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

[DavyWavey70]

2 hours ago, chrism23 said:

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'm with Jeff on this one, firstly, why would you hold every officer responsible for something that it entirely out of their hands? Did the officers you're calling for to be sacked plan and budget what occurred in dry dock? I Think probably not. It seems to me a like an ill thought out overreaction. I Feel so sorry for the crew that have to deal with the seemingly constant dissatisfaction on board especially whilst their hands are so tied. Please be nice to the crew, it's often not their fault that things have gone wrong. 

[UKCruiseJeff]

The apparent lack of autonomy of on-board management has been a common and accelerating theme through several threads recently.  

 

The reason why customers should be particularly alarmed at these signs is in what has been the underlying cause.  

 

It could be a number of factors but the most likely seems to be an over-control of discretionary spend by ship management.  The evidence for this has been in several threads.  The most alarming has been provisioning.  The heavy expense lines on accounts are mostly fixed costs.  The variable lines left are those that most affect the customer experience.  So cheap over-centrally controlled provisioning and the removal of on-board  discretionary funding of local supplies when items are short is a good example.  Is the line suffering from the converging trends of suppliers  insisting on stricter credit terms and the preference to emasculate ship management from making things right.  

 

This management approach strangles the life out of an enthusiastic on-board management team and crew.  They are providing a sub-standard product that they are not proud of and have had taken every potential solution taken from them.

 

Jeff

[Mayflower1]

Good Afternoon MuseCruiser - I am most interested in the opinion of your Friends that disembarked Silver Spirit on Saturday that ' You would have been pretty unhappy with this Boat '.

 

As you can observe from my Post on the Silver Spirit Round Britain Cruise Topic, in my opinion this was a very good Cruise, in relatively poor weather conditions, that displayed many of the qualities that have made us return to Silversea over many years. 

We found the Staff to be unfailingly helpful, Food & Wine Good and The Officers keen to interact with Guests. In particular the HD was both approachable, kind and proactive. The only minor irritation for us was the Entertainment which did not enthuse us but this is very subjective and I imagine many Guests enjoyed it.

It is so easy to criticise in general terms but specifics would be helpful.