badgerdee

We’re on Muse right now. There is simply no comparison to be made with Diamond Princess. When we dock in Sydney on Tuesday, Muse heads to NZ.
 

As far as we know, there’s no change to the forward itinerary, which is freely available on the Silversea website. Hope you enjoy Alaska, we loved it. 

Wonder why they don’t fly you Thai Airways to Sydney, then Qantas to HNL. Both of these are direct flights and would mean you don’t need to go hours in the wrong direction! Best of luck to you.

Have just spoken to Silversea in Sydney. For our Pacific cruise, people originating from, or visiting or transiting through, mainland China and Hong Kong in the past two weeks will not be able to board Muse. And, at this stage, the cruise itinerary has not changed and the ship is expected to make all ports. . 

We are due to sail from Sydney on 18 February on Muse for a 14 day Pacific cruise. Two of the ports are now closed (Lifou and Isle of Pines). We haven’t heard this through Silversea, so not sure what ports (if any) will be substituted. We don’t mind sea days however given this route is popular with families, I do wonder how kids will be kept entertained if many ports are inaccessible. 

On 8/13/2019 at 6:35 AM, badgerdee said:

We have two GTY bookings, one on Muse and the other on Cloud. Could you let us know how you got on with your booking?

 

Part of me is expecting the worst suite on the ship (still pretty good by any standard!) and the other half of me is crossing fingers for an upgrade!

Okay, we were advised last week our GTY suite for our November 2020 cruise is now confirmed as a mid ship Verandah suite. Great news!

No word yet on the GTY suite for our February 2020 sailing but to be honest we didn’t expect to heard anything on either cruise until much closer to sail dates. 

We have two GTY bookings, one on Muse and the other on Cloud. Could you let us know how you got on with your booking?

Part of me is expecting the worst suite on the ship (still pretty good by any standard!) and the other half of me is crossing fingers for an upgrade!

We have just paid our deposit for our Silver Cloud Antarctic cruise in November 2020 so we will also be following along.

I read your review on the FB page and must say I thought you got a rough deal for what is a balanced and objective post! I've also read a few other posts there that made me think it's not the most welcoming part of the Web. 

If it's any comfort, we've done about 10 Silversea cruises now. The WiFi is consistently poor and, depending on where you are on any given ship, you will encounter some cigarette smoke. We have never been successful with pre-ordering minibar items. We just ask as soon as we board and the items usually turn up on or about day two. Embarkation day and leaving day are always chaotic.

Random lack of seemingly basic items sometimes occurs - one our last Singapore to Sydney cruise the bar ran out of mint coming into a period of a couple of sea days. Not a big deal to some, but when your favourite hot weather cocktail is a mojito it does take on some significance! Never mind, that was the cruise we embraced frozen margaritas instead!

We keep coming back because the crew is wonderful (although not convinced the butler service is totally necessary), the itineraries suit us and we like what we know and know what we like. Silversea for us continues to have more benefits than not, but understand too that others may not agree. Do hope you enjoy the rest of your cruise! 

We took advantage of the business class fare offer combined with our cruise last year. We liaise with Silversea AU direct and  we couldn’t have flown business class to Europe for the price Silversea offered. We were also able to specify the airline we preferred. The hotel pre-cruise wasn’t included. 

The routing was perfect - we flew from SYD into LHR, then made our own way to Venice to meet the ship, disembarked in Monte Carlo, made our own way to Paris and flew home to SYD from CDG. We won’t travel BA so Silversea booked us on Qatar (which codeshares with BA - but they ensured we weren’t routed on BA legs). 

The experience was so positive that we’ll take advantage of these offers where we can. Good luck!

We were on the Venice to Monte Carlo voyage, one cruise before yours (I think).

Our butler and steward looked after us and others on deck 5 as well as several suites on deck 4. But were always responsive and pleasant.

We agreed our sailing was one of the best we’ve had for a while; much of this was due to the friendliness and professionalism of the crew. Perhaps some of the crew changed over at some point between our cruise and yours and are finding their feet?

However we did observe two instances of leaks during our trip. The first was water pouring through a light fitting above the stairs on deck eight. The second was when the wheelchair accessible suite on deck 5 flooded. There was also quite a whiff around the Venetian lounge at times particularly in port. The leaks were fixed, the whiff wasn’t.

Hopefully your cruise experience will continue to improve from here!

I am interested in Silver Wind.

I am hoping to see better results from these posts.

You may want to change the title of your thread in that case.

We’ve sailed on Wind but not for a few years. We enjoyed her.

We are on Whisper at the moment, sailing from Venice to Monte Carlo. It is the European summer so we expected a couple of families. Indeed, there are several including an extended family group numbering around 20, the youngest being 3.

There are many other kids ranging from 2 up to mid teens. By and large, all have behaved and parents and nannnies have ensured other guests are not troubled (although there have been some rumblings from guests at times). This includes when the kids use the pool.

We could do without the table tennis setup which attracts the kids like moths to a flame but to be fair, this is set up on the smoking side of the pool deck that we don’t frequent anyway.

We wouldn’t choose a family oriented line because we seek something quite different from our cruises. However this cruise, with its many children, has not been the trial it potentially might have been.

My father took this upgrade a year or two ago. He opined the suite was smaller than the normal Vistas on deck 4.

He also reported some noise from the Owners Suite through the connecting door but I think this really might be luck of the draw, as it is with all neighbours!

Greetings from Taormina, where we’re currently aboard Whisper. She is a lovely ship and we’re very envious of your world cruise.

We are looking forward to our world cruise in 2026 when we retire. Until then we love following along on blogs like yours and doing as many shorter cruises as we can.

Thanks for taking us along with you!

We boarded in Venice the day you left. I can’t pretend to write as well as you but perhaps I’ll start my own thread and give it a shot!

Thanks again and safe travels home.

Simple. Opt ins are ethically sound. Opt outs are not, they promote inertia and catch people who miss the explanation and cannot be bothered or are embarrassed to visit reception and have it removed.

 

 

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Totally agree. We do not disagree with the concept, more so the way it is collected.

We support a number of charities of our choice at home. At sea, we prefer to contribute to the crew welfare fund.

Thanks for posting, sounds like you’re having a wonderful trip.

We are boarding Whisper in Venice on Saturday 18th August and very much looking forward to it.

My other half always wears a dinner jacket on formal nights. I've been trying to get him into a kilt for years but so far no luck (his family is Scottish).

Wear whatever is most comfortable (within the recommended guidelines). Everyone scrubs up well, in our experience.

Thanks for these really informative posts.

We are looking forward to our Whisper cruise between Venice and Monte Carlo in a few short weeks and have already decided to try Vino Vino when we're in Venice the night before.

May be the first of the RCL changes?

I understand that they are doing away with the Terrace suites by the 2020 world cruise on the Whisper. Do not know about the Shadow.

Well now, this is bad news for us. We are Terrace suite converts and tend to favour booking Shadow and Whisper cruises because of them.

Thanks for the update. We will miss Flavio. We always look out for him when we board.

The so called “Charity” charge is awful. The fix is easy; just ask Reception to remove this charge when you register. Then, if you’d like, make a donation to The Crew Fund. The money collected goes towards both crew family emergencies and crew celebrations. We’ve done this for years as have many other passengers.

Yes, this is what we do too. We donate to charities of our choice throughout the year but onboard we donate to the Crew Fund. There is never any issue at Reception with cancelling the charge and the hard-working crew really benefit from the Crew Fund donation.

Thanks for your trip report. We've tossed up whether to do this cruise, since it's in our patch of the world, so this has provided valuable insight.

JP, thanks for your comprehensive reply! Very much appreciated! I think we have settled on a day on Capri and thanks to your advice, we will likely do it ourselves.

Easter Island is on our bucket list so reading this with interest.

As an aside, we have booked directly with the same Silversea agent for our past three cruises and received an on board credit every time. We have had to ask for it but one has always been provided. Even with our most recent booking which is, in our opinion, a bargain because of the business class air deal.