MLeh

We took a cruise over Christmas/New Years last year, and for the first time ever I contributed to the crew wellness fund.  (I arranged it at the same time that I turned it my 'no I don't want to contribute to the charity' form at reception).  My reasoning was to help the crew have their own 'holiday' celebrations below decks.  They seemed appreciative, and the hotel manager sought me out later and thanked me personally, but I didn't do it for recognition, so was actually somewhat embarrassed at the time.

Past discussions with various crew members has given me to understand that far more than a tip, they appreciate a positive review in the mid cruise (if you're on a longer cruise) and end of cruise surveys.  I've been told that SilverSea pays better than average wages, and the crew want their contracts renewed.  Getting a good review on the survey helps get that renewal.

Tips are included in the fare you've already paid.

The Silver Muse seems to be sticking closer to the Vancouver Island side of the strait tonight.  I could only get a far-away picture.

Glad you enjoyed your Rocky Mountaineer experience.   Getting the full view of Robson is breathtaking, isn't it?

Fair winds and following seas for your upcoming adventure.

TLC:

Lots of things to do in Vancouver:

Granville Market (on Granville Island)

Grouse Mountain

Capilano Suspension Bridge

Stanley Park

shopping on Robson

Lots of delicious seafood

There's also a Vancouver to Victoria (V2V) day cruise that goes from downtown to downtown if you won't be going there as part of the Muse cruise.  Other options include taking a ferry up to the Sunshine Coast (where I live) for a day.    (You'll be passing where I live at around 7 pm on the day your cruise leaves Vancouver - look to your right.  I'll try to remember to snap a picture for you.)

Weather forecast calls for nice weather (down here anyway - can't speak to the rest of your itinerary).

Enjoy your travels.

Good to see Silver Explorer is out of drydock in Vancouver, and according to MarineTraffic.com, is heading to Rudyerd Bay.

You can barely see her, with the black hull, just off East Trail Island.  (The big ship in front is Radiance of the Seas).

Uncloaking for a brief visit.

DaveyWavey, et al:  hope you enjoy your cruise thru the inside passage tomorrow.  You'll be in my backyard.  The Muse will pass by our place around 4 am, so I won't expect you to get up and wave (despite your nickname on this forum).  

Pictures at night are difficult - we just see floating bundles of light in the distance.

But here's a shot of the Muse from our deck when she was northbound.  (She's the smaller ship in the photo, but in the lead!)

On 1/8/2019 at 1:45 PM, Stumblefoot said:

 

In all of the reading I've done on CC over the years I think one of the greatest pieces of advice I've received has been not to take voyage on a ship immediately before or after a refit, or a new launch.  Thanks for reconfirming that bit of advice again for us all here.

We were already a bit leery, especially after they expanded the scope of the refurbishment, but I'd booked based upon the itinerary, and didn't see another opportunity to do the Panama Canal on SS in the near future.  

Greetings all, and a wave in passing to Mysty.  I hope she finds the Whisper in good condition.

We made it home at midnight yesterday from our Panama Canal cruise on the Whisper.  The weather in San Francisco was horrible - pouring rain and windy - which had all the flights landing slower and thus taking off late.  Our luggage was left out in the rain by the baggage handlers and upon arrival we discovered all our checked clothes had received an extra 'rinse' cycle courtesy of mother nature.  So today has been deciding which can just hung up to be dried out, and which need to be completely laundered again.  My husband isn't too thrilled with his good suit being soaked, but we're hopeful a good cleaning will be all that is needed.

One note:  If you ever end a cruise in San Francisco, don't take the Scenic Tour Airport transfer.  Possibly the worst tour I've ever been on in my life.  The woman was an idiot, and instead of getting to the airport at 1:15 pm, as advertised, we actually arrived at domestic departures at 1:50, and international departures after 2 pm.  Fortunately our flight wasn't scheduled until 5 pm (and didn't actually depart until after 7 pm), but there were some domestic passengers who had to do a run to catch their 3 pm flight.

As pertains to the cruise itself:  I hope Mysty will take some pictures and post them.  The ship is looking lovely.  The new furniture in the suites is a bit bigger than the old stuff, which makes the suites seem a bit smaller, but that is compensated for by the fact that it is all very comfortable!  The new beds were top notch.  I'm fairly sure the room attendants were emptying the vacuum cleaner bags after every room for the first few days, as the new carpets were shedding quite copiously.

Being the 'shake down' cruise after the refit, there were some obvious issues.  The pool didn't get filled for the first few days while they worked on some final repairs.  Handrails were missing in a couple of areas, but were soon replaced.  Automatic doors didn't open automatically

There were a lot of new staff who joined the Whisper in Fort Lauderdale, and service suffered while they got to know their new roles, general ship procedures, and learnt to communicate with others.  This was cleared up after a few days however, and towards the end of our 17 days on board you wouldn't know the newbies from the old pros.

I'm sure the World Cruisers will appreciate the hard work we put into the whip everything into shape for their arrival.

For this traveler though:  that's the last time I'll book at cruise immediately following a refit!

Greetings all.  Since the demise of app access I find I am spending significantly less time on this forum, so I should probably make this an 'adieu' post.  I don't take my laptop with me on travels anymore, using only my iPad, and using browser access is just a pain.   Not that I contributed much!  But I did enjoy following along.

I thought I'd share one last story, following along the theme of freezers and their contents:

My parents, in their 90's now, still live on their own in a somewhat (an hour from the hospital, 20 minutes from groceries) remote lakefront home.  They love it there, and despite the encouragement of their children to move somewhere with a few more services, are pretty determined to spend their final days there.  I try to phone & see them on a regular basis, and my siblings phone and visit regularly too.  My mom usually answers the phone when we call, as my father is recovering from a stroke and doesn't do random conversation well anymore.  One day a couple of weeks ago, I phoned and my father answered.  This is the approximate transcript of that conversation:

"Oh, hi dad.  How are you?"

"Your mother didn't answer the phone because she's outside chasing a bear."

"Dad.  Put down the phone and go tell Mom to come back in the house right now."

I hear the phone being put down, and my Dad calling to my Mom.  A few minutes later she picked up the receiver.

"It's gone now," she said.  "It's just a little one."

"Mom," I said "If it's just a little one, there's probably a big one around."

"Oh," she said, "It's not THAT little."

So I made her promise to just use the bear banger and not actually go outside chasing it anymore.  (We then had a nice conversation about her work with Habitat for Humanity, and the meeting she had attended the day before.)

Fast forward to the next telephone conversation:

Mom:  "We're still having that bear come around.   It opened the freezer (which is sitting on their back deck) and stole a box of chicken wings and an apple pie.  Dinner and dessert.   The freezer was locked, but that little built in lock didn't slow him down long.   He moved the freezer about 2 feet getting it open though.   The neighbour found the pie plate (a glass pyrex one) in their yard, licked clean."

"Have you called the conservation officer?"

"Oh, that's a good idea. I'll do that right after we finish this conversation."  (We then talked about the work she was doing on her autobiography, and how she is now up to when she volunteered with the UN to go to Namibia to help with registering women to vote in their first election.  The bear probably won't even make it into the book.)

Due to the size of their house (small) it wasn't possible to move the freezer into the house, so my brother went up and put a hasp lock on the freezer.   Mom said "If that bear gets into the freezer again it will be because he ripped the door off."   I'll be phoning again today.

The motto in our family is "Live long enough to become a burden to your children."  My parents haven't become a burden yet, but one just never knows where the conversation is going to go.

Can someone clarify for me:  is a berth = one person?  or one suite? (typically double occupancy - ie 1600 passengers).  

If these new ships are for 800 passengers, then this just continues the slow death through a thousand cuts of slightly larger than the Muse/Spirit, et al.    

1 hour ago, Tothesunset said:

No problem boarding after finding one of the few taxi drivers in Lisbon who didn't know how to get us to the cruise terminal. Hmmph. 

Nice lunch in Terrazza, a margarita at the pool deck bar and a couple of glasses of the Monopole in the suit. Hic. 

Meet and Mingle at 7pm which is awkward timing. We hoped to fall into the MDR when it opens and get an early night in preparation for 13 days of doing nothing. 

A few old faces amongst the crew. 

Using the standard WiFi which seems OK. The ship looks well, the suite is as expected and we've already had too much to drink. Who could complain? 

Sounds perfect.

46 minutes ago, Lois R said:

Do ya'll like this new format? I don't

Not exactly crazy about it yet.  Change is always hard, so I try not to rush to judgement.

It is easier to attach images  though, so that's a plus.

Here's something in honour of the significance of today in Canada ...

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving, all, especially to my fellow Canucks. Our turkey dinner was yesterday, so today we are eating leftovers and watching (CFL) football. Not quite as exciting as JP & Chris in Quito. Keep posting those pictures, JP! I can only climb mountains vicariously these days, but do so enjoy following along on your adventures.

Mysty: we won't be able to meet up at the Whisper in San Francisco when you're boarding for your world cruise and we are (probably very sadly) disembarking. Our transfer whisks us away from the ship at 9 am. My husband was musing the other day that if we have had a really good time on our holiday cruise, maybe we'll just 'stay on' for a few more segments. I wish! As it is, if our holiday cruise meets our expectations, there is an improving chance of WC 2020. Fingers crossed.

I'm curious as to what the "Evolution Class" will comprise. (and, if I may try some humour, hope it doesn't incite 'Revolution'.)

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, all.

My mother has always told me that you should never name something you're going to eat. The exceptions when she was growing up on the farm were the two turkeys they raised each year. One was called 'Thanksgiving', and the other was 'Christmas'.

Glad to read that Lois' most recent health concerns are alleviated, and also thanks once again to JP for providing an explanation accessible to us mere mortals!

I was in the Okanagan earlier this week, and just barely managed to make it home. The rules in BC are that we have to have our winter tread tires on for travel on most highways that have mountain passes as of October 1st. I didn't, as it is usually after Thanksgiving (Canadian variety) that the snow hits the passes, so I wasn't really concerned. However, on September 30th, I was on the wrong side of the mountains and the Drive BC website showed significant amounts of snow on the Okanagan Connector (Hwy 97C). I ended up taking the scenic route home, down to Hwy 3, whose mountain passes are a little bit lower (*1342 metres) than the passes on the connector (*1728 metres). The snow level was down to 1300 metres, but hadn't made it that far south. So the drive ended up being mostly uneventful (the best kind).

Of course today the pass is clear. (Current condition webcam: http://www.drivebc.ca/mobile/pub/webcams/id/251.html) But I'll be getting my snow tires put on before heading that way again!

But, because I was taking the slow road home (5 hour drive versus 4 hours on the Coquihalla - the major difference being Hwy 3 is mostly 2 lane, 90 km/hr speed limit, while the Coquihalla is 6 lanes, divided, with top posted speed of 120 km/hr), I stopped at a couple of produce stands along the way, and bought some 'farm direct' harvest items: tomatoes, onions, garlic, squash, etc., so it wasn't a completely wasted diversion. (And, as always, the scenery was spectacular.) DH and I have been busy making relish, salsa, etc. the past couple of days.

(* For the Welsh in the cooler: These are the elevations of the mountain passes, not the mountains themselves, which are much taller. We refer to every approximately 1000 metres as a 'Snowdon', so the mountain passes are '1.3 Snowdons', or '1.7 Snowdons'. ;) )

Sorry to hear of your close call and subsequent loss of power, Mysty. We're following along the news reports, and it looks like you're indeed fortunate to have your daughter relatively close by to provide shelter until the power is restored in your area. Partial power restored this morning, but still a lot of people affected. There are some pretty harrowing stories, and news of some people in critical condition in hospital. A miracle no one was killed. Truly makes one thankful for small mercies.

Lovely pictures on your cruise, spins. Thanks for sharing!

J...I do understand the odd people who enjoy winter. Er.....I mean I understand that, oddly, some people enjoy winter. :) I'm coming up on my 66th experience with the season and I detest it! I do hope that you enjoy your winter! :)

I think you had it right the first time.;p

Speaking of winter - portions of BC and Alberta have skipped over autumn completely and gone directly into winter.

I'm glad to hear things have improved.

Morning all.

Mysty: today's funny just about sums it up.

We too are slowly fueling our rockets, although in my case I'm trying to remove a bit of excess ballast before blast off in 103 days. I've bought a dress for New Years, and am working away at actually fitting into it.

In the meantime, I'm planning a bit of an excursion with a friend who still has to work, but who has gone through some stressful times recently, and so needs a bit of a getaway. We've decided to do a girl's weekend. So I'm busy booking accomodations and making plans. The trip isn't exotic, but it's going to be fun. We're just being tourists in our own backyard. The highlight of the weekend will be a drive from Revelstoke to Nakusp, along (the upper portion of) Arrow Lakes. It's very scenic, and off the usual tourist beat. My friend has lived in BC for over 20 years now, and mentioned that she'd never been to Nakusp, so I said "No time like the present!" As part of my working life I've been to just about every small town in Western Canada, but haven't been traveling much since I retired. It'll be nice to give the ponies a chance to stretch their legs.

Hope everyone is gearing up for, or already enjoying, their more exotic adventures.

We ordered coffee and pastry only and it came on time. We had a mostly lovely tour today in Slovenia.

Service seems hit or miss on the whole ship. We are used to the smiling and welcoming attitudes from the staff. Not so much on this sailing. The staff seem stressed and worried. There is definite tension in the air everywhere!!!

I am a psychologist with a specialty certification in body language. I read people’s stress response for a living.... there is something seriously odd going on here that I have never picked up on with any cruise, let alone Silversea! We are not going to let it ruin our cruise, but this is definitely not the attitude of Silversea we love and enjoy.

We experienced the same level of apparent employee stress on our Shadow cruise to Alaska. The ship had just failed a CDC inspection.

I wonder if the takeover by RC is having a stressing effect on the crew now. My experience with corporate takeovers is there is usually a period of 'evaluation' of existing staff, following by a 'housecleaning'. Most SS crew are on contracts, which may be up for renewal soon. They're probably all very stressed!

Our discussions with crew on previous sailings has indicated that working for SS means they get (got?) paid a decent wage and don't need to depend on tips for their livelihood. Far more important to them is a good review on the customer evaluation, so that their contracts will be renewed.

My previous experience with corporate takeovers involved a family owned business being taken over by a large corporation which was profit driven. (Very similar to what has happened with SS and RC.) With the family owned business, everyone was happy as long as they made money. It was a happy place, with a 'win/win' attitude. Customer service was considered very important. When the private owners sold to the corporation, the whole corporate attitude changed. Instead of being happy with just a profit, the new corporate owners needed to maximize the profit in order to keep the shareholders happy. A period of evaluation took place for the first three months of ownership. At the end of those three months there was the first cleaning out of what the new owners considered to be 'deadweight': employees who were not pulling their weight or executives with many years service who were being paid hefty salaries. Middle managers were assigned jobs for which they were not really qualified, but could be paid lower salaries than the (now departed) executives. Instant ROI.

Next, they evaluated the 'on the ground' employees, and amalgamated services to achieve maximum efficiencies. The 'personal touch' went out the window, and was replaced with a CRM (customer relationship manager) computer program. Customer service, instead of reacting to the needs of the customers, reacted to the algorithms of the CRM. Customer service agents did data entry instead of dealing with clients. During this time the existing staff were extremely stressed.

I believe this might be what is occurring on the ships now: RC has sent someone to oversee the operations and write some sort of evaluation. This is stressing out the existing staff.

The other possibility (this is purely conjecture - I have nothing to back it up) is that RC is in the process of refining the contracts with the SS employees to match their contracts with RC employees. This would be part of the streamlining. SS employees might be offered lower compensation packages (with the thought that 'tips' will make up the difference, seeing as even though the cruises are advertised as 'including tips', but many cruisers tip on top of that, so they can cut back on employee payment). Or, they might be worried that they're about to be bumped from their jobs by RC employees with more seniority. Again, this would be very stressful to existing employees who have been used to 'private' ownership, and are now part of a much larger corporate structure.

The first year of a corporate takeover is usually very stressful. I'm not surprised it's showing up onboard, especially if there haven't been reassurances from upper management. Silence from above, when you're a working minion, is terrifying.

Is the sale of the line completed yet? A question for those of you experienced with buying and selling a company, wouldn’t Silversea have to maintain their earlier performance and sales or risk the deal not going through?

Generally speaking, prior to a sale the selling company will incentivize their sales force to sell as much as possible in order to get the gross sales numbers up as much as possible, while simultaneously lowering costs as much possible. Definitely a 'short term' thinking situation, as the sale price is generally based on recent 'earnings' (income minus outgo). 10 or 15 times earnings is a typical number, depending on how much 'fat' the purchaser perceives exists in the operation that they can trim in order to maximize return on investment. A few savings here and there, a few extra sales due to incentives will be recouped 10 times.

Generally speaking, when a sale is agreed to by the seller and the purchaser, there is a period of discovery to make sure the seller didn't misinform the purchaser on any salient financial matters, and occasionally the current directors will be retained in order to ensure continuity (with a bonus paid if performance objectives are met). However, no large corporation ever buys a smaller one thinking that they are going to make less money. They will see opportunity to make a better return on their investment, and hope the short term actions of the seller during the 'let's make our net and screw the customers' phase don't negatively affect their long term ROI.

Jeff is correct in his analysis of customer service - a company wants to spend its money where it will have net benefit to the company. So if someone has stated that they will never deal with a specific company again, then that company has less incentive to try to placate that customer. Bad press? Part of the analysis.

Morning all. Sounds like 'old home' week with Spins and JP.

And what is this talk of storms? "Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot, we'll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not." There were hurricanes in the Caribbean last year while we were on our TA, and our captain managed to avoid their remnants quite nicely. However we were heading into Montreal, via Iceland and Greenland, not across the open pond directly into the hurricane zone. I hope the captains manage to skirt the big seas on your way.

I enjoyed the funny, mysty, although my version of it includes a housecoat, slippers, a cat, and a glass of red wine.

Yesterday we (meaning my husband) scaled the apple tree in our backyard and picked 130 lbs of apples. That's 6 large paper grocery bags, each with between 20-25 lbs of apples. I'm glad we only have the single tree that produces eating apples! (We have another tree in the back that has Transparent apples -- good for pies and apple sauce, but not for eating -- but we only got about 20 lbs off of that one.) We'll eat as many fresh as we can, share the bounty with friends and family, and then use our handy 'peeler, corer, slicer' to process the rest into freezer bags of apples, which I'll use for pies and apple sauce, etc. over the course of the year. We also have a cidery up the street which will happily take any 'leftovers', so they'll probably end up getting a few as well.

Next up will be the pear tree, which this year is laden. I'm guessing at least 50 lbs. We'll probably pick those in the next few days, and will again eat as much fresh as possible, sharing the wealth with friends and family, and then the rest will be processed for later consumption.

Last year we got home from our TA in the middle of September to find approximately 12 (count) apples on the tree and even fewer pears. I think the bears, deer & raccoons were happy we were gone.

The smoke here on the coast has cleared for the most part - a combination of a few rain showers and some good offshore breezes. However, I did hear reports that 'our' smoke is now in Ireland and the UK. Sorry 'bout that!

Morning all.

Just a word to JP to say 'thanks' for sharing your medical knowledge in such an accessible way. I learn so many things here!

Morning all. It rained overnight here on the west coast, for which we are all very thankful as it settled some of the smoke. Not quite enough to put out any fires, but the rain is now clearing up and blue sky is showing again. Much better than the orange sun we've been seeing lately through the haze. The rain was a nice respite!

That hurricane that is headed to Hawaii can just skip the islands and come straight here. We need that rain to put out the fires.

If it's not one thing, it's another. Feast or famine!

Bookings for reservations and shore excursions opened up earlier this week for our Christmas cruise on the Whisper, so now I'm on official countdown! Last year at this time we were on our TA on the Whisper. I wasn't able to convince DH to do the WC in 2019, but last night he said "So, you REALLY want to do this 2020 WC?" so the hints might be working! I'm bound and determined to get free laundry somehow!

Hope everyone is having a good day.

my.silversea for our Christmas cruise - Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco - only shows one formal night so far - the traditional 'second night out' one (in our case December 21st). We should be having a total of three formal nights.

I'm sort of counting on one of the Christmas days (either Eve or Day) to be formal, and definitely New Years Eve. I've bought a dress for New Years Eve!

(We've been homebodies for many years on New Years Eve, so this is my chance ...)

Perhaps those who have cruised holiday cruises previously can share their experiences?

Greg:

Glad to be of help.

If she's a fan of GF pasta, she might be happy to hear they also offer a gluten free pizza. I tend to avoid GF pizza because of the opportunity for cross contamination in preparation & in the oven and, probably more to the point, I'm not a big fan of pizza to start! (Probably the life time before I knew I was gluten intolerant of having bad reactions to pizza.)

I've found it never hurts to remind them that she needs to be gluten free. I never assume they remember! (Better 30 seconds reminding them than 3 days sequestered in my suite dealing with the ramifications of being glutened.)

I hope you both have a very enjoyable cruise on the Wind in October, and please do post about how things go for both of you on the cruise.

MLeh