buen aventura to mr & mrs ctbjr!

[alita]

The boards are back up in time for all your SD friends to wish you a fabulous 10 days on the ship of my dreams! If you have your laptop with you we'll expect at least a few reports... news of officers, staff and crew known to all of us... and of course a bit of scandal.. past or present ;) .

 

Happy sails... happy shopping... and don't forget to give a thought or two to your comrades stuck here in winter weather wishing we were cruising with you! And as I write this I look out not only on snow-covered mountains but on a snow-covered roof! Snow in Tucson??? It happens once every century or so...

 

¡buen viaje!

 

alita

[ctbjr1309]

alita,

 

Thank you for the good wishes. We leave for Rio tomorrow afternoon and are looking forward to what will surely be a grand adventure. After doing a 1 week Caribbean cruise on Sea Goddess/Seabourn Goddess/SeaDream in Jan. or Feb. 11 of the last 12 years, we're ready for a change of pace.

 

After a night in a Rio hotel, we board SD1 on Thursday and I'll be pleased to provide regular reports, updates and answer questions. It won't be quite the same as last November when you and I were posting in our respective Fall '06 Crossing threads but it'll have to do.

 

Good luck thawing out soon. We'll be in touch in a couple of days from Rio!

[DisneyJen]

WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH....

 

The boards have been so "hinky" (can you tell that I have a 14-year-old) that I didn't get to post my bon voyage wishes to ctbjr and the Mrs.

 

Better late than never ... have a great trip ... and as alita said we will want a full report:p

[ctbjr1309]

Thanks for the good wishes, DJ. As you know, we also have a 14 year old so understand completely your lingo.

 

We made it to Rio this morning. Fortunately, Delta was ready when we were. We arrived a few minutes early and in fact just beat the Air France 747flight from Paris to the gate and thus immigration and customs. Had we come in after them, I'd say we'd have been stuck in line for at least an extra hour. As it was, the airport was a zoo but we were at our hotel in Copacabana barely 2 hours after landing.

 

We've not been to Rio previously so are looking forward to learning our way around. We're off to Ipanema for dinner tonight and then board SD1 tomorrow afternoon. Will keep the commentary going until requested otherwise.

[DisneyJen]

Glad to hear that all is well in Rio!

 

Will be interested to hear your comments as a first-timer to the city.

[emckeeve]

I will be re-living our trip of two weeks ago all over again. I'm so excited to read your reports!

[DisneyJen]

I am going to have to live vicariously through all the trip reports as DH's family has voted for a family cruise this Thanksgiving on Holland America:rolleyes: Guess who is hoping she get's voted off the island:eek:

[alita]

I've decided to post on this thread as no one at silversea seems much interested in my present cruise but I was pretty sure that two or three of you would like to hear about it..

 

Silver Wind is a lovely ship... well laid out, suites are beautiful and the public rooms spacious and inviting. The only problem is the a/c which seems to get worse as we sail north toward the equator. My room was a problem from the very beginning but as the ship is supposedly full changing rooms was not an option. By the third day the very nice CD managed to get me a plastic fan and that has been helpful. In fact I'd say I'm one of the lucky ones. The computer room is so hot that 10 minutes is maximum time in here but this afternoon I 'borrowed' a fan and brought it in and I've been here comfortably for almost a half an hour. But it lives in the computer room on the bridge so any minute it'll be taken away.

 

Have met a couple of very nice ccers on board; there are others but they haven't introduced themselves yet. Nice mix of people--majority from Britain and USA, average age well over 70 I should think.

 

Hope that all of you Sea Dreamers are surviving the february weather, from all reports it seems to be pretty grim everywhere. We're in 100% temps with extremely high humidity so I might even be glad to trade with you, especially since I can't kick up the A/C:rolleyes:

 

alita

[DisneyJen]

Greetings alita!

 

Thanks for checking in with this info on Silverseas.

 

I hope that they have the a/c working soon:eek: I can imagine it is quite uncomfortable.

 

How large is the ship? How are the crew?

 

Sending cool thoughts your way!

[alita]

Finally got home last evening after 2(!) overnights en route to Tucson from Barbados, one in Miami and another in DC due to weather... it's enough to make me want to stay home, especially in the winter!

 

Jen, to answer your questions... ship is small, less than 300 passengers, but very spacious except for 2 rooms where I liked to spend time: the computer room and the card room. The ship resembles Regent ships which is not surprising as they were built in the same shipyard. I was pleased with my suite (except for the a/c problem), and I particularly liked the bed and bedding, it was the most comfortable I've ever found away from home.

 

Crew, once they get to know who you are, were for the most part very friendly and helpful. Service was not up to 5* standard but I think the ship was understaffed. I'd say that both Radisson/Regent which I've sailed several times and Sea Dream have more polished and more consistently fine service. Same goes for the food; I agree with some of the postings on a current SS thread about the quality and variety of the food... I especially missed the wonderful lunch buffets offered by both SD and Regent, SS had nothing that could compare to these.

 

Air conditioning continued to be an issue the entire trip in many (but not all) parts of the ship. Unfortunately for those of us who played bridge the afternoons were nearly unbearable in that hot stuffy little room, and the computer room was even worse. By the end of the voyage, everyone was complaining although no one in charge would acknowledge that there was a problem. I think that was the most infuriating part; I had been assured personally by a top SS exec that there was no problem on board at least a month before we sailed, and this 'coverup' by the management continued until the morning we got off.

 

The one other thing that made many of us unhappy campers was the outrageous charge for internet. I paid $155 and felt like there were gremlins stealing my precious minutes away... I would time a session at 7 minutes but it would show up as several minutes more due to the getting on and getting off online. The ship was being wired for wi-fi during the week so if this takes place perhaps the charges will drop.

 

I wouldn't sail on SS again but mainly because I don't think it's a good match for me. More than once while playing bridge and trying to find a suit with my partner I thought that this is the way it is with SS and me: it's just not a good fit.

[DisneyJen]

Welcome home (finally) alita!

 

Thanks for the info. Sounds like the fit just wasn't right ... sort of like SB not fitting us:rolleyes:

 

We have an extended family cruise scheduled for Thanksgiving week on HAL ... not our choice but it fits the needs (three families) and budgets of other members of the family. I wanted to try Regent but their November cruises are 10 days and that won't work for the children. We went with an aft suite ... I figure DH can sit/dine/read/sleep out there away from the masses:p

 

He is en route to Mexico City right now. I emailed him the new specials I received from SD this afternoon on their cruises in Italy in October. Who knows!

 

Thanks again!

[lorneross]

i was on the silverwind from tenerife to bridgetown in 2001 we will never sail with silversea again the other passengers never wanted to dine with us the were mostly british not that there is anything wrong with british folks one of my best friends is british and on the last morning we had to be off by 6:30 a.m in bridgetown and never got our wakeup call and we missed breakfast and our group transfers to the airport and had to take a taxi the shore excurison desk manager was very rude and blamed us for being late and said he wished we never sail again he was tall and from columbia i do not remeber his name he made my mother cry thanks from lorneross

[alita]

lorneross... I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience on Silversea but as it was 6 years ago I think things have probably changed quite a bit. I was told by several people that in order to have the true SS experience one should cruise on either the Whisper or the Shadow. I never encountered rudeness with the exception of one afternoon when an unidentified man marched into my room and after testing the air declared that there was nothing at all wrong with the air conditioning (he purported to be a member of the staff but wore no uniform or badge) and implied that it was all in my head. I pointed to the door and told him to get out... never saw him again so I don't know whether he was actually connected to the cruise line or just a crank who wanted to start a fight.

 

I didn't mention one of the best features of the cruise--and one that kept me sane--and that was the bridge instructor and his great morning lectures followed by afternoons of playing the game with him always there to help and answer questions... if you're reading this Bob, please know that I and others are very grateful to you for the fine program you and Joan ran for us bridge addicts!

 

Now that I've been home a couple of days and have talked to friends about the Wind experience I find that I'm laughing a lot at some of the stories... I guess the bottom line for me is that it was a most interesting experience and it gives me lots of tales to dine out on. There were staff, crew and officers aboard who were as good as any I've come across on the seas, and that makes me think that this particular cruise may have been a one-off... once they get the air-conditioning working again the Wind will probably have a few more years to sail before she meets the fate of the late lamented Radisson Diamond.;)

[lorneross]

thanks for your reply alita since our silversea disaster we have been on the radisson seven seas navagator on a 26 day south pacific cruise in 2005 my mom and i loved that cruise so much more then silversea because the staff and passangers are so much more friendly. we are also going on the seabourn pride on march 19 2007 transatlantic and seadream 1 transatlantic april 2008 we are looking forward to each of thease cruises very much. by the way it looks like there are not as many cruise critics on the seadream board as the seabourn board is it because the seadream yachts are smaller? thanks again from lorneross