LAL Cruiser

Jackets were never required on Causal Evenings onboard under the Classic Dresscode. The first and last night were always casual, as well several evenings during the cruise including nights when the ship would overnight in a port of call. I agree...if Elegant Casual slips to jeans and shorts then we have a problem.

We are looking forward to our Christmas/New Years Holiday cruise on Silver Nova, we are cruising from Lima to Port Everglades via the Panama Canal. I just checked mysilversea.com as we are approaching the Restaurant Reservations date, we still have a few days to go, but then accidently discovered that our port times in at least 4 ports of call have been shortened. Very strange! We lost 3 hours of time in Guayaquil and Cartagena (both overnight stays so not such a big deal) but also one hour in Salaverry and 3 hours in Kingston, Jamacia. (This makes for a very short 700am to 100pm stay in Kingston, the most curious/unexpected port on the cruise.) In some cases, our Silversea booked shore excursions conclude after the Silver Nova has departed, making for a very funny graphic on the mysilversea.com Activities page. (I understand that the excursions and timing will be adjusted and am not complaining, it is just bizarre.) I must say that I find this very very odd - to have timings changed (shortened) for so many ports on one cruise itinerary is unusual and something that we have not previously encountered (and we have cruised often over the past 30 years and mostly on Silversea.) What's up? Has anyone else noticed this with respect to their Silver Nova itineraries - have other itineraries been modified? I am guessing these changes are related to the Silver Nova itself and being a newly introduced vessel. Is Silver Nova's cruising speed a bit slower than projected? Is it something else? The bad joke is that No va, in Spanish, means doesn't go! 😀

Thanks for the clarification....Broker and Tucson Guy.

Time are changing, and the new more flexible dress code on the Nova is the future and will work its way over to the other classic ships; part of the problem is that Expedition already dropped the dress code and this is confusing passengers. You can still dress for dinner if you like; with more and larger ships to fill up on a weekly basis at higher prices, this an an understandable marketing move. We may not like it, but Silversea can no longer afford to "lose potential passengers" because said individuals find traditional dress codes objectionable. Silversea does say that jackets will be required for men on Formal Optional nights (Resort Casual plus jacket) which should help....you will not get the Regent affect of the dining rooms looking like the 19th hole at the country club each and every evening. I can live with this compromise: it is when one group is wearing tank tops and shorts to dinner while other want to dress that it becomes problematic and creates conflict. We have all witnessed the ""sir, you need to wear a tie to dinner this evening - its a formal night " discussions at Atlantide and that argument is a loser and needless. IMPORTANT QUESTION - so what is the story at La Dame, which on the Nova was supposed to be Formal evening night, now what?? Is La Dame Formal Optional every night, will it follow the standard dress code (as it does on other ships) or something else? I know that I am confused.

Good point, I am confused. The increased charge is supposed to cover the cost of upgraded wine pairs. Why would prices be listed for the better wines if said wines are included? Are the listed wines Super Premium wine pairing suggestions? This is getting a little silly - when the increased prices for La Dame on Silver Nova first were announced, I was not happy but gave Silversea the benefit of the doubt that the New La Dame would be an enhanced experience with even better food and wines; well, the menus look very familiar and if the premium wines are not really included, then I am very disappointed. Paring and standard white wine with fish and a standard red wine with meat dishes certainly does not justify increased prices. See Silversea site: Per guest reservation fee of US$60 and US$160 (incl. complimentary wine pairing) for Silver Nova This all needs to be sorted about, and as I stated above, the relaunch of the extra change restaurants on the Silver Nova with increased prices has been very poorly handled by Silversea. Separate question: what is the dress code at La Dame on the Nova; I thought that I read that it was going to be formal all of the time, but formal is OUT on the Nova and dressing for dinner is now optional. Any ideas? We are on the Nova Holiday cruise -by then this will be worked out. We will try the "new and improved" La Dame, why not, and am hoping to see some value for the upcharge.

What exactly do you want Silversea to do? Tell parents to leave their children at home? Send parents to pre-cruise parenting classes? Seriously? When travelling over the summer holiday periods or school vacation periods, from time to time, children will be on board and hopefully their parents will supervise them. I agree that Silversea is a poor choice for families with few activities for kids, but Silversea is not an ""Adult Only" line, and should not be criticized for having a few children onboard. We have done so many Silversea cruises over the past 25 years, on all of their ships, and only occasionally were youngsters onboard and generally those children were part of multi-generational families travelling together and were a pleasure to be around. As another poster mentioned, having children onboard can happen on any (luxury) cruise line - and, at times, I would rather deal with the kids than some very needy adults.

Hi. On several occasions, we independently booked accommodation at the same pre/post cruise hotel as utilized by Silversea. We did not use (or want to use) the Silversea transfers. If you want to use the Silversea transfers, that would need to be prebooked via Silversea before departure and generally these types of service are available (on an a la carte basis) but sometime they are not. - reach out to Silversea (or your travel agent) to see if these transfers are available and determine the cost involved. This service cannot be arranged "on demand" at the airport: Silversea would need your flight arrival number and time in advance and no one ""on the ground"" can handle payments. We have discovered that Silversea is rather expensive with ancillary products such as this and you probably are better off booking transfers on your own. In CPH, we used a company called limos4copenhagen (booked online) for a CPH airport to Marriott hotel transfer and had very good service and excellent vehicles. We have also used Blackstone in the Scandinavian countries (recently for a Stockholm airport direct to cruise ship transfer) and was pleased; we discovered that local private car/limo services are limited at these destinations. Private car service/limos are rather expensive in Copenhagen, Stockholm, etc. but it was worth it as we do not travel light, taxi vehicles are smaller in Europe (that said every second car in Denmark now seems to be a Tesla), and having a luxury van waiting for us that can take us plus our luggage without a drama or discussions just makes life easier. I hope this helps.

Thank you for the heads-up! We are still more than 120 days out from departure so it is too soon to make reservations, but La Dame and Kaiseki now showup as Restaurants offered. The prices listed are the increased fees. Hopefully, at least the IT issue is resolved. Silversea has done a very underwhelming job with the launch of the re-imagined upcharge restaurants on Nova: increased charges appearing without proper notice, no genuine explanation of the price increases setting forth why the restaurants are so much more expensive on Nova when compared to the other vessels, and then the IT glitches. That said, of course we plan on trying the new products! Again, thanks.

Yes, we are on the Nova for the Lima to Port Everglades cruise. We are doing a 5 night Belmond Orient Express package in Lima/Cusco/train/Machu Pichu pre cruise; my partner and I have a home in Fort Lauderdale and spend most of the winter there - thus we end up "at home" with no further travel necessary. That is a good thing! We are excited about the entire trip (Machu Pichu has been planned and cancelled for a variety of reasons many times) and my partner really likes the idea of being away for the holidays. And, experiencing a new ship will be a treat - everything will be clean, pretty and new and Silversea will have had 5 month to work out any issues that arise. Friends from Fort Lauderdale are doing the entire trip with us (land + cruise), plus another couple from Amsterdam (who we met on a Silversea cruise years ago and became very close with) shall also be doing the cruise with us. All have done many many cruises and are Silversea regulars. The Amsterdam guys did a "drive by" of the Nova last week when she was in Amsterdam and said she was beautiful - as a matter of fact, they visited us on the Belgian coast last weekend and we mapped out the entire trip, tours and attempted dining plans; we also had a long discussion over very expensive La Dame. LOL. Of course, we are going to try it. Silver Nova today is at sea today, off the Spanish coast, and headed to Messina in Sicily. I will update when I hear from our very good friend who is the travel agent doing the intro cruise (ex-Venice) next week - he is not our travel agent, dont mix business and pleasure!!

A dear friend, who is a travel agent and major producer for Silversea, was invited for a familiarization trip on the Nova - a 4 day Venice to Venice cruise - for travel professionals and press. This cruise is scheduled for next week and I have already presented him with a list of questions. He also promised some pictures. I will post after he returns. I agree that the fanfare leading up to Nova's launch is minimal - remember, Nova is the first of a new generation of ship that will influence the path that Silversea takes going forward. I expected a lot more: so far, the build-up has been limited to some You Tube videos (posted by third parties) of her sail out, a picture of a few Silversea executives accepting delivery of the vessel, a debacle concerning the relaunch and repricing of the La Dame and Kaiseki offerings, and problems being experienced by future Nova passengers with mysilversea.com restaurant bookings. Not great! Barbara M is noticeable by her silence (there was actually more publicity with Endeavour.) Royal Carib certainly know how to create interest and excitement with the introduction of a new ship and product (look at how the Celebrity Edge class launch, for example) but, yet, we are not hearing or seeing much about Silver Nova. This is strange. Silver Nova spent a few days in Amsterdam last week (those of us who watch Cruisemapper were aware) to accept some deliveries - friends of ours who live in Amsterdam, and who are joining my partner and I on the Holiday Cruise, drove by and caught a look at her and were most impressed. Silver Nova is a cutting edge ship in so many ways: I know that I am excited, but why is Silversea being so quiet??

Looking forward to celebrating the holiday aboard; and hoping that Silversea resolves the mysilversea.com issue for restaurant reservations very soon. We are most interested in the new La Dame product (see other thread) and we are cautiously optimistic that the increased price will be justified. A friend who is a travel agent will be doing a familiarization cruise onboard the Nova later next week: I already provided a list of questions including whats going on in the Restuarants.

We are also on the Nova Holiday cruise - note that Christmas (not Christmas Eve) and New Year's are scheduled as Formal Nights. We will try for La Dame on New Years Eve and do Atlantide for Christmas Eve - we are hoping that the larger restaurant will be more festive for the holiday evening. We shall see. My guess is that the Atlantide menu will be more influenced by holiday and offer some traditional favourites - the La Dame menu usually does not vary. That said, it is hard to be sure what will be offered with the "new and improved" and expensive La Dame onboard on the Nova. Not sure what you mean by one dinner for two? And, as dinner reservations are not yet available for the Nova Holiday cruise (more than 120 days out), how did you lock into La Dame for Christmas? Right now, La Dame (and the Japanese restaurant ) are not even listed on mysilversea.com for this sailing (allegedly due to IT issues that should be corrected soon.) I am sure that dinner will be lovely at all of the restaurants onboard. As for the complaints, I would not take them very seriously; so many posters truly follow that old saying: If you cannot complain, you must be dead.....so keep complaining.

Let me start by saying that I too am a bit shocked the drastic increase in the upcharge amount for La Dame and Kaiseki on Silver Nova. My partner and I enjoy dining at each of these venues while onboard Silversea (we are very loyal passengers) and an evening at La Dame is something that we always look forward to; we never objected to the previous supplemental charges (as many seem to do) and accepted that those charges were imposed primarily to regulate demand and inventory for these intimate restaurants (although that theory became a bit harder to support when the enlarged La Dame appeared on the Moon and Dawn.) The food and service at La Dame and Kaiseki were always exceptional in our experiences. I am very curious to learn exactly what Silversea has in mind with these products - they must have something new and exciting and different planned to justify the dramatic price increases. While I agree that Royal Carib is revenue oriented, by now, Royal understands the Silversea product and its passengers and they have realized the price increases aboard Nova (and Ray) would be controversial. (Hello, Barbara M!) Silversea's biggest strength is its huge volume of repeat and loyal passengers - and these prices increases are not going to make that group happy unless there is a very good reason to support such price increases! We need to wait and see what exactly is included in the La Dame and Kaiseki menus, wines and experience; I am thinking and hoping that Silversea has come up with something extraordinary that goes beyond a better cut of meat and a better glass of wine. That La Dame is "Formal" each and every night (another controversial move in an era when it is becoming more and more difficult to enforce the daily dress code) is, I think, a big clue that dining at La Dame on the Nova (and Ray) is going to be something very special. Royal Carib does know how to imagine and create over-the-top products (look at the Icon of the Seas or Celebrity Edge ships - these ships are not for us but are ground breaking and breathe taking) and I think that the newly recreated and very expensive La Dame will be one of those very special products; I hope that I am right. The SALT Lab experience also seems interesting - this is a "Chef's Table" experience (always pricey) that I look forward to experiencing. We generally do 12 to 16 night cruises and welcome more and more dining choices. (That said, we are also happy on the smaller ships and enjoy dinner in the Restaurant each and every night so go figure.) We can all agree that Nova and Ray will introduce many changes to the Silversea product and we need to be prepared for some surprises along the way. We are doing the 16 night Holiday Cruise on the Silver Nova (Lima to Port Everglades with a pre-cruise adventure to Lima/Cusco/Machu Pichu) and plan on dining at La Dame, Kaiseki and doing the SALT Lab experience (if possible) - even with the increased costs. We are curious to see what Silversea has come up with and are hoping that these restaurants (especially La Dame) will have evolved into something truly extraordinary and memorable. We shall see. (I am also curious to hear if the increased costs make their way to the other ships - I think that it is inevitable - especially on the Moon and Dawn with their larger format La Dame space.) What I find strange is that on mysilversea.com for our December cruise, La Dame and Kaiseki have totally "disappeared" from the Restaurant choices on the daily reservation pages. We are still more than 120 days from departure, so it is too early to make reservations anyway, and I assume and hope that the mysilversea.com reservation system will be updated by the time we reach the 120 day milestone. The Silversea IT department needs to get this in order in the coming weeks. We are giving Silversea the benefit of the doubt for now: let's hope that the product and experience being developed for La Dame, Kaiseki, and SALT Lab on Silver Nova justify the price being imposed.

Suggestion: Make sure that your Venetian number is properly entered with respect to the booking that is not properly showing on mysilversea.com. I has a similar issue - that my travel consultant worked out - and we figured out that my personal Venetian number was not entered during the reservation process and thus the booking was no where to be found when I opened mysilversea.com. Once the venetian number was entered/corrected, the booking showed up within hours. Take a look at your confirmation/option - if the venetian number is blank or incorrect on that form - then the booking will not land in the my bookings portion of mysilversea; do the same for your partner/spouse. If there is a problem, call your agent and he/she can easily fix this issue. Keep us updated and good luck.

Yes, we will be onboard. Our first gay cruise in years....hoping that it will be fun.