We have enjoyed 37 cruises, but this was our first time on Silversea. We were eager to test drive, and there were no disappointments. The stand-out was the food, quality and variety. We kept telling ourselves, "This is NOT cruise ship food." It was more like going to a very good restaurant on land. Inventive quality cooking. Also great were all the bars (and there are a lot of them!) and the great cocktails, all included. Service was uniformly good. Our verandah stateroom was noticeably bigger than the usual balcony stateroom on a cruise ship. Excellent fitness center, plus a good walking track outside.

Issue: The reservation system for the restaurants does not work. We were unable to reserve online before we sailed and on the TV system in our stateroom. The system would show no room available, yet the restaurants were consistently 50 to 60% occupied. We were able to walk in at La Terrazza 4 times, even though the system showed no space available. A kind bar tender was able to get us a table at La Dame, which was only 60% occupied.

Issue: The shows in the big theater were boring, same old cruise ship fare, just a bunch of energetic kids singing bits and pieces of pop songs. When they turned "She Loves You", the classic Beatles band song, into elevator music, I almost got seasick. I don't know why Silversea can't feature more sophisticated entertainment. The exception was the excellent jazz duo in the Silver Note bar, and that's where we were most nights. Read more