thx244

thx244,

 

Welcome to CC and your first post and it's a shame your first post is made under such difficult circumstances.

 

Your post doesn't state your geographic location but implies it is within Europe as your fare is stated in euros. Where you made your booking has implications for your options if you fail to receive reasonable compensation in your negotiations. If in the EU your rights are far clearer and greater than those enjoyed (for example) by Americans. In the UK and EU (and Oz) courts generally, in the event that this ends up in litigation are very fair in deciding these issues as I can personally confirm. ;) In these territitories you can safely ignore allcontract exclusion clauses if they are "unfair" and give and "unfair advantage" the the provider of services. A court will simply try to judge as a starting point "would the customer have bought the service if they had known what they had subsequenely received" and everything then flows logically from that answer. Hoowever (in the UK) this looks like it would be either a County Court or High Court action so doing everything you can to avoid that route is preferable. However SS has already acknowledged that what they provided was insufficient because they have offered a substantial or though unacceptable credit. Hopefully you rejected the credit.

 

If however you are US based your main recourse is through pressure rather than law.

 

Best wishes and good luck.

Of course we rejected the EUR 5k future cruise offer. The place of jurisdiction for our booking is Germany. Thus, it underlies rather strict consumer laws. My lawyer advised me that we could get a cash refund of around 50%. Seems like we will have to sue Silversea as they are not replying to our emails. It would be good to get in touch with other passengers who experienced the same issues, as they might have the chance to receive a similar refund.

I would think the pool would be closed on an Antarctica cruise. I have cruised a lot on both Regent and Silversea and have never seen the pool open on cruises to cold climates (Norway, Alaska, and Canada come to mind). Now I have seen the hot tub open, but not the pool.

Silverseas advertises a heated resort-style pool even on Antarctica expeditions. Some other expedition ships also have heated pools or at least heated jacuzzis. We complained on board and were told that the maintenance team was working on it.

It is widely understood that one is likely to encounter issues shortly after a major refurbishment -- and that those issues are in many cases a result of the dry dock work rather than despite that work. Did your TA not alert you to the possibility/likelihood that there would be hiccups?

Unfortunately, our Silversea travel consultant did not advice us that there might be such issues after a refurbishment. It was quite the opposite. We were told several times to make sure to bring our swim wear as there would be a heated pool and jacuzzi. Shortly, before departure they even sold us an upgrade for EUR 20k saying this would be a trip of a lifetime and a larger suite would make it even more memorable....

I was on the above mentioned expedition with Silversea. The ship had been refurbished weeks before our cruise. Unfortunately, we experienced several issues during the 19 day cruise, despite the recent refurbishment:

- the pool was closed (they promised a heated resort-style pool)

- the heating failed several times during the cruise

- our cabin was flooded

- musty odors in cabins and public rooms (as other cabins were flooded too)

I'm trying to find other passengers who experienced the same issues during their expedition. I received a future cruise credit from Silversea over EUR 5'000 but considering the price tag of over EUR 100k i believe that this is not sufficient.