Nervous re: quality of Silver Shadow after reading these posts...

[Cruise Enthusiast]

My husband and I are cruise converts after only one Norweigan Hawaii cruise in a PH suite, but recognized that we definitely wanted luxury in our cruising, so we started talking to people about Regent, Crystal and Silversea. Silversea has the itinerary we prefer next June - Seward to Vancouver - so we have booked it. Now I start reading all the posts, and I'm concerned that people are saying the quality is going down, and the Silver Shadow is looking "tired". Can someone be the voice of reason here and separate the noise from the information? Are ships routinely refurbished and cleaned up during the winter months? Should I be concerned about the Silver Shadow?

[billcrooz]

loulani; we just came back from the Shadow; like all cruise lines, sure a ship after 10 or more years starts to show it's age a bit but the service,ambience and most of all the people that work on the ship are still imho the best or i wouldn't have rebooked it 4 times. check out the other cruise line posts and you will see the same criticisms on thei ships also. i guarantee you will love this trip.Say hello to Oliver in th Bar ! Enjoy !

[LaPaloma]

I think of you look at comments overall you will find the complainers a small minority, and probably they could find something wrong with anything--it's the nature of some people and there right to express there view! We spent 10 days on the Shadow last November--I'm a pretty positive person--I thought the ship looked great--the food and service very good to excellent! Our suite(Silver Suite) and care of the suite--outstanding! It was a great cruise, and we have a future cruise booked with Silversea! Go for it--I'll bet you will love it! Don

[DebbieH103]

I would not worry about the Shadow and the experience there. It is a great experience.

[wripro]

Especially if this is your first time on SS you will not even notice these differences that long time sailors do. You will love it.

[cb at sea]

I don't think an NCL cruise could come close to a Silverseas experience....a penthouse on a mass-market line is NOTHING like a luxury cruiseline!

[CatServants]

Cruise Enthusiast:

 

No cruise ship is ever routinely taken out of service - instead, cuise lines will constantly do maintenance as they can during every cruise, and only dry dock when the needed repairs/modifications exceed what can be done while at sea.

 

If you look through the recent Shadow reviews you will see our impressions ("Catservants") as well. Our last cruise prior to the Shadow's was also in a mass-market PH suite (on Celebrity). While everybody has their own expectations/values, we booked another cruise on Silver Sea for 2010 while still on-board the Shadow. I suspect we'll only do another mass-market cruise if drug into it by family.....

 

Since this was our first luxury cruise I can't compare the Shadow to years past, or to any other luxury cruise line, but it certainly exceeded our expectations.

[chicagogal]

My husband and I are cruise converts after only one Norweigan Hawaii cruise in a PH suite, but recognized that we definitely wanted luxury in our cruising, so we started talking to people about Regent, Crystal and Silversea. Silversea has the itinerary we prefer next June - Seward to Vancouver - so we have booked it. Now I start reading all the posts, and I'm concerned that people are saying the quality is going down, and the Silver Shadow is looking "tired". Can someone be the voice of reason here and separate the noise from the information? Are ships routinely refurbished and cleaned up during the winter months? Should I be concerned about the Silver Shadow?

 

Hi Cruise Enthusiast,

 

Don't worry - the Shadow is beautiful and I am confident you will love it. We just got off in Vancouver on Sept 12th. Great voyage! We loved it so much that we booked another voyage on the Shadow in Oct 2010 while still on board.

[Silver Spectre]

Please put your concerns to rest. The Shadow is still a superb ship, staffed and crewed by a wonderful bunch of people.

 

Those that are complaining of slipping standards must have extremely high, and possibly unachievable, expectations.

 

We have seen no reduction in standards from that experienced over the last two years on this ship.

[conchyjoe]

Cruise Enthusiast:

 

No cruise ship is ever routinely taken out of service - instead, cuise lines will constantly do maintenance as they can during every cruise, and only dry dock when the needed repairs/modifications exceed what can be done while at sea.

 

If you look through the recent Shadow reviews you will see our impressions ("Catservants") as well. Our last cruise prior to the Shadow's was also in a mass-market PH suite (on Celebrity). While everybody has their own expectations/values, we booked another cruise on Silver Sea for 2010 while still on-board the Shadow. I suspect we'll only do another mass-market cruise if drug into it by family.....

 

Since this was our first luxury cruise I can't compare the Shadow to years past, or to any other luxury cruise line, but it certainly exceeded our expectations.

 

Having been involved in the cruise ship service industry for the past 25 years I can tell you that ships do get taken out of service for one or two weeks each year to do maintenance and then every two years the ship is generally dry-docked (by regulation) for a hull clean, inspection and major maintenance.

 

That said, each time that the ship is in it's "home port", a small army of shore workers arrives on the ship each call, to do everything from engineering repairs to carpet replacement and even piano tuning. The ship is fueled, spares and provisions are brought aboard and slops and waste are moved ashore. It's a very finely tuned operation that involves hundreds of people but it all happens between the time the passengers leave the ship and the next set of passengers arrive.

 

On the mass market ships such as Princess, NCL, Celebrity & Holland America, with 3000 passengers aboard, the wear and tear is considerable. and carpeting for instance, on heavy traffic areas sometimes gets replaced every 90-120 days.

 

This is a whole area of cruise ship operation that most don't even know about, but a cruise ship base port is rather like a really large airport, everything happens behind the scenes and hopefully the customer is never aware of how much effort goes into producing the end product.

[conchyjoe]

My husband and I are cruise converts after only one Norweigan Hawaii cruise in a PH suite, but recognized that we definitely wanted luxury in our cruising, so we started talking to people about Regent, Crystal and Silversea. Silversea has the itinerary we prefer next June - Seward to Vancouver - so we have booked it. Now I start reading all the posts, and I'm concerned that people are saying the quality is going down, and the Silver Shadow is looking "tired". Can someone be the voice of reason here and separate the noise from the information? Are ships routinely refurbished and cleaned up during the winter months? Should I be concerned about the Silver Shadow?

 

You won't have any worries on the Shadow and I can almost guarantee that you will be raving to all your friends on the phone before your cruise has even finished.

[CatServants]

Having been involved in the cruise ship service industry for the past 25 years I can tell you that ships do get taken out of service for one or two weeks each year to do maintenance and then every two years the ship is generally dry-docked (by regulation) for a hull clean, inspection and major maintenance.

 

That said, each time that the ship is in it's "home port", a small army of shore workers arrives on the ship each call, to do everything from engineering repairs to carpet replacement and even piano tuning. The ship is fueled, spares and provisions are brought aboard and slops and waste are moved ashore. It's a very finely tuned operation that involves hundreds of people but it all happens between the time the passengers leave the ship and the next set of passengers arrive.

 

On the mass market ships such as Princess, NCL, Celebrity & Holland America, with 3000 passengers aboard, the wear and tear is considerable. and carpeting for instance, on heavy traffic areas sometimes gets replaced every 90-120 days.

 

This is a whole area of cruise ship operation that most don't even know about, but a cruise ship base port is rather like a really large airport, everything happens behind the scenes and hopefully the customer is never aware of how much effort goes into producing the end product.

 

Conchyjoe,

 

Thanks for the information - I hadn't realized that cruise ships were taken out of service on that regular a basis. And yes, the logistics involved are truly amazing. I've asked crew members on occasion how they manage to make everything come together, and the responses were generally along the lines of "constant work, and everybody knows what their job is and gets it done".

 

I will say that the wear and tear on (some?) mass market lines seems to be much heavier than on the luxury lines. We did a family cruise on a Disney ship one year, then another on the same ship 12 months later. There was a noticeable increase in the wear on furnishings in those 12 months, but given their customer base this may not be surprising.

[meow!]

We did a family cruise on a Disney ship one year, then another on the same ship 12 months later. There was a noticeable increase in the wear on furnishings in those 12 months, but given their customer base this may not be surprising.

We all know that many (though not all) kids wear and tear things down!