PJSphotog

Back again. You'd think that Silversea, having dropped the ball on the previous cruise, would be interested in getting us back, and showing us how it was a one-off, and they can be the place we all want to be.

Oh, you optimist.

Trying to get a hold of anyone is an ordeal. You can call and get someone who will gladly book you a cruise, but if you have questions, or need Guest Relations, or want to find out simple answers like "How much extra is the business class flight upgrade cost?" you'd think you were asking for the launch codes. That is, if you can get someone on the phone.

Once we're done with Silversea, we're done.

Oh, and it gets worse. We contacted our travel agent about the cancellation of the would-have-been upcoming SS cruise. What he told us was this: the cancellation was noted and accepted in August 30th, but "the refund process has not yet been started."

So, in addition to all of the above, SS seems more than willing to hold onto our money for the future cruise until they good and ready to send it back.

RachelG,

Had the rest of us been on the Nome to Seward cruise, we too would probably have been happy. But we weren't. Not that you are to blame, but the smooth run of the Nome-Seward cruise came in part from the frustration of the one we were on and the extra 1,000 miles we sailed to refuel for you. Made worse by the shabby treatment we've received from SS since then.

Marq,

We didn't try to apply the credit to a next cruise, as we have no interest in setting foot on a SS deck ever again. Added to that, our next, and now cancelled, cruise would have been on the very same vessel, an added affront. If anyone has gotten an offer of more than 40%, we haven't heard about it.

"It makes sense to me; after all, if you are NEVER going to sail Silversea again, why should they give you anything?"

Marq, timing is everything. Having lost the customers, giving them something many see as insulting won't bring them back, at least not enough to be worth the effort. So, SS is offering a paltry credit to make it appear as if they care, looking to garner the marginal net that the credit will bring on that one last cruise. And then, on future cruises on other lines, any time someone mentions SS, those of us who were burned will be the voice of doom. "Have ever I told you how SS charged me 30K to play cards for three weeks?"

On the other hand, had they just fessed up "this was a disaster, we really dropped the ball," and given us our money back, they would have had most, if not all of us turning around and putting that money right into another SS cruise. Then, on future cruises we'd be telling everyone who would listen how absolutely fabulous SS was, and that we were going to cruise with them forever, and shouting that no-one else was even close to being good enough.

Which advertising would you rather have?

Speaking of the importance of forums, I have been in contact with a fellow cruiser on the voyage in question. They have for over a week now, been trying to post a review of the voyage, without success.

Does it normally take a week or more (admittedly, over a holiday weekend) to get a review posted on Cruise Critic?

I wonder just what the situation is. Does Silversea feel so confident in their hold on the market segment they go for, that they feel they can shrug off complaints? Are they willing to put up with the criticisms, the bad experiences for their customers, and the hit to their reputation?

Do they make so much money that they can afford to have booked cruises cancelled, future income lost due to former customers leaving, and telling potential customers to stay away?

Or are they just utterly clueless? These are questions that are now rhetorical, because we have cancelled all future plans with Silversea, and in the future, anyone who asks will be told the tale of woe. Silversea has not just lost a customer, but gained an anti-advocate.

To add a dimension to the disappointment of the cruise, and how frosted he passengers are:

When we arrived in Providenya, the Russians kept us onboard for six hours. Apparently they weren't going to let us into Russia, or off the ship, or who-know's-what.

Someone in Silversea, somewhere, prevailed, and the Russians relented. We went ashore for two hours at most. Even the MC for the cultural show commented on our "Finally meeting" in the auditorium.

I now wish that person had saved that favor they used up, and the Russians had turned us away. They wasted that favor, we wasted the time and money, and Silversea wasted our good will. Had we been denied, it would have made for a funny story to tell on a future cruise, a 100% credit, and 102 satisfied passengers.

It tells you a lot, when the attitude is "Better to have been turned around on Day One, than finish this ordeal."

Marq,

Interesting, but not the case here. By the terms of that paragraph, Silversea could have dropped anchor within sight of Nome, provided 19 days of food and cabins, then returned, and called it "meeting the terms." Scandalous, despicable, but meeting the terms.

However, leaving port without enough fuel to complete the voyage (as we heard was the case, from more than one source on board) is not meeting the terms.

Leaving port without enough fuel, whilst planning to refuel at a port that was at that moment iced-in, and looked to remain so for the duration of the voyage, is something else. Then, using at least three days of our voyage, to go and refuel for the next voyage, is at the very least incompetence.

One drives to visit relatives with the plan of "I'll gas up at the next station I see." One does not shove off for the Arctic, any part of it, lacking sufficient fuel to make the voyage without resupply.

If lacking fuel in Nome was indeed the root cause, the wrath of the Silversea attorneys should be directed at the supplier, not at the passengers.

Not only would I have not paid for the cruise received, I would not have gone on it for free. I have better things to do with my time than steam at high speed back and forth across the Chukchi Sea for days at a time.

Were that the case on our voyage, the Captain could have said so when the idea was raised. Oh, wait, the Captain never talked to us/met the passengers except for the first and last night dinners.

Port pilots are experts on their port, and the specific (and sometimes changing) problems of that location. If park Rangers are similarly specific, don't ever get assigned to some far-flung park, you'll be there until you retire. Not to disparage the Rangers, it isn't the same thing as being a port pilot.

The main thing about this situation is this: no questions were ever answered. No problem was ever laid out clearly. We were basically treated like a bunch of grade-school kids on a museum outing, left in the dark, and when the plans fell through, stonewalled at every step.

Marq,

Brad was put in an impossible position, but his skills at presentation, explanation, and putting a pretty face on an awful situation would not get him a passing grade in school, let alone in the real world.

As for Silversea, the plan clearly was "Everything will go as planned, fingers crossed" and nothing more. You go to the Arctic, you plan for ice. If you don't plan for ice, you are either brand-new to the job, or incompetent. If you have to deal with recalcitrant Russian authorities, you have Plan A, then B, C, D, etc. One of the problems was that we had to pick up Russian Rangers at every stop that was a National Park.

Silversea isn't new to this, it never occurred to them to simply pay the salary of a Russian Ranger to be on board the whole time? There were empty cabins, we had room enough for a Ranger and his supervisor for each zodiac. Having even one Ranger already on board would have gotten us onto Wrangell, instead of the incompetence of merely seeing it from six nautical miles, on a zodiac.

There are a few people I'm willing to cut some slack for, and they are in the hotel and food areas. The rest? I would have had more fun simply torching a bonfire of twenty-dollar bills, for as much enjoyment as the cruise ended up being. As you said, 30K to play cards and engage in trivia contests is absurd.

The compensation Silversea has offered is at best poor. Considering how long it took for them to offer the paltry amount, and the effort it took to nag them into it, I am insulted.

The cruise was so poorly run, there were more rumors flying about than actual information from the ship. We made a stop at Providenya (which almost didn't happen, the Russians wouldn't let us in) which, since we have to, to enter the country, really doesn't count. We did a zodiac cruise at Cape Dezhnev instead of a landing, because the shore is too steep to climb. We visited two villages, Uelen and Vanderam. We did a couple of landings and a couple of zodiac cruises.

Our zodiac cruise at Wrangell (no three days there) lasted two hours, and then we were told to shove off, since we clearly weren't going to get through the ice and pick up the Rangers we needed for escorts.

And then we went to Anadyr, where we weren't going to get off the ship at all, until someone, somewhere, pulled whatever strings needed to allow us onshore for a couple of hours.

The rest of the time we spent steaming back and forth in the Chukchi Sea, looking for ice (they lost track of the ice edge one day, and we "found" it, something like 60 miles away from where it was expected to be) and then scooting to Anadyr for fuel.

If that sounds like a fun cruise, you're welcome to it. What makes the passengers (at least some) spitting mad is that this was all clear to Silversea around August 3rd or 4th. They were unresponsive to questions during the cruise, and glacially slow since.

Silversea left Nome on July 25, apparently without enough fuel, with ice all over the ports we were to go to in the Arctic, and left us in the dark pretty much through the whole cruise. We did not get to Wrangell island, the name destination, we did not get to 75% of the destinations on the itinerary. One passenger calculated that on the 19 day cruise, we spent less than 24 hours off of the ship. We ended up having to go to Anadyr (only about 1,000+ miles added to our course) for fuel, and ended up in Nome a day early.

The experience was so awful passengers are asking for refunds, not merely credit for future cruises.