“We apologize, we’ll do better” – a Review of the Silver Whisper and Silversea Management

[MuseCruiser]

The original post is very concerning and I’m afraid reflects the creep of Royal Caribbean into SS. We have friends who just completed a cruise on the Spirit and are boarding the QM2. Got this text today: “Disembarking this am in Southampton.  Next ship tomorrow.  You would have been pretty unhappy with this boat.  Other than the food and staff which were very good definitely Royal Carribeanized.” So sad to see what has happened to SS. 

[Mark_K]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:48 AM, MBP&O2/O said:

Personally I think it is only a matter of time, and sooner rather than later,  before Silversea is assimilated into the parent company, and the published ethos of the company will disappear. P&O Australia have just experienced this ... their brand name will disappear.

Of course all this is for the customers benefit. 😏

P&O Australia was already being managed and operated by Carnival Australia.  I wouldn’t start worrying until RCL takes over all of Silversea’s operations.

[Emdee]

Seabourn is also owned and managed by Carnival….but it is managed as a separate entity. As long as Silversea is managed as a separate entity with their own goals and luxury accompaniments it will not become RCCL. 
Personally I never wanted to try Silversea pre RCL and was quite satisfied with Regent and Crystal. When I did try it during Covid it was extremely disappointing. The Hotel Director actually told me that Silversea had plenty of repeating passengers and didn’t need new clients. I think this is the kind of attitude that RCL needs to sweep clean instead of sweeping under the table if the cruise line is to be a going concern. Yes it may lose some passengers who only want the status quo but it has the possibility of gaining new clientele who may be there for the long haul. 

[Texas Tillie]

28 minutes ago, Emdee said:

Seabourn is also owned and managed by Carnival….but it is managed as a separate entity. As long as Silversea is managed as a separate entity with their own goals and luxury accompaniments it will not become RCCL. 
 

 

I believe Seabourn is operated under the Holland America umbrella.

[Lois R]

11 minutes ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

I believe Seabourn is operated under the Holland America umbrella.

I think Seabourn is part of Carnival.

[Emdee]

41 minutes ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

I believe Seabourn is operated under the Holland America umbrella.

Yes by the Holland Division but still part of Carnival Corp. 

Under RCL Silversea has its own President so is to be operated as a separate entity.

 

I have just one Silversea cruise booked in the next 12 months so time to wait and watch before using them. Crystal is a foodie’s dream besides having great lectures and entertainment and Regent is a great overall line with a good hard product, service and dining options. So between the two my next 5 cruises are taken care of. 

 

 

Edited June 22 by Emdee

[walkingsoon]

On first read, it seemed that you had some serious problems with your cruise. But, looking again I realize that you lodged more complaints in one day than I have in my entire cruising history. I suspect choice of cruise line has little to do with the issues.

 

"Management – one small issue on Crystal (no coke in our minibar one day and I spoke with the front desk to get it refilled) resulted in the Head Butler requesting a meeting with us to ensure our cruise was not affected." 

I just can't imagine being anywhere near that conversation. SMH wondering what led to that point.

[dreamin'ofthesea]

Thanks for posting this. I also read your Crystal review. The posts seem balanced - good and bad which is helpful. Whilst I probably would not be able to afford these cruises myself, I would not expect to encounter such issues with the cost expended, nor the tardy rectification. I would imagine one pays more, specifically NOT to have these type of issues.

Nothing is more infuriating than not getting what you pay for.  Particularly in your case you have scaled up from Princess for Silversea the cost is quite different. It sounds like you gave them opportunity to rectify but they didn’t have the will or the staff to oblige.

[Texas Tillie]

6 hours ago, Lois R said:

I think Seabourn is part of Carnival.

 

Yes, and it is operated by Holland America, another line under the Carnival umbrella.

[RLK33853]

5 hours ago, walkingsoon said:

On first read, it seemed that you had some serious problems with your cruise. But, looking again I realize that you lodged more complaints in one day than I have in my entire cruising history. I suspect choice of cruise line has little to do with the issues.

 

"Management – one small issue on Crystal (no coke in our minibar one day and I spoke with the front desk to get it refilled) resulted in the Head Butler requesting a meeting with us to ensure our cruise was not affected." 

I just can't imagine being anywhere near that conversation. SMH wondering what led to that point.

 

Good for you that you have never had any issues and that you take issue with the fact that we documented our poor experience on Silversea - a supposedly "luxury cruise line"........... 

 

If you look at my review history, we rarely have had any problems either, regardless of the cruise line.  That doesn't mean that problems haven't occured, just that they were not to the level of posting them. 

 

In your response you make it out that I was complaining about the Crystal cruise - it was anything but - I requested some coke be delivered to the room and was showing the difference in actual attention being provided to passengers by Crystal in comparison to Silversea.

 

Hopefully you keep having excellent cuises in the future and that you appreciate hair and sand in the drawers, carpet not vacuumed, no ice when requested, etc, etc,  I guess we are just picky that way.

[markham]

My guess is that the best and most experienced staff were moved from Whisper to the newer ships Nova and Ray? That might explain why the cabin attendants were undertrained and senior staff under-delivered. And/or Silversea had lost the training challenge with the Whisper staff just prior to your particular cruise.

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, markham said:

My guess is that the best and most experienced staff were moved from Whisper to the newer ships Nova and Ray?

 

So, are we going to find a company where there are deliberate differences in quality between ships?  Where the focus is on the Nova and Ray, and the rest of the fleet be damned?

 

Definitely not the way to engender loyalty, when inconsistency is the order of the day?

[Texas Tillie]

1 hour ago, markham said:

My guess is that the best and most experienced staff were moved from Whisper to the newer ships Nova and Ray? That might explain why the cabin attendants were undertrained and senior staff under-delivered. And/or Silversea had lost the training challenge with the Whisper staff just prior to your particular cruise.

 

Happy and healthy sailing!

 

Nova a month ago was very hit or miss.

[Emdee]

Personally from just my three Silversea cruises I felt inconsistency was a major problem. 
On the Cloud the Executive Chef agreed that the bread was inedible but said the baker had 20 years experience with Silversea. I explained to him that if the baker was experienced then the flour and yeast must be substandard. Or there was no desire to produce anything better. 

The truffles on the Endeavour were so hard that they could have broken my tooth. Even the hotel director agreed that they freeze their truffles for long periods. 

When we casually said to the hotel director ( in the elevator) on  Regent that the meal was not up to par we were visited the next day by the restaurant manager who wanted to know how he could help. 

I won’t even bring Crystal into the equation because their service and food quality are so much better. 

 

 

[Tothesunset]

4 hours ago, Emdee said:

On the Cloud the Executive Chef agreed that the bread was inedible but said the baker had 20 years experience with Silversea. I explained to him that if the baker was experienced then the flour and yeast must be substandard. 

 

I think there are times when experience just means many years of doing something badly. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

6 hours ago, Emdee said:

On the Cloud the Executive Chef agreed that the bread was inedible but said the baker had 20 years experience with Silversea.

Evidently that baker has 'failed up' – maybe they should try Hotel Director next!

[lkear]

On 6/13/2024 at 9:21 PM, RLK33853 said:

We sailed on the Silver Whisper from Venice (Chioggia) to Rome (Civitavecchia) on May 10th to 18th, 2024.  This is our impression of Silversea, the Silver Whisper itself, the management, and the lack of service, let alone luxury provided by Silversea.  It became very apparent to us why some upper management is moving on from Silversea if this is the direction Royal Caribbean is taking this cruise line.

 

A bit of background – we are in our mid 60’s, fit, world travelers, and experienced cruisers (usually take 3 to 4 per year). We started cruising in the 1980’s and until recently utilized the main stream lines, with Princess Cruises being our go to cruise line (51 cruises). Over the past few years we discovered that the main stream cruise lines are no longer for us. We tried Scenic (so-so), and Paul Gauguin (which we loved). We came to realize that our type of ship would be in the luxury category, with a passenger capacity between 350 and 1000. So we booked 3 back to back cruises on Crystal (Symphony), Silversea (Whisper), and Viking (Jupiter). I will be posting reviews of Crystal and Viking on those boards, but suffice it to say that both exceeded our expectations. We had originally thought that Silversea would as well – boy were we wrong.

 

I’ll start with our first impression once on board. The buffet was jammed, so we went to the pool grill for lunch. Unlike other ships where you order at the grill, Silversea makes you sit and order through a waiter. Ordered, waited, waited, and waited some more. After 45 minutes we asked what was taking so long and were told we would have our food within 10 minutes. At the 55 minute mark we asked for the manager and were told our order would be right up. She was right – we had our food delivered, except that the order was wrong………….They then remade our food which took another 10 minutes.

 

Bars – only beers available were Newcastle, Heineken, Stella, and Becks. Were told that they should have Peroni but they were unsure if it had been restocked. The next day Peroni showed up, but only 4 of them…………Bar Manager said that the bar hadn’t ordered enough from the stockroom. He also told us that he would find some IPA in a port (this never occurred).

 

Back to day 1 – we finally were allowed to go to our stateroom – a Classic Veranda. Nice size, walk-in closet, seating area, lots of counter space, but an extremely small shower along with a separate tub. Furniture inside was older but in good shape. Deck chairs were old mesh, and the balcony table hadn’t seen any varnish since it was placed there years ago.

 

We also had a champagne bucket with ice, two flutes, and a note to enjoy our embarkation day with champagne – although there was no champagne. We started to look around more at this point, and realized that the carpet hadn’t been vacuumed, and the first two drawers we opened had hair in one, and I think, sand in the other. Also none of the table lamps worked. We then tried the TV to do the welcome muster – TV didn’t work.

 

I found the butler and the room attendant and were told that these issues would be rectified immediately (after telling us we didn’t know how to run the TV, but then couldn’t get it to work himself). I also asked them to replace the feather pillows and comforter which I’m allergic to. Also where was our welcome champagne? Butler apologized for forgetting to provide the champagne, and the room attendant said he would vacuum and replace the pillows and comforter. Then we requested more ice for the champagne bucket, to which our butler said he would just put it in the fridge – we said no, please fill the champagne bucket with ice.

 

By this time we had to attend muster. Came back to find nothing had been done – drawers still dirty, suite hadn’t been vacuumed, feather pillows and comforter were still on the bed, and table lights and TV still weren’t working. The only thing done was that our butler had indeed placed the champagne in the semi-warm fridge instead of refilling the champagne bucket as we had requested.

 

I went to Guest Services and spoke with the Front Desk Manager and the Hotel Manager. I requested to change rooms but was informed the ship was sailing full and they could not move us into another room. While I was waiting to speak with the two, several other individuals were at the desk with the same type of issues – dirty rooms/lights not working. I was assured that everything would be taken care of and that upon our return from dinner, the room would be clean. By this time we had heard the Silver Whisper motto “we apologize, we’ll do better” more times than you can imagine.

 

So on our luxury cruise – before we could unpack, we wiped out the drawers and cleaned the flat surfaces ourselves. I placed the feather pillows on the floor near the door and pulled down the feather comforter so that they would be replaced.

 

We then went for dinner – by this time it was 8:00 pm. We were served room temperature water and I requested some ice – and 10 minutes later again requested ice – and 5 minutes later requested ice before the waiter realized that I actually WANTED ice. This was a recurring theme for the first 3 days and was only rectified when we pointed this out to the restaurant manager. Other than that, dinner was pretty good.

 

Left dinner and caught the end of the show. Then tired and ready for bed, we returned to our suite to find that it hadn’t been vacuumed, and when I checked the pillows found that the room steward had just put the feather ones back on the bed. Checked the comforter and when I pulled back the cover sheet we discovered that it was stained in numerous places. Called the front desk who informed us that someone would be there to replace the pillows and comforter immediately. 15 minutes later, no one showed so I went to Guest Services and asked for the Hotel Manager. The Guest Services Manager came out of the office area and after hearing about these issues accompanied me to the suite. She had also requested the room steward and butler attend. After showing her the debris on the floor, feather pillows that had not been replaced (so much for their “pillow menu”), the stained comforter, along with the fact that we didn’t have any working table lamps, she quickly apologized and told me that they would do better……………by this time my wife was in tears and wanting to know if we should look at getting off in the next port. The manager said she would be right back with the pillows and a new comforter. This was at 10:40 pm. At 11:05 we decided that we couldn’t wait any longer and went to bed as we had to be up the next morning for an early tour – without pillows, me using a towel, and my wife using her robe as blankets. I placed the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. At 11:07 pm the manager knocked on the door and wanted to start fixing up the room. Unbelievable.

 

We had booked a room service breakfast due to our early excursion – of course it was late by 15 minutes. We rushed to the show lounge to meet our tour group only to find out that even though we were one of the first tours, they were 30 minutes behind schedule. My wife went to use the public washroom while we waited, only to find that the toilets were out of order (and continued to be so for portions of the cruise). Tour was very good.

 

Upon returning to the ship, we again tried the pool grill. Waited another 45 minutes for our food – again the order was screwed up. Other passengers around us were just as annoyed with the wait and the screwed up orders. While we waited we also heard from others about their issues, including one family who hadn’t had a working toilet in their stateroom since they boarded the day before.

 

Returned to our stateroom to find that all our room deficiencies had been rectified – we started to feel that maybe the service was improving.

 

One thing that was outstanding were the bar stewards – personable and friendly.

 

We found dinners in the various restaurants to be inconsistent, although I will say that Silversea does supply premium beef. One meal would be excellent one time, and awful the next. Same with the service. One meal we both ordered steaks, medium-rare. Both came blue rare. When we showed the waiter, he again apologized and said they would do better………….he removed them and had them replaced. Both came as ordered, except they only replaced the steaks to be delivered to the table – we didn’t get any vegetables, sauce, etc. Showed the waiter who said he would get the other items, then went to take orders from other tables and forgot.

 

We tried room service one more time for breakfast – the omelet came so undercooked it was surrounded by a pool of raw egg (it looked like someone had put gravy on the plate).

 

Specialty restaurants – the evening hot rock grill was very good. La Terraza was inconsistent. One meal was over the top good, while the next was not.

 

We avoided the lunch buffet – selections and quality were mediocre at best. In fact in one instance we had returned from a tour that went 45 minutes late, which still gave us about 15 minutes before they closed. We quickly dropped our stuff in the room and got to the buffet 5 minutes prior to closing, to find that they were clearing the hot items, and that the serving utensils had already been removed from the salad bar and cold meats. In comparison, on Crystal they would put out fresh food right until closing and then go around asking if anyone wanted anything.

 

Room comparisons between Crystal, Silversea, and Viking. The rooms we booked on all three were in the 320 to 350 sq ft range. We thought the Silversea room design was better than Crystal, although the bathroom on Crystal was far superior. Viking had the best room design of the three.

 

Balcony size were comparable on all three. Crystal had great wicker furniture, Viking had nice metal furniture, while Silversea was old mesh chairs and a tired wood table.

 

Air conditioning in the Silver Whisper staterooms at our end of deck six quit 2 days prior to disembarkation. Wasn’t fixed for 24 hours. Another day the hallway had buckets that were catching drips from the ceiling.

 

Internet on Silversea was slow and could not handle more than one photo upload at a time. Crystal and Viking were both far superior.

 

Guest laundry rooms on all three lines were comparable.

 

Entertainment was excellent on Crystal, okay on Viking, and sad on Silversea.

 

All three cruises we compared ended in Civitavecchia and took the same shipping route past Stromboli in the late evening between 9 and 10 pm prior to arriving in Sicily.  Crystal announced that they would be slowing so that passengers could experience the lava shooting out of the volcano and it was a spectacular show.  Viking did the same.  Silversea never even announced that they were going by.

 

Included Silversea tours were hit and miss – sometimes they were as described, others not so much – in one instance taxis were to be provided to go up to a castle (the bus couldn’t go up), but were not available.  Another tour we had originally booked (when they became available on-line) was cancelled at the last minute while on the ship.  We went to the tour desk and said that we would then like to book a similar tour. We were told that the replacement tour would cost x amount. We showed them that when we had booked our excursions, the one we now wanted (which would be replacing the one they had cancelled), had been free. We were informed that was unfortunate, but the tour was now x amount of dollars.

 

Staff – Crystal and Viking staff were outstanding. Silversea not so much. Examples include that one morning our room steward knocked on the door and wanted to clean the room. I got up and pointed to the Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the knob, and he said, ohhhh, sorry. Then he asked again if he could clean the room. On another day during a crew drill we left our room to find that he had just abandoned his vacuum cleaner in the middle of the hallway. All the way down the hall the other vacuums were tucked into the side, but not ours.

 

Management – one small issue on Crystal (no coke in our minibar one day and I spoke with the front desk to get it refilled) resulted in the Head Butler requesting a meeting with us to ensure our cruise was not affected. In stark contrast, on Silversea the Hotel Manager and Guest Services Manager requested a meeting the second last day – only to document our concerns due to the survey we had submitted. During the meeting they both acknowledged that they had been informed of our concerns/issues/deficiencies by their Head Office earlier in the cruise (we had emailed a letter of the issues), but they hadn’t followed up.  Silversea has since told us that they would be providing us with a Future Cruis Credit of $1500.  While that may seem generous, it doesn't even cover one day of the cruise fare we paid and we won't be spending another 15K just to benefit from the offer.

 

Suffice it to say that we will never cruise with Silversea again.  Hopefully if anyone does so in the future, they will have a better experience.  Numerous other passengers, some of which were Silversea cheerleaders prior to this cruise all spoke of their dissapointment with this cruise.  Once again, our impression is that Royal Caribbean is quickly cutting back on the luxury experience Silversea was formerly known for.

Thank You for your review. My wife and I love Viking but want to try other lines. We are looking to go on a cruise in South Africa, and Silversea was recommended. I see Crystal has the same itinerary. Again, Thank you for reviewing Silversea, Viking, and Crystal.

[Syd58]

On 6/22/2024 at 1:21 PM, Emdee said:

Yes by the Holland Division but still part of Carnival Corp. 

Under RCL Silversea has its own President so is to be operated as a separate entity.

 

I have just one Silversea cruise booked in the next 12 months so time to wait and watch before using them. Crystal is a foodie’s dream besides having great lectures and entertainment and Regent is a great overall line with a good hard product, service and dining options. So between the two my next 5 cruises are taken care of. 

 

 

An issue with Crystal is their ships are old and cabins small.  

Edited Monday at 05:05 AM by Syd58

[Texas Tillie]

2 hours ago, Syd58 said:

An issue with Crystal is their ships are old and cabins small.  

 

Are you aware that many of the "small" cabins were combined and the guest capacity lowered when Manfredi (former Silversea owner) brought the ships out of bankruptcy? Yes, the ships are old and everything else on Crystal is superior to what is now being offered on Silversea - service, food, entertainment, enrichment, etc.

[jollyjones]

3 hours ago, Syd58 said:

An issue with Crystal is their ships are old and cabins small.  

 

So true - I sailed once on OC on the Symphony, never again.

 

And I know about the NC bigger cabins but the price is ridiculous for a solo. And I know about the solo cabins but having a verandah is non-negotiable. Sailing midship is also important - I am not interested in being forced up to the pointy end with only a window or paying a huge solo supplement. 

 

Not interested if 'everything else' is better than SS if I hate my cabin.

The solo supplements on SS beat NC hands down.

 

Edited Monday at 08:34 AM by jollyjones

[Texas Tillie]

1 hour ago, jollyjones said:

 

So true - I sailed once on OC on the Symphony, never again.

 

And I know about the NC bigger cabins but the price is ridiculous for a solo. And I know about the solo cabins but having a verandah is non-negotiable. Sailing midship is also important - I am not interested in being forced up to the pointy end with only a window or paying a huge solo supplement. 

 

Not interested if 'everything else' is better than SS if I hate my cabin.

The solo supplements on SS beat NC hands down.

 

 

We all have to decide where our priorities and pocketbook allign. I'm glad you are satisfied with what Silversea offers.

[Emdee]

2 hours ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

Are you aware that many of the "small" cabins were combined and the guest capacity lowered when Manfredi (former Silversea owner) brought the ships out of bankruptcy? Yes, the ships are old and everything else on Crystal is superior to what is now being offered on Silversea - service, food, entertainment, enrichment, etc.

I guess if you haven’t been on new Crystal then complaining about OC is of no consequence. Even if the ships are old they are beautifully maintained and have a timeless art deco elegance. 
It is true the solo cabins are in front. However unless you are doing a transoceanic cruise the ships are extremely stable. My DD always books those cabins and hasn’t yet had a problem even when the sea was rough around Iceland. 
Silversea is so much cheaper that I really wish they could up the quality and consistency of their product but unless they do it I cannot put them in the Regent/ Crystal mix and will hang on the sidelines waiting to see what the new winds of change bring. 

[chrism23]

A couple of points.  First, sorry that your trip turned into a complete debacle.  I agree with Ms. Jones that this cascade of problems was probably ship specific.  The Hotel Director is the 2nd most powerful person on the ship.  His actions, as described in your post should be cause for his firing.  I remember once I had a problem with noise from the air handler in my suite.  They tried to fix it but couldn't.  The HD moved us to an Owner's suite.  The move accomplished by butlers, flawlessly-everthing was where it was  previously And this they did during dinner.  A truly remarkable achievement, the kind of service that I have come to expect from SS.  Just curious as the whether the 2 owner's suite were vacant for your cruise.  It they were I would be much more angry than you are.

 

I was booked on the Whisper, b to b for the first 3 weeks of August.  Around Greece.  The stupidity of that has been much discussed here.  A a couple of weeks or so after the Whisper got out of dry dock, I began to hear rumors about air-conditioning problems.  I started a thread in Tony Hanks' SS facebook page on AC issues.  It seemed I opened Pandora's box.  I got 61 responses, by far my record on FB,  I would say they ran 60% no problem, 40% problems many of which were never rectified.  This is totally unacceptable.  One suite without functioning AC is not acceptable let alone nearly half.

 

Because of the level of detail of your post, and the results of my A/C post, every officer from the Hotel Director on down should be fired, and replaced by personnel from well functioning ships.  I have 200 days on SS and have had only one big problem that was immediately taken care of. (I found the owners suite just too big, a strange complaint, especially the 8 seat dining room table on the double wide veranda).  

 

The shear volume of your complaints, and the lack of solutions, SS should send you a FFC for the entirety of your cruise.  Over the years there has been a lot of bitching and moaning here, but I think you win the prize for more things going wrong than anyone. It just adds fuel to all of our fears that RCCL is going to screw everything up.  (I think I solved my cancellation problem, my wife is having her eye surgery on 8/1, 4 days after embarking, so I think the insurance will kick in).  If not your post will seem to be a love letter by comparison.  

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi Chris,

 

I do understand and get the depth of upset but the only caveat I wish to make is that it is almost certainly likely to be unfair to call for the firing of people without understanding the issue much more  fully.  There are always at least two sides to every issue and story. 

 

I am edgy about these calls for firing everyone because what has been emerging on several threads is that whilst shipboard management are being held fully accountable (by both head office and the cruisers on board) for complaint and satisfaction resolution issues it also seems that they may not be being provided with the levels of both delegated authority and their own head office management confidence with the necessary resources to always deal with both the quantity and quality of the complaints they are receiving either promptly or even at all.  This will have a real impact on an HD and their reporting teams to resolve things either rapidly or at all. We do not know, but it does seem possible that shipboard management are trying to resolve things with both hands tied behind their backs by their land-based senior team.  it’s a possibility - we do not know.

 

(I’m also not certain whether the HD actually outranks  The Staff Captain who I think is the second in command).  

 

Another person posted “I’d hate to be an HD on Silversea”  and I think we should have a touch of empathy with the emerging impossible job they are apparently trying to do. 

 

Bestest.

 

Jeff

Edited yesterday at 10:57 AM by UKCruiseJeff

[eastwoodboy]

Quite agree with Jeff above.

I am currently on Moon and last Sunday we missed Rhodes as the wind was too strong to dock safely. Absolutely no problem with that, let’s enjoy a sea day.

What is a problem is that my insurance covers me for so much per day if a port is lost for any reason. So on Monday I asked reception for confirmation in writing that the port had been missed and the reason. On Tuesday I chased it up as it seemed a most innocent enquiry to be told my request has been referred to Customer relations who have referred to head office. Now Thursday and still waiting.

What better example could there be of HO strangling any common sense that shipboard staff may wish to show?

Edited yesterday at 12:00 PM by eastwoodboy