mancunian

In the photo of the veranda cabin I was disappointed to see they have done away with the side tables by the sofa with the the lamps which was so cosy in the evening and also makes the suite smaller.  they also seem to have lost the plant on the table.  I find the decor somewhat austere for my taste.

Enjoying hearing about the ship, but for us it is a definite no, as arts cafe is our favourite place particularly when you are able to sit outside.    I do not understand why they have done this, as report after report on the other ships nearly always say they love the arts cafe.  It is a big loss.   Also do not know why they are closing at 6 pm.  It was great sitting in there in the evening with an irish coffee and the lovely chocolates and listening to the jazz next door in silver note.

Oh, I am so looking forward to the Moon on 10th December

Recently on Silver Dawn at Southampton we arrived at 12.30 pm, officially our time was 1 pm.  We just walked straight through.  As we got out of taxi there was a wheelchair immediately, we handed over our luggage, we booked in, again no-one in front of us, through security and on board.  We did not sit down at all and it was one of the best, if not the best embarkation in over 60 cruises.  We headed straight up to Arts cafe for coffee and a snack until the cabins were ready.

Enjoy which I am sure you will

A gela

On 10/24/2023 at 10:28 AM, John117 said:

I believe top class hotels use a water mist to smooth the bed linen. Our steward obviously used a bit too much water and we keep our cabin cool so it probably didnt evaporate. I don't blame him as he obviously was instructed to do this. Who else had this problem. There were lots of coughs and sneezes on the ship.

We had this a couple of times on Dawn, but we asked the cabin steward not to do it.  He had not used as much water as on your bed and the problem in my case was that I had quick rests on the bed throughout the day to assist back pain, the first time always being after breakfast so I discovered this really quickly.  For most people it would not be a problem if the steward was not heavy handed.

That is great news.  Thank you everyone

5 hours ago, Liquid Amber said:

Last year I took a bottle of zero gin on board and gave it to a bar steward. He made me some lovely drinks. A previous guest had left a zero rum, which also made up some good cocktails. 

Thank you so much.  I was quite excited by the prospect, that is what I would do and solve the problem.  When I told my husband he said yes I could do that if I wanted.  Of course he also said with what we were paying SS should stock non alcoholic as there must be lots of people on medication.  Guess he is probably right but I shall still take a bottle.

21 minutes ago, Lois R said:

Hi Angela, hope you recover quickly and most good bartenders know many "mocktails"......it should not be a problem for them. Just depends on your taste really.

Thank you.    It is all connected with my problem on the Dawn and Iknow it will not be sorted before Moon but hopefully by the time we go on the Spirit.  

You must be packing again - only a few more days.  Have a great time

Horror of horrors we are going on Moon on the 10th December and I have just been put on medication that totally forbids alcohol.  That is even worse than our cancellation of Israel and Egypt!!!

I hate non alcoholic wine and was wondering if the bar stewards were creative in making suitable cocktails.

I will of course still enjoy the cruise I am not dependent on alcohol,but is still disappointing.  Just hope I am firing on all cylinders again for Spirit in April.

17 minutes ago, nav1027 said:

We'll never forget the rough seas we've encountered on the boat ride from Delos back to Mykonos about 20 years ago. We were so seasick, the ride seemed to last forever. 😞

Yes and the nearer you get to Delos the worse it becomes

15 minutes ago, nav1027 said:

Hi Angela,

 

I don't mind if they completely reroute us to Ionian and Adriatic Seas. 🙂 Of course, the probability of such thing happening is close to zero. About Antalya: the ship tour of Perge and Aspendos looks appealing to us, we don't care too much about the "Russian conquest of Turkish Riviera". 🙂 Ephesus night concert was one of the highlights of our Crystal cruise 10 years ago, we don't mind visiting Ephesus again, but we are a bit concerned about the overload of Greek and Roman history in the current itinerary.

 

AT & Kira

Hi

I walk with a rollator and although we fancy Perge and Aspendos I do not think I could manage it.

We are going to do the very easy Ephesus tour - we have been before and also the concert.

Angela

I personally do not like Alexandria much but loved Cairo and as well as the Pyramids by day there is an amazing light show at night.  

I also loved the Cairo Museum which is large and crowded but with super exhibits.

nav1027 I do hope our Turkish ports do not become cancelled.  I love Istanbul, like Ephesus also though not overly keen on Kusadasi.  Antalya is fairly new to us.  We did go for a day a long time ago but I believe it is much larger now.

3 minutes ago, Fletcher said:

8: DELOS

My parents-in-law went to Mykonos in the early 1980s and had a great time.  They stayed at a little pension sort of place, the island was awash with wild flowers and they took a boat across to the island of Delos which is famous for its Greek ruins.  In those days the Greek islands were mostly the preserve of cultured and arty types and cruise ships were a relative rarity, unless you were with Swan-Hellenic.

 

This has all changed now.  Mykonos, along with Santorini, gets swamped with tourists in high season and even more swamped by visitors who arrive on cruise ships.  There are days when you can get as many as five or six cruise ships in town which creates a sort of hellish experience.  Everyone agrees that the numbers are unsustainable.

 

Fortunately, we were the only ship in port today so when you add  the people coming from the hotels there were maybe a hundred people tramping around Delos. To get there we took a shuttle boat from the New Port to the Old Harbour and then we got on an old and rather dirty public boat to Delos.  We got there at 10.30am and had three hours on the island which lacks shade, places to sit or any kind of tourist facilities.    It is basically a dusty oven grill. There were loos in the museum which was otherwise closed.  It was exhausting but worth doing.

 

It’s not a showpiece like Delphi or some Roman sites because very little has been restored above waist-level.  It’s a warren of walls, foundations, houses, shops, giving way to vast open spaces and sea vistas. I have never seen so much masonry just lying around.  There is a small theatre, still a ruin and totally charming.  And there is the terrace of the lions - I’m not sure if any are the originals and I don’t think historians have figured out how many there were.

 

Getting back to the ship meant the dirty public boat again and then we paid 2 Euros each for a public ferry back to the New Harbour and the ship because Silversea’s shuttle bus was a 20-minute walk away.  I’m sure there are better ways to visit Delos but I’m also sure the local ferry owners have it the way they want it.

 

The warm weather has abandoned us which meant it was too cold for The Grill, which has the most reliable food on the ship, so we went to L’Atlantide and had a desultory experience.  Call me old fashioned but I like my pastry to be cooked and I like a lobster to be bigger than a prawn.  We skipped deserts and headed up to the Arts Cafe for coffee, macaroons and Glenmorangies which put us into a deep, snorng, snzze mode.  Godnigt fro the Sprit.

Your first paragraph really took me back.  We went in the early 1990’s on the said SwanHellenic.  We visited Delos but for some reason the local boats were not sailing and whoever was in charge agreed that Orpheus (a done up old Irish ferry which as well as passengers had taken cattle on the lower deck) could sail close to the island and use its lifeboats to transfer us.  In those days there was a cafe which was unfortunately closed as the local ferries were not visiting.  However we really enjoyed Delos, then we sailed back to Mykonos my husbands most hated Greek Island to which we have sailed several times.  One thing he hated was the white paint between the crazy paving.

Swan Hellenic was great, and after our first three trips with them the ships themselves got more upmarket.  

On the early Greek Island trips you had tours with the approved local guides, four of them,  who had to travel on the cruise ship with you.  We also always had four distinguished lecturers nearly always bishops or university lecturers.  You were expected to go to the lectures and in the early days it was frowned upon if you were seen on deck when you should have been learning.

You have brought all these memories back.

The Falklands we loved.  If however you worry about port cancellations it is risky.   Cruiselines reckon and advise you there is only a fifty per cent chance of landing.

Apparently on some occasions the weather changes so rapidly the ship horn blows and you have to hurry back.

Wewere very lucky and had sunny though windy weather.   It is an interesting place and I loved it.

1 hour ago, scseas said:

It’s crazy to think that one deranged person, acting in isolation, would cause Silverseas to cancel this port. I refunded my trip yesterday as without Israel and Egypt, and any overnight ports now, this voyage turned into an island hopping boat. We’re going to pick up another line to check out Greece and then do Egypt and possibly Israel on our own afterwards. I understand that traveling to these countries independently gives us more flexibility because we’re only planning for ourselves. However, I’m still surprised SS cancelled these ports so early. Interestingly, it looks like this April voyage is still planning on Egypt and Israel, so I wonder what’s really going on: https://www.silversea.com/destinations/mediterranean-cruise/rhodes-to-athens-piraeus-sl240401s10.html

April is quite a long way off and they are doubtless waiting to see.

To be honest I am lucky to have done a two week land trip to Israel many years ago but had thought I would like to go back for a refresher.    Now I don’t want to go back.  

I just want a cruise before. Christmas so we are sticking with Greece and Turkey

Sadly on the Dawn recently we could hear next door’s television.   Fortunately they used it very little, and I think it was a case of them having it on too loud.  We could not hear anything else from either side of us,

2 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

I saw this coming. Don’t understand why all the Turkey ports remain. 

I am puzzled why you would say this.   Turkey is a beautiful country.

When looking at My Silversea yesterday evening I noted Egypt as well as Israel is deleted from our cruise, though we have not yet been officially notified.

The three nights have been replaced by Antalya, Heraklion and Nauplion.  We have never been to Nauplion, it is many years since Antalya where we visited on a cruise for a day and we have been to Heraklion many times so will probably stay on board there.  Quite happy with this, because although Israel and  Egypt were reasons for booking this cruise originally things unfortunately change rapidly in the world these days, and no itinerary is safe.

I thought others on thIs cruise may not have picked this info up yet.

We did the concert in around 2000 on a Marco Polo reunion cruise.  It was a great experience with only our smallish ship passengers there.  Walking from the coach to the  theatre felt slightly eerie but once there we were greeted by men in national costume giving us programmes and later refreshments.  The orchestra was not Royal Philarmonic standard but very enjoyable and sitting in theamphitheatre was a really special experience.  

Thank you wren2.   

We are on the Athens to Athens trip on Moon on 10th December with supposed ports in Israel (2 days) and Egypt (1 day).    I think Israel is definitely out as this will take a whle to sort but I too was alarmed to hear a cruiselinehad cancelled Egypt because of a terrorist mattack.  What a lot of countries we cannot travel to.

I am a little worried SS will drag their feet in making a decision about December I suppose understandably but fear it will turn out to be like two trips we had ,booked on Viking when cruising started up following covid.  The first to Iceland we found we could not go because of travel restrictions, the second to the Adriatic Viking had changed the itinerary to miss Kotor because of travel restrictions, fine we thought,then they changed it back as US people could now go but UK people could not so they threw us off the cruise two weeks before we were due to travel.

Sadly the thing to take into account these days is that the cruise you choose will probably change before you go.  On the December cruise I think most people probably booked for these two ports in particular so there will be much sadness nd I guess some will cancel.  We too booked to return to Israel, but we have been to both countries before and will go anyway.  Greece and Turkey will be very pleasant. but I do feel for cruisers for whom it was a first visit.

However, none of this is anything compared to the people of Gaza and Israel

It does of course depend on how many drive by excursions there are but SS I think does try to supply some of these (at least one at each port] so that elderly or disabled people get a chance.   I also think that Norway, particularly at this time of year does not lend itself to much else.  It’s scenery is basically what is on offer.

1 hour ago, kmkord said:

I arrive in Copenhagen on Friday to board the Dawn for 2 weeks. I've done this itinerary in the summer time, but decided to try this cruise to see the Northern Lights. (A bucket list item) It sounds like the current sailing hasn't had luck seeing the NL's. Let hope the weather takes a turn for the better.

 

My hopes for good internet and good butler service will be non existent.  Looks like lots of open cabins for this sailing, so expecting a small crowd.

You will certainly get good service from your butler if you get the one we had in early September on the Dawn.  He was very good and then from the Sunday half way through the cruise on a sea day I could not walk at all after lunch and the medical centre said no more going ashore, wheelchair all the time, keeping my leg raised and regular icing, very good became really excellent and he was always looking for ways to help.  This was our fifth SS cruise with two very good butlers, two who were excellent and one who I admit was in the wrong job!

4 hours ago, Lois R said:

Hi, well I am here at the hotel. My flight was supposed to leave JFK at 10:00pm last night and we were all boarded before 10 and then at 10:30 the Capt came on and said there would be a delay.....and then another delay......there were 35 planes ahead of us. We didn't take off till midnight. The first part of the delay was due to a transportation issue with the cart that was supposed to be in the gate area when the plane backed away from said gate. They had to get another cart. Anyway, instead of arriving here at10am we got in at noon. At least the SS driver was still waiting for me. And yes I slept on the plane. 

 

 

 

So sorry you had a rough start with your flight but glad you are here now.

We reached Southampton  at about 4 pm , only about an hour later than hoped but on a bank holiday no surprise.  

Really excited about tomorrow. Can’t wait to taste first cocktail,  Perhaps see you at the terminal, that would be good.

Hi Lois

Glad you are now underway.  Have a good trip.

We are now packed and ready to go to Southampton tomorrow morning.   See you soon

I went on three cruises on SS last year and no difficulties at all with a foldable rollator getting on or off the ship or going on excursions.  I have one that fold inwards which is great so I can easily get between tables and also through cabin doors easily without risking damage.   Coaches or taxis are no problem and go easily into the luggage areas.  On excursions whenever the guide stops to speak I can sit down on its seat and have a rest.

I personally have not seen scooters or wheelchairs parked in corridors on SS and the thought horrifies me and with the rollator I used to have I would not have got past.  I think passengers must have an accessible cabin and book early.

I did, a post earlier on this thread and said we were going on a short cruise on Saga and trying my scooter.   Never again.  I couldn’t get off the ship easily, they were banned on tenders and unsuitable for coaches and shuttle buses.  In America some buses have little ramps but never seen this in UK or Europe.  I felt really trapped and now realise whilst good for long country walks my rollator is much more practical on holiday