Review Lisbon - New York (Shadow)

[CASHIPman]

Silver Shadow "Sea of Quiet Reflection" (08MAY-22MAY)

 

Itinerary: Lisbon, Gibraltar, Casablanca, Funchal (Madeira), Ponta Delgada (Azores), and Bermuda, New York.

Stateroom: 621 (Veranda)

This transatlantic voyage was the last sector of the Silver Shadow's World Cruise and it was a wonderful way to spend 14 days. Of those 14 days, seven were sea days with the longest stretch being the four days between Ponta Delgada and Bermuda.

 

Embarkation: A breeze. Embarkation on Silversea is generally very easy however this was easier than normal because about 140 passengers had already boarded…about 100 days earlier.

 

Disembarkation: The ship docked at the pier in Manhattan at 7:00 AM. Passengers who were continuing back to Southampton, England and ship’s crew were cleared first. We were in the first group of disembarking passengers to get off the ship. We were called to disembark at around 9:15AM and finished with all governmental requirements by 9:30AM.

 

Entertainment: Now, I’m not a big one for ship’s entertainment but this cruise was chock-a-block with interesting presenters. Noted maritime historian Bill Miller gave about three lectures on board. John Derbyshire of the conservative magazine “National Review”, (who replaced the grieving William F. Buckley) had, I think two lectures…one on politics and one on numbers. (???) Ted Allen, formerly of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and now of “Top Chef” had two or three cooking demonstrations. Broadway producer Arthur Whitelaw entertained the crowd. Last but far from least was pianist and raconteur Michael Feinstein. Michael boarded the ship in Bermuda and performed in the Athenian Lounge for nearly 90 minutes. It was a great performance!

 

Ship’s Tours: We did ship sponsored tours in Morocco, and the Azores. The tour in Morocco was a ½ day tour to that nation’s capital, Rabat. Rabat was very interesting and the tour guide very knowledgeable. The ship also offered a full day tour to Marrakech however it’s a four-hour road journey in each direction. That was just too long to spend in a bus!!

In the Azores we did a four-wheel drive tour of the island of Sao Miguel. This was an excellent way to see the island. Each Land Rover or Jeep had a tour guide and four occupants. Our tour guide spoke impeccable English…being a Canadian of Azorean descent who decided to move to the land of his grandparents. It was an excellent way to see a beautiful island.

Madeira: Silversea offered a complimentary excursion at Madeira. I chose not to go. My partner did as it was a wine excursion but when he returned he said that it smacked of a promotion by local vintners.

 

Other tours: When the ship docked in Gibraltar there were many taxis/minivans offering tours of the “Rock”. Our minivan held 6 and the driver/guide gave us an excellent overview of the rock. We went to the top; visited the caverns; saw the monkeys; walked through the man-made caves and were dropped off in town.

We didn’t do any tours in Bermuda because I’ve been there nearly 20 times. Bermuda really doesn’t require any tours. Just rent a cycle and go go go!!! (which is what I did)

 

Ports:

Lisbon: We spent 3 days in Lisbon prior to boarding the Silver Shadow. I had fully expected it to be a sleepy, somewhat boring city. W-R-O-N-G!!! Lisbon may not be a massive bustling metropolis but it is a city with great people, great architecture, great infrastructure and great public transport. Well worth a visit!!

Gibraltar: Winston Churchill’s belief was that, as long as the barbary apes inhabited Gibraltar the territory would remain British. Well, we saw quite a few of the apes and the territory does have a very British feel to it…if Britain had sun!!  Visiting the “Rock” was great fun and extremely interesting. Although it is British, the Spanish language is often heard and most places of business will accept the Gibraltar pound and the Euro.

Casablanca: Where’s the romance? Where’s the charm? Where’s “Rick’s Café Americaine”? (okay..Rick’s is apparently a tacky bar under renovation in the lobby of the Hyatt). Casablanca itself is not particularly interesting or beautiful. We did take a ship’s tour to Rabat, which had many fascinating sights. Rabat is about 90 minutes from Casablanca.

Madeira: I’ve been here before on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary 2 so I only disembarked the ship in order to take pictures of the vessel. The crew of the Silver Shadow commemorated their visit to the island by proudly painting the Silversea logo on the wall adjacent to the pier. It’s a nice little island…but the ship is nicer!!

Azores: The ship called at Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel. I knew very little of the Azores so I didn’t know what to expect. Well…Sao Miguel is a spectacularly beautiful island!! It’s lush and green. It has beautiful beaches and wonderful lakes that fill the indentations of dormant volcanic craters. If you’re ever in the neighborhood…visit the Azores. You’ll be surprised and enthralled.

Bermuda: The only place it rained during the 14 days was in Bermuda…and it rained hard but the torrents didn’t stop me!! I walked up Front Street to Oleander Cycles and rented a scooter. I rode to St. David’s Island, and St. George’s and toodled around. I visited Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and then met my partner for lunch at the “Swizzle Inn” outpost in Warwick parish. Some of the crewmembers also emblazoned the Silversea logo with the worlds “World Cruise 2007” on the port’s breakwater.

New York: The port of New York welcomed the Silver Shadow on its maiden visit with a water spray from a historic fireboat. Although New York is my home and an amazing city it was depressing to disembark, get in a taxi and go straight to work.

 

Crew: The crew was virtually flawless. For example, I had mentioned to the ship’s bar manager, Sujith that Marilyn in the Panorama Lounge had made sugar syrup for my caiparinhas. His reply was basically, “You shall have simple (sugar) syrup at every bar by tomorrow “…and we did. Sujith is the epitome of professionalism. There was a bit of intra-crew ugliness when an engineering officer who was in overalls “ordered” Sujith to prepare an alcoholic drink during the crew’s “deck Olympics”. Sujith respectfully advised the officer that he may have the soft drinks provided for the crew on the deck. The “officer” then began to berate Sujith with, “how long have you been here? Do you know who I am?” but Sujith politely held his ground even though this officer persisted. Passengers who witnessed this made a number of complaints against this officer. The officer wasn’t seen in public again.

Throughout the ship the crew were friendly, professional and welcoming. They called us by name routinely and remembered our likes and dislikes from day one.

The cruise director was the polyglot Fernando. He is extremely welcoming and engaging and has an amazing history.

 

Passengers: My partner and I met many wonderful people and never felt like interlopers among the World Cruisers. The range of nationalities was far and wide. We met, made friends with and dined with World Cruisers and late joiners alike and had a great time. One of the many, many highlights was a conversation in the Davidoff Humidor with an executive producer of a popular American news program. He, my partner and I spoke about a wide range of topics until 2AM! Memorable, simply memorable. Overall it seemed that all the passengers were enjoying themselves, the ship and the voyage.

 

Trivia: I’m a big fan of trivia and admittedly have a mind full of useless information. However on a couple of past cruises with Seabourn and Silversea, the trivia sessions proved to be an exercise in embarrassing childishness. On this voyage the trivia games were completely social and fun. Was this a function of how Fernando ran the games or the players themselves? I’d say it was a 50/50 split.

 

Food: I made a conscious not to go to breakfast. I generally don’t eat breakfast at home and didn’t want to disembark the ship at a weight of 800lbs/360kgs so I figured that I would skip breakfast. Lunch was almost exclusively taken poolside. The poolside grill (always my favorite!) was in fine form with a nice selection of hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled fish and salads. My partner and I did have lunch one afternoon in the restaurant when we invited Fernando to join us. It was the day of the galley brunch and it was quite good.

Although the ship offers four venues for dinner we only ate in “The Restaurant”. The South African-born chef in “The Restaurant”, Richard is quite accomplished at serving nearly 400 covers to a demanding clientele. The dinners were normally very good to excellent. There was only one meal where the Restaurant’s offerings were prepared to a “good” level. Three truly memorable meals were served on board the ship. The first was "Poulet de Bresse”, a renowned chicken from Bresse, France that is notable for its blue feet and a tag on its wing. We special ordered it and the chef prepared it to perfection and the captain of the section, Jose, carved it tableside.

On the advice of one of the world cruisers, we asked for an Indian banquet. We had planned for a total of six diners however the two wives of the other couples were unwell and didn’t join us remaining four. This dinner, from beginning to end was a journey through India. The chef prepared chicken Tikka, shrimp Masala, Tandoori chicken, various chutneys, chickpeas, papadom and naan breads, rice. This meal was otherworldly. We learned from the maitre d’, Antonio that the chef who prepared this feast was in fact Indian and was given carte blanche in India (when the ship called there) to buy fresh spices and curry powders for the kitchen. We also learned that this chef had also recently been promoted. This meal was so good that we asked for a second Indian banquet, which we shared with another couple. It was just as good as the first!!!

 

Room Service: This was a bit spotty. I found that you had to be very, very specific with what you wanted and even so, things would be missing from the order. For anyone who is a fan of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” think of the scene where the “King of the Swamp Castle” tried to give instructions to the guards watching “Prince Herbert”.

On one afternoon we were at the pool deck and my partner wanted something from the restaurant’s lunch menu to be delivered to the pool deck. He placed the order and about 30 minutes later was told that it wouldn’t be coming because he had ordered it after the lunch service had ended. He challenged this (because the order had been placed prior to the end of service) and then was told that it could be delivered to the suite but not to the pool deck. After about four different excuses the dish was finally delivered to the pool deck. No one offered a reasonable explanation for this service interruption. On a positive note my partner asked for a daily order of caviar to be delivered to the room every evening at 6:00PM. He only had to make this request once and the caviar appeared every evening. Even if we were out of the stateroom at the time of delivery the room service attendant would leave the caviar in the stateroom.

 

Stateroom: We had a verandah suite (621). Our travel agent told us that this cabin was next to the linen station for the deck and it might have added noise. Well, we didn’t hear a peep. The cabin is a standard Silver Shadow suite. It was well appointed. I do hope that the TV’s are replaced with flat screens.

The ship’s wireless internet extended to the staterooms and was very convenient and pretty quick.

 

Overall impressions: Excellent voyage…probably one of the best if not the best I’ve been on. The combination of interesting ports, number of sea days, great fellow passengers and virtually flawless service made the two weeks fly by. While we were on board we booked another cruise (that offered an onboard savings) for April 2008 so now we have two more Silversea cruises to look forward to.

 

My partner and I have been “immortalized” in the Restaurant. We brought along a fascinating bottle of wine that was without a label. Jerome, the sommelier created a label with our names and the wine’s information, affixed it to the bottle and placed it in the display case as you enter the restaurant. Here is a link to another site that details this wonderful dining experience and the wine in question.

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=132150&highlight=Silversea

[meow!]

Thank you kindly for your comprehensive report. So far, other than the relative of one passenger describing the "send off" and two of you (you and duct tape) posting on the final "leg", there has been no other report on this world cruise. I am sure many people would like to hear more about this 126 day journey.

 

By the way, just out of curiosity, did they put those world cruisers in certain parts of the ship and segment cruisers in others? That might make it easier for the staff, planning on who was disembarking and who was not after each segment. Also, was there any distinction in room key card colours or whatever such that one could tell how long a passenger had been on board?

 

For the world cruisers (since you saw so many of them), how did they manage with their luggage (imagine what one had to bring for a four month journey and the souvenirs collected)? Did they have to hire porters, send luggage to the ship before boarding, and stuff back home during the trip? The logistics required for such a prolonged journey must be massive!

[CASHIPman]

Hi meow!

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

There was no segregation on departure. We all had the run of the ship.

 

I believe the World Cruiser's key cards were gold vs. the standard silver. They might've even said "World Cruise" on them but I couldn't swear to that.

 

I don't think there were any major logistical issues with the luggage. The companionways were full of bags on the night before arrival. I know that some of those folks we met started packing days before disembarkation.

 

The NY Passenger Ship Terminal has porters so I imagine the world cruisers just used their services. I recall one couple mentioning they had 7 bags which doesn't seem to be too much. There were reports of a lady that had over 100 pairs of shoes with her but, not having seen the shoes I can't confirm this.

 

You mentioned "duct tape"...I wonder if I met her? Hmmm....

[nowornever]

This is too funny, CASHIPman. We had 621 on the Auckland-Alexandria segments. Hope we left it clean enuf' for you! We only could hear a little noise from the elevator in the crew area every once in a while. It was a delightful suite & a wonderful trip. Wish we could have stayed on longer. We spent many hours on the verandah watching the world go by - ships, dolphin, sea birds.

[meow!]

CASHIPman: Thank you kindly for your reply.

 

nowornever: Since you have also been on segments of that world cruise, would you care to write a more detailed account on your segments to share with the rest of us? Thank you.

[duct tape]

Wel, let's see about all those questions! Cashipman, we did not meet but it sounds like we would have had another great meal together! I also witnessed Mazzola (Chief Engineer) giving Sujith a bad time and reported him as well. He has a history of being a bad actor. Yes, Fernando makes Trivia a little nuts on purpose. He really wants people to have a good time and not get their bloomers in an uproar. As you know, it has happened! "The Shoe Lady" had 133 pair, to be exact, as well as 27 gowns for the Formal nights. There were a few trucks and vans ordered for disembarkation by folks I know. Lots of boxes and luggage was shipped to the hotel in FL prior to the cruise and SS called us all to see how much luggage we were bringing and how much we needed to store. They put a portable storage unit up on the crew sundeck (11) for that purpose. We only needed a SUV! We are not shoppers. Meow, the keycards were color coded but not sure why since they would not let us keep them. Most of the 7th floor (affectionately referred to as Cell Block 7), was occupied by folks on for the long haul. Our cabin stewardess' loved it since they did not have to deal with new folks every 2 weeks. On the other hand, there were some folks they would have prefeerred if they were ONLY there for a few weeks! We even gave ourselves a farewell pary on Cellblock 7. Robert and Suzanne were amongst the inmates. As for the food, I found it inconsistent but exceeding my expectations for Richard's ability to keep the galley crews motivated for such an extended period. Yes, I also agree that Bresse is my favorite chicken and we enjoyed it frequently. You really should have given La Terraza a chance. The 3rd chef who arrived was quite excellent. Good fresh pasta. Hope this answered some queries and I will keep at it until I get all the news posted.

[CASHIPman]

Wel, let's see about all those questions! Cashipman, we did not meet but it sounds like we would have had another great meal together! I also witnessed Mazzola (Chief Engineer) giving Sujith a bad time and reported him as well. He has a history of being a bad actor. Yes, Fernando makes Trivia a little nuts on purpose. He really wants people to have a good time and not get their bloomers in an uproar. As you know, it has happened! "The Shoe Lady" had 133 pair, to be exact, as well as 27 gowns for the Formal nights. There were a few trucks and vans ordered for disembarkation by folks I know. Lots of boxes and luggage was shipped to the hotel in FL prior to the cruise and SS called us all to see how much luggage we were bringing and how much we needed to store. They put a portable storage unit up on the crew sundeck (11) for that purpose. We only needed a SUV! We are not shoppers. Meow, the keycards were color coded but not sure why since they would not let us keep them.

Yep..this was the first cruise I've taken where I couldn't keep the key.

 

Most of the 7th floor (affectionately referred to as Cell Block 7), was occupied by folks on for the long haul. Our cabin stewardess' loved it since they did not have to deal with new folks every 2 weeks. On the other hand, there were some folks they would have prefeerred if they were ONLY there for a few weeks! We even gave ourselves a farewell pary on Cellblock 7. Robert and Suzanne were amongst the inmates.

 

I don't know if you had the chance to read the link to "eRobertParker.com" at the bottom of my original post but your "Robert and Suzanne" are our Robert and Suzanne! A delightful couple!!

 

As for the food, I found it inconsistent but exceeding my expectations for Richard's ability to keep the galley crews motivated for such an extended period. Yes, I also agree that Bresse is my favorite chicken and we enjoyed it frequently.

 

Just curious, Duct Tape...on the World Cruise would you primarily dine from the restaurants' menus or did you find that you just wanted a soup and salad (or something equally simple) in your suite? Did you often do special orders?

 

You really should have given La Terraza a chance. The 3rd chef who arrived was quite excellent. Good fresh pasta. Hope this answered some queries and I will keep at it until I get all the news posted.

 

We wanted to especially since Miroslav (the sommelier) was up there but the 14 days just went too quickly!! We were lucky to meet him on a previous cruise and he's very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about wines.

[duct tape]

Good evening, CASHIPman, yes, I mentioned Robert and Suzanne because I read you link. We don't special order often, except for chicken. We eat a lot of antipasto and a little pasta when we want something lite. When you are in Cellblock 7 you can sneak into the Terrazza and take it back to your suite! Yes, we have also sailed with Miroslav and we enjoyed having him back onboard. We did a lot of wine shopping on the trip and the sommeliers were always anxious to see what was for dinner! They showed up like puppies at feeding time. When is your next voyage?

[CASHIPman]

Good evening, CASHIPman, yes, I mentioned Robert and Suzanne because I read you link. We don't special order often, except for chicken. We eat a lot of antipasto and a little pasta when we want something lite. When you are in Cellblock 7 you can sneak into the Terrazza and take it back to your suite! Yes, we have also sailed with Miroslav and we enjoyed having him back onboard. We did a lot of wine shopping on the trip and the sommeliers were always anxious to see what was for dinner! They showed up like puppies at feeding time. When is your next voyage?

 

 

Hi Duct Tape...

We have two Silversea voyages booked. THe first is just before Christmas on the Cloud from Mauritius to Madagascar to S. Africa. The second trip we booked on the Shadow. IT's also on the Cloud for April '08 and goes from San Juan, to St Barths, Barbados, Cape Verde Islands ending up in the Canary Islands.

 

It's great that Silversea has sommeliers with interest and knowledge in wines vs. some lines that fill the sommelier role witht he person that best fits the jacket!

 

What's your next trip?

[duct tape]

We are off to the Cloud in the Med and the Black Sea in August and Sept. Back to the Shadow for Christmas, through the Canal and into the Caribbean for NYE. SS may have problems but I still think they are the best afloat. Thanx for asking.

[CASHIPman]

We are off to the Cloud in the Med and the Black Sea in August and Sept. Back to the Shadow for Christmas, through the Canal and into the Caribbean for NYE. SS may have problems but I still think they are the best afloat. Thanx for asking.

 

There ya go! I agree with you. I think I read elsewhere on CC that one of the few folks who has a vehement dislike for Silversea will yet be on SS (seems a waste of time) in August. I hope your paths don't cross.

 

We met a lovely British couple (who are now resident in Spain) on this last trip and I believe they'll be with you on the NYE Shadow. And you may have noticed/met a wonderful British lady who bore a striking resemblance to HM Queen Elizabeth II on the Shadow? If so, she as well may be on the NYE Shadow.