mancunian

I asked on one occasion but cannot remember if it was on SS or Oceania. Was given the safety reason for not having them. Always pack one now as it helps if I have a bad back

I do not think Iwould risk leaving them. We took everything round with us. We take two suitcases and do mixed packing carefully thought out. We do not open one of these during the tour and undisturbed things do not seem to crease badly. In other words although our luggage is with us all the time we live out of one suitcase. This works for us.

Your tour sounds fabulous. They have extended this a lot. I would have loved to do a fortnight. Do not take the given hotels for 2025 too seriously. Ours changed but it was as they say always the same grade. The only one I recognise was the Agra one. They were however all excellent. Food - neither of us was ill. I only remember one person on the coach beingill one day and unable to do the excursion. Like Daveywavey we stuck to the hotels restaurants and they were good hotels. Some of the party went out to other places including the person who was ill. So “you pays your money and you takes your choice”. We did have another problem in that I have become intolerant to turmeric and this of course means no Indian food so my choices were limited but there were choices though occasionally I resorted to pizza! Some of the excursions had included lunches but always at very good restaurants. Only once did I go without lunch when one place only gave an Indian option. So stop worrying about that. Another thing that happened which why not applicable to you and I tell you only because it shows what a good firm it is. At some of the sites becauseI am disabled and use a rollator the distances were too far for me to keep up. Peter noticed that there were men who were called pushers with wheelchairs. He mentioned this to the manager and said he would like to hire one for me.. The manager said he would arrange one at each site but when Peter tried to pay he was told no the company would pay We are really looking forward to the Italian Lakes

This is our reason for using this agent. We did a one week Golden Triangle tour before 9 days on Silver Shadow four years’ ago. This I think is where they excel. The Indian portion was organised with a tour manager from a well known India tours firm. We stayed in excellent hotels. The tour manager and assistant did not allow us to be harassed by the salespersons who bombarded each coach that stopped. He told them we would only buy from them when we returned to the coach supervised by him. They accepted this and when we were safely back on the coach he bartered a price the assistant walked down the coach and we could buy and give the. cash to him. Perhaps took the pleasure from those who enjoy bartering but we were. very pleased by this. We were on a new coach with toilet (apparently unusual). You will have a great time if you have any questions just ask. I think there around 50 of us. It also introduced us to SS and we have since done some cruises booked direct. We are now booked on another tour with said firm for next year which includes a week tour of the Italian Lakes and a scenic rail trip followed by 10 days on Silver Spirit.

Nor do I. We have now been on four cruises with SS. I will admit that before the first cruise we were horrified at the prospect of a butler. What on earth would we do with him. what in fact could he do for us. How wrong we were. Our first three butlers were outstanding. For the first cruises ever (and we have been on over 60) we never had to go to reception over anything, the first two were keen to sort out my probleims with ipad and iphone and the wifi system - I am now savvy enough to sort those myself. . The third used to rush up the corridor to unlock my cabin door - and if on my own negotiating the door with my rollator and the somewhat disabled me could be done but awkward and she would always say can I get you a pot of tea. I had never ordered or asked for tea this came completely from her. They were all lovely people. The fourth butler though very pleasant was not much use. I asked for a stool for the shower which never arrived, on second request I did not get the stool but instead a raised toilet seat! By then I had realised the cabin steward was much better. He had the matter sorted in five minutes. We also had problems on a rough night when the veranda door kept opening itself with a big bang and husband got up several times to shut and lock it again and to retrieve the curtains which blew out each time. On telling our butler this he looked disinterested and implied it was just one of those things. This was the one occasion reception was involved. We love having dinner in the room once each cruise. We are hopeful our two booked cruises we get a really good butler. On Seabourn, no there are no butlers, but we really did not have much help. Our cabin ceiling started to leak and it was decided they would have to move us. The housekeeper had said the cabin is in total disarray, no-one except the plumbers could progress further than the bed. She said go and have your dinner and when you get back someone will help you move. The help was our cabin stewards who said the new cabin is unlocked, these things happen, just move yourself along. Now I am disabled and normally my husband can manage such things but as they knew he was wearing a brace because of a broken top of his arm. No way could we move our cases etc about 8 suites along. He was really annoyed and went to guest services and demanded the promised help and also a key to the new room. A lovely housekeeper came and apologised and took our stuff along. We however, failed to get new key because guest services said they never issued them on the last day of the cruise so we had to stay in rhe cabin that evening. Goodbye Seabourn. So please keep the butlers!

I just hope SS have a lesson learnt too. If you see us do say hello. Unfortunately I cannot be missed as I push a bright red rollator (push along) We too loved this itinerary. Sadly for us UK itineraries usually include Dublin, Belfast, Liverpool and Edinburgh and London all of which we know anyway, and we really prefer smaller places and a lot of countryside. People from overseas like visiting the big cities and I wonder if this is why this has happened and it does not appeal to them so much, and UK people probably did a staycation cruise during the pandemic. However I am sure you will love SS. We have done over 60 cruises on many lines and have now settled into two favourites - Silversea and Oceania.

PressD. I am so so sorry. This is one of the worst stories I have heard from SS. The firm usually take 10 to 30 cabins and have little effect on others. However this like the Seabourn Canaries trip last year is a much bigger operation and a lot of people would hate this and the entertainment will be frustrating. Also not sure where you are from but airfare suggests US possibly. You would have expected mixed nationality passengers and you may not want a ship load of Brits. Actually neither do I normally because we always enjoy meeting people from other countries. I think you have every right to get a refund as this is not the cruise you booked and you have a very strong case. Actually on the Seabourn trip last year I think they had done the same thing and there were a smallish number of other passengers. If companies wish to take full charters these should be arranged in advance of advertising the cruise or at least they should warn passengers and give option to move or have a refund. You have put my mind at rest that I did not make a mistake. When we booked I looked on SS site to look at prices and excursions and the cruise was not there, which together with the imported singers made me sure it was a full charter - or as it turns out almost full). I would encourage you to fight back hard.

I think you have to keep this in perspective. It is really no different to buying a TV and the finding in the sales the very same model at a knockdown price. You could not have known that particular model would have been in the sale. Very few cruises have cabins passed on like this. Probably i. the case of SS about three or four a year, though earlier this year there were about four far eastern ones reduced likely to have been the problems around Hong Kong. You could of course change cruise lines but where to. To my knowledge the firm in question have had offerings I have seen from SS, Seabourn, Azamara, Cunard, p&o, Celebrity and Holland America and probably others. The ones I have never seen are Carnival, Royal Caribbean and MSC!!!! Cruiselines are having a tough time he after effects of the pandemic - some people still are uneasy about cruising and lines have to fill their ships and most have had new ships in this period - SS more than most. If a cruise is not filling they could reduce the fares themselves, but only by expensive advertising and they may still not fill them. Much easier to sell them as a block. Lincslady suggests it will stop us booking early and watch for these special offers which will be galling and off putting. Yes it will because the three or four offered may well be at an inconvenient time and not where you want to cruise. You will almost certainly not get the cabin you want. Our method is that we look to book two cruises a year and perhaps three. We book the first two early when the brochures come out in the usual way and then if a third one comes up later we often fall for it particularly if it is 7 to 12 days with a bit of a land trip with it. Last year we had three SS cruises, two booked through SS the other through this agent. This policy works well for us. I do not think you are going to come across many passengers who come for the included drinks as those people would generally not want the entertainment offered on SS

We are in fact booked on the 27th August trip that Les mentions. I have always been under the impression that this cruise was a full charter as the company involved are bringing three additional entertainers to the Silversea ones, Kathryn Jenkins, Aled Jones and Lulu all of whom are doing an evening show. We booked this a long time ago and I am fairly certain that SS did not have it listed at that time. It is now listed as waitlisted for all cabin types. Said firm seems to do one of these each year, last year being on Seabourn. They do do other smaller cabin blocks on cruises several of them on SS. This will be our third such cruise of this type. We do also do SS cruises booking in the usual way. First and foremost we go for the itinerary we wish to do and the two previous ones on SS with this firm was combining a 9 night cruise on Shadow with a week land trip of India, the other last year combined with a stay on an island off Venice. I have noted that nearly all their offerings are on Silver Spirit.

We have been in a vista cabin on one of our three cruises on Spirit last year. We did not notice much movement at all in fact because it was lowdown there was less movement than in a mid deck on deck 7 also last year. We also entered both Atlantide and Indochine from that end just as everyone else did who resided at that end of the ship and the staff did not seem bothered at all.

We too were on this deck in the Autumn and I did not really notice a difference to a previous cabin on deck 7 earlier in the year

I have been intrigued by the idea on this thread that Regent is much better than Silversea. As we have never been on Regent I thought I must find out more in case we are missing out. So I looked up the reviews and they are really not good at all. Presumably SS is not the only cruise lines with difficulties!

I am puzzled if this is your first cruise on SS how you think the other ships in the line are better,

Lois I should not worry too much. Everyone is entitled to their view. However, we went on Spirit three times in 2022 and we loved it. It is currently our favourite ship though our next SS cruise is on the Dawn. On the other hand we also went on Seabourn Encore last year and thought the food on there not nearly so good. I had my worst steak ever and the service was not nearly as good. Look forward to Spirit as we are looking forward to Dawn. I just wish Dawn had Indochine!,

I do not think you have any worries. We have sailed on Spirit three times this year. We have done 60 cruises on many lines and ships and have named Spirit as our favourite. The ship is beautiful, the service great and very good food in all the restaurants - the only one we missed was Seishin as not keen on Japanese food. We also liked the outdoor sitting areas. In addition to the dining area outside Terraza we also loved the outside area of the Arts Cafe and the area outside the lounge. All lovely places for food and a drink. We are not sitting round the pool types we go on a cruise to look at the sea but the pool area looked very nice too. If you go on you tube and look for Visit with us videos of Silversea Silver Spirit they have given us six videos of the ship including one on food. They are high quality videos. We had no extra costs. We did theincluded excursions, wifi and gratuities and all drinks included unless you go for very expensive wines. La Dame restaurant has a cover charge. We did go here on one cruise but had been given it by SS agent. All our cruises were 7 or 9 days and did not use the laundry

I would have to agree Athens to Istanbul but you need to be up very early last day to not miss the sail in. It is however a shame Symi is on the other itinerary as this port is my favourite in Greece. Really beautiful

We lost faith in FO after covid when they announced the first short UK cruises. We quickly booked the three day Scotland on Borealis fromLiverpool. It said in the blurb they were waiting for official regs to come out before announcing their rules. We wrongly assumed they would be the same as other cruise lines. It was then announced they were not going with compulsory vaccinations and that tables in the dining rooms would be for six and you would form a bubble with this table. No way. We pointed out that the only two cruise lines going with non vaccinated passengers were MSC and themselves,therefore it was probable that there would be many of these people on their ships. Furthermore we were not going in a bubble with people who may not be vaccinated. We asked for a refund which was refused. We asked to transfer to a much later cruise which was eventually agreed but only if we booked said cruise within 24 hours. We would have liked to transfer to a much later cruise but of course could not so had to quickly find something for this last summer which turned out to be a 5 day cruise round Ireland of course costing more. We would really have liked to do the shorter cruise to Rouen which we had done a few years earlier on Black Prince and had loved but realised we were sailing up the river each way in the dark. Absolutely stupid. Having quickly rebooked a couple of weeks later they changed their minds and decided people must be vaccinated. We were very frustrated. We could not move back as we had in the meantime booked a UK cruise on Viking instead - vaccinated people, tables for 2 and daily testing! Well we went on borealis to Ireland. I have to say I am mystified about the dislike people seem to have about the HAL ships. We have done 16 cruises on Rotterdam and loved her. In our view she is far, far preferable to the FO ships particularly Braemar. She is also very good in rough weather having done Biscay twice and Drakes Passage in very rough weather. But of course each to their own. However, although we still liked the ship, but not necessarily the carpets we thought the food in the main MDR was very poor. These experiences have decided us against FO for the future. I also not that you can get Cunard for lower prices.

When we went to the Falklands a few years’ ago with HAL a guide told us that during the war the king penguins were fascinated by the planes going over and beaks up they would follow them with their eyes and sometimes fell over backwards!, I loved the Falklands and we were lucky to have sun and blue skies.

I would not like to be the occupants following in the owners suite. Just imagine -the dog has likely been sitting on all the furniture and likely the bed too.

We fly to Venice Sunday and join Silver Spirit on Tuesday - at present it looks to be without a ticket which TA has suggested we might have to do. Not happy. I like everything cut and dried and can do without trouble at embarkation. Do hope this inefficiency is not he hallmark of our cruise

We are going on our 4th SS cruise next weekend and found very little to disappoint, in fact superior to SB in our opinion However we are starting to feel the fares are getting more than we want to pay. We tolerated included drinks though we drink very little - in my case one alcoholic drink a day (medical reasons) and partner a couple of drinks (choice). As I say to get cruises on SS we accepted this, but now with DtoD which we live too far from airport to enjoy, and particularly included excursions which you cannot opt out of we feel there is too much money being spent on things we cannot enjoy. We feel we really do not want to go on a coach excursion everyday, and would normally do about three excursions per holiday and make our own arrangements for the rest. Indeed as I walk with a rollator (walking aid) many excursions are not even available to us. It may be that we have to travel with Oceania in future where there is more choice. We like Oceania but will be very sad if we have to drop SS

I found catlover’s review very interesting as it largely mirrored ourcruise on Encore in March. Other similarities were we were supposed to go to the. Canaries and Madeira and ended up in Southern Spain instead because of weather. That could not be helped but sadly we then missed two ports there too. we were all offered a free cruise if we paid our own airfare. We declined the offer as we had not particularly enjoyed the ship and had a much better cruise on SS the next month. We felt the food and service was much better and the general ambience and decor was nicer. Someone said they found SS. bland. Perhaps we are bland too but know what we expect of a luxury line

I am unable to climb into a bath and even less climb out again, so the option of a large shower much more attractive. The butler will get you a stool if there is no bench

I am really confused about this. We spend two nights in. Venice before sailing, then 5. nights at sea before we reach Greece. That is a whole week and cannot see that Greece will accept this. I also cannot see a whole ship being able to get a shoreside test in Croatia after their shore excursion there I also think Greece will not see that they only need it if you are embarking. What is the difference. They are saying that effectively you need it to arrive in Greece. Possibly SS will need to do the tests and charge us.

We have recently returned from a round Ireland 5 night cruise from Liverpool on Borealis. We have not been on FO since the 1990 ‘s when we did three cruises on Black Prince, two on Black Watch and one on Braemar. We then found Orient Lines and later HAL both of which suited us better. We actually preferred fly cruises pre pandemic to maximise on better weather and not keep sailing the Bay of Biscay Our return to FO came about because we do not particularly want to fly until things improve and an interest to see what FO had done to the Rotterdam which was our favourite HAL ship. Actually apart from a couple of carpets we thought they had done a good job but what struck us was that Fred had not moved on from the 90’s. It has not really been mentioned here but I think fixed dining went out of fashion around 2000. One reason for this was that speciality dining came in and many buffets started doing themed evenings and it became apparent that if you were not travelling with friends there would be empty seats at your table many nights. Not a good look or enjoyable. Also people are no longer prepared to be told when they must eat and also be forced to dress up on their holidays. OK not everyone but a growing majority. We personally hate fixed sitting. Who will you be put with and if dissimilar interests what can you talk about for two weeks. It is not like that with open sitting. Sometimes you meet ideal table companions who become lifelong friends and you arrange to meet every meal, sometimes people you get on well with you often say we must dine together again and you fix a date, sometimes you just enjoy meeting lots of new people. I will use HAL as an example here. We were on Rotterdam the first cruise which had open seating in the late 90’s. This met with some disapproval with some passengers, butHAL brought it in gently and had fixed seating in the upper dining room and open downstairs and it was about 50/50. Each year the balance moved in favour of open and the last cruise we did although both were offered there were insufficient fixed diners to fill upstairs and many tables up there had become open. Yes prices have gone up. By the time you have added extras such as wifi etc you are able to go at a better price or similar price with a more upmarket line. We will not be travelling with FO again as in addition to the prices, fixed dining and we thought the food was poor compared with other lines, and nowhere near as good as we remembered before. We did think the bakery at the coffee bar was excellent.