Suite

Silversea Expeditions

Luxury Cruises

Punta Arenas

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Reykjavik

London (Greenwich, Tower Bridge, Tilbury)

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Colon (Cristobal)

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Antarctica

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Panama

Excellent

Average

Poor

Very Good

Terrible

Silver Wind

Silver Explorer

Silver Cloud Expedition

Silver Endeavour

Highlights and Lowlights

Rome (Civitavecchia)

This was essentially a reposition cruise, Artic to Antarctic, but was not advertised as such.

Ship is old and very much showing her age, significant water leak into observation lounge during rain storms, several cabins flooded due to air conditioning leaks, many areas of ship were quite warm on hot days.

Too many stops, for too little time at each stop, focus was on quantity not quality.  At sea days punctuated with short drive-by visits to out-of-the-way locations where there little to see or do.  The attempt to create an expedition experience during a tropical reposition failed, the expedition team did their best with what they had to work with.

Five at-sea days (1/3 of cruise) with limited entertainment (evening), two musicians, and the entertainment director and a few short (30 minutes) lectures.  

Food was excellent in both dinning venues.

Cabin attendants and dinning staff were excellent 

No transparency and information as to extent of COVID-19 infection onboard, based on post cruise conversations with other passengers, there were many infections on board, both passengers and crew.  However, there were no precautions taken, or protocols followed, masks not required or recommended, buffet lines remained open, Etc.

Specific comments:

-	Jamaka Port Antonio

This was a pointless visit.  Long bus ride, hanging out on two beaches for an hour for nothing to do.  Nothing of historical, cultural or geographic significance seen during visit.  

-	Columbia Cartagena

Awesome city, this should have been an overnight, not a drive by visit!  Considering the wasted day before in Jamaka and wasted day after in Portobelo, inexcusable.

-	Panama, Portobelo

We anchored, got on a bus for hour and a half ride to spend one hour watching the Panama canal, followed by another hour and a half bus ride back to ship so it could sail to anchorage to await a Panama canal transit.  Frankly after transiting the canal, this canal visitor center was pointless, spending an entire day for a one hour visit was insane.

-	Panama Canal Transit

Awesome.  Bucket list experience.

-	Panama Darien Jungle

Interesting, but a bit artificial and very short visit.    A one hour show that was clearly staged for our benefit.  

-	Colombia Utria National Park

Mangrove boardwalk after first ten minutes was not interesting, only wild life observed were crabs and a single fish.  Very hot and humid.  Visited a glass bottom boat (Zodiac) great idea, although better suited for location with better water visibility.  This stop should have been skipped.

-	Ecuador Puerto Lopez

The Panama hat making process was interesting.  The Agua Blanca museum and sulfur pool was a waste of time.  And entire day stop to see how Panama hats are made!

-	Ecuador Machala

Great Lunch.  Dry tropical forest was interesting, but not worth the long drive.

-	Peru Salaverry

May have been the best tour of the cruise. Visit to archeological site was very interesting and the visit to ranch and horse show was great.

Essentially a reposition cruise, Artic to Antarctic.  At sea days punctuated with short drive-by visits to out-of-the-way locations where there little to see or do.

We had a great time in Antartica and it was a great experience overall to travel with silversea.

Our trip was door to door, we paid a bit more than port to port to have a complete experience. 

Once on Board everything went well, great crew, amazing food, very clean cabin and amazing bartenders. Cabin was comfortable, clean and spacious. we were never disappointed.

The excursions were well executed, always with lots of safety in mind, and plenty of opportunities to enjoy Antartica.

The service also on the charter plane was amazing, with all the food and drinks provided, totally making the trip pleasant.

We are actually planning to go on another cruise with silversea and will recommend to our friends. 

A few things that we were not pleased with were before and after the cruise.

The Blacklane ride from our house to the airport was comfortable and spacious but the driver did not offer us anything to drink as it was listed on our instructions.

Upon returning to Santiago Chile, we had several hours before it was time for our flight back to USA. 

We arrived at the hotel provided but from that point on Silversea did not provide any dinner, nor drinks nor any welcome back afternoon snack. We had to purchase our dinner, our beverages and I was charged $4 at the Hotel for 2 oz of milk for my coffee. In my opinion if a trip is door to door, the Hotel room for a few hours was not helpful, because we did not have enough time to use it, but dinner and some refreshments instead would have been appreciated. 

I am not unhappy, but the purpose of my review is for future improvement for future guests.

Great but could improve

An Expedition to Antarctica was a dream come true.  One cannot describe how magnificent this experience is -- from the wildlife, to the glaciers, to the ice scapes, the kayaking in antarctic waters, the zodiac experiences, the enrichment, the great service, etc.  it was amazing.

The Silver Cloud, however, is a very tired ship.  It is screaming for an upgrade.  The furniture is a bit ragged and uncomfortable; the signs lines in the forward lounge where the lectures are are poor; the fitness center needs upgraded equipment. If your room is anywhere forward, the movement of the ship is incredibly noticeable.

Having said all of that, the staff on board is the best ever.  Our butler, Tarik was amazing.  The wait staff and bar staff (Melisa, Karen, Enrique, and others were excellent).  Loved the Restaurant and the Grill.  Joe in the Restaurant was amazing.  The Expedition Staff was so knowledgeable and attentive and the guys who helped us on an off the zodiacs are unsung heroes.  Trent, Marcel, Tyler, Seba were great.  So enjoyed them.  

Embarkation is a long, painful process -- being the last out of Santiago and the last off the ship, made for a very rushed embark and meal and long waiting around.

The Mandarin in Santiago was terrific as was the Hilton day room.  We felt somewhat refreshed for the long journey home.  

All in all, a wonderful experience. .  I would have like a ship in better condition -- though that is really the only negative I can think of.  Silveursea's service, food and expedition team are unrivaled.

Great Expedition/Very Tired Ship

San Francisco

We booked this cruise 3 years ago before COVID hits. We finally got to go after many cancel, and price increase. 

May be we had bad luck, regardless, the Silverseas did not make it right for us. Overall it was disappointing for us. 

On the day we start the journey, we loss a pre-cruise hotel night to tour and rest due to tornado at Dallas, notice was last minute just hours before boarding from AA, not from Silverseas. I was extremely anxious and don't know what to do. Silverseas phone line kept me on hold for 2+ hours and then subsequently many hours to rearrange flight. Its was a very bad experience. We were compensated with future cruise credit, which is not fair compensation in my opinion. We should have been compensated with something direct and enjoyable on the cruise, not an incentive for us to spend more. 

Food was bad in view of the cruise fare we paid. The buffet was the worst I have experienced on cruise. The La Dame restaurant shares the same menu and cooking (other than the presentation) as the dining restaurant. I would be expecting more since we are paying additional USD60 / person. Overall few varieties low food quality, food always served Luke warm, and never piping hot. Some servers are excellent while others are on training, missing or ignoring orders. Some servers make jokes on the customer that is not appropriate. 

The expedition is big but disorganized. Each person seem to have a different answer for the same question. No one seem to have the answer at times and blamed on the weather. The assignment to group was not upheld at gate to wet/dry landing or hike so there were unexpected wait, confusion and disappointment, The landing on the Antarctic (not the outskirt island) was cancelled, so the expectation to stand on the Antarctic continent was in vein, In fact, one of the main purpose of me was to set foot on the Antarctic continent on this cruise. A few islands such Elephant island was cancelled and we were forced to be at sea was extra days. There was no replacement or compensation of changed itineraries, this resulted in more disappointment in myself. 

The photo team did well to provide a very nice recap of the while life and scenery, however the video taken for the polar plunge took many days to be made available only after my continuous chase everyday. It was just a video capture, what is taking so long ? It was never explained. 

The room service was good, butler Argues was excellent, he did very well and make our stay in the room comfortable. He is to be commended. 

The bar tender were all good. 

The premium wine is not premium at all, all table wine at best. 

The Zodiac landing crew were to be praised, taking care of the landing and making trail for us. They are to be commended. 

Considering the amount we have paid and this disappointing experience I would be going for other premium expedition line for my Galapagos and Arctic and Amazon Cruise.

Premium price but not premium service and food

We chose this itinerary specifically - the Falklands, South Georgia, South Shetlands, Elephant Island (Shackelton) and the Antarctic peninsula plus cruising Cape Horn on the way in to Puerto Williams. We got the first three but not the last three. With the itinerary, Silversea was the only line (this year) that offered "the whole experience." The Silver Cloud staff were fantastic, the ship was good, but showing her age (it made us wonder if it will soon go the way of Silver Explorer) with rust showing along the hull and decks with peeling rails and deck tables. But the staff - the hotel staff were amazing - and the expedition team were all just wonderful. The expedition team was very attentive, smart and experienced. Our only problem with the itinerary was skipped stops (Elephant Island) and two days cut short (Antarctic Peninsula as well as Cape Horn).  Likely they skipped Elephant Island because Quark had just had their fatal accident a few days prior but weather was the reason. Elephant Island tied into Shackelton (we visited his grave on South Georgia) and the whole Shackelton story of rescue and self-reliance. As we kept stopping at islands instead of on the Peninsula - the excuse was "this is ALL Antarctica" but many on-board had the "7 continents" goal and they didn't get it - we got within a hundred yards off shore on a beautiful day, but didn't land the zodiacs. Weather is always the excuse. And it was "incoming weather" given as why we left for Puerto Williams early.  We arrived on Thursday when we were to arrive on Saturday. Was it weather? Or because we ran out of lettuce? Who knows.  The Drake was the Drake and waves were 3-4 meters which gives you an adventure!  The skipped stops and shortened cruise is the only reason for the 4-star overall rating. Yes, we know it can happen; we're not newbies. And, it was certainly a wonderful experience. But, if we'd known about the shortened cruise and skipped stops, we would NOT have gone on this cruise. Like many, we choose because of the itinerary.but Silversea gave us a wonderful experience with a wonderful staff! We'd certainly take the Cloud again on an itinerary we wish to experience.

Amazing destination, great experience - but cut short

This cruise started in Dakar and we got off in Rio de Janeiro. It went on to Buenos Aires with some of the passengers and some new ones. 

On this cruise we booked door to door service which was a first for us and which was it a mixture of good and bad. For example the car service hired by Silversea to pick us up and bring us back from JFK was great. Arrivals and departures at hotels reserved by Silversea were chaotic. The flight booked by Silversea worked more or less but as an example our flight from Buenos Aires to JFK were the two worst seats on the plane in business class. And they had 5 months to book them. 

Ultimately the ship did not leave from Dakar. Silversea was unable to get permission from the port authority to dock. Now they did arrange a charter flight in the late evening to transfer passengers from Dakar to Praia in the Cape Verde Islands. As an upside we did get to see two more Cape Verde Islands then had been to discussed originally.

The restaurants on the ship were pretty good. Except for a couple of meals which were literally inedible. They provided wine with meals of which I took advantage but they were not particularly high grade wines. Somehow the food seemed repetitious. The extra fare restaurant was very good.

They were a group of experts a board in various disciplines. They are presentations varied widely. A few were excellent. Most of the rest interesting. And a couple were hard to figure out what was being discussed.

Much of the access to shore was by zodiac. That operation seem to be well run. We have been on several other zodiac-based tours and this was as good as any.

The cabin staffs we’re all good. The rooms were kept in good condition.

The overall feel of the ship was good but almost in a historical context.

This was my first time on an expedition cruise. Overall, it was a memorable trip, having a chance to get showed by an enthusiastic expedition team in this pristine part of the world. In fact, the expedition team was the highlight of this cruise. They were resourceful, upbeat and passionate. The itinerary of activities was diverse, from cruising along the ice edge, hiking the glacier, to doing a polar plunge. Initially, we were slightly worried if the activities and sceneries are going to be bland, but the expedition team proved us wrong! The equipment provided to us were also very well maintained. In this aspect, we were really impressed about this cruise.

However, the hotel team needs a lot of brushing up. My friends and I chose Silversea because of the great reputation for services but our experience was terrible:

•	Silversea staffs in Oslo were clueless about the itinerary. We were told to meet at one place and, at last minutes, the meeting place changed without informing us. 

•	Welcome kits are only available for some guests. We found this slightly weird. Till today (3 weeks after the cruise), I and my friends have yet to receive any. 

•	We had a wet embarkation, but Silversea team was totally unprepared for such embarkation. Guests were not well informed, and we did not have proper clothing to weather the wind and waves (because our gears are in our luggage, and we were not given access to our luggage). Other guests asked Silversea staffs for parkas, but this was declined. We and our belongings were thoroughly wet as a result of this wet embarkation. My laptop even broke down because of this.

•	Food was just mediocre, not “six-star” Silversea tries to claim. Chef couldn’t properly cook medium rare steak. French toasts came almost burnt. Parma hams were not properly defrosted. Some ingredients ran out, but menu didn’t reflect this. When we want to order a particular dish from a menu, we will be at last informed that certain ingredients ran out.

•	Services were not up to standard. Our butler was a nice person – he tried his best to tend to our requests. But, he was overwhelmed with requests because each butler was tasked to look after 15 suites. Room services couldn’t take order accurately: we asked for a glass of champagne and only a glass came; we ordered green curry chicken in writing, and only green curry came without the chicken. 

•	During our 6 days on the cruise, the swimming pool was also under maintenance. 

To sum up our experience with Silversea, particular on Silvercloud, we had great time with expedition activities, but things get terrible once on the ship. If you are looking to go on this cruise for the expedition aspects, I highly recommend this cruise. However, if you are also looking for the “six-star” services, be prepared to be let down.

Great time with the expedition but sub-par hotel services

Kusadasi

I did two back to back, supposedly expedition, cruises from London to Svalbard. After many years of traveling almost exclusively with Silversea, I am heartbroken to join the other reviewers who say, "Never again."

The cruise was supposed to be on the Wind. Silversea changed it to the Cloud after I had booked. I am a long time Explorer passenger, a wonderful ship that they have now sold unfortunately. This was my first time on the Cloud. 

The Explorer is an older ship but beautifully maintained and wonderful to travel on. The Cloud is a mediocre ship, poorly designed and poorly maintained. My cabin was lovely, but multiple people had to change rooms because of a pervasive sewer smell in their hallways. Although my cabin was well maintained and very attractive, the ship itself is way below the quality of others in the expedition regions. It's noisy, including in the middle of the night when you hear machinery thrusting, and often the ship shakes as its mechanics are used. Overall, it's old and clunky. With so many newer ships in the region, and with far better technologies, there's no reason to travel on this one, particularly at Silversea prices. 

The Zodiac prep rooms are not designed well for the number of passengers using them. All passengers come down to a very small hallway where they are crowded into lines waiting to get into the wet room for boots, then are lined up again in a small, crowded hallway while waiting for the Zodiacs. This was exacerbated by the inept expedition leader who insisted on calling three groups at a time to load Zodiacs instead of calling them one by one. Thus, almost 100 people at a time, crowded into small spaces, mostly no one masked, waiting for up to half an hour to get into a Zodiac.

The hotel services are still good. Our floor butler was excellent, the hotel staff was very caring, and the dining room under Chef Pia was excellent. For the first part of the trip some of the dining staff was undertrained, such as not realizing that all people at a table need to be served at the same time, but that greatly improved as the cruise went along. All of the hotel and dining staff members that I had contact with really worked hard to give us an excellent experience. 

The expedition services were terrible. On first half of the trip, from London north through the Hebrides, Faroes and then Svalbard, neither the expedition leader nor a single expedition crew member, had ever been to the area before. The answer to every question was, "I don't know. This is my first time here." There were no actual expeditions by any definition of anyone who has expedition traveled. When questioned about it, the expedition leader said, "I don't know why they bill this as an expedition cruise. It's really a Classic cruise." That's for sure. There is nothing that one would expect from an expedition. You got off the boat for an hour or two, walked around and came back. The scenery was lovely. The overall experience though was disappointing. 

There were very few lectures. The only guest lecturers were birders. The expedition team themselves gave a few painfully uninteresting and sometimes unintelligible, ones. One of the senior expedition crew gave a lecture so meandering and weird that I actually wondered if the lecture even had a point. Later that evening, two other guests, who were scientists, said that he was actually scientifically incorrect about much of what he had said. Silversea has previously had excellent lecturers and a wide variety of them. As there is really nothing else to do between daily expeditions, having a dearth of lecturers, and poor ones at that, really diminished the experience.

The expedition leader was a lovely man personally, but the absolute worst expedition leader of any ship I have ever been on. He knew nothing about any of the places we were visiting, including Svalbard, and he couldn't tell us more about anything than what was written in the one paragraph descriptions of the optional expedition tours. He had no ability to find animals and couldn't have cared less about doing so. He was relieved when we FINALLY saw polar bears. To put it accurately, only those with super high powered binoculars or long range lenses saw them. You could not see them with the naked eye. We never even got close. 

On the way up to Svalbard we passed by one of the largest pods of whales I have ever seen. He didn't bother to slow the ship down. 

We were nowhere near ice floes for most of the cruise so of course we didn't see polar bears. As the cruise was ending he full steamed ahead to get to the edge of the ice, giving us a rough day of seas without any Zodiac rides, and we never even really reached ice before having to turn around. 

Anyone with a cruise app could see where the other ships in the region were and we were nowhere near them. As we all converged on the departure airport at the same time, we all got to hear what everyone else had seen. Ponant and Lindblad both saw far more than we did. We saw almost no animals except birds and when we did see animals it was only for 10 minutes before the expedition leader was telling his team to move us out. He could not have cared less about the passenger experience and he seemingly had no knowledge of how to deliver a good one. 

Full animal count:  A pod of whales that we didn't slow down for, reindeer, a bearded seal, a couple of regular seals, polar bear if you had a $15K zoom lens, a group of walrus, a billion birds, and one group saw an Arctic fox. Certainly no cruise can guarantee what animals you see and I fully understand that. However, when everyone else in the region at the same time is seeing far more then the problem is with the cruise you are on rather than the luck of the draw.

The expeditions themselves in Svalbard were mostly poor. The scenery is quite similar throughout so the ability to see animals or do interesting daily expeditions is key. One expedition, billed as a magnificent train ride to the Swedish border, was a joke. We took a bus to small train station, then took a train back along the exact route we had just traveled by bus. We saw the same scenery we had seen everywhere else and there was absolutely nothing of interest that would make this a likely candidate for an expedition cruise adventure.  Another couple went to a farm, a trip that departed at 7am. They came back mystified. It hadn't been a working farm in years. They had no idea why they had been taken there or why Silversea billed it as an "adventure". Hikes were often a choice only of a super challenging one, billed as only appropriate for the fittest, or a walk along the shore, hoping to find a bird egg or see a reindeer. There was nothing in between.

Some new guides embarked in Tromso, one of whom, Frederick, was going to be taking over as expedition leader at the end of my cruise. He was terrific. He was knowledgeable, interesting, and shared his clearly deep knowledge of the area with passengers. Unfortunately, he was not the expedition leader yet though so he couldn't do anything about how poorly the current expedition leader was running things. The new guides were all terrific and some of the guides from the first part of the cruise came into their own a bit in Svalbard where they had more experience and clearly more interest. A number of the guides tried to compensate for what the expedition leader lacked. They worked harder to find us animals and also, while on the Zodiacs, would give us interesting information about the region that the expedition leader wasn't conveying in his nightly recaps. One of the guides had just come off a different high end expedition line. I asked him what the difference between that line and Silversea was and he replied, "Well, I don't want to say anything bad when I am working on this ship, but let's just say that on the other line if a guide makes a suggestion the expedition leader takes it seriously, but here he does not want to be bothered." 

Then there's Covid. When I signed up for the cruise, Silversea was rapid testing everyone before boarding. A few weeks before the cruise started, they changed their protocols and asked everyone to provide proof of a clean test within 72 hours. They said all buses and the lecture lounge would require masks and that also was written on the cruise ticket. Ok, I took the chance. Unfortunately absolutely NO Covid protocols were enforced. Almost no one wore masks on the buses and Silversea made no effort to enforce it. In the lecture room people were served food and drink so they took their masks off and kept them off...and that's if they even wore them in the first place. Many of us complained. They made an announcement saying that masks were mandatory, then did nothing to enforce it so very few people complied. 

People were getting sick all over the ship and Silversea lied about it. There was a quarantine area on the fourth floor for sick patients, but there were in fact sick patients all over and not in quarantine. I saw medical staff in full hazmat gear going in and out of a room on my hallway, all while the ship denied that there was anyone with Covid on it. The expedition staff member who most frequently checked your gear as you were about to board the Zodiac got sick and we had all been exposed to her daily. The Chef got sick. Passengers got sick. You would know because all of a sudden people would disappear and when you asked about them you were told they were "taking a break" or "resting". When I would press about Covid they denied it. I begged the front desk to tell passengers the truth so they could make good decisions for themselves about wearing masks. They were clearly being told not to tell us because they would look at me sympathetically and say, "I understand, but you know we are saying it's not Covid." If you got close enough to one of the crew members then finally someone would tell you the truth. It was almost Orwellian. 

I did not use the gym because it was a small room, low ceilinged, filled with people breathing hard with no masks, and they were not wiping down equipment between people using it. They were proud to say they wiped it down three times in 24 hours. Plates on the buffet were stacked right side up instead of turning them over so that you weren't taking a plate others had breathed on. Customarily you spray your hands as you enter the dining room. That seemed to be purely voluntary here. Simple, basic hygiene protocols were just not in place anywhere on the ship.

When we arrived in Longyearbyen to depart the ship, Silversea had not booked a dock so we had to be taken off the ship by Zodiac. No problem, except that it was a particularly windy and rough day. They took the luggage first, but didn't cover it with a tarp, so the luggage got soaked with seawater. I tried to get the stench and stickiness out, and even took it to luggage repair, but ended up having to throw my suitcases out when I got home. Unlike Ponant, which had covered boats for its passengers to ride to shore in, Silversea did not so passengers were trying to cover themselves with plastic bags as they were being pelted by sea spray. We all ended up drenched and in freezing weather. 

When we arrived at the airport it was a disaster. Silversea, Ponant and Lindblad were all there at the same time so the tiny airport was jam packed with people. You depart Longyearbyen by charter flight so there was no reason that Silversea couldn't have kept us on the buses, checking us in as the charter flight was arriving, so that we would be more Covid safe. Instead they just dropped us and the luggage outside the airport and left. The lines were so long that you couldn't even get through the airport doors. It was insane. The weather was freezing and we were still wet from disembarking the ship. 

I have been very loyal to Silversea for many years, but this is definitely not the same line that it was pre Royal Caribbean. I feel like I threw $33K out the window. I would have been better traveling on Hurtigruten, and a couple who had just come off a Hurtigruten ship wasn't shy about telling us how much better that experience was in spite of the lower level of luxury. I'm sad to say that I won't be back. Neither evidently will quite a few others who travelled on this cruise. A bunch of us just booked a 30 day Ponant expedition together. We're hoping that Silversea will turn itself around, but until then we're gone.

This is not the same Silversea as before the sale to Royal Caribbean

Overall disappointing and overpriced.  Will not sail Silversea again.

Pros:

Attentive Butler

Good Food

24 hour room service

Cons:

Ship is 28 years old.  Really old ship (maiden voyage 1994), should be retired

Overpriced for what you get

No entertainment or planned on-board activities = bored most of the time

TV and movies not available most of the time

Very few dining choices



OLD ship, shows its age.  Way over priced.  Never again.

After traveling to Punta Arenas Chile, many COVID 19 checks ,charter air flight from Santiago Chile,we embarked.Sailed part of Straight of Magellan,to arrive at a beautiful glacier doing our first zodiac cruise!Next day a landing at The Horn ,pretty rough and foggy ,165 steps to top of the stairs.After The Horn,four days at sea to South Georgia Islands, seas two to seven meters.

 South Georgia Islands,wow,wow,incredible wildlife viewing, second day a blue whale was spotted!One penguin colony over 100,000 birds,king penguins.

 Expedition team very devoted to wildlife and safety of guests.  Expedition team does lectures twice daily on different topics, this is part of the”entertainment “.

 Things you should know:Casual dress code entire cruise: no casino space changed to photo shop:entertainment,great piano player ,guitar player, expedition team.

 The food is great, four different restaurants to dine at,bar service outstanding!

 Cabins have been refurbished, large TVs ,and bar set up.

 Considering to state of health in the world ,this cruise was a success,a difficult location to travel to and from.

Along way to South Georgia Islands 

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