Silversea Shore Excursions

My husband and I are disappointed that Seabourn has stopped doing World Cruises and we are considering Silversea’s World Cruise for 2016. My husband and I have cruised on Silversea several times – twice in the Caribbean and once in Canada/New England. However, we have never been on a Silversea shore excursion. We also have several hundred days on Seabourn. We have done numerous Seabourn shore excursions. One thing we like about Seabourn is that they don’t fill every seat on the buses and/or boats, so you never feel crowded. Does Silversea do the same with their excursions?

Most shore excursion buses are not filled unless it is in a less developed area where buses are in short supply. Even then, SS tries to not fill buses. We have always felt that the shore excursions, while more expensive than independent excursions, are generally well done and up to SS standards. When a shore excursion disappointed us greatly, we spoke to the Shore Concierge manager and were compensated all or a portion of the cost, but that has only happened two or three times in probably 100+ excursions.

We have generally had good to great experiences on SS excursions. Though we are fairly independent, in certain parts of the world where it's hard to DIY, we have taken a number of their excursions.

Generally, tours are not too crowded; adequate to very good guides, and interesting choices. Some of the tour guides were outstanding; the "expert archaeologist" in Ephesus whom we toured the Terrace Houses with turned out to be someone who'd actually excavated them, and had been a curator of the Ephesus Museum.

In the Mediterranean, we almost never use ship tours because we can DIY for less, and see more. But I'll use these tours when they are the best option available to us.

Thanks very much, Embtbsam and jpalbny for your replies.

One thing we like about Seabourn is that they don’t fill every seat on the buses and/or boats, so you never feel crowded. Does Silversea do the same with their excursions?

We did our first cruise with Seabourn and have more recently done three cruises with Silversea, including those noted below from earlier this year. YES, as shared by the two above experienced travelers, Silversea is good in keeping things fairly loose and not too full on the buses. Like JP, we do a mix of DIY and ship excursions. Overall, we have been very pleased with how SS does these efforts. It is also nice that a staff member goes along, in addition to the local guides and driver. That allow more opportunities to get know some of the staff, including those doing entertainment programs.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

From our Jan. 25-Feb. 20, 2015, Amazon River-Caribbean combo sailing over 26 days that started in Barbados, here is the link below to that live/blog. Lots of great visuals from this amazing Brazil river and these various Caribbean Islands (Dutch ABC's, St. Barts, Dominica, Grenada, etc.) that we experienced. Check it out at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2157696

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