LAL Cruiser

It is unclear how the Spirit is getting from Athens to the Indian Ocean - the Indian Ocean Spirit cruises over christmas and New years seem unaffected thus far - who knows? It is doomed - Dawn cancelled, Whisper being revised.

The new Whisper itinerary (14 day Mumbai to Singapore) with pricing should be available around June 6 according to my sources. 14 days from Mumbai to Singapore is rather quick as these itineraries are usually in the 17 to 20 day range; there is a lot of distance to cover. It will be interesting to see the schedule. ports visited and timing. Will the 14 day cruise be worth taking: to travel so far for a few points with numerous days at sea misses the point of this cruise in my opinion. I fear that we will end up cancelling our entire India/Cruise adventure and do something else - but what? We will have over €5000.00 to burn with Lufthansa.

Yes, I received the same info today: curious to see what the new 14 day Whisper itinerary is and what ports are included/excluded. Also, what will pricing be? The SIlversea offer in consideration of the cruise cancellation was modest at best.

This will be very very stressful - why end your vacation under such pressure? A 700AM arrival does not mean that the ship will be cleared at 700AM; it could talk 30 to 60 minutes for the agents to come aboard and then formalities need to be completed. CPH is a ride from the cruise ship terminal and, if I remember, the taxi must go through the downtown in order to reach the airport (its not a highway drive). And, European airports are going to be super busy this summer - just look at the number of flights being added. I would look for other options. A long line at immigration or security could cause a missed flight. Rebooking during the peak travel periods can be so difficult - finding 2 biz class seats at the last minute could be a big challenge. I do understand that later flight options our of CPH are limited (most of the Star Alliance flights leave their respective hubs by noon requiring an early connecting fight) - why not spend a night in Copenhagen and fly out the next morning?

There is no update or new concerning the Silver Dawn November 17 and Dec 4 cruises, or various cruises on the Whisper and Spirit for the November and December 2024 periods. Believe me, I have tried with Silversea, using contacts, and working with our Travel Agent. The bottom line is that there is still no definite plan in place with respect to moving these THREE ships from the Med (Athens) to the Indian Ocean. And, there are many operational and logistical challenges and revenue matters to consider. I will keep trying - the last I heard is that the Dawn cruises being discussed and now showing as Waitlist only are not likely to operate, The Whisper cruise on Dec 4 out of Mumbai probably will operate but maybe with a modified itinerary, and a bunch of Dawn, Whisper and Spirit cruises out of Athens to the Greek Isles planned for Nov and Dec 2024 could be cancelled. I have nothing smart to say, our trip is in jeopardy and, as mentioned above, we have airline plus pre and post cruise arrangements planned and (partially) paid for, which payments are not refundable in whole. I am concerned, and we all need time to revise our plans and/or look for alternatives.

If Silver Ray follows the same path that Silver Nova took last year....when sea trials are complete, the next stop will be Amsterdam for deliveries of furniture, supplies and equipment. Nova spent many days docked just outside of Amsterdam centre accepting deliveries. THANK YOU for the pictures!

Mumcat, please take the time to read the posts above; the posts set forth what is going on.

Monday Update from Europe - no update but I was promised further information tomorrow. It was confirmed that this is all about the Suez Canal/Red Sea transit, insurance and risk - but we already figured that out.

Hi again, Late, They will get the Whisper to Mumbai in time - it works. It is tight and they will have to push the ship at 17/18 knots and keep provisioning and fuel stops between Athens and Mumbai to a minimum, but Whisper can make it to Mumbai in 27 day time frame for a 04 Dec on schedule departure. As of this moment, the Whisper does not seem very full with Suites available in all different categories on all different decks; the Dawn did not seem heavily booked either when it went to the dreaded Waitlist status. Aside from all of the other issues being discussed, the weeks leading up to Christmas are usually not very high demand periods so there could be flexibility; remember, both Whisper and Dawn concluded on 22 December which is very very close to Christmas. My GUESS (only a guess), is that with effort, most Dawn passengers that want to stay with the itinerary can be accommodated on Whisper, we shall see what Silversea can do and what compensation is offered (they will offer something)....BUT I HOPE THEY DO IT SOON!! I was telling Scott in the Roll Call thread that I discussed this situation with our friends that are travelling with us (we are 3 couples in total) - none of them had any problem with going on the Whisper instead of the Dawn (all have many cruises on Silversea); this is what they said and it is funny: who cares about SALT and we can eat sushi at the Buffet at Lunch....lets just go! My partner and I are the difficult ones who are bitching and moaning over the change of vessel. We do not want to miss out on this trip - both the pre-cruise India adventure and a terrific 18 day itinerary. The good news is that Whisper just completed a dry dock and hopefully she is freshened up and in top shape. I look forward to meeting all of you on whatever ship we end up on!!!

Scott, I would like to send you a private email......what is your address??

I am making some calls tomorrow and will update. I agree that we need to know one way or the other at this point; both time and money are involved. Silversea does have a lot to deal with: DAWN, WHISPER and SPIRIT all need to move from Europe (Athens) to the Indian Ocean; decisions need to be made - will all 3 of these ships travel from Athens and around Africa empty to pick up their planned schedules?? Is there any real choice? Passengers who had cruises cancelled for similar reasons last year/earlier this year had all monies paid to date re the cancelled cruise refunded, pre/post arrangements booked via Silversea credited, were reimbursed for non-refundable costs (up to $500.00 p/p but rumor has it that this amount was negotiable) and received a 20% credit against any newly booked cruise - the thing is that fares have increased since we booked our 04 December DAWN cruise (we booked port to port last February and utilized the port to port prepaid promotion) so, even if this type of deal is offered to us, we will be lucky to come out even when using the 20% credit. Yes, I am being serious. It seems that the Whisper 04 Dec Mumbai to Singapore 18 day cruise will be operated as planned; I am curious to see how Silversea handles this, ie, will DAWN pax be rebooked onto the WHISPER with some minor incentive? As stated above, we selected the DAWN because we preferred the larger/newer vessel. (We have about 30 cruises on Silversea and been on all ships except Dawn and Endeavour.) As we have overseas airline flights booked and paid (expensive), India domestic flights booked and paid, 8 days and 7 nights of touring/hotels in India confirmed and partially paid for, plus even arrangements in Singapore locked in and paid, all of which we booked independently, I guess we will do the WHISPER if that is what is offered to us (with some incentives.) Stay tuned.

Silver Dawn - 17 November cruise will cancel. And, our 4 December cruise will cancel. Silver Whisper - 7 November and 17 November cruises will cancel. Silver Whisper will have a ten day head start out of Athens when compared to the Dawn. Silver Whisper will thus have more time to get to Mumbai - 27/28 days and they will need every moment. Silver Dawn will head directly to Singapore - they have 35/36 days and they will again need every moment.

Hi John117, Your cruise, like ours, is now showing as WAITLISTED on the Silversea website meaning both cruises are pretty much gone - the only question is when the official cancellation will be sent to us by Silversea? The November 17 Silver Whisper Athens to Athens also will llikely cancel; when you try to book that cruise the search engine tells you to GO AWAY. (LOL) (See my research above.) There is still a Silver Spirit 7 day Athens to Athens on November 16 that can be booked. (Silver Spiit will also have issues getting from Athens to Mahe, so who knows what will happen.) Some Silver Spirit cruises are also now NOT unbookable on the website. That there were 3 ships doing 7 night Greek Isles itineraries in Mid November never made much sense. And now,, due to the continued unsettled sitaution in the Middle East affecting Suez Canal/Red Sea transits, Silversea needs to rehthink many voyages. I GUESS that Silversea cannot get insurance to take the ships through the Suez Canal and Red Sea even if the ships are operating without passengers - that is trigggering the new uncertainty as to which cruises will ooperate and which cruises will be scrapped. As said, this is just a guess Stay tuned - I will share what I learn about our DAWN itinerary here as what happens to us will probably impact you. I THINK Silver Dawn shall be departing Athens on 17 November EMPTY and headed directly to Singapore for the Chistmas cruise. We are in the same boat....pun intended.

I had some tme on my hands and figured out what is going on...Play with the booking engine and you can confirm what I deternined....the cruises that I suggest below as canclled show odd messages on the site (Too Busy, come back, etc) when attempting to book. The Dawn voyages now show waitlist only (and the voyages per my info were not heavily booked a few days ago.) DAWN - Nov 17 and Dec 4 cruises will likely be cancelled. The DAWN will have about 36 days to make its way from Athens to Singapore, probably empty via Cape of Good Hope. That is roughly the amount of days needed with a stop here and there to fuel and provision. The Dawn needs to be in Singapore for the Christmas/New Years journey and then the world Cruise out of Tokyo, WHISPER - Nov 7 and Nov 17 cruises likley to be cancelled. The WHISPER will have about 28 days to make it from Athens to Mumbai via the Cape again probably empty. This should be enough time for Whisper to make it to Mumbai depart Mumbai per schedule. It is time for SIlversea to let us know what is going on, I will call again after the weekend.

My partner and I, with some friends, are booked on the 4th December 2024 voyage of the Silver Dawn (18 nights Mumbai to Singapore); the trip is booked, set and locked in - not only the cruise but a week of pre-cruise travel in India, airline tickets (booked independently) and other land arrangements. I check the Silversea site from time to time and play with the booking engine to check availability: when I checked yesterday, the booking engine on the Silversea site kicked me out for this cruise (Site busy - come back later) and did the same for the prior cruise. I knew something was up. Today, our Cruise and the prior cruise are showing as WAITLISTED (there was a lot of availability last week so this is not making sense.) To me, it seems like our Cruise is about to be CANCELLED. (The journey after ours is still open for booking.) We then called our travel advisor and she reached out to Silversea and got the standard non-answer: we are reviewing our itineraries and operations and will update shortly. Our travel advisor is too smart to accept that nonsense and went further and she spoke with someone who could confirm that our cruise will be cancelled or modified. Uuugh... Note that the prior cruise of the Dawn is an Athens roundtrip in late November, there were then 11 ""unscheduled"" days, and then our cruise was to depart Mumbai on December 4. This all is related to the situation with the Suez Canal and the tensions in the Middle East. Curiously, the Silver Whisper has the exact same schedule yet the cruises on that ship are so far unaffected. Does anyone know anything further? When Silversea officially cancels our cruise (and from reading some posts here, who knows when that will happen?) I assume that we will be offered a refund/credit/other compensation, but our concern is our (expensive) airline tickets and India land arrangements which are not all entirely refundable. How accommodating will Silversea be? Plan B would be to take the similar cruise on the Whisper that is scheduled on the exact same dates - if that operates - and I assume Silversea will make us an offer to go on that voyage. That said, we prefer the Dawn to the Whisper (even if she is getting a face-lift in drydock as I write this) especially for such a long voyage. I accept that these are luxurious problems - but we are not happy? I am curious as to what the experts here at Cruise Critic think!