Silver Spirit Review Part 1: For real this time

[Northerncheapo]

Voyage 5211A Monaco-Monaco

Silver Spirit, Silversea Cruise Lines

May 5-17, 2012

Trip Report/Journal Part 1: Embarkation/Dinner Reservations/The Butler

Personal Information:

 

I am 48 years old and my husband is 50 years old. We are relatively new to cruising but not to travelling. We have sailed on The Spirit once before (October 2010) and loved it so much that we decided to book her for our 25th wedding anniversary which was on May 16th.

 

We are not overly social people. We enjoy meeting people, but prefer to dine alone and we typically tour privately. We do not enjoy being ‘over serviced’ but in the same vein, we have little tolerance for poor service.

 

We enjoy good wines, good food (my husband is a vegetarian), outdoor activities, and quiet time on the verandah. We embrace formal nights as we both enjoy dressing nicely but equally appreciate the casual nights. Neither of us have any tolerance for the loud mouth braggadocio type, rude behavior, or boring inane conversation. We share a good sense of humor and appreciate being in the company of those who see the lighter side of situations and are able to laugh easily.

 

Pre-Cruise/Post Cruise (Just a quick overview, but if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to provide more details):

 

We left Toronto, Canada on May 2nd and arrived in Paris, France in the morning of May 3rd. Having been to Paris before, we spent the day casually walking along the Seine. We picked up a bottle of red wine, some bread, and cheese, and had a ‘picnic’ on the balcony of our suite at the Ritz, Paris while enjoying the views.

 

The hotel is slated for a two year closure, come this August, for a major renovation. Aside from the fact that the Hemingway Bar was closed, there were no other disruptions from the impending closure.

 

We left Paris, France on the morning of May 4th and flew through Orly to Nice, France. First time we had ever used Orly (Air France) and found no problems. We arrived in Nice and had arranged for the helicopter transfer via Monaco Air which was amazing. We were transferred from the helipad in Monaco to our hotel, Hotel de Paris. All transfers and check ins were efficient and smooth. We were upgraded to a junior suite which had one balcony overlooking the casino area and one balcony overlooking the sea.

We dined at Louis XV and had a meal that words simply cannot describe. It was superb as was the service and atmosphere.

 

Saturday May 5th, Monaco Monte Carlo, Embarkation and Dinner Reservations:

 

On the morning of May 5th, my husband and I woke up around 6am and watched The Spirit come into the harbor. I cannot imagine starting our cruise in a more special way than sitting on our balcony, sipping coffee while watching our ship slowly come in to dock. We used our binoculars and waved at the passengers who were on their verandahs and they waved back. We got more excited as we watched the disembarking process, but felt sad for those who had to leave knowing that this would be us in 12 days.

 

We boarded The Spirit around 1:00pm and the process was flawless as usual. Quick efficient lines, plenty of help on hand, and glasses of champagne readily available. Our silver suite, 1102, was ready and looked fabulous. It was the exact same suite that we had when we cruised on The Spirit in October 2010. We like it so much the last time that we booked it again for this trip. We loved being high up (although they did try to upgrade up to a mid-ship, which we refused) and we also enjoyed being right next to the Panorama Lounge which we often called our private living room as it is very underused.

 

First order of business was making our dinner reservations for the 12 nights. I did not want to wait for our butler, who I am sure, was very busy. I had given thought prior to arriving as to where we thought we might like to dine each evening based on the days excursions, how attractive the port was and food variety. I created a spread sheet with each port/date/and reservation time:I would have put a sample here if I could upload, which I cannot, sorry!

 

We located Anna in LT and handed her our requests. She called each dining venue individually and secured our reservations for each night as per our requests.

 

Securing dining reservations is an area that could use improvements. The first time we sailed on The Spirit, we had to go to each individual venue to make each reservation. This time, one person (Anna) made all the reservations for all the venues. I felt horrible that we took up approximately 8 minutes of her time which resulted in a rather long que of people behind us. I do not understand why there isn’t a centralized dining computer program. It would have been so much easier and quicker had Anna been able to easily input our requests electronically instead of calling each venue separately. In fact, I would have appreciated if I could have made these reservations on line PRIOR to leaving for our trip.

 

We made the mistake on our last voyage of not writing down our different reservations. Yes, we get a reminder card on the morning of the reservation put in our mailbox, but I would prefer a calendar that has each reservation recorded (including excursions). This is why I created the spread sheet that I took with me. I gave a copy to Anna and I had a copy for me on which I recorded the reservations. Some tweaking was necessary as I was unaware of the BBQ night and I was unaware of the dress code for each night.

 

After less than 10 minutes, I left with all my reservations secured and documented on my spread sheet which included the port/ date, time, venue, and dress code. This sheet was left on our desk and was easy to refer to when needed. I also included any excursions that were booked and sea days, so we were able to figure out our days at a glance. Again, I would love to see SS come up with a calendar on the “My Voyage” tab where we can input our personal notes for our voyage to which we can refer to during the voyage on line or print off.

 

At this time, I would like to comment on my husband’s vegetarian diet. Some of you may remember what a fiasco his diet proved to be for the kitchen staff on our last voyage. Strongly worded letters were sent to SS from me and from my TA and they issued an apology. Prior to leaving for this voyage, my TA send another letter reminding them of DH’s vegetarian diet and how we did not want to go through the whole, “is this vegetarian, are you sure? Is the broth chicken or vegetable? Oh, so it’s NOT vegetarian after all” dance for 12 days. I have to say that we were completely blown away by the level of awareness at EVERY venue by EVERY staff member associated with food throughout our entire voyage. Without fail, when we were seated and before we could even say, “by the way, my husband is a vegetarian”, the staff member would say, “Good evening Mr. T, the chef is offering many lovely vegetarian options for you this evening”. I was amazed! Even at La Champagne, the chef created the most amazing vegetarian 5 course meal which he had printed up on butter yellow paper, rolled up in a scroll and tied with a bow.

 

I simply cannot say enough wonderful things about how everyone, Anna, Debbie, Daniel, Ricardo, and all the others that I should be mentioning here, handled his vegetarian diet. Thank you, Silversea for making our eating experience absolutely painless, extremely tasty, and visual works of art. You have all certainly gone above and beyond our expectations and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for ensuring that my husband’s dining experiences were every bit as wonderful as mine!

 

Second Order of Business: The Butler

 

As I have mentioned, DH and I do not like being over-serviced and are fairly private people. We had some concerns about having a butler who might be overzealous and wondered how to politely say, “Please do not bug us, if we need anything that we cannot handle, we will let you know”. So, I took the suggestion of a past cruiser and I wrote a letter to our butler that outlined, politely, that we are private people, please do not be overly concerned with us, we prefer to be left alone. The letter outlined what a typical day would look like for us (early risers, hit the gym), any dates of our excursions, our alcohol preferences, our dining reservations and did we mention that we really do not need to be checked on to make sure that ‘everything is ok’ ten times a day.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are some people who enjoy the butler experience and greatly appreciate the attentiveness of a butler. We’re not those people. When our butler, Roland, arrived, I politely pulled out my letter and said, “You know Roland, you really do not need to worry about me and Mr. T. Here is everything you need to know about us and our preferences, including our desire for privacy. Please, go attend to your other passengers that perhaps could use you more than we can. We can call you if we need anything”. Well…he somehow interpreted that to mean that we were being overly polite and concerned about HIS time and he assured us that he would be doing EVERYTHING possible to make our stay comfortable. Again, I repeated my request for not being over-serviced. He smiled and nodded, “No, no, it is quite alright, I will do everything for you, you just relax”. Sigh. I looked at my husband and thought, “this isn’t going to go well”.

 

The first and second days we got the obligator over-service routine: phone calls and knocks at the door, “can I press anything for you, can I get you more drinks, can I make your drinks, can I unpack for you, “etc. We were not enjoying this at all. We could not locate our Do Not Disturb sign, which we thought would put an end to all this. On Day 3 I finally had to have ‘the talk’ with dear Roland and firmly explained that we REALLY REALLY REALLY do not need so much service. I think we were probably the first people to ever ask for LESS service because he looked at us confused…now what? My husband said that I used my ‘teacher’ voice but firmly and politely explained that this really has to stop…it is what we WANT…honestly!!

 

I don’t know if it was the Do Not Disturb sign (which we finally located) or our little talk, but Roland became our perfect butler for the rest of the cruise. If we needed something, we called and he was there in a split second. Other than that, he respected our request and kept his distance. I understand that we are probably very different than most passengers that he has ever had to deal with, but I am glad that we finally came to a mutual understanding about our relationship. Roland was the best and we will always be thankful and appreciative of everything he did for us!

[duct tape]

Enjoying it! Yes, Roland can be overkill but he means well and does respond to a big smile and a "go away"!

[Herman The Cat]

What deck and what type of cabin did you have?

Was the ship full?

Crew: Captain, MDR Maitre'd, La Terrazza Maitre'd, Pool bar staff? I assume the hotel director was Paolo.

[Northerncheapo]

Duct tape: You havent changed your name to Velcro? LOL (yes, we spoke with Clive) :)

 

Herman the Cat: We were on deck 11 in a silver suite (1102), the ship wasn't totally full (Roland guessed 480), Hotel director was Paulo, I don't know who the maitreD's were in LT, we never used the pool bar, and I can't spell the captains name and am searching for my chronical to tell you. Whew!

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your post.

 

Keith

[Herman The Cat]

Duct tape: You havent changed your name to Velcro? LOL (yes, we spoke with Clive) :)

 

Herman the Cat: We were on deck 11 in a silver suite (1102), the ship wasn't totally full (Roland guessed 480), Hotel director was Paulo, I don't know who the maitreD's were in LT, we never used the pool bar, and I can't spell the captains name and am searching for my chronical to tell you. Whew!

 

Nicely done--thank you! Looking forward to part 3 (ports?)!

[Ravenscroft]

Just finished reading your threads about your cruise. Great job, makes me wish we had a Spirit sailing to look forward to this year, but alas we don't.

 

Just one thing, I'm thinking you meant to write that you felt like the Observation Lounge was your own private space, rather than Panorama ?

 

I am so glad that you thought Elba was nice, you posted asking about it specifically a few months ago and were considering hiring scooters or a car. I'm wondering now if you wish you had gone ahead and driven yourselves around, what did you make of the roads? Not sure which tour you did of the island, as I recall there were two available when we were on Spirit last May, the one we took I found the roads rather unnerving despite being used to driving on narrow roads.

 

Anyway, thank you so much for your review, brings back wonderful memories.

[Northerncheapo]

Thank you, Ravencroft...yes, I meant Observation not Panorama...If I had a dime for everytime I confused those two names, I'd have my next cruise paid for by now,lol.

 

You certainly have a good memory about my inquiry about scooter rentals in Elba. The roads were very narrow and there were some pretty sharp turns, but because it was May, there wasn't much traffic. I *thought* that I could drive it, but wouldn't want to try it in more traffic times. I certainly wouldn't want to do it with a scooter no matter what time of season! In hind sight, I'm glad I took the bus tour which went to Marina Di Campo, Capoliveri and Porto Azzurro. We covered a good amount of ground. It was our first bus tour ever and will be the last one too...we really hate to be on a 'schedule'. But, I'm glad we saw all that we did.

[Ravenscroft]

Thank you, Ravencroft...yes, I meant Observation not Panorama...If I had a dime for everytime I confused those two names, I'd have my next cruise paid for by now,lol.

 

You certainly have a good memory about my inquiry about scooter rentals in Elba. The roads were very narrow and there were some pretty sharp turns, but because it was May, there wasn't much traffic. I *thought* that I could drive it, but wouldn't want to try it in more traffic times. I certainly wouldn't want to do it with a scooter no matter what time of season! In hind sight, I'm glad I took the bus tour which went to Marina Di Campo, Capoliveri and Porto Azzurro. We covered a good amount of ground. It was our first bus tour ever and will be the last one too...we really hate to be on a 'schedule'. But, I'm glad we saw all that we did.

 

You did the same tour that we took last year. We thought Porto Azzurro was gorgeous. Well so was Marina Di Campo too. We'd definitely consider Elba for a holiday destination, we liked it very much.

I'm so happy you didn't try it on scooters!

 

I was interested to read that Clive is still onboard, he was on for our 21 days in December and January, I do hope he's had a break since then, or perhaps he's due for one anytime soon.

 

Again, great reviews, thank you for bringing back wonderful memories.

[Northerncheapo]

You're welcome, Ravencroft and thank YOU!

 

Clive is off in the beginning of June but is going to work the Olympics in London for most of that time off. Not sure where he is return to after that assignment.