whisper review posted

[rols]

I posted a review of the whisper Singapore --> Dubai

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=40786

 

to my eternal shame I misspelled the Cruise Director's name as Hughes instead of Heath and I've asked CruiseCritic to fix it for me. He was a lot of fun and I hope Silversea continues in that direction.

 

The cruise was great, the staff just get better and better. For us the food was a bit of a letdown, we've tried to rationalise it but .. it just really wasn't that good and not a patch on 12 months ago. That was the weak point of the cruise. A lot of people we talked to that week had had at least one meal they really weren't that keen on.

 

The high point apart from the staff was meeting people, we met so many wonderful people including one from the cruisecritic forums who, apart from being an incredibly nice guy was killer in the trivia .. we have two silversea bookmarks from the points we gained from some of his answers. You have to pick the right team :)

 

We'll sail silversea again, definitely, we'd like to try their new ship if we find out when it's sailing. They do need to get the food and beverage back up to scratch, it wasn't there this cruise. I must again however say the service was 110% wonderful, silversea really has great people on board their ships, long may that reign.

[meow!]

Thank you kindly for the review. Did you have the poolside barbeque with a whole suckling pig? The food was good enough for our voyage last December on the Shadow. How many times did you manage to book La Terrazza in your two weeks? As for service, the mainly Philippino staff have a jovial personality, which makes passengers feel comfortable. Nice to hear that you enjoyed yourself.

[rxralph]

What in the galley was differnt in your last cruise from earlier voyages?

 

ralph

[meow!]

We didn't notice any difference in the galley on the Shadow between 2004 and 2007, except that the doors to the dining room (which the waitstaff had to push through over the years) were getting more dented and worn. Perhaps one of these days they will replace them. This last voyage, we got to see the laundry as well, which was rare as far as we know.

[rxralph]

We didn't notice any difference in the galley on the Shadow between 2004 and 2007, except that the doors to the dining room (which the waitstaff had to push through over the years) were getting more dented and worn. Perhaps one of these days they will replace them. This last voyage, we got to see the laundry as well, which was rare as far as we know.

 

My question was directed at changes in staff etc., that might have influenced such a dramatic change in the offerings cruise to cruise.

 

ralph

[rols]

Thank you kindly for the review. Did you have the poolside barbeque with a whole suckling pig? The food was good enough for our voyage last December on the Shadow. How many times did you manage to book La Terrazza in your two weeks? As for service, the mainly Philippino staff have a jovial personality, which makes passengers feel comfortable. Nice to hear that you enjoyed yourself.

 

we did have the poolside BBQ, it was an interesting night as there were people out on an excursion in Mumbai, so it started off very quiet, and later on got very full which was fun. The folkloric (I really hadn't heard that word before) show was excellent, and I don't usually like them. Oh and it was our anniversary that night and we had Jorge and some of the other of the crew singing to us, which was really nice of them.

 

We booked La Terrazza twice I think and one evening some friends of ours were going there and they easily upped the numbers to 4 and we joined them, we could probably have booked another night or two easily if we were happy to be flexible about times. Le Champagne attracted a fair number of guests too from what I saw and from talking to people who went there.

 

Yes the Philippino staff are great - there were a number of Indians on the crew this time and they too were very good .. as I said, all the crew were totally excellent, Silversea really have it right there.

[rols]

My question was directed at changes in staff etc., that might have influenced such a dramatic change in the offerings cruise to cruise.

 

ralph

 

The Executive chef on the ship was fairly new, as in a number of weeks, it may be he was still getting things organised in the kitchen and that may have made a difference. eg we had a couple of meals which came out of the kitchen rather tepid, which may mean the production line wasn't working right, you felt they didn't quite have their finger on the pulse.

 

I'm not sure that the quality of ingredients was as good as before and it was pretty clear that the wines were cheaper than a year ago, that showed very clearly.

[JohnFPHX]

Thanks for the kind remarks! It was wonderful meeting you and your wife. Trivia each afternoon was indeed a treat not to be missed. Those of us that went every afternoon did get to know Simon - and that made watching his 1 1/2 shows all the more enjoyable.

 

I want to start off with the negative. I thought the dining room was painfully warm several nights - read that most nights. The food was OK, some items were really great and others left you shaking your head... snails and no garlic? A few nights I thought the service was too slow -- I'm not sure if the dining room just got over whelmed or if they were short staffed that night. A few nights the wines were dreary. The entertainment was grim a few nights. The worst was the magician. A fellow passenger remarked that the magician was pretty good - since when the lights went down he made me vanish!

 

OK, enough of that. I have been on dozens of cruises, and I can honestly say this time I really didn't want to leave the ship. The lovely ladies that looked after my cabin gave me a kiss as I left. I couldn't imagive a day without Jorge seating me at a wonderful table. (Traveling single you are sometimes at their mercy for a good table - Jorge out did himself night after night). I don't know if you stopped in to Gruppa (sp?) - but Marilyn ran THE best bar on the ship. Her sparkeling eye made you fee at home the minute you walked in!

 

One thing that is not stressed enough is that Silver Seas passengers are interesting. The passengers are wonderfully diverse, educated, well traveled and often very friendly. The unstoppable power of Team 3 at trivia is a perfect example. The team had people from Singapore, the UK, USA, and Argentina; and when in doubt the answer is Japan!

 

Having sailed on the Wind and the Whisper, I can say I did like the cabins better on the Whisper.

[meow!]

Your posting's title says Silver Shadow, do you mean Silver Whisper, or was it a segment of the world cruise on the Shadow?

[unfathomable]

I thought the dining room was painfully warm several nights - read that most nights.

We have asked for the temperature to be adjusted a couple of times in the past (though in those cases IIRC it was too cold), and there must be a thermostat somewhere, because the temperature improved. It does tend to be quite a bit cooler at the sides of the room, near the windows: must be the arrangement of the vents.