drron29

I'm being an optimist and hope they may be keeping the Whisper in the Southern Hemisphere.

year round so completely avoiding the Suez canal.

It seems they might keep the Spirit in the Southern hemisphere as there are no voyages after April 2025.

The Nova will spend a long time in the south through 2025/26. The Dawn sails through on world cruises but misses a lot of the ports that were on our cancelled cruises. Interestingly they are planning a Perth to Haifa segment in 2026 which surely will be cancelled.

We spent 70 days in the Med post covid on the Dawn and Moon so it holds little draw for us. We really wanted to cruise the Indian Ocean with India and Sri Lanka. They had better pull their finger out with such itineraries if they do plan not to drop those places as they are only giving the guests that have had those cruises cancelled until October 31st to book a replacement.

Well I can only conclude that Silversea wants to develop a reputation for being consistently inconsistent..

As to being cheaper than the past per day then how do you explain my latest cancellation of 14 days on the Whisper around Tahiti in August 2026. We can get 10% discount on exactly the same cruise in April 2026. however since we booked in January this year the cost port to port has gone up from $A26200 to $A33200 today. That is an increase of 26.7% in 8 months. And we will only get a 10% discount to change cruises. I will tell them they are dreaming.

So @Tothesunset I have looked at the Saga website and unlike the SS voyages in the future there are some itineraries that look interesting but I have a couple of questions. Now as 100 day plus Venetians the most important perk is free laundry. Does it cost much on Saga.

The other question is about excursions where most cruises only have 3 included excursions. Do those get booked out quickly and when can you book them. and most importantly do they change them within the last couple of weeks before boarding.

A sad day today.

So this morning we got the dear guest letter for our August 2026 cruises. this is the offer.

Option 1: Move to the below roundtrip Papeete, 14-day voyage aboard Silver Whisper -or- rebook on any other 2024/2025/2026 Silversea voyage:

Silver Whisper’s April 20, 2026, 14-day roundtrip Papeete voyage sails the exact itinerary as your initially booked voyage:

• Explores French Polynesia visiting Bora Bora, an overnight in Raiatea, Fakarava, Nuku Hiva, Fatu Hiva, Atuona-Hiva Oa, Tahuata, Rangiroa, and Moorea Island before arriving back to Papeete.

• A 10% saving, limited to one new booking per cancelled booking made on or before October 31, 2024 (Full World Cruise/Grand Voyage excluded).
• This offer will be applied after any other promotion or discount and is not offered to Net Deals (fare code NT and NX).
• The promotions, discounts, or concessions made available on the original booking may not be available on the new booking and will be forfeited in case of future cancellations or voyage changes.

So we had booked the cruise in January this year. The total price was $A26200.

So looked at the April 20th 2026 and exactly the same cruise is now $A33200. Up 26.7%, So after the measly 10% off we are out of pocket $A3680.

What an Insult. The final nail in Silversea's coffin.

It's Official. Silversea no longer considers past guests Esteemed.

2 emails received tonight AEST announcing the first 2 of 5 cancellations.

+Dear Guest,

We trust this email finds you well. Today, we are sharing important news regarding your January 06, 2026, Silver Muse voyage.

Silver Muse’s deployment shouldering her 2025/2026 Africa & Indian Ocean season is being updated due to geopolitical conflicts in neighboring regions. As a result, we can no longer offer this season and must regrettably inform you of the cancellation of your January 06, 2026, voyage. 

We are very sorry for any inconvenience and disappointment this news may bring. The time and effort you took to plan your travel is important to us, so we've put together some alternative options that we hope will work for you and those in your party. First, we will issue you a Future Cruise Credit (FCC) for the total amount paid to date on your booking and invite you to apply this FCC to one of the following scenarios:"

So our 15 and 17 day Indian ocean cruises can be swapped for 1 of 3 Muse Med cruises in January 2026.

Option 1: Move to one of the below 10-day Western Mediterranean voyages on Silver Muse in 2026:

Departing on January 4, 2026, from Lisbon to Civitavecchia (Rome):

• Exploring Casablanca, Tangier, Malaga, Barcelona, Marseille (Provence), Genoa and Livorno (Tuscany). 

Departing on January 14, 2026, from Civitavecchia (Rome) to Barcelona:

• Sail to Naples, Palermo, an overnight in Valletta, La Goulette, Cagliari and Valencia.  

Departing on January 24, 2026, from Barcelona to Civitavecchia (Rome):  

• Visiting the ports of Valencia, Cagliari, an overnight in Valletta, La Goulette, Palermo and Naples.  

       What you’ll receive:

•  A 15% saving, limited to one new booking per cancelled booking made on or before October 31, 2024.
• This offer will be applied after any other promotion or discount and is not offered to Net Deals (fare code NT and NX).
• The promotions, discounts, or concessions made available on the original booking may not be available on the new booking and will be forfeited in case of future cancellations or voyage changes.

But you can also switch to the early 2025 Spirit Indian Ocean cruises.

Option 2: Re-book on any Silver Spirit voyage sailing to Africa and the Indian Ocean in 2025:

 What you’ll receive:

• A 15% saving, limited to one new booking per cancelled booking made on or before October 31, 2024.
• This offer will be applied after any other promotion or discount and is not offered to Net Deals (fare code NT and NX).
• The promotions, discounts, or concessions made available on the original booking may not be available on the new booking and will be forfeited in case of future cancellations or voyage changes.

Not really practical as we had a May Muse cruise that has disappeared from the website and not even waitlisted. But we still haven't heard officially from Silversea that it has been cancelled. So we have a short trip in February and a longer trip late March until May so those timings don't work for us.

So maybe option 3 or just go with option 4. cancel and money back.

Option 3: Re-book on any other 2024/2025/2026 Silversea voyage:

What you’ll receive:

• A 10% saving, limited to one new booking per cancelled booking made on or before October 31, 2024 (Full World Cruise/Grand Voyage excluded).
• This offer will be applied after any other promotion or discount and is not offered to Net Deals (fare code NT and NX).
• The promotions, discounts, or concessions made available on the original booking may not be available on the new booking and will be forfeited in case of future cancellations or voyage changes.

Looking at 5 straight cancelled cruises the offers will have to be substantially better if they want to retain our custom.

Received the official cancellation notice from Silversea for the Mumbai to Mahe and Mahe to Capetown cruises. You can get 15% of the 3 Med cruises on the Muse in 2026 or the Spirit cruises in the Indian ocean and Africa region in 2025.

Now the cancelled cruises are 15 days and 17 days whereas the med cruises are 10 day cruises.

Any other cruise is 10% off.

Our Silversea adventures are coming to an end

1 hour ago, DavyWavey70 said:

Smiles travel miles QSS. I’m a firm believer in smiling at strangers in the Hope they’ll pass them on. Unless they’re from down south of course where they’re just think you’re a weirdo. 

That's no problem for me as I know I am a weirdo. But I do feel good when someone smiles back.

On my Silversea our Muse cruises in the Indian Ocean in late 25 early 26 have disappeared. But so have our Whisper cruises around Tahiti in August 26.

Only 1 future cruise is our April 25 Muse Singapore to Doha. But that has disappeared from the list of Muse cruise. looks like we are 5 from 5 cancellations.

Well we are at 495 days. We did have Mumbai to Mahe booked to get us to 500 days then Mahe to Capetown to use our complimentary 7 day cruise. Finally 14 days around Tahiti for our 14 day complimentary cruise.

Now they have stuffed it up by probably cancelling Mumbai to Capetown. So we will have to book another over priced 7 day cruise. Fortunately it will qualify for the free cruise and to get us to 500 days.

Well here's another good food story. I really like pickled onions and the best I have found come from Tasmania. they do get some relabelled as Blue Banner pickled onions and finally the supermarkets are stocking them on our Sunshine Coast so I can enjoy them again particular the ones with chilli.

However a visit to their factory just outside Ulverstone is a grat stop if going past.

https://www.tasmanianpickled.com.au/

Their restaurant is excellent. They serve wines from grapes grown on the property. But if you are going past there  from late December to early February there is a better place for desserts especially if you like cherries. You can see the place on the hill behind the factory.

Perfecta cherries. They are part of the same produce company which was taken over during Covid but by a local Tasmanian farm family. At Ulverstone the cherry shop makes a lovely cherry ice cream. Since the takeover they no longer have a separate website for the cherries.

This article certainly means that no cruise ship will transit the Red Sea for the rest of this year and suggests that we should be very wary of booking cruises close to an advertised transit of it in the next couple of years at least.

"Currently, we are seeing premiums as high as 2% on vessel value for a single Red Sea transit amid fluctuating insurer appetite," said Louise Nevill, UK CEO, marine, cargo & logistics, with broker Marsh."

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/red-sea-insurance-costs-soar-houthi-shipping-threats-loom-sources-say-2024-09-19/

It is even worse than I expected. Our travel agent who was on the Silversea Expert Committe of Travel Agents and had BM's private number and would get an email back within a couple of hours had booked cabins on our Mumbai to Capetown cruises on Tuesday this week. That night they went to waitlist. So she got in touch with Silversea. This was her response last night.

" She heard back last night that these
cruises were being reassessed and more information would be coming through
in mid-October.

We have not received any official notification from Silversea regarding your
cruises. This is all being worked on behind the scenes with Silversea."

So I am hoping that these cruises will go ahead with just the Capetown to Mahe cruises cancelled. This would give the Muse time to get from Capetown to Athens.

However knowing my luck they may keep the Muse in the Med from December to April over 25/26.

No more cruises with Silversea will be booked unless some very generous offer is made.
 

We now have a perfect record. All 5 of our next 5 cruises that were booked have been cancelled. I am really feeling an esteemed guest.

1 hour ago, Syd58 said:

Sorry to hear about this.  It might be that Muse was scheduled to transit the Red Sea in March/early April. You might take a look at a segment of the world cruise on Dawn in 2027. It has a similar itinerary with no Middle East transit.

Though the Muse cruise that is cancelled is in January 2026 and there is still a Capetown to Mumbai cruise before the red sea transit in 2026.

It smells suspiciously like a charter. Bad luck for the esteemed guests. So of the next 4 cruises that were the next bookings for us, One had a charter inserted between our back to back cruises One voyage on that back to back already cancelled and the other disappeared from the website a few days ago.

The next 2 are Mumbai to Mahe then Mahe to Capetown which looks like it is gone. I don't want the Mumbai cruise unless the next sector was to Capetown. So it looks like we will be 4 for 4 cruises gone.

I admire the wonderful people here in the Cooler who obviously truly love their pets.

Unfortunately around us are a couple of people who should not be allowed to own pets.

Across the canal they have a large poodle. hopeless as a youngster but now a lovely dog. The whole family is out during most days and the poodle is quite relaxed and quiet. It's favourite pastime is getting under the skin of the dogs next door. It runs down and sits on their pontoon. The silly little dadchund starts yapping and eventually gets the Rottweiler to bark. It usually realises it has been conned quickly. It normally only barks when someone gets close to the property as Rottweilers do. It is obviously looked after very well.

But this past weekend was the start of the school holidays so on Monday the kids were home. They ignored the poodle. It was putting it's front paws on he door and barking. Not once did the kids respond. The exasperated poodle resorted to it's normal trick and ran down and sat on the pontoon but sadly next door's dogs were out. The poodle slowly walked back to the door and continued barking.

Which brings me to a couple of dog and cat pictures.

In general I believe RCCL knows what they are doing but they seem to have no insight on how those decisions negatively impact their passengers.

Though many other cuisines have been adopted by Japan and become accepted by the Japanese people.It first appeared in Japan in the mid 19th century. became more popular in the 1920s and even more popular in the post WW2 years but really taking off in the 1990s.

Pizza was a later edition and basically began post WW2. Like many European cuisines it stated to climb in popularity in the 70's. This was because Japan relaxed it's foreign investment laws in 1969 and western chains began setting up making the food cheaper. Pizza restaurants now are very popular with the locals.

Unlike Teppanyaki these cuisines did not originate in Japan but are accepted by the Japanese today as being part of the Japanese taste for convenient and cheaper foods.

A wealthy Arab man went to study in Germany. After a month of studying, he wrote a letter to his father telling him:

"Dad, Berlin is a very beautiful city, and the people are very kind to me, but I feel shy when I arrive at the university in my Range Rover, while my great professors arrive by train."

After a short while, he received a letter from his father with a check for ten million dollars attached. The letter read:

"Buy yourself a train, my son, and don't embarrass us in front of foreigners."

A lot of us seem to have the same type of a recurring dream. Mine is that I still have not passed my final exams in Medicine even though I am working as a doctor in those dreams. It always ends with me thinking I am about to be found up but then I wake up. Obviously so I can continue to have the same dream.

I have just posted this on the Silver Muse thread.

So the Singapore to Doha May 25 cruise has disappeared from the website so I got in touch with our TA. word back from SS was that Senior Management were reviewing that cruise and a decision on whether to cancel it MAY be made in 2 weeks.