Comparison of Recent Silversea Cruise to Regent

[Carol From California]

We recently sailed on Silversea. We have been on four Regent cruises (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) and this was our first Silversea cruise. We were on the Whisper, 11 day cruise from Hong Kong to Singapore. The cruise was a "segment" of the world cruise. For us the plusses were that the size of the ship allowed us to dock in some ports that the larger ships are not able to dock in due to their size. We found the ship very easy to get around due to the size and that was nice. I just read about someone on the Regent board that did not see the amazing light show in Hong Kong when leaving the port. Well, we were docked in an area where we could see it perfectly.

 

We enjoyed having a butler, something you don't get with Regent unless you book a higher category than we usually book. My husband loved that he unpacked his clothes and hung everything up in the closet for him.

 

The overall age group seemed much older than us (we are in our 60's), but I am sure that's because it was a world cruise, and the cruise consultant on the ship told us that was the case with world cruises. Who else but retired people can take off for 2 to 4 months to cruise around the world....LOL! I still work so taking a world cruise is out of the question, although even if I was retired I don't think I could ever go on that long of a cruise!

 

We really enjoyed the "hot rocks" restaurant on the pool deck and thought it was a fun experience. The steaks and prawns were delicious. The service on the ship was truly excellent, and the size of the ship made it feel more intimate. As an example, the activities director knew our names and every time he saw us he addressed us by name. The negatives for us was that we felt the overall experience was a bit too formal. We did not like the dress requirements even though Silversea has relaxed their dress codes somewhat (formerly 3 formal nights on an 11 day cruise, scaled down to 2). We can live without the formal nights. I realize some people like to dress up formally, but it's not for us, and many of the other cruise lines have eliminated the formal nights because that seems to be more popular. Not that we don't like to dress nicely, we just don't like to dress formally. We think the food is much better on Regent. We especially like Sette Mari and Prime 7 on Regent. The food in the main dining room and Italian restaurant on The Whisper was good but not great. There is a restaurant on the Whisper which carries a $30/person supplement. The moment we got onboard we tried to get a reservation for the night of our 35th wedding anniversary and were told that it was not available. This really bothered us...we never dined there. The night of our anniversary we dined in the main dining room. It was good but not great the few nights we ate there. On the other hand, when we went back to our cabin after dinner we found the entire room decorated for our anniversary. There was a cake, bottle of champagne, balloons, towels shaped into swans on the bed, and a hot bubble bath was prepared! This was a very nice touch.

 

The world cruisers were somewhat of a cohesive group...after all they all were together for months and dined together with their group of friends. I suppose this was a bad way to judge Silversea by going on a world cruise, but at times we felt somewhat left out, many of them wearing matching shirts, jackets and hats, and all hanging out together as a group.

 

Another issue for us is that I get terribly seasick and I always use the patch (prescription) to make sure I don't get sick. My husband has NEVER gotten sick. One day we were on the China Sea and the sea was very rough. My husband felt very sick...and he never got sick on any of the Regent cruises. I think you could feel the motion much more on a smaller ship than on Regent.

 

Another thing we felt about Silversea is that the décor of the ship seemed a bit tired and worn. It does not look like they have done any updates recently, whereas Regent has done many, including the restaurant décor and furnishings. I would not rule out going on Silversea again. I think it would depend on the itinerary and cost, and I especially don't want to judge the cruise based on being on this small segment of a world cruise. We did like the itinerary very much and went on many excursions and found them to be quite good. We did recently book our next cruise on Regent for 2014.

[Carol From California]

Wes, we did like the itinerary very much....especially that sea days were mixed in with the port days. It was nice to relax on the ship in between the extensive days of touring around. Most of the Regent cruises we have been on had been so port intensive that we had little time to relax and enjoy the cruise!