Just returned home from the Silver Dawn (5/2/24-5/14/24) Lisbon to Southampton...any questions?

[many cruises]

This was our first Silversea Cruise and we loved the Silver Dawn.  We are seasoned cruisers and have been on over 30 cruises on other lines.  Cruising on a small ship was wonderful...no crowds, no lines, roomy comfortable cabins, excellent food, wonderful service, and never waiting for an elevator.  Our experience was mostly positive, except for many of the included excursions we reserved.

 

We have been reading so many negative reviews on CC that we were worried about our cruise.  Fortunately, our experience on board was wonderful and we didn't experience the negatives we read about.   

 

We will be happy to answer any questions, so ask away!        

Edited May 17 by many cruises

[gnome12]

1 hour ago, many cruises said:

Our experience was mostly positive, except for many of the included excursions we reserved.

Could you elaborate please? I board in less than a month.

[many cruises]

13 hours ago, gnome12 said:

Could you elaborate please? I board in less than a month.

I will begin on a positive note.  From Bordeaux, we visited the village of St. Emilion and a chateau for a wine tasting.  We had a great guide on this tour and she was very upbeat and chatted with us about St. Emilion and the Bordeaux wine industry.  We had a walking tour in St. Emilion and the village was very pretty.  We had some free time there to wander also.  The wine tasting included in this tour was very good also.  We tasted 2 wines at the chateau and enjoyed the surrounding vineyards.

In Bordeaux (on another day), we drove through the city and admired the many beautiful limestone buildings and then visited the interactive wine museum.  The wine museum was very interesting and we were able to see most of the displays showing the importance of the wine industry there.  The museum was very well done because the exhibits were interactive with videos and displays to get visitors involved.

From La Coruna, we went on an excursion which included wines and pairings.  The wine wasn't great and the food wasn't either. 

In Bilbao, we had originally planned to go on the San Sebastian excursion, but we had much difficulty getting information from shore excursions about the details of this tour.  Silversea was emailed a few times with questions we had, but they never clearly answered them.  At the last minute we cancelled this tour and visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao on our own.

Our remaining excursions were typical cruise ship bus tours, so we decided to cancel some and went off on our own.  Silversea needs to write more detailed information in their tour descriptions, so guests can make their own decisions on what they want to do.  Including information about how far from the city center we are docked, where will the buses be parked,  and can we leave the tour and wander on our own would be helpful.  

[Gourmet Gal]

The point about timing and distances is valid.  We’re on Spirit right now and I have a feeling that in most ports we’ll not be docked so departure times are 30-45 minutes in advance of the published tour times.  So far after 2 ports there seems to be poor logistics.  Everything is running late related to included excursions.  If you book independently you will not be able to catch the tender until the first excursions have departed.  You’ll have to just bully yourself onto the tender.  With the new pricing structure it’s tempting to just book without excursions.