Siiver Whisper Singapore to Sydney

[rols]

Well we're here, we made it to Sydney, it took 16 days, it felt like about 6 .. now holed up at the Shangri-la, looking out on a *beautiful* day over the harbour and wondering if we're ever going to want to eat food again .. ever.

 

Ship

The ship is still in very good condition, pretty much the same as it was 18 months ago on our last cruise. It's not perfect of course, been away from dry dock for a while so the cabin showed a little wear and tear (loose plug socket, repaired shower door). Silversea seems to be able to keep it at this very good level pretty easily but it will be interesting to see what happens when they dry dock it. One annoyance, the newpaper printing machine was broken the entire cruise, in fact I suspect it was actually broken before that but nobody was admitting it, it was always 'going to be fixed in a couple of days' (even when we were doing 3 days at sea). It's probably still broken and may stay broken forever .. so there were no papers to read, borrow or buy.

 

The Cruise

This cruise started very empty (about 180 guests) and by the time we finished there must have been about 250. Silversea had been selling segments of the cruise last minute in the Australian market so we had people on for a week or so going between ports. It was unusual because there wasn't that totally constant group of people on board all the time as you're used to. I also believe (because a lot of people said it) that there was a largish group of tour agents on board who had received a very concessionary rate, I never met one myself.

 

We made an unscheduled return to Darwin after 1/2 a day sailing when one guest had a medical emergency, that got us into Cairns 4 hours late so some trips were rescheduled and some were cancelled. We actually had one of our trips cancelled due to lack of interest, I think 4 of us signed up and they needed 10 minimum .. that's the problem with empty ships and with many of the passengers being Aussies who'd already visited everything.

 

We had only one rough day and despite the forecast it was going to get a bit nasty into Sydney, that didn't happen, it was calm.

 

Crew

The crew are great, still a massive silversea advantage. Well-trained, helpful, friendly, as usual we got to know them quickly and they just made the voyage. There were a couple of sourpusses on reception and the tour desk and one waiter who hadn't learned the gracious art of serving food and tended to make it 'arrive' but mostly great and some were incredible.

 

Food

Everyone loves to talk about food. We loved it this cruise; the last cruise was the new chef on the Whisper and things were a mess, this time, different chef (really great guy) and the food was top notch. One comment I made at the end of the cruise was that the lunch menu was more imaginative then dinner and I wish they put some of the lunch menu items on later in the day as frankly eating lunch was just beyond my capacity and I missed most of them. They still have the 'everyday items' but they are no longer listed on Le Restaurant menu, don't know why, we asked for various odd things there, different salads, pizza one night, got them all. 2/3 the way through the cruise we asked if we could have a thai green curry for 4 and they produced one, and it was GOOD.

 

La Terrazza now has just one single menu for the whole cruise instead of a daily changing one, don't know when that change was made. It was fine, we actually ate there three times this cruise just picking different things from that menu. It was full most nights.

 

They've instituted a 'pool grill' on quite a few nights. Just room for about 40 people on the pool deck eating salad and steak and shrimp etc. We went to that twice and it was very good fun. With the few people on board, and people at La Terazza and at the pool grill, Le Restaurant was pretty empty some nights.

 

I saw one couple in Le Champagne one night.

 

Wines were a mixed bag, we found a couple we liked early in the cruise and asked for them when we didn't like the wine of the day and that worked out fine. The room champagne was Drappier for people who worry about such things.

 

Entertainment

I'm so pleased the shows are back. We watched all 3 of them, 2 were great, 1 was ok and needed just a little more polish. But they were all better than the other acts we'd had on previous ships. There was also a flautist whom I didn't like but many people did, and a guitarist whom I liked and not everybody else did, so to each their own. Generally the entertainment was much better than the last few cruises we've been on. Colin Brown was the cruise director for the first half of the cruise and Sam .. oops can't recall for the second half. I liked Colin quite a lot and Sam even more.

 

Spa/Gym

I don't really know about the spa and gym on Silversea. I know it's run by a separate company and it just doesn't really seem to quite fit in. I don't believe the staff who man it have a particularly good time and their working conditions seem to be pretty harsh so they aren't always very happy. I think Silversea should run the thing themselves and make it a real part of the ship. We only had a fitness director for half the cruise, she joined at Cairns and a week later was getting used to the reality of life on board vs her expectations.

 

Minor annoyances

There's no clock on the pool deck any more which meant we kept missing things, I wish they'd sort that out. And .. again possibly because the cruise had lots of short segments with lots of local Australians taking a quick trip, on port days there always seemed to be a lot of visitors onboard, we felt like animals in the zoo a few times. We sort of wished Silversea would seriously restrict visitors because it took away from the quite ambience of the port days.

Because of the pool grill and the fact they put the deck barbecue on an 'informal' night, we ended up with about 4 more casual days and 4 less informal days than we should have, so we were all packed wrong. Some of the people on casual days were, I think, just a bit TOO casual, jeans and a polo shirt hanging out isn't what I expect.

 

Overall

Overall we had a great time, it just slipped past so quickly, and that's now 51 days on the same ship in total we've done and we're not bored of it yet. We booked the Spirit for next Christmas on board, although our plan is actually to move that forward to earlier in the year but keep the 5% discount, so we picked a cruise we thought we could do and put it late enough away we have time to move things about.

[ging466]

Hi rols

 

So glad that you had a good time on this cruise. I did it 12 months ago, can't believe how the time flies.

 

Today was a glorious day in Sydney, hope it remains that way whilst you are here.

 

Cheers

ging466

[Keith1010]

rols, thank you so very much for posting a most thorough review about your voyage. I am glad that you enjoyed the cruise. Welcome home and Happy Holidays.

 

Keith