Mike2131

These new ships will be a start. At 5,000 tons (about the same as the Silver Discoverer and 1,000 tons smaller than the Silver Explorer), I will be interested to see where the projected itineraries are. I agree they will be well-sized for areas like Galápagos, but I wonder if they will be ice class vessels. New builds without that flexibility would seem shortsighted. We will be on the Silver Explorer in a few weeks and hope to get more info on this positive step by Silversea (and RCI).

Is there an "Antigua deck" on an Ponant ship? Which ship do you mean?

Ponant only has one sailing ship - Le Ponant.

Already pre-booked on Le Commandant Charcot for an Around The Pole voyage. Finalized sailing details are due in April of 2019.

We’re ready to select an Antarctica cruise and want to set foot on the continent while sailing aboard a luxury ship. For us it’s either Ponant or Scenic Eclipse. We were concerned about the primary French orientation on Ponant but you addressed that in another thread. Your thoughts on an Antarctica itinerary on Ponant? Thanks for being part of Cruise Critic!

We sailed to Antarctica in 2011 on the L’Austral. I can tell you from first hand experience it is a wonderful experience.

Could be interesting when baby boomers, who are currently a huge part of the cruising market, feel too old and creaky to leap in and out of zodiacs ....

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Yep, I am squarely in the Boomer demographic. I’ll turn 69 before the upcoming Silver Explorer cruise. I am truly fortunate that I can get into or out of a Zodiac or Safari vehicle without issue or assistance. As Dirty Harry said, “A man has to know his limitations.” That said, I do have a list of what I call “old people trips” I’ll consider when the time comes I cannot take the expedition trips that I love so much. Until then, Rock on!

I have looked at the fleets and commitments to expedition cruising in the industry and Silversea seems to really be falling behind. I'll state upfront that, while I was not a fan of the RCI "takeover", I truly hope the cash infusion will prove to be a lifesaver for Silversea in this arena. We are on the 11/5/18 sailing of the Silver Explorer (our third on that vessel) from Valparaiso to Ushuaia. After the 2017 refurb drydock and the drydock that was pulled forward after the Wrangel Island fiasco, I hope we find her as pleasurable and capable as she was when we took our first expedition cruise on her (then named the Prince Albert II) in Svalbard in 2010. That said, this segment of the industry is growing and the competition has surged ahead with newer and purpose-built ships while Silversea has an older, refurbished, and converted offering of ships. Consider just two of the options available:

Ponant - They have 10 expedition capable ships (I am excluding Le Ponant), all, I believe, launched in 2010 or later. We sailed with them on the L'Austral in 2011 to Antarctica - a fabulous trip. They also have an incredible new ship being built that launches in 2021 - Le Commandant Charcot, It is a purpose-built icebreaker and we have already pre-booked for an Arctic cruise to the North Pole, Svalbard, and Franz Joseph Land.

Hapag-LLoyd - We have never sailed with them but they have 2 new wonderful looking expedition ships launching in 2019 - the Hanseatic Nature (all German speaking) and the Hanseatic Inspiration (all bi-lingual cruises - German and English). They are well established in the expedition segment and very highly rated.

Lindblad/National Geographic has 2 new ships already in the fleet or coming. Although we have not sailed with them, I know Seabourn has newer vessel in their fleet.

We love the staff and crew of the Silver Explorer (and probably would on the Silver Cloud Expedition), but I think Silversea is in real danger of becoming less and less competitive in the segment. An aging, patchwork fleet is just not going to cut it.

cruiser2001, I thought Brad did a wonderful job; in addition to his management of his staff, he was put into a very bad position by Corporate and the Captain and he handled it well. I also thought Cory was wonderful and helpful; I think the next Robin. Also, Luke has been fantastic on every cruise that we have sailed with him, I think he will be a great Expedition Leader.

 

Marc

Hi Marc. If you mean Luke Kenny, I am very glad to hear the kind words regarding him. He will be our Expedition Leader on the November 5th Valparaiso-Ushuaia sailing (first trip after the upcoming dry dock).

Thank You so much Michael.

That's great! More room in the suitcases. :D

You are very welcome. Now you can use that extra room to pack all the items you’ll need for the variable weather conditions and zodiac landings. Your sailing probably has an included parka like ours does, but you’ll want to look at the suggested packing list to make sure you have all the layers you need. Top of the list will be waterproof pants. Absolutely essential.

yes, I heard all about this. It was a constellation of bad events. First, there was a medical emergency which required the ship to turn around and get close enough to Alaska that the US coast guard could pick up the patient (a crewmember) for evacuation to Anchorage. Apparently a heart attack according to what I could find out, but the guy was pretty young.

 

Then when sailing to Wrangell Island, ice was encountered. The particular captain on the cruise, who we have unfortunately sailed with before, is absolutely allergic to ice or bad weather in any form. I won't name names, but if I had a way of figuring out who the captain would be ahead of time, I would avoid any cruise with this person as a captain.

 

So they basically just sailed around in the ocean for most of the cruise.

 

Fortunately, we had a different captain for our cruise, plus we got great weather and no medical emergencies.

Interesting. We are on the first cruise following the upcoming dry dock - Valparaiso to Ushuaia. I can only hope we don’t have the captain you described.

Sorry to hear about the disappointing expedition. To entirely miss the centerpiece of the trip is really sad. It does make the announcement of the accelerated dry dock for the Silver Explorer far more understandable.

The timing of this dry dock now makes a lot more sense if you look at today’s post by PJSphotog regarding the experience on voyage 7816. Too bad the Wrangell Island expedition was impacted by what can only be speculated to be known deficiencies of the Silver Explorer. We will be on the first sailing after this upcoming dry dock. I am sure there will be some interesting conversations around the ship.

Hello Everyone,

This will be our first cruise on Silversea Cruises.

We will be on the Silver Cloud's South America cruise in October/November.

Can you please give me some ideas on whether we should pack formal wear,or if smart casual will suffice.

Thank You.

Good Morning. We embark on our third Silversea expedition cruise (all on the Silver Explorer) November 5th. Our itinerary is very similar to yours on the Cloud - Valparaiso to Ushuaia. After multiple expedition cruises on multiple lines, I can tell you the only formalwear you will see will be worn by the excellent staff. Smart casual will be perfect. Some gentlemen might wear a coat for the Captain’s welcome dinner, but ties will be much rarer than penguins. Have a wonderful cruise.

Is this Ray Carr or Michaels?

He told us on the Montreal-Miami cruise that he will be heading to the Insignia in January.

Booked the 11/5 14-night Valparaiso to Ushuaia on the Explorer. Just could not pass up the Early Booking + Venetian savings. Wanted to try the Cloud Expedition but could not make the dates work. Oh well, we'll try 2019!

Just checked and it looks like the schedule through 2018 has been posted. Have not checked for "regular" cruises since I was looking specifically for the expedition sailings.

Mike,

I read your review and I am certainly not dismissing it (and it wasn't the only negative review either).

That said, I read some glowing reviews as well - like the one from MightyQuinn whom I only know and "like" from the boards here.

The reality is that I don't know if I am more like you or more like MQ, if you know what I mean.

The bottom line is that I will only know if Crystal is for us or not by trying them :)

Nothing beats first-hand experience. As I stated in an earlier post, each person's experience is unique, even on the same cruise. Positive and negative opinions are just that, impressions of the overall cruise experience gauged against fact (bad food is bad food) and expectations (like the quality of a wine list and service). All a potential cruiser can do is weigh those opinions in their totality as one factor in deciding whether to take a particular cruise or try a new line. Good luck and I hope you get to post one of those glowing reviews.

I will add

 

It is a known fact that people tend to post reviews more when they dislike something. They want to warn others or get back at a company. Not saying that wAs your purpose in posting; only pointing out that the ratio of positive to negative reviews is always a consideration.

 

This true for cc as much as it is for Amazon or yelp or trip advisor.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Some people take great pleasure on taking to the review when they are upset or disappointed. Often you see that in a first post. From my own perspective, I believe on reviewing every cruise we take. If interested, I would invite you to take a look. I try to be even-handed and positive (often extremely so) when a cruise is enjoyable and less so when it is not. Some are pretty bad and I will say so and never sail the line again. I am neither a pom-pom waving cheerleader nor a lurking troll with an agenda. I state my honest opinion from what I experience. Whether others enjoy, dislike, or even care about what I write is not something I can control.

And there are those who take one cruise on Oceania and say "never again." We prefer to try it for ourselves despite negative reviews. If we relied on cc reviews we'd likely stay home.

 

E.g.

I think Azamara is the worst. Never again. Plenty of cruisers love that line including many I know personally and whose opinions I respect. I also know their standards. So who is "right."

 

I think suites on celebrity are fabulous. The whole experience is divine. Others would rather stay home than sail a mass market line

 

I read your review. Nothing there to deter me

One person's experience on a single cruise. Period

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Everyone has to express their own opinion of the cruise experience. Every time we (or anyone sails), what we encounter is a unique experience defined by the service, food, cabin, etc. we encounter. It also depends tremendously on how that unique experience balances against expectations. If expectations (and they have to be reasonable) are consistently met (and, hopefully, occasionally exceeded) then that experience will usually be excellent. If they are consistently not met, and there seems to be a confused, lackluster, or even negative effort, then the experience will probably be subpar. You always hope for the best, but sometimes that subpar experience comes your way. Perhaps it was just our turn to experience it, but we can make 100% sure it does not happen again with Crystal.

I will give you a little different view based on a very disappointing Crystal cruise in May. It was our first, and last, cruise with them. You might feel it is unfair to dismiss an entire cruiseline from consideration based on one sailing, but I am a firm believer in the old adage, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." Having spent the last 7 years of my career as a Customer Relations Manager for a luxury brand, I am a tough judge.

Instead of weighing down this thread with details, I suggest that, if interested, you look at my Crystal Serenity review here on Cruise Critic. We sail again with Oceania in a few weeks and are really looking forward to it.

tricky oat & Mike2131

- I think you have uncovered something that Silversea would rather we hadn’t seen !

 

Using the web link you have posted I have changed just a couple of digits in the address and within 15 minutes uncovered much of the expedition itineraries for 2018.:eek: (and I’m certainly not a computer geek !) :o Very careless of Silversea methinks !

 

My interest was that I was hoping to book the Silver Explorer trip up the West Coast of Africa that had previously operated each March. Well it doesn’t look like it is operating in 2018.

Silver Cloud appears to be doing this journey in 2018 as part of it’s repositioning to the Arctic, but the itinerary is nowhere near as good as previously.

 

I think it would be inappropriate of me to divulge any more but as I have said , any casual internet user with an mildly enquiring mind could access the information I have done today.

 

WesW – as you have said the itineraries won’t be ready for booking until they are officially released at the end of September (thank you so much for giving us the heads up on this). Mr Conroy may wish to have a chat with the Silversea website team about how/when they load things on to the system.:(

The cruise I saw was just on the regular Silversea cruise search. Hearing that they have a known site glitch is very interesting. I am looking forward to the release of the schedule to see which ship will be handling the 2018 South America expedition sailings. I figure it might be the Cloud since it will be sailing Antarctica. I guess we will see soon.

Today, According to President of SS USA, 2018 itineraries will b released by end of this month

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The one Cloud Expedition sailing for July '18 I saw posted disappeared a few days later. Must have been a test or charter.

Taking the May 1, 2017 Oceania Riviera cruise from Rome to Venice. I am a first timer on Oceania. I am traveling with my sister and we are so excited. We will stay in Rome a few days before and in Venice a few days after the cruise. Can't wait! Anyone out there taking this cruise?

That is the best place to find others taking this cruise. I took a quick look and did not see one. You can go in and start one. Have fun.

Deck 7 just aft of mid-ship.

We have been told that the 2018 Expedition cruises are for release in September-that of course now covers the Cloud.

It will be interesting to see where Silversea plans to deploy the Silver Explorer and '"new" Silver Cloud Expedition. I can't see them operating 2 ships in Svalbard and Antarctica.

I saw a July 2018 individual sailing today - a Silver Cloud Expedition cruise from Tromso to Iceland. We are very interested in that ship for 2018 and had only seen the four 2017 Antarctic cruises listed. Hopefully the rest of the schedule follows soon.