The Spirit stretch?

it will be exciting to see the new version of the spirit, even though i will miss the old spirit.

we are set to be on her transatlantic cruise in the Fall.

On board the third voyage post dry dock...SS tried to sell us the first following the cancellation of our April cruise but we refused...

Whilst l AM looking forward to seeing the changes l just hope they don't 'Musify' her so much that she loses her soul.....😊

IMHO they're going to ruin a beautiful ship; especially the dining setup!

On board the third voyage post dry dock...SS tried to sell us the first following the cancellation of our April cruise but we refused...

 

Whilst l AM looking forward to seeing the changes l just hope they don't 'Musify' her so much that she loses her soul.....[emoji4]

Agree,let’s hope the long term SS policy is not to Musify the whole fleet.We have only got the Wind,Shadow and Whisper of excellent old style quality Silversea remaining!!

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oh geeze...gonna be on the Spirit in May (but not the first cruise, apparently the 2nd), and this is the first I've heard of the remodel.

Is this something Silversea should have shared with me?

Is this something a good travel agent should have shared with me?

I've actually booked my dinner reservations already (waitlisted on one night), so is this anything I should be actually concerned about?

...so is this anything I should be actually concerned about?

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No.

 

 

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Thanks!

IMHO they're going to ruin a beautiful ship; especially the dining setup!

Totally agree.

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Is the stretch going to result in less overall passenger space per passenger?

Geoffieg,

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See you in the fall!

My guess is that the Spirit will be very like the Muse given the dining venues just released for the Spirit.

The Muse is a beautiful ship, just different and bigger.

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Is the stretch going to result in less overall passenger space per passenger?

Notionally yes but hard to define since they’re really not adding that much public space. Most of the added square footage is going to cabins with some gain in the pool area and the deck above. Not sure how much added space restaurants will get as most of the changes are relocation and remodeling but I haven’t sat down and done a deck by deck comparison. We’re up to eight Silversea cruises (2 on the Spirit, 6 on the Wind), still newbies compared to some here, but have only been on two or three full or very near capacity cruises with the others being in the 80-90% range. Even on the supposedly fully booked cruises, one of which was on the Spirit, I’ve never felt it was crowded with the exception of maybe around the pool on a nice sea day.

Is the stretch going to result in less overall passenger space per passenger?

Meow! We are cats and so you presumably love us?:D

The stretched Spirit will be identical to the Muse in overall volume, and carry substantially more passengers, so the space ratio (space to passenger) will go down. In our opinion, the Spirit (before or after the stretch) will be the least desirable among the Silversea ships, with the Shadow/Whisper the most desirable.

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Space ratio (volume/passenger) for Shadow/Whisper is 74.0, for Muse is 68.3, for stretched Spirit is 66.9, for Wind (we have not sailed) is 58.8 and for Cloud Expedition is 66.1 (we have not been on any expedition ship).

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Meow! We are cats and so you presumably love us?:D

 

The stretched Spirit will be identical to the Muse in overall volume, and carry substantially more passengers, so the space ratio (space to passenger) will go down. In our opinion, the Spirit (before or after the stretch) will be the least desirable among the Silversea ships, with the Shadow/Whisper the most desirable.

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Space ratio (volume/passenger) for Shadow/Whisper is 74.0, for Muse is 68.3, for stretched Spirit is 66.9, for Wind (we have not sailed) is 58.8 and for Cloud Expedition is 66.1 (we have not been on any expedition ship).

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Thank you for the objective info, fellow feline-afficionado! :) OT: Leaving our cats while cruising is one of the hardest things to do, as they miss us and get nervous, even if cat sitters come in and the cats can remain in their spacious home quarters.

A related question, likely unknown and not publicized yet, is if the number of crew assigned to direct passenger service is going to remain the same, or go up proportionate to the increase in number of pax. If it remains the same, I would anticipate more service problems, e.g. more long waits and confusion in dining rooms at dinner, which had put us off the MDR on the Spirit on our last 2 SS cruises (we tend to dine late, which may be part of our problem — crew are then tireder and some have probably left dining room service by then).

Randy, I agree with you about overall public space being clearly high per pax on SS, as it is on SB and Regent, but somehow crew have seemed increasingly overworked and space increasingly tight at popular times and locations on luxury lines compared with our first Shadow cruise in 2011 (dining room at dinner, pool grill on a nice day, lounges during times popular music plays, etc.), and stretching a ship might exacerbate this first world problem.

Thank you for the objective info, fellow feline-afficionado! :) OT: Leaving our cats while cruising is one of the hardest things to do, as they miss us and get nervous, even if cat sitters come in and the cats can remain in their spacious home quarters.

 

A related question, likely unknown and not publicized yet, is if the number of crew assigned to direct passenger service is going to remain the same, or go up proportionate to the increase in number of pax. If it remains the same, I would anticipate more service problems, e.g. more long waits and confusion in dining rooms at dinner, which had put us off the MDR on the Spirit on our last 2 SS cruises (we tend to dine late, which may be part of our problem — crew are then tireder and some have probably left dining room service by then).

 

Randy, I agree with you about overall public space being clearly high per pax on SS, as it is on SB and Regent, but somehow crew have seemed increasingly overworked and space increasingly tight at popular times and locations on luxury lines compared with our first Shadow cruise in 2011 (dining room at dinner, pool grill on a nice day, lounges during times popular music plays, etc.), and stretching a ship might exacerbate this first world problem.

I also wonder about increasing the crew. I suppose as they stretch the ship they could be adding crew quarters below but I have no specific knowledge of crew quarters or if any are located in the to be added. The Silversea website shows the Spirit will have a crew capacity of 412 versus Muse’s 411 so pretty much the same. An old Spirit fact sheet I found shows a crew capacity of 376 which makes me think indeed there will be some crew increase.

This whole discussion made me think of a conversation we had with a head maitre’d about not being able to use all the tables in La Terrazza at night because there simply wasn’t enough wait staff to run all restaurants at capacity. Of course that also makes me wonder why it appears they’re actually adding space to Spirit’s La Terrazza unless some of the crew increase will go to wait and galley staff. Of course they’re also adding some 30+/- cabins that will need butlers, stewards, etc.

 

This whole discussion made me think of a conversation we had with a head maitre’d about not being able to use all the tables in La Terrazza at night because there simply wasn’t enough wait staff to run all restaurants at capacity. Of course that also makes me wonder why it appears they’re actually adding space to Spirit’s La Terrazza unless some of the crew increase will go to wait and galley staff. Of course they’re also adding some 30+/- cabins that will need butlers, stewards, etc.

The expansion of space in La Terrazza may be driven primarily by the need to accommodate the larger number of passengers who swarm there before morning tours or when tours return. Accommodating buffet guests is of course easier than haute cuisine guests at dinner time.

The expansion of space in La Terrazza may be driven primarily by the need to accommodate the larger number of passengers who swarm there before morning tours or when tours return. Accommodating buffet guests is of course easier than haute cuisine guests at dinner time.

I agree for breakfast and lunch but to the best of my knowledge there is no buffet option at dinner on Silversea. ?????

I agree for breakfast and lunch but to the best of my knowledge there is no buffet option at dinner on Silversea. ?????

Agreed. La Terrazza will still offer only served dinners.

There may be a buffet dinner option on some cruises, though I gather the poolside BBQ dinners are being phased out.

Thank you for the objective info, fellow feline-afficionado! :) OT: Leaving our cats while cruising is one of the hardest things to do, as they miss us and get nervous, even if cat sitters come in and the cats can remain in their spacious home quarters.

Thank you kindly for replying. Your question has subsequently been replied to by Randyk47. Wish you all the best ,, meow!

Agreed. La Terrazza will still offer only served dinners.

 

There may be a buffet dinner option on some cruises, though I gather the poolside BBQ dinners are being phased out.

We haven’t had a poolside BBQ dinner on our last two cruises in 2016 and 2017. One was a 10-day cruise and the other an 18-day cruise so certianly plenty of opportunities and weather wasn’t an issue on either cruise. We did have several poolside buffets on seadays on our most recent cruise. Those were nice though not as elaborate as the evening buffets on our previous cruises. Kind of begs the question that has been raised here and on other cruise line sections about poolside dinner BBQs being reduced or eliminated for health and safety reasons while a lunch BBQ buffet is okay.

Re: poolside BBQ -- I know from friends on the WC that they were supposed to have a poolside dinner but it rained and they had a galley dinner instead.

Jaci

I was told by Sergio, who should know, that the reason that La Terrazza does not fill all the tables for dinner is that, while the adjoining galley is sufficient to prepare buffet food, it is not large enough to produce full meals if all the tables are full so they limit the number of covers they'll book each evening, and try and space them out for arrival time.

I presume (hope) that this has been accounted for in the Musifying of the Spirit.

I was told by Sergio, who should know, that the reason that La Terrazza does not fill all the tables for dinner is that, while the adjoining galley is sufficient to prepare buffet food, it is not large enough to produce full meals if all the tables are full so they limit the number of covers they'll book each evening, and try and space them out for arrival time.

I presume (hope) that this has been accounted for in the Musifying of the Spirit.

Go figure....it was Antonio, who also ought to know, who told us he didn’t have sufficient staff. He did say it was further complicated by having to bring the dinners up to restaurant so maybe it’s a bit of both. I have to say La Terrazza is sometimes a interesting dinner challenge. Our best and worst meals have been in La Terrazza and sometimes the service is uneven.

I hope to have a tour of the La Terrazza galley one day. It was also my understanding that the galley is large enough for breakfast and lunch buffets but since it is also shared with La Dame, they must limit the number of diners for dinner.

Silversea updated the status of the Spirit on their Facebook page yesterday. She moves into the dry dock March 5 to actually be cut in half. They showed a few pictures of the section they’re adding. Not much to see other than a big hunk of multi-storied steel with all sorts of pipes and wiring sticking out of it but interesting. Despite my personal misgivings and concerns about Musifying the Spirit I can’t help but marvel that they can actually slice a ship in half and extend it like this.

I can’t help but marvel that they can actually slice a ship in half and extend it like this.

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