CruiserFromMaine

@WNcruiser Another late comer here, but thanks for your great posts!

We live on Portland Harbor, in South Portland, and I got a nice photo of the Zaandam this morning. You’ve got a nice summer day to visit!

I will also add that on our (two) Regent cruises, the early-cruise wine tasting of the included wines was not listed in the chronological list of daily events but as a special off in the margin. We missed it the first cruise. But still lived, obviously…

@gnome12 I think we’re on the same cruise, sailing June 15th. In Flåm, we are booked now on the Flåm Railway tour, your option 1. But thinking about switching to your option 3. We like trains, so that’s our bias. We booked your option 1 in Geiranger. Certainly interested in others’ thoughts on Flåm.

I noticed that too, same cruise. I’m not too worried yet, I suspect they’ll change again. It’s almost a year away.

And therein lies one of the problems with Silversea’s approach. I can in fact book 5 nights in La Dame and block someone else out from booking, then cancel four or even all five reservations once on board at no penalty to me, but others have been shut out and then need to scramble to find an opening after embarking. I much prefer the system Regent uses where you get one reservation at each specialty restaurant per cruise prior to boarding and then you can perhaps get others while on board; it reduces or even eliminates this game.

I just saw this from Barbara Muckerman, on another social media site. It will alleviate some concerns raised here. “I also need to add that all reservations made with historical pricing on Nova will be honored of course, the change is only for new reservations”

After reading the posts here and elsewhere on social media, I agree the Nova rollout was handled poorly (or suboptimally). In fact, if SS is really giving La Dame and Kaiseki a makeover, they should have rolled them out a new restaurants. I think that is better than the confusion over Nova La Dame vs. Dawn La Dame. Maybe called it La Champagne? (Too soon?) Certainly other lines are not universal in their restaurant offerings across their fleets. I think this whole discussion would have been different but then of course there would be self-appointed prognosticators who would claim Nova La Dame was just the camel’s nose in the tent and soon to be rolled out fleet-wide. It’s expensive and needs to be better than what we’re used to in La Dame at that price point but I’m waiting to learn what it’s really like.

The price of La Dame is high on the newer ships, but I recall a wine lunch on Regent that was in the $160pp range and the champagne lunch was even more, over $200pp. La Dame has always been optional and if they spiff up the offerings maybe it’ll be enough of a special event to justify the cost; hard to tell from the email how much spiffing there will be. If it’s just the same La Dame with a much higher price, it’s not worth it especially considering I’m giving up a meal in Atlantide, La Terazza, pool grill or Silver Note. I’ll miss La Dame, though.I’m not going to assume right now, though, that all ships will raise the price and make no changes to La Dame. Kaiseki is less important to me but I’ll miss it a little if it’s the same thing just more expensive.

I won’t be booking La Dame or Kaiseki at those prices. I’ll wait for the free offer when nobody reserves either one. I’ve said before that I wish SS would go to a reservation system like Regent where you get one specialty reservation per restaurant per cruise, or maybe more on a longer cruise. It would remove the phenomenon of people reserving every night then canceling all but one and blocking out others who really want to go.

I don’t recall that they sold food or drinks. I also don’t recall whether there is a toilet but I bet there is. You can call them to find out for sure. https://www.cascobaylines.com

You can just walk up. I don’t think they take reservations.

Not sure what happened to my first reply… Yes, this video was well done and really a compendium of the week as others pointed out. They do a nice job and they’re generally quite positive about all their cruises.

I suspect they don’t actually eat and drink all that they show. I’ve thought the same thing about them and others with cruise videos.

You can ask for other brands. Maybe they have an alternative you’d like better.

When we went to Turkey last month, we were advised to bring “letters of medical necessity” from our doctors for all prescription drugs, which we did. The letters were easy to get. I will add that nobody ever asked for them or even looked to see what we had for drugs. But, I realize that’s just one data point.

Hope you never need one again! We got ours through Amazon. It wasn’t expensive.

I bring an eyeglasses repair kit and an emergency dental repair kit. True confession: haven’t done a world cruise but did a 54 night river cruise vacation.

Portland Lobster is very good with outdoor seating. Everyone has their favorite place, though. Lots of people like Luke’s Lobster. Both are within easy walking distance of the terminal and right on the harbor.

So, I just did some more digging. I don’t know how accurate this source is but it provides some more information. https://www.cruisehive.com/faulty-safety-materials-may-put-dozens-of-cruise-ships-at-risk/105929 This guy blames cruise lines for everything but here is his take. https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2023/07/articles/fires/the-launch-of-mscs-newest-cruise-ship-explora-i-delayed-due-to-faulty-fire-resistant-panels/ And one more article. https://www.ft.com/content/8cfa4fdf-6d8d-486f-8be9-e14cafb36a43 The manufacturer lost its certification which should’ve been good till 2025. It’s unclear why. All the ships passed certification when launched, obviously, but I don’t really know what that means. If it means reviewing the certification of providers, then maybe no more testing was conducted. It appears that ships with panels used before 2020 are ok. This will be a busy weekend for many cruise line execs I imagine. The lawyers will have to clean up this mess too.

We live in Portland and have done the mail boat run a few times. Play it by ear and see what the weather is like. I don’t think it sells out. It’s about 3 hours (a three-hour tour🎶). You can get off briefly at the outermost stop. There’s a general store there to get a snack or an ice cream. As other said, a short ferry ride to Peaks Island is a good option too. You can walk around the island or rent a bike, or get lunch near the ferry terminal. The ferries run frequently during the day and it’s a 15 minute ride or so. The ferries run regularly and reliably. Eastern Cemetery is interesting. But I’m biased, our son gives tours there in the summer!

We did that tour earlier this year and enjoyed it. Wasn’t too long of a bus ride and the ride was interesting.

I sent an email to SS Guest Relations on Tuesday afternoon highlighting the exposure of people’s’ information. I got this email from them yesterday afternoon. We’ll see what I get back from the so-called privacy team. Dear Mr. XXX, Thank you for raising this issue to our attention. The issue is being investigated internally and I am informed that the issue has been contained. I have shared your email with my colleagues in the data privacy team who will come back to you as appropriate in due course. Best regards, Guest Relations Team Silversea Cruises

I agree totally, there is no reason at all to put a passport number on the room key card.