Expedition Ships

[PaulMCO]

Silversea was my go to cruise line for Expedition type cruises, having done the Arctic, Antarctic and West Africa all on the SS Explorer (ex Albert). The Wind and Cloud to me are not true expedition ships.  Since the competition in Expedition sailing is active in building purposely designed ship for cruises (ie. Quark, Crystal, Seabourn), what are the Silversea plans in this area.  I recently booked another Antarctic trip and Silversea had nothing comparable.

[Stumblefoot]

Have you seen the Silver Origin, PaulMCO?  Seems to me it is purposefully designed for expeditions in the Galapagos.

[PaulMCO]

On 5/6/2021 at 12:08 PM, Stumblefoot said:

Have you seen the Silver Origin, PaulMCO?  Seems to me it is purposefully designed for expeditions in the Galapagos.

Yes I have -- more interested in Ocean going ice rated ships.

[gogo65]

I believe SS will need to either build a new ship or seriously look at their pricing, as they are simply not competitive against all the new luxury expedition ships.

Ive been on silver cloud to the Arctic and found it to be a little run down and dark in comparison to Ponant who we went to Antartica with, I dont think we will get on another SS expedition ship till something changes. 

The silver origin is just the celebrity Flora 2 reimagined, the suites etc are exactly the same. It was built for Celebrity but then after RCCL took over SS, they gave them one. We also have a booking on Flora and when compared side by side, we went with celebrity, because SS didn’t provide anything extra (except the butler which we didn’t like)

Edited May 18, 2021 by gogo65

[gnld]

Interesting --- no response from Ms. Muckerman! I agree with gogo65's first sentence. We were on the Silver Explorer in Jan. 2016 to Antarctica, etc. Wouldn't go on her again -- too many new luxury expedition ships now (or soon) available.

[cruiseej]

17 hours ago, gnld said:

Interesting --- no response from Ms. Muckerman! I agree with gogo65's first sentence. We were on the Silver Explorer in Jan. 2016 to Antarctica, etc. Wouldn't go on her again -- too many new luxury expedition ships now (or soon) available.

 

I wonder whether Silversea's decision to renovate the older Cloud and Wind reflects a plan to offer expedition cruising at a more reasonable price point.

 

We were on the Cloud for a Greenland cruise and found it fine; not as slick as a brand new ship, to be sure, but we didn't find the ship significantly lacking. (Okay, the lack of a bar in the forward observation lounge is a big miss! 😉 )

 

We're now booked on the Wind for a trip to Antactica with South Georgia Island this winter. We really, really wanted to go on the new Seabourn Venture, which looks fabulous (and we love Seabourn), but the price difference for the new Seabourn ship versus the renovated Silversea ship was considerable. (You can't compare prices on their websites currently, because Seabourn delayed the Venture, and hasn't yet posted their cruises and prices for next winter. But when we compared more than a year ago, there was a considerable price difference.) For what is, for us, an already quite expensive trip, we just couldn't pull the trigger to spend a lot more for the new Seabourn ship even though it appealed to us. 

 

I wonder if cruise lines will pause for a year or two in ordering new ships to try to recoup some of their losses and pay down some of their debts from the past year. In any case, I'm sure Barbara Muckerman wouldn't use this space to announce if Silversea has plans for any new ships in the pipeline.

[PaulMCO]

Lot of guesses but no answer from SS???

[Barbara Muckermann]

Dear PaulMCO,

Thank you very much for your question. I'm glad to see this topic has generated quite a bit of interest! I appreciate your feedback and your experience sailing on Silver Explorer. She's still a tried-and-true member of our expedition fleet and definitely holds a very special place in the hearts of our expedition staff as well as dear guests like you. As pointed out on some of the replies in this topic, our brand new, destination-specific Silver Origin is set to debut in Galapagos in just a few weeks. And we have very exciting plans for the future to continue building on this approach for new ships. Stay tuned for more updates to come!

Barbara