the buffet restaurant was not built large enough to accommodate the guests. The tables are so close together that it is difficult to walk by. Speaking of size, they cannot hold the Captain's Reception in one place because there is nowhere on the ship that is large enough (so they hold two receptions).

Then there is the equivalent of the Observation Lounge - a very small space. They held a welcome meeting for us in the lounge and it was again - too small to accommodate the group. Plus, there isn't even a restroom on that deck.

We stayed in a Silver Suite which includes laundry but did not include unlimited WiFi as it does today (only in upper suites - lower suites have about an hour a day included if I remember correctly). All suites have butlers which is nice. I like Silver Suite bathrooms (they may be the same I lower categories) because the toilet and sink are separate from the shower/tub and double sinks (door in between the two sections of the bathroom.

The Spirit was built during the downturn of the economy and, IMO, it shows. While all new ships are limited to how much "real" wood they can use, the plastic used on the Spirit seems cheap. The furniture in the suite reminded me of the type of furniture that would be used in college dorms (not even a drawer in the desk or dressing table). Regent uses plastic as well but it is hard, heavy and resembles wood much more than the Spirit (note: The Whisper and Shadow have lots of real wood which is my basis for comparison). It is possible that Silversea has changed out all of the furniture since we sailed on her but I doubt it as Silversea's "refurbishments" are minimal compared to Regent (hopefully this improves with Mark Conroy being in a high position).

If I recall correctly most tables for two in "The Restaurant" (main dining room) are by the service areas which is not our favorite place to be. Speaking of food, The Restaurant, this is one dining venue that we found inferior to Regent. We enjoy La Terrazza (buffet by day - Ala carte Italian restaurant by night) very much which is not surprising since it is an Italian cruise line. Their offerings at lunch are not as expansive as on Regent but they have lots of sushi which makes me happy (not sure how you feel about sushi).

Almost forgot -- excursions are quite pricey. Not sure if you have sailed Oceania or not but Silversea's pricing is similar to theirs. Laundry in the smaller suites are similarly priced to Regent. You are going to one of our favorite parts of the world (especially Norway) but they are also amongst the priciest ports in the world as well. Our Regent Choice excursions were expensive so I cannot imagine how expensive the same type of excursions would be on Silversea.

We used Silversea's air and upgraded to Business Class (again, not inexpensive). We did get included transfers from the airport to the ship and back to the airport.

There is no reason not to sail on the Spirit other than the fact that some spaces are too small and the decor seems cheap. We initially choose Silversea because they had an itinerary that Regent didn't have.

Hope that this helps with your decision. IMO, it is a tough call between Regent and Silversea when it comes to pricing - especially with Silversea running such good deals. Regent's cruise to Norway (28 days as I recall) was so expensive that we would not normally have booked it. However, we were booked on an Asian itinerary that was overbooked and we had an offer to change to the Norway cruse (actually it was from Stockholm to Copenhagen) at no additional cost (but also no upgrade). It was amongst the top 3 cruises that we have ever taken! Let us know what you decide.

Jackie

JoanandJoe, we are also Gold on Regent and near 200 nites cruised on Silversea (we just got off a Norway cruise on the Silver Wind two weeks ago, and will cruise on the Mariner in Mar 2019). Do see that the Spirit voyage y'all r considering includes a $599 BC upgrade each way. So, if you take this upgrade or take the included Econ air, your transfers will be included. The Spirit has Launderette's on each pax deck (xcept deck 4) across from the elevators (use the + icon on the deck plan 4-5 times to see the launderettes, they are across EE on deck plan) which are included (with soap, irons) with cruise fare. As Emtbsam, long time Silversea and Spirit cruiser notes the most available Spirit launderettes to use almost anytime with no crowd are on deck 10/11 (where the Silver suites are located (and laundry is included with Silver Suite fare). You will pay for telephone usage (if I recall from our Silver Wind voyage from two weeks ago, phone fee is $1.50 per min).

As for internet, depending on the cabin you book (let's say a veranda) you (wife/husband) will get an hour of standard internet use per day (use it or lose it by midnite). Frankly, we prefer Silverseas veranda internet model over Regent veranda model by a large margin. We were on the Voyager Grand Voyage this year (Jan-Mar) and since Regent made internet available to all, we found during peak hours (8a.m t.o 10pm) your device was almost a paperweight and not very useful. WE blog on our voyages and to get pix to download on Regent is very, very painful during peak times due to over 1000 devices putting demands on the bandwidth. Conversely, with two hours of wifi included in your suite fare--we found download speeds excellent and learned how to husband our wi fi times accordingly. Moreover, the Silver Wind's computer room's computers were always available and free to use to get on the internet anytime..do not have first hand experience with this new SS computer policy (about six months old) on the Spirit to know if their computers in the Spirit library are always connected (at no charge) to the internet. Finally, discovered a new crew member internet policy on our Silver Wind voyage.

During our Regent and Silversea voyages often we profile crew members for our cruise critic and Facebook blogs. We interviewed at least a half dozen Silver Wind crew members, and down to each crew member they love the new Silversea internet policy(which gives all Silversea crew 30 min of free internet daily)

Know your TA (tho we no longer use) and bet her travel consortium will also offer a SBC on this voyage which will help pay for dry cleaning if you choose.

Unlike Regent where specialty restaurants have no cover charge, on The Spirit there are two specialty restaurants that you pay a cover charge to use (Le Champagne (French) and Seishin (Japanese). If you get a SBC, this also could be used for these specialty restaurant charges.

Know TC will offer her Spirit views. She is exactly right you will pay high prices for the SS excursions (we had healthy SBC from SS and our TA to help pay for our Norway very pricey excursions). So, whether SS or R is best will be based on y'all preferences and prudent cruise fare comparison.

What ever voyage you decide to take Regent or Silversea know you will be well taken care of and have fun.

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Just my two cents--

First - we are also points people --for flying and hotels. We charge everything including all payments for cruises. Builds a hefty amount of miles for an airline we are planning to book. However, these days, it's getting tougher and tougher to use miles for non stop flights. Number of miles needed are up and availability is down.

Second- take a look at the Regent Copenhagen - Amsterdam cruise - 20 days- August 1, 2018. It is almost sold out. We booked it last year.

Interesting combination of ports - Sweden, lots of Norway ports, three Russian ports-off the beaten path, Shetland Islands, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Amsterdam.

Some PH suites left. We are using miles to Copenhagen and returning from Amsterdam.

We do two or three cruises per year. We are settled into Regent and are too old for change. When we get aboard, we feel at home.

Regards

Sheila