Randyk47

For sure. 👍😀

Finally Lois! 😀👍

We’ve switched…actually delayed….out of our planned Shadow trans-Panama Canal cruise in December to the Nova’s trans-Panama Canal in April 2024. Basically the same itinerary of Ft Lauderdale to San Francisco

Now all of a sudden we’re interested and watching closely. We just today had to switch our trans-Panama Canal cruise on the Shadow in December to the same basic itinerary on the Nova April 2024. Was looking forward to the Shadow and now have to switch gears to a whole new ship and design. 👍

Same here Mysty. 🙁 Surprisingly already heard from our TA. She says she’ll work it tomorrow and doesn’t see an issue. Worst case is a Deluxe Verandah guarantee but there really are no bad cabins as far as I can see. Not like the Nova is out there right now with passengers to give feedback.

I enjoyed watching the coronation of King Charles III. Big difference and a long time ago from when I was a six year old boy standing in the small village of Somerton in Oxfordshire, England waiving the British flag and shouting Long Live the Queen. Long Live the King!

Kind of my thinking. Obviously want to support our friends and have them cruise with us. Really wanted to try the Shadow but being on the then still very new Nova is attractive. Mrs K is okay with it as it takes some pressure off around Christmas which she typically goes all out decorating, etc.

It seems that under RCL Silversea has changed its policy. Back before the purchase Silversea was pretty adamant about not discounting upgrades. We had a discussion about that with the hotel director on the Spirit as there were a number of Silver Suites vacant on our 18-day cruise. She said she didn’t have the authority to offer a discounted upgrade without corporate approval and her previous attempts with the then Silversea management had been turned down. Might add it was a pleasant conversation and we were just wondering why they didn’t allow that at the time. She said their position was it would be “insulting” to passengers who had paid the full fare in the first place.

Looks like we will be pulling the plug so to speak on our booked Shadow trans-Panama Canal cruise December 27, 2023 - January 15, 2024. 😢 Our cruise partners’ daughter just told them she is expecting her first baby and is due around the embarkation date. It really is a case of modern medicine miracle as she is in remission from leukemia and had to have in vitro assistance to get pregnant. She and her husband live in Qatar and she would like her mother to be there when the baby comes so no way she can make the cruise. I have sent an email to our shared TA about moving our bookings to the Silver Nova that will be doing an almost identical itinerary in April 2024. There appear to be cabins available at about the same fare so I’m fairly sure we can make it happen. Worst case is we can’t get the bookings so our friends would drop out and we’d stick with the Shadow. 🤞

Only if you pay the full fare difference between your cabin category and a higher (upgrade???) category. Until you get into Silver Suites and above there really is much difference in the various verandah suite categories other than location.

The more you bring the less they have to supply. Works for them and for passengers who have specific tastes or find something in a port they’d like to try. 👍

The one and only time we are dinner in our cabin was after a long day in Florence when the ship was docked in Livorno. We got back to the ship in time for regular dinner but didn’t want to rush to get cleaned up and change our attire. Helped that was one cruise we were in a larger Medallion Suite and our butler set up a nice table for us. In the Superior/Deluxe Suites we typically book now I really can’t see a dinner in the cabin. We frequently do get coffee, juices, and maybe a few croissants delivered for “first breakfast” but that’s not a full meal.

On the Moon we would probably book a Superior on Deck 8 or 9. We typically warm weather itineraries and spend a lot of time on the pool deck but found either of those decks work well for access to the rest of the ship. To be honest Silversea ships, even the newer ones like the Moon, aren’t all that big and getting around from any deck is pretty easy.

Would love to see Silversea add Gothic Gin to their stock. It is a relatively new but growing gin with a number of awards. I know that the bigger RCL is negotiating a contract with Gothic Gin. https://gothicgin.com/

Your screen captures are for a Deluxe and a Superior Veranda Suite and show the typical price difference. A Classic ought to be less expensive than either the Deluxe or Superior. We’ve cruised in Silver, Medallion, Deluxe, and Superior Suites. Loved the Silver and Medallion Suites but now I’m retired and our income is a bit smaller we’ve booked more Deluxe and Superior Suites for the last few years. As much as we liked the bigger suites we found we spend about 9 to 10 hours a day in our cabin and most of that is sleeping. We also don’t typically eat in our cabin even when we had the larger suites and, in fact, in 14 cruises and 100+ days we have eaten only one meal in our cabin.

The difference between Classic and Veranda Suites is location. Supposedly Veranda Suites are in the more desirable midships location. Not sure about a Superior being less expensive than a Classic. I looked at a couple of cruises and the Superior was always more expensive. If there is a cruise priced that way I’d guess either the Superiors are not selling well for a particular cruise or there is a mistake in the fare posting.

That too. 😬👍

Yup. We had a black and white Sears Silvertone television. I think it was around a 19” screen which was considered big for the time. The cabinet itself was like a 3x3’ cube and it weighted a ton. Had to turn it on and let it warm up. We watched whatever my father wanted to watch. It wasn’t a democracy. I was actually surprised he eventually got a computer and the Internet. He also cruised out of Florida quite a bit after he retired but I don’t remember him talking about the Internet on a ship. If he used it it wasn’t to send me an email.

I have to smile almost chuckle to myself. I can easily remember when I started cruising in the early 90’s. My mother and sister were still alive and we always send them the ship’s phone number in case of emergency. Over the years we were “excited” that we could when we could actually use our cell phones though we certainly couldn’t leave them on all the time. Then it was eventually Internet but costly and slow. So here we are in 2023 and wanting and thinking of close to land based Internet connectivity. Amazing for a guy who used to be my father’s “remote control” for the TV and the whole three or four TV channels we had. I was “change the channel….turn up/down the volume” device. 😀

Kind of hit or miss. From Starlink’s map it looks like from the Azores and east into most of Western Europe there is coverage. West to the US East Coast has some coverage but by their own map Starlink is only partially implemented east of more or less the Mississippi River. Doesn’t mean parts of the eastern states don’t have some access but maybe not full. Maybe it’s speed, maybe there are just blacked out areas. Beats me. We obviously have service here and while it’s good to have access on a cruise it’s not a deal killer for us.

Silversea classic ships have small casinos. Typically they have one or two blackjack tables, a roulette table, and a dozen or so slot machines. They usually have blackjack tournaments but that’s somewhat driven by seadays when they can have the casino open.

It is mind boggling but speaks to the scope of the SpaceX StarLink project. My son, who is a related IT business, says the satellites are surprisingly small at about 500 pounds each. The satellites have an expected life of five years so it sounds like there will be new and replacement launches forever.

Exactly the same experience on the Dawn in January. After three or four contradicting announcements concerning our stop in San Juan, PR which was actually the start of our second leg of two back-to-back 7-day cruises we were finally told we’d have to disembark and present our passports to US Immigration and Customs. About 30-45 minutes off the ship and we were allowed back on. We were not required to vacate our suites and I don’t know if they deep cleaned the cabins of departing passengers. There was a card in the little holder outside our cabin that said “InTransit Passengers”.

Watching this thread with interest. We are months and months out from our Silver Shadow cruise which will be the first one we have booked using the door-to-door option. We booked on board the Dawn in January and when we were quoted the airfare for first/business class flights it was right in line with what we had just paid so went with that option. A little scary as we have always arranged our own flights but the majority of those were to and from Europe so we liked the control and actually couldn’t get better fares and connection through Silversea. However, the flights for our upcoming cruise are all US domestic and our airport is not a major hub so flight choices are relatively slim. Not much Silversea can do to make too much of a mess.

We had the same experience as Lois in Port Everglades boarding the Dawn getting on the ship as Lois was getting off.. We got there a little early because of an opportunity to catch a limo that had dropped disembarking Dawn passengers at our hotel. Anyhow, we arrived around noon and really didn’t have an issue turning in our luggage and finding a place to hang out outside the terminal. We were at Terminal 19 rather than the bigger Celebrity terminal we’d used on Silversea back in 2020 but it was fine. Periodically one of the RCL shoreside staff would come by and give us an update on when they would start the boarding process. They actually started the check-in process around 1 PM and we were on board by 1:15 PM. This was our first cruise post-pandemic and I expected more of a potential hassle but it was quick and efficient.