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Very Good

Excellent

Silver Wind

Silver Shadow

Silver Whisper

A wonderful cruise to some challenging places

St. Thomas

We chose this cruise primarily for the itiniary and except for the New Zealand ports (Auckland and Bay of Islands) everything was new to us. There is no doubt that sailing on a luxury ship like Silver Shadow through Melanesia, Micronesia and the Philippines can't get any better and Silversea did an excellent job choreographing the whole process.

This was our first Silversea experience as we've only sailed on Regent Seven Seas and Crystal. We were a little worried about Silver Shadow's size since most of our previous cruises have been on slightly large ships. We have sailed on Regent's Navigator which is comparable in size to the Shadow but Silver Shadow is much better in our opinion. Our cabin was more than adequate for twenty days and I really don't see any reason to spend more just for better location unless ship motion is a concern. We had some rough seas and I didn't get really bothered by it so I wouldn't hesitate to book a less expensive cabin since they're all pretty identical. I didn't find the bigger suites that compelling on this ship, but I understand that on Silversea's newer ships that could be worth booking, especially on a longer cruise.

Service is second to none and the whole staff went out of their way to keep us happy. Food is definitely for "foodies" but I do miss some American comfort food like Crystal used to have. There's no ice cream bar either but I suppose my waistline is grateful for that.

Shipboard entertainment and activities are OK especially since we were on a World Cruise segment where that tends to be supercharged compared to regular cruises. The lectures were fine, maybe not as varied as on Crystal but better than Regent. Shows and performers were a bit weak primarily, in my deduction, due to a small entertainment budget. The reason I say this is I don't think Silversea has any reason but cost to restrict their pool of entertainers from the world's pool of talent and not having any horns in their show band just looks cheap. I think if Silversea just spent more on talent we could get a more varied roster of entertainment and not just plug in the Singers all the time. That gets boring even though I sympathize with those singers. Just add some more comedians, magicians and mentalists to the mix.

Shipboard tours were all good and the world cruise events (which we were invited to even though we were segmenters) were absolutely fabulous. My hats off to the Silversea event group who pulled off three of them on remote islands and Papua New Guinea while we were on board - top notch!

A couple of blips: Palau was the main reason for me to go on this trip and unfortunately due to Palau officials taking a long time to clear the ship our visit was whittled down to two hours. We spent that time on a private tour of the Rock Islands for a huge sum but it was worth it. I wish Silversea would have done an overnight here since it really is an absolutely gorgeous place. I'd try and return but its really hard to get to for North Americans.

All in all, we would sail on Silversea again and I hope Silversea can continue to upgrade their onboard entertainment and activities so that when we next sail on Silver Dawn in 2025 it'll be perfect!

Rome (Civitavecchia)

Our second Silversea cruise, this one being for two weeks visiting 9 islands, with 2 days cruising each way. This is an excellent way to start and finish with no rush at the end - pleasantly relaxing with plenty of optional activities on the go.

Boarding was quick and efficient with suites ready early afternoon. Suites themselves are spacious, a separate walk in clothes cupboard, and a good size bathroom with separate bath and shower. There is a range of sensitive skin bath and shampoo products, as well as about 8 pillow varieties ideal for neck problems.

Other than the specialty Champagne restaurant ($40 supplement and not really special enough to visit twice), we had equal numbers of visits to the main Restaurant, La Terrazza (Italian), and the Pool Grill (hot stone meat and fish). All venues serve excellent food, service is good and friendly and senior staff welcoming and efficient. In our opinion La Terrazza has the edge over the Colonnade on Seabourn, and Setti Mari on Regent. Lunch in La Terrazza was a treat with a good varied daily menu. The Pool grill both lunch and evening was efficient, good quality and efficiently friendly. With the good weather it was a treat for us, from the north of England, to sit outside for meals as often as possible.

All bars made excellent cocktails, canapés were varied and well presented, and theatre service exceptional in the dark! I was not over impressed by the quality of basically presented wines but alternatives were available - in particular an excellent Californian Pinot. A list of available complimentary wines would be helpful.

We prefer the signing rather than dancing/gymnastic entertainment, but the singers were better on Silver Wind 2 years ago. Two of the six  on Shadow were very talented but all together they were not, for us, great, and far to loud in a small theatre with microphones. However the band and the signing duo were really excellent and attracted quite a lot of dancers.the guest magician was also good.

The tendering crew were very good and careful. We chose 5 excursions, all managed well but sitting in the back of open four wheel trucks on poor roads, with seat belts in Barbados, and without in Bequia (unacceptable), is not our favourite pastime. All islands were interesting to visit and we took the opportunity for some beach time. Tortola was our favourite.

We were perhaps disappointed that there wasn't a Caribbean or Bbq evening on board. We had expected one or two such special functions in the two weeks. That aside, an excellent cruise by a line to which we will return. A lasting memory is of the continual friendliness and politeness of all the crew. An excellent cruise director Kirk was assisted by two Portuguese international hostesses, negating the need for a superfluous assistant cruise director we have had on similar sized other lines - and wondered why they were there!

 Had I been writing this after our first trip with Silversea 2 years ago I could not have been so effusive, nor give it 5 stars. There were issues concerning cabin noise not ideally managed on board. Sadly recourse to Customer Relations in Fort Lauderdale initially elicited a rather unsatisfactory and dismissive response not addressing the cited problems. Following media advice and our cruise agent intervention, a satisfactory outcome (why could it not have been sooner?) lead to our booking again for this cruise. Customer relations  subsequently have taken steps to ensure this cruise was to our satisfaction, and we were very pleased with the final outcome.

As above we shall sail with Silversea again.

A Happy Return to Silversea

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