labrasett

Are you sure the fault lay with Silversea? Airlines have a habit of overbooking and it wont matter if you have an assigned seat if they decide to bump you off. On another tack some passengers turned up at Lisbon airport after Barbados to Lisbon cruise and when they looked for their departure details on the departure board their flight wasnt on there. To cut a long story short the flight had been cancelled and SS hadnt been advised but with the help of a local rep and Silverair the passengers were eventually rebooked on to an alternative airline/route but without business class for one of the longer sectors. They were pretty complimentary about the way SS handled the matter for them. I cant remember which airline it was but it was one of the "better" ones. Air travel is very hit and miss these days.

I too changed a booking when the prepay discount came available. I cancelled and rebooked and even with the UK£400 rebooking fee (becomes a potential FCC) I got around £2000 back and it was paid within a week. My re-booking was into the same cabin. Since I was already doing my own flights to accommodate one of the great train rides across Australia and having a few days in Perth and Sydney pre-cruise, it was so worthwhile. No trouble at all my SS rep in London was very helpful and it was all done and dusted in one phone call and a couple of emails.

Several mobility aids parked in the corridors on the Dawn on Barbados to Lisbon. Still sufficient room for other mobility challenged individuals to get past. Very disability friendly.

Sadly I dont think even 90 minutes is enough to change aircraft and terminals at LHR. I would have said a minimum of two hours and ideally more.

I am afraid I dont understand why people complain about their butlers (or indeed anything else on SS) on a site like this when the solution would have been to ask for a word with the Head Butler or other person in charge. A gentle push at the status quo, in my experience, usually results in a good outcome in almost all spheres of life. If a butler is new or inexperienced then he might be glad to be told what is going wrong or what he lacks. We had one new butler who asked us outright if there was more we wanted from him and what he could do to improve his service to us - not really anything we told him because we dont expect or ask much of our butlers, we only wish for them to be polite and cheerful and to put some Sauvignon Blanc in our fridge and keep the fridge topped up accordingly. 😃

Thank you for providing evidence that the butlers have received at least rudimentary (4 weeks) butler training. They do very well on it.

I saw a hot water bottle on the top of a trolley in the corridor on the Dawn only a couple of weeks ago.

Having looked up the full definition of the word plenipotentiary now there is an individual to be held in high esteem and awe (such as we generally do our butlers)

I find it hard to believe that anyone who can afford to travel on SS is "initimidated" by references to a butler. Most passengers do not come much more humble than we were when we first started travelling on SS and while we were a little tremulous about the whole experience the word "Butler" was not a cause of any consternation our main concern was about whether we would "fit in". All nonsense of course since 99.9% of SS passengers are lovely people.

Does it really matter what the role is called? I dont think people from US are so shallow as to be impressed by the aristocratic title of Butler. Whats in the name? Frankly very little, on the cruise the butler is your friend and assistant offering to facilitate whatever you wish for. They are almost exclusively lovely people who would be missed by many longer term SS passengers.

The flight to Guayaquil left around 10.30 in the morning and got in around 1.30 ish as I recall (three weeks ago). We had flights to Lima booked for 9.00 pm that night and took the day room in the hotel and had transport (SS) back to the airport around 6.30. SS check vaccination papers on arrival at the hotel pre cruise. Fully vaccinated pax with evidence did not need to take further test.

Love your comment about butler solving the light problem, please see comments in the thread about butlers - clearly they are useful and often resourceful!! 😃

What a mostly sad exchange of views. We are very low maintenance but happy to have someone to fill our fridge with water and wine and to pick up and drop off our laundry and to offer and provide nuts and nibbles to accompany a late afternoon glass of wine. If there were no butlers there would need to be more cabin attendants to do all the jobs the butlers do. Apart from anything else they provide a "buffer" between guest and cabin attendant, if there is something wrong you tell the butler, you do not upset the cabin attendant, the butler will fix it. There is nothing posh or aristocratic about having a butler, they are just there if you need them if not it is easy to politely ask them to leave you alone unless you ask for them. Simple.

My rep phoned me this morning in response to an email sent yesterday. He said the cruise ticket will not be available until the middle of next week so I think there is actually a ticket and I think I got one via email for the preceding Galapagos trip. He said he thought the ticket would be available on Wednesday next week but he would try and get it out to me on Monday as we are travelling on Tuesday. What I have done is to print off the full "Guest Information Form" from Mysilversea which shows clearly what our arrangements are, ie joining ship in Barbados and departing for Lisbon and I am inclined to think that will be adequate. If not while I am in Ecuador or Peru I will have to find a helpful hotel concierge or receptionist to print of any ticket documentation which arrives before we head off to Barbados. I was impressed with the speed of response from my SS rep.

I have just asked for expedition of receipt of my cruise tickets for Barbados to Lisbon in three weeks time because I am heading off early next week to Quito to go to the Galapagos and following Galapagos I am travelling over to Barbados to pick up the Dawn. I believe the authorities in Barbados can often require sight of departure arrangement tickets out of Barbados at the time of arrival!

I have a medical condition which requires that I ensure I dont get cold! In the Adriatic I wear a shortie wet suit and I am fine, going to Galapagos? I have a long wetsuit, bootees, gloves and hood plus rash suit for underneath. Not snorkelling is not an option in my book, adaptation is key to comfort and in my case provides accessibility, so a very expensive holiday and needing to spend just a few tens of pounds/dollars for the gear to ensure I can get full enjoyment. Do it, folks, just do it if you think you might be cold. If you find the provided shortie wetsuit is enough then so be it but you have a comfort of knowing that you can wear a long and complete coverall if necessary. The trip is too good to be spoilt by not spending just a few dollar more and maybe having to adjust packing to make space.

A group of passengers (22) have just gone off a ship (sorry I cant immediately find which one or where she was docked) and gone to Bhutan for three or four days and will then rejoin the ship in Singapore

I love the Chronicles, bedtime reading and building anticipation for the following day. I also like the daily news which on my last two trips has been available at various venues around the ships but delivered to our door after request to the butler.

"Nominal charges" have got lost in the post covid flight price increases, I venture to suggest that the SS webpages have not caught up with reality!

Bear in mind that most fares are cheaper per sector when they are purchased as returns. I decided to do our own flights for Galapagos because we were going to stay on and go to Machu Picchu and stay in Peru for a few days. I booked our flights with KLM a good time back and they were really inexpensive in BC. With Machu Picchu not a runner at the moment I decided to fly across South America and pick up the Dawn from Barbados back to UK. I looked at seeing if I could claw back any monies from KLM for an unused return flight but I note that the price of a one way fare in BC from Lima (which was what I have booked) is now more than the price of my original return reservation so I am probably not going to do anything more than advise KLM I shall not be travelling or maybe I will just "no show" for return. I suppose there may be the possibility of a return of airport fees and charges if I do have a conversation with KLM but I suspect any potential refund would be subject to an admin fee which would eat up any possible payment in any event. I am actually pretty content with the finances overall.

I am with you there but I hate pictures of peoples food anyway. While this is not a flattering picture of the meat it does look like a really good piece of steak, just too too raw.

I have recently (couple of weeks back) made a fairly last minute booking on the Dawn in March. I was able to book the excursions I wanted bar one so I waitlisted. The trip is a 4x4 trip into the middle of Madeira so I didnt really hold out much hope of getting a cancellation come through and even if one did then it seemed to me I would probably be well down the wait list with the cruise being relatively imminent. I logged into my computer tonight to find an email from SS saying they were putting on an extra 4x4 excursion and they had added it to MySilversea for me and would I let them know if I no longer wished to do it. Do I wish to do it? The icing on the cake for a recovery cruise from the disappointment of having Machu Picchu cancelled post Galapagos and therefore finding myself in South America in no rush to get home. Sailing from Barbados to Lisbon seems like just the right sort of consolation for missing MP this time around.

I think it is a no brainer, take the meds with you and do the 18 day trip, Antartica is wonderful by South G is unbelievable.

Sorry I didnt understand your reference (Nh Sbc). If you had said OBC I would have understood, I too would be reverting to SS and insisting on the reallocation of the credit in your shoes. Actually for me I wouldnt have minded mine being an OBC as there is one "paid for" excursion on the excursions schedule which I wish to take and the credit would have covered it.

I dont understand your problem. You cancelled and rebooked and SS charged a fee which you can recover against a new future booking. I did the same recently, cancelled my booking on a cruise "down under" in 2024 from a door to door (without air) rebooking to the same cruise and even the same cabin but on the 20% off pre payment p2p basis and saved myself some £2000. I am quite happy to relinquish £400 (£200 each) by way of admin fee which has been transferred into an FCC. I will for sure book a future cruise and am waiting for the full list of itineraries for 2025 before I do so and am comfortable knowing that I have £400 in hand towards the next reservation.