Mooning around the Mediterranean

[drron29]

And debark day as the CD calls it has arrived.Overcast but dry. We have some othersc in port including the MSC Seaside and Scenic Eclipse II.

 

And a last look at our home for the last 8 weeks. The beautiful Moon. Taken from the bus on the way to the airport.

 

Will be back later to sum up.

[Lois R]

This journey you shared with us has been wonderful and the photos all outstanding. Thank you for taking us along😀. Safe travels home.

[mysty]

Thank you for the awesome colour commentary @drron29!  Beautiful photos and very enjoyable repartee!  🥰

[rojaan19]

As I have said  on another thread here,   it was our  first time  with Roy Perez  as  CD,  they all have a different styles,  but Roys humour  and the way he ran trivia  was great,  we really enjoyed our 54 days on the Moon !

[drron29]

OK I am a bit later than I thought I would be but here we go. I'll start with what seems to top Peoples concerns.

Dress Code. I really don't see why it should be a major concern but it is. Formal nights I understand as some just don't like dressing up. But you don't have to participate in the formal nights. You can eat at La terraz which has an informal dress code on those formal nights. There is also the option of the Grill and in suite dining where you can get the dishes from the other restaurants so you don't miss out on any specials for the night.

Informal. simple requires the wearing of a jacket. This I see as eminently reasonable. It is no problem bringing a jacket to the cruise even if you fly hand carry only. You do as I do just wear the jacket on the plane so it doesn't take up any more room or weight in your luggage. What intriques me is that quite a few have brought a jacket but then won't wear it to a restaurant. Had a real classic on this cruise with a gentleman was indignant at being asked to wear a jacket to enter Atlantide. However he was on the same excursion the next day and it was very cold so he was wearing........a jacket!

 

Next comes food. Definitely everyone has different tastes but quite frankly with the number of restaurants plus the everyday dining menu there should be something to satisfy everyone. Someone complained about the lack of chicken dishes though on our 54 days there was a chicken dish on the menu at La Terraza and the everyday menu for the whole 54 days.

I felt that food quality was of high standard. The beef apart from the Argentinian cut was very good especially the Limousin fillet in La Dame. And it was always cooked to my liking. Though it was obvious not everyone on the ship thought so. there was one gent who I noticed in Atlantide who always had the sommelier and food manager come to his table every night. I have already told the tale of his encounter with the sommelier on the last night of his cruise when he and his partner sat beside us. We ordered at the same time and he and I both ordered the Beef fillet rare. mine was perfect however I noted when he cut his beef it was medium to rare so I wasn't surprised when the restaurant manager was called. However I was surprised with his problem He told the restaurant manager that he had ordered his fillet rare but his steak wasn't cooked enough! Not really relevant but he was a Crystal cruiser on his first SS cruise.

The fish was for me cooked to perfection,not overcooked and dry. Though I know many who would rather have it cooked considerably more.

Desserts as always among the weakest of the food offerings but the creme brulee from the everyday menu is quite good

I will come back with my summary of the wine,crew, entertainment and excursions in a couple of days.

[Bellanina]

12 hours ago, drron29 said:

 

Informal. simple requires the wearing of a jacket. This I see as eminently reasonable. It is no problem bringing a jacket to the cruise even if you fly hand carry only. You do as I do just wear the jacket on the plane so it doesn't take up any more room or weight in your luggage. What intriques me is that quite a few have brought a jacket but then won't wear it to a restaurant. Had a real classic on this cruise with a gentleman was indignant at being asked to wear a jacket to enter Atlantide. However he was on the same excursion the next day and it was very cold so he was wearing........a jacket!

Appreciate your post & enjoyed following your thread.  Still wonder what the big deal is with jackets- but from what I understand, a sports coat will suffice for formal nights? Is a tie necessary? I saw mention that someone wore a leather jacket, and that doesn’t seem to suit. Sorry for the pun ! 

 

[drron29]

So the next controversial subject wine.

I read where some people think Silversea serves up bad wines. They don't. I have never been served a bad wine on Silversea. I have however had quite a few I didn't like. That doesn't make them bad wines. So I just ask for a different selection and have never been refused that. As well I pretty much know some of the wines they have consistently so ask for one of those.

Then there is always a discussion about the cost of the wines. Well the comparison shouldn't be what they cost at your local liquor store on special but what it costs when you have that wine at a reasonable restaurant. After all most of the Silversea restaurants are reasonable in quality.

 

Also you need to consider how many bottles of wine are consumed every day on Silversea. the fleet ( not counting the Explorer but counting Nova ) is a max of 4728 guests. Now they basically never sail full and some people don't drink wine. But it is possible that 300 people a day drink wine on a Silversea ship and next year when the Ray joins the fleet at least 3400. So if every wine drinker averages a bottle a day between lunch and dinner that makes it ~ 1.1 million bottles a year now and 1.2 million late next year.

That means a $10 increase in cost would currently cost $US 11 million. Would that increase in cost per bottle would not soothe the naysayers. As I heard one Crystal refugee having his first cruise on SS say to the Sommelier -We only drink French wines. And i think that is so sad excluding so many wonderful wines being produced outside France.

 

So talk to your wine waiter and ask for a different wine if you don't like what is offered. It also helps if you know the grapes and or style of wine you like. If  you are still not satisfied ask to speak to the Sommelier.

 

Sorry but I get passionate about my wine. As some others have said i have a cellar that has a lot better wines than the included list on SS. However I am reluctant to bring them from Australia. Besides I enjoy the opportunity to tast different wines.

So I might  leave this post here and come back for excursions.

 

 

However it is best to be pleasant. We had cruised with the Sommelier on the Moon and I wanted to try some different style wines so asked what South American wines she had. The next evening as promised she brought me a masked bottle for me to identify saying it was a South American wine. I immediately thought of Merlot,Malbec and Carminere 3 grape types that produce very good wines in South America. Fortunately it was a Carminere which I find the easiest of the 3 to be definite about. Because of that each evening for the next week a bottle of a different South American wine was put on my table and left there. It turned out there were quite a few bottles left over from the moon's South american Grande voyage. I was happy and got to taste an excellent Peruvian Petit Verdot a wine I would never have chosen in a year of Sundays.

Then of course there is also the Connoisseurs list at very reasonable prices and I would wager much cheaper than than most fine dining establishments.

 

[lincslady]

As with the other small 'luxury' lines, the tendency is to call them 'fine wines' in their advertising, but none of them deliver what could be called fine wines.  So some people will be understandably disappointed to find that they are usually drinkable  and sometimes very pleasant, but more in the  £6 to £9 supermarket category.  And you need to know to ask for something different if you don't like the offering of the day, which almost always works.  I have often suggested that they all stop calling them fine, but to no avail.

[Daveywavey70]

3 hours ago, drron29 said:

So the next controversial subject wine.

I read where some people think Silversea serves up bad wines. They don't. I have never been served a bad wine on Silversea. I have however had quite a few I didn't like. That doesn't make them bad wines. So I just ask for a different selection and have never been refused that. As well I pretty much know some of the wines they have consistently so ask for one of those.

Then there is always a discussion about the cost of the wines. Well the comparison shouldn't be what they cost at your local liquor store on special but what it costs when you have that wine at a reasonable restaurant. After all most of the Silversea restaurants are reasonable in quality.

 

Also you need to consider how many bottles of wine are consumed every day on Silversea. the fleet ( not counting the Explorer but counting Nova ) is a max of 4728 guests. Now they basically never sail full and some people don't drink wine. But it is possible that 300 people a day drink wine on a Silversea ship and next year when the Ray joins the fleet at least 3400. So if every wine drinker averages a bottle a day between lunch and dinner that makes it ~ 1.1 million bottles a year now and 1.2 million late next year.

That means a $10 increase in cost would currently cost $US 11 million. Would that increase in cost per bottle would not soothe the naysayers. As I heard one Crystal refugee having his first cruise on SS say to the Sommelier -We only drink French wines. And i think that is so sad excluding so many wonderful wines being produced outside France.

 

So talk to your wine waiter and ask for a different wine if you don't like what is offered. It also helps if you know the grapes and or style of wine you like. If  you are still not satisfied ask to speak to the Sommelier.

 

Sorry but I get passionate about my wine. As some others have said i have a cellar that has a lot better wines than the included list on SS. However I am reluctant to bring them from Australia. Besides I enjoy the opportunity to tast different wines.

So I might  leave this post here and come back for excursions.

 

 

However it is best to be pleasant. We had cruised with the Sommelier on the Moon and I wanted to try some different style wines so asked what South American wines she had. The next evening as promised she brought me a masked bottle for me to identify saying it was a South American wine. I immediately thought of Merlot,Malbec and Carminere 3 grape types that produce very good wines in South America. Fortunately it was a Carminere which I find the easiest of the 3 to be definite about. Because of that each evening for the next week a bottle of a different South American wine was put on my table and left there. It turned out there were quite a few bottles left over from the moon's South american Grande voyage. I was happy and got to taste an excellent Peruvian Petit Verdot a wine I would never have chosen in a year of Sundays.

Then of course there is also the Connoisseurs list at very reasonable prices and I would wager much cheaper than than most fine dining establishments.

 

Very well put drron. 

[highplanesdrifters]

Just now, drron29 said:

 

Then of course there is also the Connoisseurs list at very reasonable prices and I would wager much cheaper than than most fine dining establishments.

 

Great post about wine.

 

I was just thinking about why the Connoisseurs list is so reasonable. The first thought was the volume of wine they buy is a factor. The second is the concept that if your are drinking from the Connoisseurs list you are not drinking the complimentary wine. So in theory they would save money on that bottle. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

4 hours ago, highplanesdrifters said:

The second is the concept that if your are drinking from the Connoisseurs list you are not drinking the complimentary wine. So in theory they would save money on that bottle. 

If only cruise lines thought that way!  If you take an optional excursion you aren't taking the included one, so the prices for optionals should be half the going rate on à la carte cruise lines.

[highplanesdrifters]

19 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

If only cruise lines thought that way!  If you take an optional excursion you aren't taking the included one, so the prices for optionals should be half the going rate on à la carte cruise lines.

Ya, wouldn't that be the day.😁

[Bellanina]

11 hours ago, drron29 said:

I have however had quite a few I didn't like. That doesn't make them bad wines. So I just ask for a different selection and have never been refused tha

A sommelier once told me that when asked what determines a good wine from bad, their reply was, if you like it, it's a good wine- if you don't it's a bad wine. 

[maureenk]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:40 AM, drron29 said:

The last from the bus from Taormina.

 

And now from the ship.

 

Hello, how was it to find the bus to Taormina?  Should I have directions in advance or is there help available after you get off the tender?  I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have.  Thanks!

[drron29]

40 minutes ago, maureenk said:

Hello, how was it to find the bus to Taormina?  Should I have directions in advance or is there help available after you get off the tender?  I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have.  Thanks!

I went on the ship's excursion so taken to the bus. There are some port officials and the 2 I heard had reasonable English. It shouldn't be hard to find.

They also on SS have a local touris official come on board and they generally have maps available.