Our first trip to South Africa began with a couple of days in the lovely Cape Town before boarding Silver Cloud for a 10 day cruise along the coat to Mozambique and back. We had sailed with Silversea before and rated them lacking in atmosphere and cuisine. Same now. Our package included 2 nights at Table Bay Hotel (very good) and a 4 day safari at the end (fantastic) before returning to UK via Johannesburg (worst airport I have seen)

Silver Cloud looked and felt dated and tired. I understand now that it is to be withdrawn from general service next year and used as an arctic/antarctic exploration ship. . There were no children on board

Dining was not impressive; as the line is Italian owned, the menus were swamped with pasta and fairly unimaginative at that. The restaurant was a good size with nice table arrangements. The Terrazza has a breakfast buffet of standard stuff and slightly better choices for lunch, but converts to an Italian restaurant in the evening, which we didn't enjoy. One unusual facility was the Pool Grill in the evening, which converts into a 'hot rock' facility, with steaks etc cooking on very hot stones on the table, something which we hadn't seen before at sea, and quite welcome. Read more