Silhouette Oct 22 to Nov 5 plus pre-sail touring time

[2calgarycruisers]

Thanks so much for taking the time to do a review. We are considering a sailing on the Silhouette next month. How was the live music on board? This is something we really enjoy.

 

 

 

 

Marie

 

I'm sorry but we are not much help here. The only live music I remember was centre ship before dinner. I don't remember anything really standing out except one night when we looked over as we thought it was a bad karaoke contest (!). That being said please don't take my advice as being anyway accurate.

[2calgarycruisers]

In terms of the production shows we didn't see that many but the ones that we did see we thoroughly enjoyed. The ventriloquist was hilarious, the magician/illusionist was very good (I was the one who ended up on stage for the card tricks - volunteered by my hubby :eek:), but found it was too card trick heavy not much of anything else. We saw a couple of shows from the celebrity team that we thought were great. We aren't much into violinists, singers etc so skipped those ones. The ones we saw were definitely worth seeing although we were told by someone who had seen both of them before that the show, down to the timing of the jokes, was exactly the same as he had seen several years ago.

[2calgarycruisers]

We tried breakfast in the Aqua Spa Cafe - for a light healthy breakfast it was a great choice. We did try a variety of smoothies throughout the cruise (we had the upgraded beverage package so it was included) but didn't find any we really liked, I'm sure it's just personal taste. We have smoothies at home on a daily basis and load up on fruit, veggies, yoghurt seeds etc and just didn't find those on board had much taste. Nice fruit selection, enjoyed the fresh figs. Hubby had the Bircher muesli and cleaned his bowl and a I had a mango blackberry yoghurt parfait which was very tasty. It was also nice and quiet in there, I think it's an overlooked spot. We spent some time by the pool, had a tough time finding a spot in the sun but once we settled in it was great although quite windy. Pool was a great temp for me as I had cold water but we found the hot tubs (a sentiment made by many) were not hot tubs, but warm tubs. We had a couple of chillier days at sea and it wasn't worth getting in the hot tub for as it just wasn't hot enough. While there were some activities around the pool, primarily dance classes that we could see there wasn't anywhere near as many activities as on RCL. We went for lunch in the MDR with the people we were touring with the next day in Malta - company and conversation was great, food wasn't so good. I had the mozza sticks (tasted like the frozen ones from Costco) and a very dried out BBQ Pork Knuckle and Fontina Panini - tasted like it had been sitting in a warming drawer for awhile, fries were cool :( Yes, I know I could have sent it back but when sitting with a group I didn't know, I didn't feel comfortable eating after them. We did some trivia in the afternoon with a family we had met on our shared shuttle from Rome, had a ton of fun and won! We were looking forward to the first Chic night, and with the exception of one, we organized our speciality dining so as not to interfere with these. We of course started in the martini bar (by the end of the cruise I think I had tried the majority :D), I believe this was the night for the ventriloquist, which we enjoyed then we headed into the dining room with no wait. I had both the chicken parfait and the salmon tartare, both of quick I enjoyed, hubby had frogs legs for the first time (said they tasted like chicken - of course). Since I had filled up on apps I decided to skip the lamb (why oh why I say - lamb is my favourite meat) and had the shrimp scampi pasta, only eating the shrimp, leaving the pasta - it was good. Hubby had the duck and enjoyed it. As I had mentioned earlier we were never impressed with the sommeliers who take care of select dining - this was our fist experience with who hubby described as a female attila the hun - no humour, no expression - really seemed like they just didn't enjoy their jobs. Saw her bussing in the buffet one morning, same sour face. We had had a long day so headed off to bed to get a good nights sleep before our tour of Malta the next day.

[2calgarycruisers]

The other thing I didn't really think about until Hubby brought it up part way through the cruise was the lack of interaction with the MDR staff at any meal. We have only been on two cruises before, both on RCL and while still doing select dining we found amazing service teams early in the cruise and asked for their section each night - even the hostess recognized us and knew where we wanted to sit (these were both seven day cruises). This was a fourteen cruise and I cannot remember the face or name of any server. When we tried to engage in conversation we got one word answers. We finally gave up except for asking for recommendations - again one word answers. Maybe it was because it they were too busy? The exception to this was during our stops in Jerusalem. During those three days there was no set dining times so we ate in the areas where are reserved seating and had great, great sommeliers - not only were they knowledgeable and genuinely were looking to enhance the dining experience they were also funny and engaging. This was not our experience throughout the ship though - Martini Bar, World Class Bar (how Kayla balanced everyone on her own I'll never know), Specialty dining, especially Dragon in Tuscan were so friendly and I do believe, genuinely cared to ensure we had a good time.