Silversea cancels - not feeling luxury

While on an Africa cruise starting March 23, 2016, SS cancelled the next cruise which we were scheduled to continue on. SS was very difficult to deal with in terms of getting from Dakar, Senegal back home. The luxury cruise for us and 13 others turned into a nightmare as we found ourselves negotiating with the home office through the cruise consultant on the ship, who had no authority to negotiate. It took me 6 meetings with 4 different people, including a phone call to the home office to sort the way home. All this time and worry while I was supposed to be enjoying a cruise.We were once scheduled for a Holland America cruise, which had to be cancelled after we boarded the ship. HA's response was generous, timely, and they had 1500 people to deal with! Silversea was awful!

Very sorry to hear of your cancellations challenges cc2016.

Just today another poster on this SS board posted SS cancelled their Shadow January 2017 cruise but at least they had some advance notice.

Only recommendation I have is, if you used a travel agent, have them also go to bat for you to help resolve your issues.

cc2016.......welcome to the Silversea Board. Your recent experience sounds quite horrific and l too am sorry you had this experience.

I agree with Wes....hopefully you have a good TA who can fight this battle for you with a satisfactory conclusion.

Please do let us know how it all turns out and feel free to chat away on our cooler thread.

Sophia [emoji5]

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cc2016!!

Sorry your first post here was in such terrible circumstances. Add my welcome to Soapy's!

This is terrible, particularly as it impacted your cruise so much. It'd be interesting to hear more about the reasons SS gave you as to why they did this and what amends they have tried to make.

To echo Soapy's comment ..... it may be more free-format and less confrontational if you wish to continue the discussion over on the cooler which seems to be able to avoid silly arguments. Your choice - no problem either way. :)

Jeff

Appreciate those comments Jeff.... I'm very interested to know how this can happen also....I'd quite frankly be mortified......you of all may have a clue here as l know you worked with Manfredi for a long time.

S [emoji4]

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Soapy ... I restarted this debate on the cooler as it seems several threads are on the same thing and it may stop one of those threads that simply morph into two sides either attacking or defending ...... when it is the issue that's interesting.

Jeff

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately, I booked directly with Silversea and have gotten no response from them. Next time, a travel agent!!

I don't know what the "cooler" is.

Good morning all. I replied about a week ago to another thread about the Silver Shadow sailings in early 2017 being cancelled. Silversea has allowed the ship to be chartered. I have spent the last week trying to come to a resolution with Silversea. I had already purchased airline tickets ($$ for outbound, return with miles) and a non-refundable hotel. I normally don't do non-refundable hotels but the deal we received was so good at a 5 star hotel that i didn't want to pass up. I provided proof of all of these arrangements to Silversea.

What did I get? Absolutely nothing right now - any "compensation" would have been in the form of an onboard credit on a new booking, AND I could not get them to include the hotel - only the air - in my "compensation".

That doesn't help me now. I am a longtime RCI and Celebrity cruiser (since 1988). We looked at a Celebrity sailing around the same time and similar itinerary but decided to try Silversea because we wanted a different experience (smaller ship) on this particular trip. Well, we got a different experience for sure. It is clear to me that Silversea does not care how they inconvenience their passengers. They allowed this ship to be chartered, bumping all booked passengers off of it, after airline schedules were published. I have never heard of such a thing. Every time I've heard of a ship being chartered, it is NEVER put online for anyone to book. Luckily for us, Celebrity had availability on their sailing and I only need to change the return flight.

Needless to say, we will never, ever consider Silversea again because I cannot depend on them to deliver.

Wow! I just signed up on cruise critic to talk about Silver Sea cancellation and see that someone else from my cruise has done so. I see everyone's comments. Thanks, but I'm still a bit in shock at the treatment and will not take Silversea again.

I'm so sorry this happened cc2016 (and others who were affected). You're wise to plan to book your next cruise through a travel agent instead of direct with the line.

Things of this magnitude don't happen often, but they can happen. Further, cruise lines are protected by the terms in the cruise contract and an individual passenger has little or no recourse. But a good travel agent [who probably does a lot of business with the line] has a strong chance of getting the company to bend the rules and provide real satisfaction.

Let's hope you hear back from Silversea soon. And with good news.

There is some protection in some countries such as the UK. Oz has consumer protection based on the UK model.

In the UK in very simple terms the line has to have fair terms and conditions and they should be able to cancel your cruise giving the same levels of notice as they require from their customers except of course for cause majeure or anything out of their control. Inside those limits a customer could legally expect to be compensated for any loss.

It is also worthwhile checking travel insurance, as this is often covered.

Jeff

Thank you everyone. After many years of cruising we thought we would try some more special cruises in retirement. We get the almost daily mailings from Silversea with all the smiling faces so we looked at exploring it, but after seeing how this company treats its passengers, I'm crossing them off my list. The same turned out to be true of Oceania, and that cruise has been cancelled. Things happen, but how the cruise line treats its passengers is most important, and I certainly haven't been impressed by some of these "luxury" lines. Before Cruise Critic they probably even could get away with it.

Thank you everyone. After many years of cruising we thought we would try some more special cruises in retirement. We get the almost daily mailings from Silversea with all the smiling faces so we looked at exploring it, but after seeing how this company treats its passengers, I'm crossing them off my list. The same turned out to be true of Oceania, and that cruise has been cancelled. Things happen, but how the cruise line treats its passengers is most important, and I certainly haven't been impressed by some of these "luxury" lines. Before Cruise Critic they probably even could get away with it.

It's a shame people like you are lost from SS. It seems to me that it needn't be that way if they simply had a pro-active way of managing these dissapointments ie a letter of apology from "someone senior" in the company and an SS team proactively contacting people invloved promptly and making suitable individual arrangements. It is what you woukld do if you were managing SS isn't it. Oddly companies that have problems but cure them professionally and promptly often have higher customer loyalty than companies who are always perfect and never tested, because customers have experience good customer satisfaction management.

Join us on the Watercooler thread if you want to chat "off topic".

Jeff

About 10 years ago, we arrived at the cruise terminal at noon to board a NYC-Barbados voyage on the Wind. It was late October, the tail end of hurricane season. Much to our amazement, the dock was empty. The ship, which was scheduled to dock by 8am, didn't arrive until mid-afternoon, due to extremely heavy winds from a tropical storm.

An entire shipload of passengers missed their flights. We dined with a staff member several days later and were impressed to learn that Silversea spent a tremendous amount of time and money to reschedule everyone's missed flights, expedite baggage handling, and provide transportation to the airports.

They didn't have to do that. It was a weather delay and obviously out of their control. But they felt it was important to extend themselves in any way possible to show, "This is how a luxury line operates." They stepped up to the plate.

Chartering their ship, even on short notice, is not an unforeseen, unavoidable event. How disappointing that they chose not to step up to the plate this time.