Joanzzzz

I have to admit I couldn't believe why, in their words, a "leader in luxury cruising" company, does not have the capability to communicate within a system where their own people cannot change a month before sailing, yet their customers can log on and delete or add themselves. Then again, I'm presuming the system which customers log on to will link to the main system, and I'm also presuming that Shore Concierge must have some way of (hopefully) communicating that we need to have the charge voided to the ship. Surely such a large company can't be running on such a dinosaur system. I hope that since changing this for Shore Concierge staff seems to be difficult on the system, that voiding our charge does get communicated to the ship, or we'll have to spend more time lining up at Shore Excursions on board trying to sort it out again, because this has already been a totally frustrating experience and it's still not completely fixed. For sure I'm taking a print out of the emails received.

After over two weeks dealing through Silversea Resolutions and awaiting a reply from Shore Concierge, in desperation we contacted our TA who passed our concerns about shore excursion charges to her company's contact at Silversea. The very next day we received news that one of the charges cannot be changed as their system (Silversea) does not allow them to do this before sailing (in a month's time?) but Shore Concierge will ask the ship to void the charges for one of the discrepancies, presumably when we are on board.. So, hopefully this will all be sorted when we get on the ship. We are now waiting to hear about the other one we questioned. We must say that although Shore Concierge took two weeks to deal with this after being it was passed to them at the request of the lady in Resolutions, she must have flagged it as she contacted us twice during that time to let us know she had emailed them again and would let us know the answer. Hopefully in the coming days we will hear good news about our other discrepancy.

That's a shame, but I see you go to Greenock, so if you can't do the highlands from Oban, and have more time in Greenock, I'd take a tour out of Greenock, to either Loch Lomond, or Inveraray Castle, or a Loch Lomond+ Stirling Castle+Trossachs tour which is a good circle route.

I'm a born Scot and can tell you that Oban is a small coastal town, where we spent three days once on our travels, and there were not too full of things to fill in a whole day, if you end up only in the middle of town. You could do what many do in many ports; walk round the harbour area, or up and down streets with the occasional souvenir shop, and ice cream, or distillery, (unless you have never been to one before and are really into whisky. Whisky in Oban is special to them, but you can get whisky anywhere (sorry Oban distillery), you can't tour the highlands anywhere. So, honestly if you have the chance to get out into the highlands then do so. Of course, a lot depends on how much time you have ashore and if you can get someone to take you, but I recommend going from Oban to Glen Coe and through the glen and circle back. We were in a car and went up from Oban to Ballachulish around the estuary, with the river on the left of us, to Glen Coe, through the village and walked down a little local road to find the McDonald Memorial (never tell anyone in the area if your name is Campbell) , then went back into the village and got the main road down to the Glencoe Visitor Centre (very interesting info about the massacre, etc) , and through the glen, past the Three Sisters, the Devil's Staircase, Rannoch Moor, then south to Bridge of Orchy, Tyndrum where you turn back on the A25 to Oban, stopping at St. Conan's Kirk (very interesting old kirk with lovely history), and Cruchan Dam Visitor Centre, then back to Oban in time for Fish and Chips (battered haddock) from the chippie on George Street. Even if it's raining, and it often is, you get a feel for the highlands and the land. We also had a day where we went north from Oban to Dunstaffnage Castle and grounds, then on to Connel, where we crossed the bridge, and went to the Lochnell Arms Hotel and had lunch overlooking the river. Again, Battered Haddock and Chips, ordered from their tartan bar. Bye the way in the UK, if it's a pub, don't wait to be served. You go to the bar and place an order, and then it's brought to you. If you don't mind a good walk, from Oban, you can reach Dunollie Castle, walking along the esplanade north, till you reach the castle and grounds. The Castle itself is a real ruin now, but it has grounds and gardens. Hope this helps you.

This is how I did it when I had booked my cruise a year ago. Do a search for Silversea cruises in a search engine and right underneath the main heading, there is a sub heading "Find a Cruise"...click on that.....select the month your cruise is on...and select ship...see small picture of the cruise chosen........click on details (at the bottom of small picture) for that cruise, then click on Itinerary and excursions, and go through each day's choices. I copied the text for each shore excursion day, and all the details of each excursion. I did this initially so I could take it out and read it rather than keep having to go refer to the website. I pasted it to another document in Word and printed it out......and also saved it and am glad I did. When I did this at the time of booking and compare to what is now being posted under shore excursions, it has changed and many of the once included tours are now selected ones. Hope this is what you meant and it helps you.

We’re hoping optimistically that this small, but slightly tarnishing, problem will be solved with SS commitment to client satisfaction, and that any input, even critical, will be used to enhance their client overall enjoyment, and not ignored as if all they care about is cutting costs and adding profit. We don’t usually get as annoyed about stuff like this, but this felt badly done and needed someone to explain it to us, because charging for something that was once included, only made us feel as customers we were being stiffed to enhance corporate profit. Even if one in ten customers across an entire fleet were having this added expense, it would add up to a tidy bit of extra profit. I was in the tourism industry in one of the largest tourist areas in the world. Customer service agents have it hard. They take all the flack and yet have to stay with corporate dictates and decisions, even the ones that have obvious inconsistencies. They have to adhere to the corporate line, usually made by high-up folks who’ve never dealt face to face with an actual customer. In the days I was in tourism our customer service folks were told to never promise what you can’t fulfill, because disgruntled customers rarely return – they usually tell ten friends and their family of their disappointment, who also tell friends - so it benefitted the company to always make sure the client experience was as satisfactory as it could for them, within reason. That was in the days before social media was as huge as it is today and everything could be posted yet even then we cared about customer feed back. Regardless of our outcome on this, we hope once we are on board, away from corporate hiccups and cost cutting ideas, we will fully enjoy the service and staff on board because we always believe it’s the staff and crew who are any cruise brands biggest assets.

For sure, take a screen shot of anything that could turn up later as a discrepancy. Because once you point it out to SS, you will find it changes. Shown here first is the shot I took of the excursion charge I questioned on April 7, regarding a previous included excursion which had a strikeout on the cost, and a 0 in my activites. Below is what shows today in "My Activities". We did not change the individual 0 per unit charge so it must have been done by SS who told me because it is now a select excursion there is a fee. So, take screen shots of anything, as you never know when you may need to try and prove something later on.

I have had a reply from SS, and was more or less told that even if the price had a line through it, if still means it has been moved by SS to "Selected" shore excursions, and therefore you have to pay for it. Basically, from what I read in the reply, it is that (since they moved the gateposts from what used to be Intended to what they have now made Selected) it's classed as selected and there is a charge. So, even if it's marked 0 and strikethrough, looks like that is why there is a fee showing in "My Activity" The reply said "They are now selected excursions, and that's the reason for the system adding a fee even though they were in strikethough. Unfortunate, we can't make them part of the included shore excursions" And then we were "thanked for our understanding", which frankly we didn't, but read as "accept it and don't question anymore". We were certainly not understanding why SS had showed us on their website when we booked the cruise a year ago exactly what complimentary excursions we were going to receive. Yet now they changed them over to non complimentary. More importantly, they did not inform us when they changed it that we would be charged, just slipped it as a fee to our account. Strange, as they could send an email to inform us of a half hour time change to the same excursion, but not send an email to tell us the change in fees. We agreed SS does have the right to change things, sometimes necessary on shore excursions, like time changes, cancellations, etc , but these changes between "included" being moved to "selected" look as if it is nothing to do with any outside factors. What it could be perceived by customer is that SS are making the changes to add a cost to the customer that was not there before. We felt SS are asking for more money for something that we believe was included in the fare, a fare that is more expensive than other lines, because it includes complimentary excursions. However, when I booked the cruise initially I had taken screen shots. I copied all the shore excursion material on the website telling us what shore excursions were included "at the time of the booking". Glad I did. On one day alone I saw that two of the five included originally have now been made selected and for a fee. I replied last night and included the info I had taken off website at the time we booked, a year ago, and it showed that both the reservations I had made were marked as "Included" at that time. We have requested they honour that initial booking agreement. I received a reply this morning that it will be passed on to their shore concierge team to review. We could have just "understood" and dropped it, but we felt it was disappointing that something like this makes customers loose trust and feel gouged for more nickel and diming. It may not get us anywhere, but it's a lesson in taking info from your initial booking on every aspect and questioning something further when you are basically told "thanks for your understanding" and not taking it further.

I have had a I have had a similar experience that I just noticed today. I had booked one excursion for us and it was greyed out, the price with a line through, and also showed 0. We noticed another time frame that had not been there before and decided to book it instead, but knew we had to delete the first one so we would only be using the previously "one per day" excursion allotment. Unfortunately, I didn't take a screen shot before I deleted the first booking, and when we rebooked for the same excursion, two minutes later, it was not allotted as 0, but charged. WHY??? It is the exact same excursion, just running at a later time. After reading your post, and because this happened to us, out of curiosity, I went to recheck other bookings we had made that had been greyed out, and the price with a black line through it, which had previously shown 0 charge. One excursion, since moved to Select, still was the exact same, but we got a surprise at the next one we checked. Although it says clearly each booking per person is 0, the total now says much different. Someone or something can't count that two 0's don't add up to 338. I've written to Guest Services, with screen shots, and expect an answer to why this is happening. I'm just glad we found it before we sailed and had to try and sort it out on board. The prices for Silversea cruises are higher than average because they do include excursions, and when we booked them initially they were all included in the price. We have on board credit we could use to cover some of the now two excursions we are being charged for that we were not before, but that's not the point. Some folks may not notice this change till they get on board and not have the credit. Frankly, I'm hoping this is a mistake or a software error, and not a new way of gathering more money, because if so, it's rather unfair. If we have to pay, we will cancel the excursion being charged and go ashore for cheaper, but it would be a red flag to booking a future cruise with Silversea that's for sure. If it's 0 per person, it's 0 total when I add it up. Let's just hope we get a reasonable answer to why this happened.

I just saw this mentioned on a youtube video tonight and I'm sure there will be more picking it up. Whoever made this decision has no idea what customer service should be. Personally, I'd simply not turn up on deck for their photo shoot to show them just how I feel about their suggestion. They want you to turn up on deck to suit their photo shoot for their convenience, and wave and act happy about the way they are treating paying passengers who they are inconveniencing and leaving in the lurch How can they not think it's a bad idea? What if you can't make new arrangements, find a hotel room, get a later train or flight? Who decides a reasonable amount of compensation? SS of course. This is an absolute disgraceful way to treat paying customers and a definite turnoff for any future bookings. After years with other cruise lines, we thought we should have a change. We've never done SS before, so booked our first for this May but may not be making another if this is the way a so-called luxury line treat their clientele. They need to seriously rethink this before it explodes all over the media.

Just for information, as we are looking at hotels for September, the Hotel le Priori doesn't have an elevator I don't think. Many of the buildings in old Quebec are tall and only stairs, as we once found out with a B&B and had to drag suitcases up three flights. No fun when you are getting on in life. The Hotel Des Coutellier does, I believe have an elevator.