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Glad to be off the ship. Extra day at Lisbon was superfluent. Interconti room was fine, breakfast wasn t even anywhere near 5 star. Had a gourmet burger at BK which was far more tasty than the fatty one I had before on SC. SCs regular crew was ace, very nice butler, very good staff at all the food venues. Officers seemed pretty stand offish to me. Expedition crew was nice but I cannot see any link to an expedition on this very cruise. As for Shore excursions, they tended to differentiate from their description and were not better than on cheaper cruise lines. The Dakar city tour is in need of a major improvement as well as the Ivory Coast one. The food became better during the cruise. If you are a meatlover with a tendancy to rather not so well done meat or prefer your food done with an extra portion of fat and oil you might have enjoyed the food. The Marinara Pizza I ordered was littered with tons of minced fresh garlic, sorry but get the recipe from MSC dear SC. At least we did not skip any ports whilst the Dakhla stop was just a mock camp. The city itself would have been really interesting. The Silversea cruise was an once off and my 63rd cruise will be on the Maasdam. I cannot tell whether I would recommend this cruise or rather not but there will be some less expensive cruise options to choose from as for the West coast of Africa destinations in the yeara to come.

We finally made it to the Ile of Gorée for an evening event. I wouldn t say that the food was excellent and I rather would have donated the money for a good cause. Yesterday we had the Dakhla Highlights and Sahouri Camp. As always the name of the tour sounded better than its content. Virtually it was only a long drive to a mock camp in the desert. On our way back I managed to take some pics of beautiful Ad Dakhla. At the expedition desk I was told that there was nothing to see. The last two stops will be Agadir where TUI cruises and low cost carriers go to and Safi. In general the cruise was only kind of expedition in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast..

Today s tour was the worst I have ever been on. I didn t meet the tour description at all and the guide took us to a shabby market and passed all the picturesque building without stopping anywhere. We were taken to a run down zoo, BG, to a revolting street market and some tourist trap market. Being seated on the right side of the bus I managed to take the following pics somehow. 

I love breakfast since I only have the tasty bircher muesli, the excellent bread. Hash browns and bacon are both utterly fatty and hardvto digest. The donuts were fine at first but it seems to me they are several days old by now and I discontinued having them. Burgers are terrible, the salads are disappointing and la Terrazza is only good for lentil soup and chestnut icecream. I disliked all the main courses I had up there

Both tours, today's and yesterday's were great. We got to see all sides and sites of Freetowns

Food is going from bad to worse. I don t eat neat. Food at the Terrazza is dire as well as at the resto. The only thing I really can recommend is the lentil soup at the Terrazza. If you are into said to be fatty posh food you might be pleased with the food. Elmina castle was fine yesterday but far away from being touchy, the Ivory Coast Grand Bassam was crap. The didint stop at the Yellow Fever monument nor at the Palace. Lots of people were complaining..

First impression on board, all is nice and shining and if you wanna start a diet it is definately the place to be. Water doesn t deserve its name and the food .. let s put it this way I gonna be thin and slim after this cruise

Very unprofessional and chaotic handling at the Labadi hotel

See you in Tema on April 15th !!

This is my very first and also my last time with Silversea. I only book with them becaus of the itinerary. We asked to get our flights ticketed to apply for the Ghana visa. We were promised to get them in time. Now, 13 days before our departure there's still no sign of any tickets thus I contacted them again via my travel agency. That's all I can contribute to your question.

Security reasons...mh..then they should cancel all African ports. WHEN did they approx. tell you:

a) weeks ahead

b) days before departing

c) after embarkation

As for the countries being dangerous

our ministery for foreign affairs says

Togo: risk level 2 out of 5

Cameroon: risk level 2 out of 5

Benin: risk level 2 out of 5

no potential risks has been reported recently, no outbreaks of dangerous diseases. Honestly, this makes me think that booking with Silversea might have been the biggets mistake I have ever made. Nevertheless, I just hope (for them) that they gonna stick to the current itinerary from Tema to some "everybody-has-already-seen" Lisbon. It wasn't even possible to get a flight on the very same day way back home and now we are stuck with some IC hotel in Lisbon and wait another day to get way back home on a 3 hour flight...

You might not know that you are entitled to get a REAL recompensation for all this and not just some 10% off your next cruise. It might take some words of a lawyer but we've had this before on a far better priced cruise liner. They cancelles all Madagascar ports 9 !!! days ahead of our departure and they ended up with a payback of 1020 Euro in cash. They also wanted to fob us off with some ridiculous coupons for the next cruise...

Could the cruiser posting all those pics please reply to my question either in here or by private message when SS communicated all those severe changed to this very itinerary and what kind of reasons were given. The weird thing was that SS cancelled Al Aouin on last year’s cruise as well but repromoted this very port on the 2019 itinerary. “Out of the blue” they learnt that tender or zodiac operations would be far too complicated thus they replaced this exotic destination by a low cost carrier destination called Agadir. Anyway I could talk to you in person since I will join this cruise in Tema and I just hope they gonna stick to the itinerary that was sold to us... 

Yes, Lüderitz is nice but there will be tons of reasonly priced cruise companies that will visit this port from December 2019 onwards. I have been to your next stop Swakopmund (Walvisbaai) and it was interesting as well. Personally, I am only looking forward to seeing pics of those ports in Angola and if you are lucky this time from São Tomé. I can fly into Luanda on Lufthansa and into São Tomé on TAP. This is the only way that visits of those destinations are really guaranteed..

I loved cruising on the Pacific Eden to PNG and Solomon Islands. As for the dress standards they were rather casual. On the other hand we never made it the their restaurants thus we didn’t pack any formal attire either...We are already booked with their itinerary visiting Indonesia and Timor Leste..

I found the following on the net when trying to determine the current position of the SilverCloud. I would have booked it if I had got time off work. If this is really the current and modified itinerary I would be more than furious. A friend of mine also told me that she was on a similar trip on Silversea and they were too clumsy to debark on São Tomé thus they cancelled this island as well. I gather I will fly into Luanda some time and do a cruise on aidamira covering Walvisbaai, Lüderitz and East London. Cancelling Togo, Benin and Cameroon all together and making them see Takoradi 2 times makes me speechless. 

I admire you raving about cities that are less than exotic. I will be joining you in Tema if we ever get our flight ticket issued by Silversea. Think of the poor support they gave us about the Ghana visa.

The reason why I am posting in here is that I originally wanted to book this leg of the cruise as well. Now I found out that Silversea cancelled Togo, Benin and Cameroon on this cruise making you spend additional days in Ghana. When were you told about this and what were the reasons given? I was fed about the message that they changed Al Ouin for the poor tourist resort Agadir. Having a glance at their excursions for Agadir it just makes me wonder why people spend so much money on this cruise line. I have sailed on more than 20 cruise companies so far and I already know that this gonna be my first and last cruise with Silversea. They offer amazing itineraries and finally you end up with ports that cost 6000 Euro less with other companies. Their only reaction was that they were sorry that this change caused upset.