Silversea Shenanigans Onboard Silver Muse

[dabear]

We're considering a cruise on SS however, this is a shocking thread. We've been on a few Regent cruises including one recently (silver status) & are elite on X  Based upon our experience & comments from others, Regent always seem to bend over backwards to satisfy a pax. While I agree that cruising has changed quite a bit over the years, it's still a very good product, just more expensive and service & inclusions are less.

Edited Wednesday at 02:09 PM by dabear

[DavyWavey70]

5 hours ago, rojaan19 said:

3 pages  !!  All you are talking about  is a bottle of wine  !!!

 

 

4 pages now. That’s more like it.

[tnm6217]

3 hours ago, UKCruiseJeff said:

It’s also about the total lack of goodwill, integrity, basic nous, issue resolution, delegated extremely basic authorities with the trusting of your own on-site senior management to make their own good judgements and what this and other stuff means for those making choices about who they choose to sail with in the future.  

 

Seems to me to be worthy of thinking of the issues outside of the bottle of wine. 

 

I want to share a story that may have shaped just how upset I was over being told I wasn't entitled to something I was very plainly entitled to. My sailing prior to this one was an 8-night cruise on Celebrity in a Concierge Veranda. The cruise only (plus grats) rate for a solo was $1,600. Midway through the cruise, I submitted feedback to ensure onboard management knew how wonderfully the staff were performing and how happy I was with the cruise. At the end of my narrative, I included one criticism, explicitly for corporate, stating my displeasure that I hadn't seen oatmeal raisin cookies on this or my prior two Celebrity sailings. That evening at dinner, the MDR maître d' came to my table to tell me that he read my comment and was having a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies made just for me and delivered to my stateroom the following day. My comment was purely intended for corporate and not for the staff onboard, so I was so delighted to have this little kindness done for me -- a tiny gesture that had a huge impact on how special I felt as a guest onboard. I also ran into a former butler on the first day of the cruise, and he had a bottle of Champagne (yes, sadly, the intolerable Duc du Valmer) sent to my room on the last day. Another small gesture that had an outsized impact.

 

In comparison, I spent $11,000 (D2D, double occupancy, but originally over $9k when it was just me going) for this Silversea cruise and was unable to obtain the bottle of Champagne I was entitled to (crappy or not) despite having the entitlement in writing and working through various levels of onboard leadership. Let's just say I felt anything but special. 

 

Over the last year and a half, I've taken 13 cruises and I plan to keep that pace as long as possible. Because cruising is a passion, I am discerning, and I want to receive what I've been promised, subject to the typical supply chain issues and resourcing considerations and always giving the highest deference to the incredible crew. By no means do I expect perfection, but I cruise often, and I always compare experiences. This was the first time on any of my cruises that I raised an issue. I had hoped Silversea could be one of my "go tos" along with Celebrity and Windstar, but this experience seems indicative of bigger issues, and the inability of staff to resolve issues onboard doesn't bode well for future SS experiences. I'm looking forward to celebrating my 40th on Regent in August (I have no status, so I will not be demanding anything above the Monopole 🤣) and trying out Explora early next year.

 

I am grateful that there is plenty of choice in the luxury space, and I'm looking forward to all the adventures ahead. The bottom line for me is that every cruise, no matter where it falls within the spectrum, should represent good value, and this experience greatly cheapened how valuable I view the SS product to be.

[UKCruiseJeff]

1 hour ago, tnm6217 said:

 

I want to share a story that may have shaped just how upset I was over being told I wasn't entitled to something I was very plainly entitled to. My sailing prior to this one was an 8-night cruise on Celebrity in a Concierge Veranda. The cruise only (plus grats) rate for a solo was $1,600. Midway through the cruise, I submitted feedback to ensure onboard management knew how wonderfully the staff were performing and how happy I was with the cruise. At the end of my narrative, I included one criticism, explicitly for corporate, stating my displeasure that I hadn't seen oatmeal raisin cookies on this or my prior two Celebrity sailings. That evening at dinner, the MDR maître d' came to my table to tell me that he read my comment and was having a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies made just for me and delivered to my stateroom the following day. My comment was purely intended for corporate and not for the staff onboard, so I was so delighted to have this little kindness done for me -- a tiny gesture that had a huge impact on how special I felt as a guest onboard. I also ran into a former butler on the first day of the cruise, and he had a bottle of Champagne (yes, sadly, the intolerable Duc du Valmer) sent to my room on the last day. Another small gesture that had an outsized impact.

 

In comparison, I spent $11,000 (D2D, double occupancy, but originally over $9k when it was just me going) for this Silversea cruise and was unable to obtain the bottle of Champagne I was entitled to (crappy or not) despite having the entitlement in writing and working through various levels of onboard leadership. Let's just say I felt anything but special. 

 

Over the last year and a half, I've taken 13 cruises and I plan to keep that pace as long as possible. Because cruising is a passion, I am discerning, and I want to receive what I've been promised, subject to the typical supply chain issues and resourcing considerations and always giving the highest deference to the incredible crew. By no means do I expect perfection, but I cruise often, and I always compare experiences. This was the first time on any of my cruises that I raised an issue. I had hoped Silversea could be one of my "go tos" along with Celebrity and Windstar, but this experience seems indicative of bigger issues, and the inability of staff to resolve issues onboard doesn't bode well for future SS experiences. I'm looking forward to celebrating my 40th on Regent in August (I have no status, so I will not be demanding anything above the Monopole 🤣) and trying out Explora early next year.

 

I am grateful that there is plenty of choice in the luxury space, and I'm looking forward to all the adventures ahead. The bottom line for me is that every cruise, no matter where it falls within the spectrum, should represent good value, and this experience greatly cheapened how valuable I view the SS product to be.

 

Thanks.

 

I have an interest in “customer satisfaction” and I (we) worked with the previous owner of SS some time ago under previous management as well as many other corporate clients.

 

My nugget was realising that few people really understood how to understand what “customer satisfaction” actually really meant and then how best (and when!) to improve and respond to it.  

 

In simplistic terms I developed processes to measure it, feed it back and improve it. I also clearly indicated to client management that 100% customer satisfaction is probably a bad thing but that’s another topic.  I insisted that feedback was always directly to the ceo and therefore untarnished by the people potentially being examined.

 

I simply after a glass or two worked out that people had a set of expectations and then received a service or product that was either less or more of what they had expected or simply just as they had expected.  So they were disappointed, satisfied or delighted. I then worked out how to find out how to measure it and found a way of reporting this back in an understandable format whilst pinning responsibilities onto specific and named VP’s or directors so that they were both responsible for the promises that they made, expectations created and the they way they delivered.  My clients then over time fired and promoted based on what their customers fed back through us.  Clients were banks, computer organisations, leisure airlines etc etc.  Eventually we retired. 

 

There is an optimal level of satisfaction that has to be established.  It is perhaps surprising to some not 100%.  I have actually told clients that their CS was too high and they had the wrong balance between profit and CS that wasn’t underpinning their future adequately.  Rare but it happened. Coaching lower CS scores!  

 

People might not like the sound of this but customers are a willing crop that wish to be harvested. They want to be satisfied, not disappointed and they want to spend more.   I found a way of making management measurable and accountable and rewardable or fireable. We did well out of it.  

 

In simple terms asking people on a survey “how satisfied are you” on a so called Likert scale of 1 to 10 tells you virtually nothing useful.  Bewilderingly the mid-point of 1 to 10 is 5.5 which I’ve never ever seen published or offered.  No one ever notices.

 

This happened because I worked for a major American corporation who conducted CS and because the programme was considered unimportant it was handed to me.  I couldn’t understand why our CS was improving whilst our market share was plunging.  It became one of the saddest stories in corporate history. Hence I started a consultancy that I was repeatedly told would certainly fail

 

To your anecdotes and adding some of my own.

 

What  a missed opportunity of not simply  listening to you and learning.  

 

Firstly adding to your approach, and your complaint should have been welcomed.  

 

I’d add that many people are often knowledgeable and schooled about how to complain.  Few seem to understand the best experiences do not come from complaining but from taking the trouble to praise. You have to shrug when people aren’t clever enough to earn your money and nurture those that value you.  I tried to help providers of products and services understand that. 

 

I always write letters saying thank  you when I get great service.  I rarely complain when I get poor service.  This works for me.  I always write to the Senior Exec I can identify and say “I’d like to thank through you a member of your junior staff that provided me with impressive service and really made us happy …..”  People often claim they do this but not all of them actually do.  The path through life is often improved with this nurturing of longer term “friendships”. 

 

I cannot tell you how often this has changed future experiences.  Best summarised by the reception at the Holiday Inn in Nice.  In answer to my simple question I once asked them was why we always got upgraded from the cheapest room to the best suite.  She simply said “Excellent customers get Excellent service” 

 

This is a rambling answer to your posts but to be honest I learned a hell off a  lot from you about how an extremely valuable customer offering extraordinary information and coaching to a potentially wonderful brand can be so completely unharvested and how few really understood or grasped both the opportunity of you or”got” your “beef”.

 

Jeff. 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:44 PM by UKCruiseJeff

[Gourmet Gal]

The OP is clearly not a champagne connoisseur but she does know good service when she sees it.  I don’t think she has a sense of entitlement but I can’t blame her for wanting to vent and as we know, CC is a good place for that!

[tnm6217]

Thank you for sharing your perspective, @UKCruiseJeff! I learned a lot reading your story.

 

This is about far more than Champagne (or Crémant...or whatever) to me. If Silversea had decided the free laundry benefit, not the upgraded Champagne, was only available to guests with 250 sailed VS Days, my feelings would be the same. The terms and conditions of the VS program are clear and Silversea did not adhere to them. I sent my notice of disagreement under the mandatory arbitration clause off to Silversea's legal department today.

[UKCruiseJeff]

1 minute ago, tnm6217 said:

Thank you for sharing your perspective, @UKCruiseJeff! I learned a lot reading your story.

 

This is about far more than Champagne (or Crémant...or whatever) to me. If Silversea had decided the free laundry benefit, not the upgraded Champagne, was only available to guests with 250 sailed VS Days, my feelings would be the same. The terms and conditions of the VS program are clear and Silversea did not adhere to them. I sent my notice of disagreement under the mandatory arbitration clause off to Silversea's legal department today.

 

Thanks, yes, many got it.

 

I re-read my last post and it was far too enthusiastically long-winded and even I lost the will to live re-reading it, so in order to spare others I requested it’s deletion.  😃

 

Just to say people either benefit or not from your posting of your experiences and just add best wishes for your 40th In August on Regent.

 

Jeff

[FlyerTalker]

Just wondering.....was this a fam trip?

[tnm6217]

6 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

Just wondering.....was this a fam trip?

 

@FlyerTalker Nope! It was booked through the travel agent I used before I became an agent myself. Very relevant question though. 

[bissel]

U.K. Jeff. It is always a pleasure reading what you have to say.

[UKCruiseJeff]

5 minutes ago, bissel said:

U.K. Jeff. It is always a pleasure reading what you have to say.

 

 

Thanks … that’s very kind/

 

Jeff

[Host Jazzbeau]

As you can see, Jeff, none of us lost the will to live reading your post!  😉

[Mahogany]

4 hours ago, tnm6217 said:

Thank you for sharing your perspective, @UKCruiseJeff! I learned a lot reading your story.

 

This is about far more than Champagne (or Crémant...or whatever) to me. If Silversea had decided the free laundry benefit, not the upgraded Champagne, was only available to guests with 250 sailed VS Days, my feelings would be the same. The terms and conditions of the VS program are clear and Silversea did not adhere to them. I sent my notice of disagreement under the mandatory arbitration clause off to Silversea's legal department today.

Just curious: since it seems to be your signature, what is "Covenant Cruising"?

[UKCruiseJeff]

1 minute ago, Mahogany said:

Just curious: since it seems to be your signature, what is "Covenant Cruising"?

 

Enigmatic? 😁

[tnm6217]

@Mahogany It’s the name of my agency…to remind me that being able to cruise as often as I do and to help others fall in love with cruising is a gift from above ☺️

[Host Jazzbeau]

Apologies to @tnm6217 for UKJeff and myself hijacking this thread.  I have moved our colloquy to the cooler thread, where any fans of classic BBC non-PC comedy can find several hilarious clips.

 

Carry on cruising...

[AtlantaCruiser72]

@tnm6217 I am 100% in agreement with your dissatisfaction with Silversea and their inability to reciting a relatively small and low cost situation. It does speak to structural problems within the organization. 
 

I also wanted to point out that while agents are free to post on these forums that displaying the name of your agency, or any agency for that matter, is prohibited by forum rules. You may want to change your signature before the moderators lock your account. 

[Host Kat]

52 minutes ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

@tnm6217 I am 100% in agreement with your dissatisfaction with Silversea and their inability to reciting a relatively small and low cost situation. It does speak to structural problems within the organization. 
 

I also wanted to point out that while agents are free to post on these forums that displaying the name of your agency, or any agency for that matter, is prohibited by forum rules. You may want to change your signature before the moderators lock your account. 

 

Hello @AtlantaCruiser72

 

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[AtlantaCruiser72]

I stand corrected my apologies @tnm6217 if I were to cause you any offense by my post no thank you @Host Kat for correcting my misunderstanding of the rules for travel agents on the forums. 

[ChucktownSteve]

I moved up from Celebrity to premium and luxury lines as I was becoming Elite+ due to my perception that Celebrity was RoyalCaribbeanized over the years to the point I no longer wished to sail them.

 

I have less than a handful of Regent cruises with no status however really enjoy their offering which ticks most of my service, quality and value boxes.I'm not afraid of spending my relative's inheritance.

 

I was hopeful that I could include SS into my product mix with the lessening of the formal nights and Royal Caribbean Group's status match.  One of the things I noticed is that on one of the ships I was considering, they have five restaurants imposing surcharges.  Regent on the other hand allowed me several additional specialty restaurant reservations with no surcharge. They also handled customer service better for me than the OP's experience.  Thus I fear the RoyalCaribbeanization of SS, as with Celebrity, has begun. That taints the brand IMO even before my ability to try then.

 

Two of the things that helped make my small businesses successful was under promising but over delivering and offering my customers something with a high perceived value with an actual low out of pocket cost to me.  This Champaign incident, to me, is a prime example of failing at both. One of the questions I would ask when a problem arose was, "what can I do to make this right for you?"  If their ask was too excessive, I'd let them know that I wish I could do that then would offer an alternative solution which they usually accepted. They understood I cared about their dissatisfaction.

 

This disheartens me because I really wanted to sail SS. However I just don't desire to have their marketed expectations disappoint me.  I don't mind stepping up to the fare but I expect them to deliver.

 

[UKCruiseJeff]

39 minutes ago, ChucktownSteve said:

I moved up from Celebrity to premium and luxury lines as I was becoming Elite+ due to my perception that Celebrity was RoyalCaribbeanized over the years to the point I no longer wished to sail them.

 

I have less than a handful of Regent cruises with no status however really enjoy their offering which ticks most of my service, quality and value boxes.I'm not afraid of spending my relative's inheritance.

 

I was hopeful that I could include SS into my product mix with the lessening of the formal nights and Royal Caribbean Group's status match.  One of the things I noticed is that on one of the ships I was considering, they have five restaurants imposing surcharges.  Regent on the other hand allowed me several additional specialty restaurant reservations with no surcharge. They also handled customer service better for me than the OP's experience.  Thus I fear the RoyalCaribbeanization of SS, as with Celebrity, has begun. That taints the brand IMO even before my ability to try then.

 

Two of the things that helped make my small businesses successful was under promising but over delivering and offering my customers something with a high perceived value with an actual low out of pocket cost to me.  This Champaign incident, to me, is a prime example of failing at both. One of the questions I would ask when a problem arose was, "what can I do to make this right for you?"  If their ask was too excessive, I'd let them know that I wish I could do that then would offer an alternative solution which they usually accepted. They understood I cared about their dissatisfaction.

 

This disheartens me because I really wanted to sail SS. However I just don't desire to have their marketed expectations disappoint me.  I don't mind stepping up to the fare but I expect them to deliver.

 

 

You really do understand intuitively a lot about extraordinary customer satisfaction.   

 

If I may I’d like to add a couple. It’s about the relationship between speed and graciousness for want of a better description and the satisfaction of the customer and their future loyalty.

 

Firstly the faster you resolve a problem  the cheaper the resolution and the happier the customer will be.  To the extent that is extremely likely  that they will become even more loyal than if the event causing disappointment hadn’t happened in the first place.  “Something went wrong and it was put right immediately.  I can trust these people and will give them my loyalty and recommend them to others.”

 

Another by-product about rapid resolution is that customers become more angry the more unjust resistance they are subjected to and the longer the resolution - if ever - it takes.  This means that “cost” of satisfactory resolution (if satisfaction is ever then possible or attainable) gets more resource and cash intensive. The costs and loyalty costs then becomes exponentially expensive.

 

For example, people often start really only needing a simple acknowledgement that their complaint is fair and want a genuine apology and to be reassured that something has been learned for the future and then simply having the error resolved.  But when left unrespected, unvalued and unresolved, their demands increase including  expensive escalation up the line and the level of demand increases. And with the explosion of access to social media so does the collateral damage to reputation takes disproportionate hits.  Potential new customers or undecided existing customer often decide about pressing the button on expensive purchases as a result of a single event or two read on social media being a last deciding straw that resets their balance.

 

Any competent management team therefore should be fully aware of all this stuff that the obvious key component in prompt low-cost resolution is therefore that the lower down the chain you empower people to resolve simple issues sensibly the better it is for your bottom line.  Not doing so therefore indicates a rather useless management team that is without competent leadership particularly if you make big claims for an expensive product but inject extremely low standards.

 

Jeff

[Gourmet Gal]

3 hours ago, ChucktownSteve said:

One of the things I noticed is that on one of the ships I was considering, they have five restaurants imposing surcharges. 

Excellent post but just wondering, which ship?  I am aware of only 2 restaurants that carry a surcharge.

[highplanesdrifters]

1 hour ago, UKCruiseJeff said:

For example, people often start really only needing a simple acknowledgement that their complaint is fair and want a genuine apology and to be reassured that something has been learned for the future and then simply having the error resolved.  But when left unrespected, unvalued and unresolved, their demands increase including  expensive escalation up the line and the level of demand increases.

 

How very true! 

[dabear]

As a result of this topic, we have decided to try Seabourn instead of Silverseas, even though we would have received 250points SS transfer status. Let the bean counters know customer satisfaction does have an impact!

[tnm6217]

8 hours ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

I stand corrected my apologies @tnm6217 if I were to cause you any offense

@AtlantaCruiser72 no apologies necessary! I'm grateful you chimed in.

 

3 hours ago, ChucktownSteve said:

One of the questions I would ask when a problem arose was, "what can I do to make this right for you?"  If their ask was too excessive, I'd let them know that I wish I could do that then would offer an alternative solution which they usually accepted. They understood I cared about their dissatisfaction.

Yes! At no point did anyone try to actually resolve the issue. I heard a lot of "well, that's what we were told" with no offer of a solution. 

 

2 hours ago, UKCruiseJeff said:

For example, people often start really only needing a simple acknowledgement that their complaint is fair and want a genuine apology and to be reassured that something has been learned for the future and then simply having the error resolved. But when left unrespected, unvalued and unresolved, their demands increase including expensive escalation up the line and the level of demand increases.

Like initiating arbitration and requiring their corporate legal department to spend time preparing for and conducting an informal settlement conference and possibly full arbitration over an incredibly small matter. I'm very curious to see how this arbitration process plays out, but I'm certainly not convinced that it will be made right!