In the last 2 years I've been on a 25 day Silver Dawn transatlantic crossing, a 10 day Mediterranean cruise on Oceania, and I just completed a 16 night cruise on Silver Nova from Fort Lauderdale to Lima. The Silver Dawn crossing was wonderful and just like the Silversea I expected. The Oceania cruise was so bad I wrote a 9 page letter of complaint to the President of the company (and got no response - not even a form letter of acknowledgement of receipt). However, even though the Silver Nova cruise was much better than the Oceania cruise, it was not up to the standards of the 2022 cruise on the Dawn. Note that all of these are post covid and post acquisition of Silversea by RCCL.
My assessment is that Silversea went from First Class to Business Class. My main concern is that while you can get pretty much anything you ask for, you need to know to ask and sometimes you need to ask the most senior staff person to get it. Many aspects of the cruise were great and most of the staff were excellent, but some seemed to understand that they could have done things the old, proactive way, but were now constrained by corporate rules such that they had to wait to be asked. Also the excursions were never more than 25 people in 2022, but in 2024, 40 became the norm, or perhaps even a few more if the buses could hold more. Included excursions are no longer a luxury experience. Staff became more sensitive to my concerns following the mid cruise survey, but I was also highly encouraged to fill in the end of cruise survey as comprehensively as possible as that is the survey that goes to head office.
I have another cruise booked for this September on the Muse and hope that all of the changes will not have filtered down to that ship. I also have another cruise booked on the Muse for 2025. This is the first time I did not book a future cruise while on board. I am now willing to try other cruise lines.