What is happening at Silversea?

[incatrail_tl]

On 7/14/2021 I booked a cruise for 2022 directly with Silversea. On 8/24/2021 I attempted to cancel this cruise but all Silversea telephones were down, access to my account on their website was disabled. I confirmed my cancellation by e-mail to my advisor requesting confirmation. contact has been attempted constantly since that date, by e-mail and by phone (many, almost daily, attempts). The customer service telephone line came back on 8/31/2021.and access to my on-line account was possible on 9/11/2021 the cruise cannot be cancelled in the on-line account. Contact with a customer service agent on 8/31/2021 advised that their computer systems were still down and no action could be taken to cancel the cruise until computers came back on-line. Today, I'm still waiting for a response from Silversea on my cruise cancellation, the customer service line is active today but advised that all mail boxes were full and no message could not be left. Something serious is happening at Silversea to cause such communication breakdown.

[RJ2002]

Welcome to CC.

 

Silversea had an IT issue.  See this thread:

 

 

[Gourmet Gal]

I was easily able to speak to someone on this  past Friday to resolve an account issue.  Try calling again on Monday.  On the weekends I would think they only deal with pax in transit or onboard or boarding shortly.

 

i also think this was handled very poorly.  On my call I was told some of their systems were exposed to potential hacking by a phishing scam so they shut everything down as a precaution.  The communication was poor and the outage was very long.

[Lois R]

I would try tomorrow morning. 

[retiredand happy]

It may be dependent on how busy your SS travel advisor is and days off. I have been in communication this week and had no trouble. Have you tried email to your advisor too? As we read the news, we see that these hackers are trying their best to disrupt businesses and government. No business wants to be a victim of this kind of attack and they work hard to get their IT systems up and running as soon as they can. It does take time, as we have seen in the news from other companies who have been victimized. I am new to SS, but everything I have experienced and heard shows me they are a premium company. Your cruise is in 2022. They will do the right thing for you when you are finally able to contact them. I am sure they are concentrating on cruise issues for cruises happening in the near future. SS did not get the good name they have by not taking care of their customers. They will take good care of you too.

[brimary]

Our Silversea experience from 1997 to our last cruise pre Pandemic in 2019 has provided the same service experience throughout.On board the best service from the whole SS crew counteracting the off ship service and experience which at best can be described as poor and inadequate.It seems that this is the norm as expressed on a number of SS threads on Cruise Critic.Wish we could return to pre Pandemic cruising with top quality service but from the restrictions described by recent cruisers this scenario is a long way off tempting us at the moment as it may be years rather than months to return to the excellent pre Pandemic quality which was the norm.

[5waldos]

My recent experience with the off ship service was so poor that I cancelled our cruise. I was having to make decisions based on  repeated incorrect information. From not one but two SS agents. Neither seemed to understand the various offerings available to me and made changes that resulted in me losing about $500 when I finally cancelled in disgust. Really sad as I very much like the onboard experience but my frustration level was too great to continue.  

[cruiseej]

4 minutes ago, 5waldos said:

My recent experience with the off ship service was so poor that I cancelled our cruise. I was having to make decisions based on  repeated incorrect information. From not one but two SS agents. Neither seemed to understand the various offerings available to me and made changes that resulted in me losing about $500 when I finally cancelled in disgust.

 

While some SS Passengers are happy working directly with the cruise line, experiences like you describe are why many of us prefer to deal with an independent travel agent. If you use a good one who specializes in booking the luxury cruise lines, you may find you'll get more responsive service. 

[5waldos]

I usually do just that and will always again. I took a chance and lost. It was too late by the time I realized how bad things could get. So- live and learn. 

[Silver Spectre]

6 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 

While some SS Passengers are happy working directly with the cruise line, experiences like you describe are why many of us prefer to deal with an independent travel agent. If you use a good one who specializes in booking the luxury cruise lines, you may find you'll get more responsive service. 

The last but one TA we used eventually became crap, the most recent one really struggled during last year in dealing with refunds. Through all this the guys in the SS London office have been superb!

Edited September 13, 2021 by Silver Spectre

[cruiseej]

37 minutes ago, brimary said:

Wish we could return to pre Pandemic cruising with top quality service but from the restrictions described by recent cruisers this scenario is a long way off tempting us at the moment as it may be years rather than months to return to the excellent pre Pandemic quality which was the norm.

 

Everyone has to do what they personally feel comfortable with when it comes to travel in this era, and there is no right or wrong answer. But it's interesting how we can read the same reports from recent SS passengers and have very different views. I thought the comments from passengers on the Moon and Muse have painted the picture of great experiences, and near-normal cruise experiences. Yes, there are Covid tests to take. And yes, there are masks when on tours or in public gatherings. Neither of those is a deal-breaker for us, and my reading of posts from passengers was that people felt overwhelmingly that they had absolutely great cruises. I regretted that we hadn't booked one of the Greece cruises... tempered by the fact we opted for a Seabourn Caribbean cruise later this month. 😉 

 

 

[Silver Spectre]

1 minute ago, cruiseej said:

 

Everyone has to do what they personally feel comfortable with when it comes to travel in this era, and there is no right or wrong answer. But it's interesting how we can read the same reports from recent SS passengers and have very different views. I thought the comments from passengers on the Moon and Muse have painted the picture of great experiences, and near-normal cruise experiences. Yes, there are Covid tests to take. And yes, there are masks when on tours or in public gatherings. Neither of those is a deal-breaker for us, and my reading of posts from passengers was that people felt overwhelmingly that they had absolutely great cruises. I regretted that we hadn't booked one of the Greece cruises... tempered by the fact we opted for a Seabourn Caribbean cruise later this month. 😉 

 

 

Good luck with that.

[highplanesdrifters]

59 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 

While some SS Passengers are happy working directly with the cruise line, experiences like you describe are why many of us prefer to deal with an independent travel agent. If you use a good one who specializes in booking the luxury cruise lines, you may find you'll get more responsive service. 

I so agree. A good TA is invaluable. We booked our recent Alaska trip at the last minute and were unable to register online and our full payment was in question due to the outage. She was able to contact the ship directly to make sure our names were on the manifest. On another recent trip she poked around and was able to upgrade our biz class to first for a few hundred dollars. Hotel upgrades and perks are numerous. The list goes on and on.

[highplanesdrifters]

1 hour ago, cruiseej said:

 

 I regretted that we hadn't booked one of the Greece cruises... tempered by the fact we opted for a Seabourn Caribbean cruise later this month. 😉 

 

 

LOL, we canceled our Greece to take the Alaskan and have no regrets. I do admit that all those sunny reports did make me a tad jealous. For us,  Seabourn kept moving the testing goalposts, Delta was heating up, EU threatening to keep Americans out..  I just wanted to take a cruise that was not going to get canceled. In return, we got our own private Alaska with empty ports and more whales than I thought possible. We have reservations on the Wind Antarctica and another trip to French Polynesia coming up. Who knows where we will be able to go. I may be calling an "audible".  So, you just may see us on that Seabourn Carribean cruise!

[zqtchas]

25 minutes ago, highplanesdrifters said:

I so agree. A good TA is invaluable. We booked our recent Alaska trip at the last minute and were unable to register online and our full payment was in question due to the outage. She was able to contact the ship directly to make sure our names were on the manifest. On another recent trip she poked around and was able to upgrade our biz class to first for a few hundred dollars. Hotel upgrades and perks are numerous. The list goes on and on.

where are you?

[cruiseej]

56 minutes ago, Silver Spectre said:

Good luck with that.

 

@Silver Spectre Huh??

 

Does that comment refer to our upcoming Seabourn Caribbean cruise? From all reports, they've been going very smoothly. Seabourn has had to change a few of the originally-schedule port calls, but that is not a problem for us. What are you questioning, or casting doubt about?

[Host Jazzbeau]

I read a lot of different forums on Cruise Critic, and basically no one is happy with the website of any cruise line.  It must be a lot harder than we think...

[Silver Spectre]

1 hour ago, cruiseej said:

 

@Silver Spectre Huh??

 

Does that comment refer to our upcoming Seabourn Caribbean cruise? From all reports, they've been going very smoothly. Seabourn has had to change a few of the originally-schedule port calls, but that is not a problem for us. What are you questioning, or casting doubt about?

Cruising in the Caribbean, too many UK Red List countries for us and no transit through the US allowed.

[cruiseej]

36 minutes ago, Silver Spectre said:

Cruising in the Caribbean, too many UK Red List countries for us and no transit through the US allowed.

 

Ah, okay, so it is apparently  I who should be wishing you good luck with a future Caribbean cruise! 😉 I thought you were raising questions about our ability to successfully cruise.

 

For us in the US, there are some hoops to jump through with Covid testing before and after arriving in Barbados, but otherwise, no roadblocks or government interference preventing us from going.  

[5waldos]

49 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I read a lot of different forums on Cruise Critic, and basically no one is happy with the website of any cruise line.  It must be a lot harder than we think...

Perhaps. But the agents who answer the phones should be well trained- and too often they aren't. The first contact many of us have with a cruiseline is with these folks. And when they simply don't know what they are talking about, one is inclined to go elsewhere. It should not be the customers responsibility to read the fine print and explain how things work to the employees. One of the SS agents even argued with me that I was wrong when I was reading the fine print to him. Seriously? 

[highplanesdrifters]

6 hours ago, zqtchas said:

where are you?

Santa Fe, New Mexico

[Lois R]

3 minutes ago, highplanesdrifters said:

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Hi, I know this is a bit OT but one of the gals I became friendly with on my Muse sailing was from New Mexico too! Small world🙂