Marstan79

Just disembarked from a Silversea cruise where the food was mediocre to bad. Have been sailing on SS but looking for alternatives. How does Regent compare to SS, particularly in the food and wine arena? TIA

On 2/25/2024 at 1:30 PM, saminina said:

IME, SS standards have been slipping since 2006.  I remember meeting a couple Brits in 2002 that told me standards had dropped so much that they will not return.   The new ships have breathed life into a line that we had lost interest in booking.  It's a fresh product, but hardly luxury. 

 

If I cared at all about food, SS and SB would not make the cut.   A potential problem with Seabourn is that you have two interior bars.  A band of transient players on deck 5 reading lyrics and notes from computer screen and hopefully someone that knows how to play the piano in the observation bar.  Normally passable, but when it is not it can be too painful to tolerate.

 

So many good crew have found their way to the new options that compete for this market segment.

It's time for passengers to think beyond.

So, which line is better for food?

On 2/22/2024 at 12:37 AM, southerngoose said:

@bitob Curious what you have the butler do?   I've never had one so I'm still trying to understand this butler thing.  I'm not going to have them pack/unpack.   I do want them to refill my fridge.  🙂. But beyond that and room service, I'm not sure what they do.  

 

They do lots of things. For instance, our butler just arranged a last minute cocktail party in our suite for 5 friends plus us. He brought drinks, beautiful and extensive canapé selection and “atmosphere “ in the form of electric candles. He also took my broken shoe to the workshop to be repaired. He found a particular bottle of wine for me to have in our suite. He changed dinner reservations for us last minute. I could probably have arranged some of these things myself but with considerably more effort.

We’re currently on one of their cruises. We feel that their food quality has gone way down. Subpar meals almost every night with the exception of The Grill and Kaiseki. Wine selections much harder to come by. Tours have had between 25 and 32 people and have been just so so. Our suite is very nice and the staff continues to be excellent. However, the price is hard to justify considering the very poor food. We have another cruise booked with them for April of ‘25 but are looking to switch to another line. 

5 hours ago, Hlitner said:

I will add that we have always been happy with the taxis in Japan (other than the small size of the cars).  We agree that its best to simply ask at your hotel, but keep in mind that any taxi will happily take you to Yokohama.

 

Hank

3 of us and suitcases are hard to fit in most taxis

We have opted to reserve our own hotel in Tokyo prior to our Silversea cruise in April. Can anyone recommend a private car or van transfer from the hotel to Yokohama port terminal? TIA.

3 hours ago, Gourmet Gal said:

This just happened to us.  On a Rome to Barcelona cruise the SS hotel in both cities was adequate and in good locations so we kept the D2D booking so be able to use the SS transfers in both cities.  Significant in Rome, not so much in Barcelona.  They changed the Barcelona hotel to a convention hotel at the port that was totally unacceptable so they refunded those nights and we booked our own in a lovely boutique hotel.  We normally book our own air and hotel and use car services to and fro but this particular cruise seemed acceptable as a D2D.  It was annoying that in Barcelona SS changed a very nice, centrally located hotel to something pretty awful and BTW much cheaper.  None of these hotels seem to be SS level either.

 

As for Tokyo, if you’ve not been before I can highly recommend FS Marunouchi, FS Otemachi or Peninsula.  Tokyo is my favorite city!  You do not want to be staying in Yokohama.  Transportation from the airport and to the port is easy.  

Thank you very much for the recommendations. Do you have any car services to recommend?

1 hour ago, bohaiboy said:

We are on the Yokohama - Tokyo-Seward on April 16.  SS offered those who took SS Air a free night, presumably at the Conrad, and as quoted if you wanted to book the Conrad separately it was around $1000 per night per room.   We are now two months out and no one has been notified of the hotel.  Keep in mind that the SS hotels include airport transfers and hotel-to-ship transfers.  We are flying independently so we had to book our own hotels.  That led us to fly to Haneda vs Narita and book a brand new Hilton in Yokohama for less than $150/night.

That being said, we are using SS Air to Copenhagen in September.  And using SS Hotel.  It was around USD 500/night, but if we wanted to arrive a day early (have spent a lot of time in CPH so no need to see the city again), we would have had to pay an air deviation fee of $300, provided our own transport from AP and Hotel to ship, and would have spent another $200-300 on hotel, so sometimes iit works out better.  Good luck.

SS has agreed to return the money we paid for the extra night Tokyo hotel, which was significant at $1000 plus. We will book our own hotel and it will be in Tokyo, not Yokohama. We will lose out on the SS transfers but the alternative was not good for us. We have learned a lesson from this: book our own hotel so we have control of where we stay.

43 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

 

We are doing our first SB cruise in September, so cannot comment on SB.

 

As for O vs SS - I posted a comparison post 

 

 

To me the main differences are: SS is more inclusive, have better cabins and butler in each cabin. If those things are important, SS has an edge. For people like us who don't drink and prefer booking private tours, O is a better value, but we will gladly sail on both given the right itinerary and price. O newer ships are ~1,200 guests, but never feel crowded. Service is excellent on both in my opinion, food slightly better on O (again, my opinion only).

Thank you. What a great review! Very helpful.

3 hours ago, alexandria said:

 

Perhaps Silversea terms and conditions or consumer protection laws are different for AUS based passengers but for US passengers, Silversea's terms and conditions specifically allows them to change hotels even if the new hotel is inferior to the one expected.  In that case, the consumer has no recourse if outside the cancellation period.

 

I always book air and hotels independently.  It allows me to have control over the process, select the exact airline, flights and seats I want (or the exact hotel and room), make changes as I desire, and I nearly always find better airfare and hotel prices myself than what the cruise line will charge.  While I know some report that on occasion they have found cruise line pricing on airfares or hotels to be lower than booking independently, I personally have never found that to be the case.

 

Here's a data point:  On a sailing embarking Seward and disembarking Tokyo, with flights out of Atlanta Silversea charges about $2k for economy air and $11k for business class.  I found business class fares on Delta to Anchorage (1 stop) and from Tokyo (non-stop Delta One suite) for a total of just over $8k.  So I saved $3k and booked the most direct flights possible on a quality carrier.  If I had booked through Silversea, they could have (and likely would have) routed me on flights with more stops on an inferior carrier with less desirable seat locations.

 

As far as transfers, except in limited cases, I also handle those arrangements myself.  For most major cities, the convenience and price of an Uber or taxi is much better than paying cruise line pricing to ride a transfer bus with dozens of other passengers.  If you've ever disembarked and then sat on a cruise line transfer bus for an hour or more waiting for it to "fill up" before it leaves for the airport, you'll understand what I'm talking about.  For me the exception is when the cruise line provides a transfer to/from the airport or hotel to/from cruise terminal where independent arrangements are much more difficult or costly. 

 

For example, Silversea provides complimentary motorcoach transfers from Anchorage to Seward for cruises leaving out of Seward.  Because Seward is 125 miles or so from Anchorage, the primary transfer options are motorcoach (included) or train ($150-$200pp).   Other options are very costly unless you have three or more sharing a transfer (one-way car rental is $650+ and taxi/Uber is $500+).  So in that case, I'll stick with the included Silversea transfer.

 

Hope that is helpful!

Very helpful! Thank you.

3 hours ago, ak1004 said:

For our upcoming cruise from Venice, we asked SS to quote is a hotel. They gave us a quote of $2,500 USD for 2 nights at Monaco & Grand Canal, right? Booking independently was $1,500 USD for 2 nights.

 

In some cases people reported that SS quoted them price per person which was the same as booking independently PER ROOM, so the price was basically double.

 

So please help me to understand: why would anyone book a hotel via SS (unless of course it's included in the price)?? 

I see you’ve traveled on various of the smaller ship cruise lines. Do you have a preference between SS, Oceania, Seabourn? We’d like to stick with ships that are smaller 500 -800 or so.

1 hour ago, ak1004 said:

 

I guess it's the same with flights and ship excursions.. 

we are guilty of #3 and 4

2 hours ago, ak1004 said:

For our upcoming cruise from Venice, we asked SS to quote is a hotel. They gave us a quote of $2,500 USD for 2 nights at Monaco & Grand Canal, right? Booking independently was $1,500 USD for 2 nights.

 

In some cases people reported that SS quoted them price per person which was the same as booking independently PER ROOM, so the price was basically double.

 

So please help me to understand: why would anyone book a hotel via SS (unless of course it's included in the price)?? 

2 hours ago, ak1004 said:

For our upcoming cruise from Venice, we asked SS to quote is a hotel. They gave us a quote of $2,500 USD for 2 nights at Monaco & Grand Canal, right? Booking independently was $1,500 USD for 2 nights.

 

In some cases people reported that SS quoted them price per person which was the same as booking independently PER ROOM, so the price was basically double.

 

So please help me to understand: why would anyone book a hotel via SS (unless of course it's included in the price)?? 

It makes the whole process easier since they will handle all of the transfers between airport/hotel/ship. But certainly not worth it if you are paying exorbitant prices for the hotel or, as in our case, they charge us a price for one hotel and then move us to a considerably less desirable and less costly one. What I hope to learn from all of you vastly more experienced cruisers is if this is common in the “luxury” segment of the industry or just SS.

8 hours ago, drron29 said:

So you paid Silversea for an extra night at the Conrad and they are switching that to the Westin Yokohama. As you paid for the Conrad that extra night fee must be refunded to you so you can then book your night in Tokyo.

But Japanese hotel prices have skyrocketed since they re opened to tourism and Cherry blossom time is peak tourist season so hotels are always more expensive For example the Conrad on April 1st is from $US720 now.

And it is possible by train to get from Tokyo Station to Sakuraguchigo station in Yokohama which is the closest station to the Westin in 33 minutes. We have done it last year as we stayed at the IC Yokohama before boarding the Muse.

 

As well one day in Tokyo won't even get you to all the main attractions. We have visited over 50 times and still find new things to do.

We have been in Tokyo before so 2 nights is fine and since our air is ready booked, we are there 2 nights regardless. We don’t want to pay 4 times the going rate for a hotel and in a city that is not what we were promised. We have gone ahead and independently reserved a room in Tokyo that is refundable until 48 hours before our arrival hoping that SS will refund us. 

21 minutes ago, taxatty said:

With regard to hotels, if you independently book extra nights at the Silversea pre or post cruise hotel, and you have elite status with the hotel group in question, the hotel may provide you with an upgraded room and your elite benefits (such as early/late check out times, use of a special lounge, etc.) for your entire stay period. This most recently was the case for us at the Hilton Darwin.

21 minutes ago, taxatty said:

With regard to hotels, if you independently book extra nights at the Silversea pre or post cruise hotel, and you have elite status with the hotel group in question, the hotel may provide you with an upgraded room and your elite benefits (such as early/late check out times, use of a special lounge, etc.) for your entire stay period. This most recently was the case for us at the Hilton Darwin.

Did you contact the hotel directly ahead of time or ask the cruise line to do this?

1 hour ago, wyocruiser said:

Actually, the Antarctica cruise is the first time I let a cruiseline book a hotel for me, and I only did it this time because it was included as part of an expedition cruise.

54 minutes ago, wyocruiser said:

You may have noticed that I was in Japan last year. If you only have a day or two in Tokyo, you do not want to stay in Yokohama. All of your time will be taken up by transportation. You may still be able to see the cherry blossoms in Tokyo, and that experience will easily consume an entire day.

We have been to Tokyo and Japan before, although traveling independently. The one thing I don’t like about cruising is the lack of control of the details. Do you book your own air and transfers, too? Pretty new to cruising and trying to learn….

I see you’ve been cruising for a while. Has this happened to you with other cruise lines?

Yes, I understand that they can do this. But they will seriously piss us off and we will likely cancel the next cruise we already have booked with them. We encouraged 3 other couples to go with us on the next one ( they booked) and they will need to know that Silversea is not behaving honorably. Have you encountered this before with them or other cruise lines?

Hello all,

We are getting ready to go on our 3rd Silversea cruise: Yokohama to Yokohama April 3. When we booked the cruise we requested an additional pre night in Tokyo.At that time, the advertised hotel was the Conrad in downtown Tokyo. We were invoiced $550 pp for that hotel. Suddenly, Silversea has changed the hotel to the Westin in Yokohama which has a published rate of $250 night , not pp. Not only is it very inconvenient and denies us the Tokyo experience we wanted but really unhappy about being charged 4 times the going rate. Our TA is looking into it but in the meantime we’d like some advice on what to do. Since they just published the change 2 days ago, we are within the 60 day window for no reimbursements. It seems very underhanded, like a bait and switch. Has anyone had this experience with Silversea or other luxury cruise line? We are relatively new to cruising, having traveled previously only once with Crystal, once with Viking and twice with Silversea. Is this normal?

TIA.

Silversea has announced that the pre-cruise hotel in Athens will be the King George. Can anyone recommend a close by restaurant ?

Hello,

Our TA is offering us Silver Suite 1115 on the Silver Moon but we notice it is next to the launderette. Should this be a cause for concern? Appreciate any input. Thank you!

This is our first time on Silversea. Can anyone advise on dress code for dinner? There re no formal nights listed. TIA!

Thanks!

Can we pay with credit card or is cash needed? Thank you.

Hello, Can anyone offer advice on taxis from airport to cruise ship? We are 4 adults with luggage. Fare? Need to book ahead?

Any info appreciated.