Silver Whisper June 7-14 Civitavecchia-Piraeus: A Very, Very Weird Cruise

[Silver Spectre]

 

Not so wonderful = the sordidness of the pax aboard

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

 

Wow, where did that come from? There is nothing in the OP’s reporting or any response that would warrant that type of language.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[BeeMinor]

Thanks again for the kind words on the photos and notes! And I'm sure my husband will get over the anti-cruise sentiment . . . we've had two in a row that had major hiccups--this one for obvious reasons and its predecessor on the Celebrity Equinox due to unfortunate weather and a poorly chosen, very loud room--but invariably when we're on land trips there's a moment when we look at each other and say, why oh why didn't we just book a cruise? (That moment usually comes when we're trying to find a place to have dinner at 10 p.m. after we've logged miles of wandering around and are absolutely exhausted but realize we have booked a hotel without a restaurant or room service.)

 

Re: sordidness--I saw some things on this cruise that I certainly don't need to see again and would never have expected on this kind of line. Anecdotally, an Uber driver once shared some of his own stories about cruising with my husband and me, which mostly involved him, heavy drinking, passing out nude on his own balcony, etc. When we got out of the car, my husband looked at me and said, "And that's why we don't sail [XYZ line]." While I thankfully did not actually see anyone passed out nude on a balcony on this cruise, it would not have surprised me if I had.

 

I should note that there were some perfectly nice people in the charter group who behaved like rational adults. Unfortunately they were subsumed by the ones who were drinking like it was the end of the world and/or acting like the ship was their own private yacht. Really, even if they'd been 200ish knitting librarians, it would still have caused the closure of bars, lounges, and other public spaces that should be reasonably expected to be accessible, and put undue pressure on dining venues and so on. We couldn't find a place to get a pre-dinner drink at 7:30 one evening because Panorama was closed down for a private party, the main bar had no bartender (I assume they'd all been urgently called up to help upstairs), the casino and its bar were closed while we were in port, and we didn't want to go to the Pool bar mid-dinner service at the Grill and wearing our nicer evening clothes. On the last night of the cruise literally every venue was closed down by midnight except for the casino, so when we left the casino at 12:30 or so, there was no way to get a final nightcap. Neither room service nor reception were picking up. Not having sailed Silversea before I don't know if that's standard practice, but based on past cruise experience I'd speculate that that was a decision made to ensure some of the passengers were in a fit state to disembark on time.

 

Anyway. Next stop, Trapani.

[UKCruiseJeff]

BeeMinor,

 

I fear that the closure of the Panorama on the evening in question was for the Venetian reception. :)

 

A few of the BoozeCruisers tried to gatecrash. Let me be kind and say "extremely casually dressed and in a very happy and congenial frame of mind" and they were quickly ushered out but it wasn't without a bit of a row when they demanded to be admitted. When they left they then circled the deck peering in through the windows to see what it was that they were missing. My wife's little caviar blini and her glass of champers invoked a bit of energetic tapping on the windows.

 

Re closing bars, the CD told us that she felt that early closure of the bars including the show lounge was preferable for obvious reasons than leaving them open. On one evening she had to stop mid-show and request reasonable adult and considerate behaviour and suggested some at the back moved further forward to that they could hear over the drunken din.

[Bill B]

We left La Terrazza full and contented, and then made the absolutely wrong decision to go see what the Chronicle promised would be a Roaring 20s dance party was all about. What is was about was five minutes long and then an onslaught of ABBA in a crush of people. (Looking back at the Chronicle, I see it is double-billed with "Disco night" so I guess we should have known.) We stuck around for about 20 minutes...

 

Twenty minutes??? You have more patience than me. Much to the dismay of several girls, I refused to dance when Barry Gibb became a castrato. ABBA is completely unacceptable (unless you're Jane McDonald on a Baltic 'freebie' with Viking).

 

Please tell me most SS cruises don't have a cruise director who thinks it's good idea to lead a bunch of aged, crapulent morons in 'pseudo-semaphore' to the Village People. :rolleyes:

[BeeMinor]

BeeMinor,

 

I fear that the closure of the Panorama on the evening in question was for the Venetian reception. :)

 

A few of the BoozeCruisers tried to gatecrash. Let me be kind and say "extremely casually dressed and in a very happy and congenial frame of mind" and they were quickly ushered out but it wasn't without a bit of a row when they demanded to be admitted. When they left they then circled the deck peering in through the windows to see what it was that they were missing. My wife's little caviar blini and her glass of champers invoked a bit of energetic tapping on the windows.

 

Re closing bars, the CD told us that she felt that early closure of the bars including the show lounge was preferable for obvious reasons than leaving them open. On one evening she had to stop mid-show and request reasonable adult and considerate behaviour and suggested some at the back moved further forward to that they could hear over the drunken din.

 

A much more acceptable explanation for the closure! We had heard while lurking at the Pool Bar earlier in the day several of the Dunder Mifflin folks mentioning a party at 7, so we automatically looked to them as the cause. It sounds like . . . quite an event.

 

We did not attend any shows, largely because the times didn't work with our preferred dining times and pace, but I heard some very interesting stories on board.

[BeeMinor]

Twenty minutes??? You have more patience than me. Much to the dismay of several girls, I refused to dance when Barry Gibb became a castrato. ABBA is completely unacceptable (unless you're Jane McDonald on a Baltic 'freebie' with Viking).

 

Please tell me most SS cruises don't have a cruise director who thinks it's good idea to lead a bunch of aged, crapulent morons in 'pseudo-semaphore' to the Village People. :rolleyes:

 

ABBA is not my thing but preferable to the Village People! :eek::eek: We very actively dodged disco night after that experience so if that came to pass I did not witness it. (Phew.)

[BeeMinor]

Trapani! And an Ode to Room Service Breakfast.

 

I have family ties to Sicily so our mainland Sicilian ports were one of the big draws of this itinerary for me. Trapani is the largest town on the western coast of Sicily. It is not, however, a tourism hotspot. We booked an independent full-day wine tour months in advance, and I am glad we did, because I don't think a day just wandering would be very fulfilling.

 

But first, breakfast. I see I had waffles from room service that morning:

 

 

Dear reader, I love room service breakfast. It is one of my favorite things about any vacation, from overnight stay to two-week multi-country driving tour. I review hotels' menus to see what kinds of room service breakfast choices they may have before we travel and have been known to use it to determine where we stay. One of my happiest moments on our last trip to Paris was being told upon check in that the hotel rate included either a breakfast buffet in the dining room or a continental breakfast in the room. I will never again voluntarily stay at the Parker in Palm Springs because I was so appalled by the outrageous room service breakfast prices ($20+ for coffee alone). You get the idea. The only menu photo I took the whole trip was of the room service breakfast menu, so if you are unfamiliar with the options, here it is. I apologize that it's blurry; based on the time stamp I took it at night and we were moving. Also, I'd had some Champagne.

 

The inclusion of separate selection menus for each person on facing pages is genius.

 

 

Room service breakfast delivered by a friendly butler is one of the things I like most about cruising. In this regard, Silversea delivered on "room service breakfast" and "friendly butler" (we liked our butler very much) although it came through less on "being hot" and "figuring out quite what we wanted." My toast was always cold, the butter was rock hard, my soft-boiled eggs were hard-boiled one morning, my husband's corned beef hash had an apparently acquaintanceship with a can, and for some reason we only got one coffee cup half the time despite checking "coffee" on both sides of the menu. The waffles pictured above were much more doughy than I like, and there must have been a shortage of pain au chocolat because we could never get more than one. The bacon was . . . meh, I make it better at home.

 

That said, the quality was no worse than I've had on any other ship, and unlike some previous ships (I'm looking at you, Celebrity Summit) my soft-boiled eggs were never delivered loose on a plate with no egg cup or other egg-wrangling method. The orange juice tasted fresh. The coffee was decent. It was generally on time. It was room service breakfast, and thus it was perfection.

 

Look at these happy eggs in their egg cups!

 

I now realize I have just written a lot about breakfast. Well, Trapani wine tour up next, then.

[BeeMinor]

Trapani and Environs (for real this time)

 

For our day in Trapani, we booked a full-day private wine tour with Easy Trapani, which came highly recommended on TripAdvisor. Gianni, our guide, picked us up shortly after 9 a.m. from the port.

 

We took a brief drive through the town of Trapani to a wine shop run by a gentleman named Salvatore Noto. Salvatore has dedicated his life to making wine, particularly Marsala wines, and is the sole surviving original member of the DOC review committee, dating back to when Italy began the program in the 1960s. I don't normally drink wine at 10 a.m., but Salvatore insisted a small glass at breakfast had contributed to his long life and health, so, salute. Unfortunately none of the next generation wanted to continue in the family business, which is a story we heard too often when we were visiting wineries in Champagne last fall, too.

 

I didn't take any decent photos, so I am borrowing this one from my husband's reel.

 

 

Our next stop was a community wine-making facility, where we tried various wines and picked up a bottle of the local grillo wine, which is basically Marsala. Other local wines produced in the region include Cataratto and Nero d'Avola, although we learned that many Sicilian grapes are sold to northern Italian and French winemakers to bolster flavor and alcohol in blends. To paraphrase Gianni, good grapes, bad marketing.

 

Along the way to our next stop, we had a quick stop-off near the Temple of Segesta, which shows you how far west the Greeks made it in Sicily back in 500 BCE or so. It is, I believe, the best-preserved Doric temple in the world.

 

 

Gianni had deep knowledge of the history of region around Trapani and provided a lot of good commentary on how various groups had exerted control over the area over the centuries, going back to the Greeks, the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians.

 

Next we came to the Baglio Florio--a baglio is a traditional Sicilian estate centered on a courtyard. The Florio family built a fortune in Marsala wines and was the richest and most powerful family in Sicily during the 1800s. They had a crash in the 1930s, and the Adamo family bought up their properties to expand their own wine business. They don't use the Baglio for wine making anymore, so it's something of a wine-museum-in-progress. Vincenzo showed us and another couple, who had come independently, around.

 

The Florios built the property right up on the rail line to make it easier to load barrels of wine onto rail cars for transport to the ports they controlled. The entrance is capped with the family seal:

 

 

You can see the old tracks here from the warehouse to the door:

 

Wine in Sicily traditionally is stored in cement rather than in steel or wood, both to protect the flavor and to keep it from scorching in the hot sun.

 

The Adamos also made various kinds of Marsala. Here's a collection of labels that Vincenzo hasn't quite figured out what to do with yet:

 

 

I have hit my image limit, so that's all for this one. Next up: food porn and vineyards.

[jpalbny]

Lovely! We spent a great day at that amazingly well-preserved temple, and the hilltop town of Erice (above Trapani), some years back. In fact, the Google Earth car passed by us in Erice, so there used to be an image of us on Google street view, in Sicily!

 

I hate that six-pic limit. Looking forward to the next round.

 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Forums mobile app

[daddyo]

Bee minor,

 

Longtime member and a very rare poster here. I have also read Jeff's account of the same cruise. I realize that SS needs to fill cabins, but they may be playing roulette with the regular customers who may not be so forgiving. A few years ago we had booked the Cloud RT from the London Bridge. A regular poster alerted us that 70 cabins had been reserved by one company. We elected to cancel and go to South America on the Spirit. Based on your and Jeff's experiences, I think we made the right decision. Otherwise, we've been lucky over the years!!!

 

Enjoying your review.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Yo Daddy! :D

 

I knew you’d come home eventually. :D:D

[BeeMinor]

More Wine Touring Near Trapani + Alas We are Back on the Ship + the Worst Dinner

 

Looking back at the original description, I see that our tour is listed as including "a lunch." Our winery hosts interpreted that to mean "let's relax in our courtyard and chat for a couple hours over a homemade multi-course Sicilian feast with foods from our farm and multiple bottles of wine." Excellent food and company--hospitality at its finest.

 

We started with olives, bruschetta, cheese, and a couple of pates, then this lovely caponata came out:

 

 

Followed by an enormous platter of pasta alla'norma:

 

 

I also recall there was some kind of bread, meat, gelato, and fruit, but I don't seem to have photos. Too busy enjoying myself to remember to take pictures! We had seen a sign with my maiden name on it near to the winery, and in chatting the wine maker told us he knew of some people in the closest town, Alcamo, with the same name; my family hasn't been able to actually locate any of our relatives back in Sicily so that was an exciting surprise. By the time we finished lunch I felt like our hosts were my long-lost family! If we hadn't need to get back to the ship who knows how long we would have stayed. But it was almost 4 p.m., we still hadn't gone out to the vineyards, and we were supposed to be back on the ship by 5:30.

 

If this seems like an alarming number of wine bottles, keep in mind that there were 7 adults, including us; our guide; the winemaker and his wife, who prepared the meal to great acclaim; and the other couple, one of whom commented "this isn't wine tasting, this is wine drinking!"

 

 

So out we went to the vineyards. Here's the winemaker heading over to show us the grapes:

 

This section is mostly planted with Nero d'Avola grapes. He's been focusing more on local varieties lately rather than trying to do non-native styles, which I wholeheartedly applaud:

 

 

By this time our guide was starting to look at a little nervous, and he drove like the wind to get us back on time. With the way we felt about the cruise at that point--I was totally fine missing the ship. ("I didn't bring any socks with me!" my husband said when we were getting back in the car from the vineyards. "There are stores in Sicily!" I replied.) We had a port call in Siracusa scheduled two days later and I figured if we hit any snags that caused us to miss all-aboard, we could find a hotel, rent a car, take our time on a scenic drive across Sicily, and then meet back up with the ship. I was almost disappointed when we made it back with 15 minutes to spare. I'm confident we were the last ones back on the ship because our butler told us security had been looking for us.

 

We were waitlisted for La Dame that night, but had asked our butler that morning for a back-up reservation at the Grill in case it didn't come through. He told us the Grill was taken care of, and we'd hear from La Dame if a spot opened up. La Dame did call, but I missed it. They'd moved down the waitlist before I called back, and we'd had such a big lunch that we weren't sure we were up for a rich menu anyway.

 

So up we went to the Grill at 9, where we received this greeting: "I am very overbooked tonight, but I will find a way to fit you in. Tell your butler I'm going to kill him! After midnight! Make sure you tell him!" I'm sure this was supposed to come across as funny, but . . . it did not. What followed was a fairly painful experience.

 

It took awhile for us to get seated, but no worries, we were told repeatedly that the galley didn't close until 10. Service was a little slow--again, no complaints, they were busy--and perhaps I should have been wearing and watching my watch, because they must have brought our food out moments before they closed the galley. We got small portions of the ends of the fries, and when I had the audacity to ask for more, the response I got was "the galley is closed, we'd have to order them from room service." So was that a possibility? This became a fairly extensive conversation with the staff. They clearly didn't want to do it. Eventually fries appeared. "Check out those [amount we paid for the cruise redacted] sweet potato fries," my husband commented. (By the way, the fries were delicious.) Even worse was when I asked for some more sauce, as I had again gotten a small portion. "The galley is closed, there is no more sauce!"

 

Okay. I appreciate that restaurants have hours, and that people are working hard, and that there is stress. I certainly sympathize with the people who had to deal with the Pool Partiers all day. I know that special requests cannot always be accommodated. But give me a break. This is supposed to a "SIX STAR LUXURY LINE" not the orphanage scene in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. I did get an offer of a different kind of sauce, and under regular circumstances and not day three of feeling like a stowaway, that would have been perfectly adequate. Not on this cruise.

 

I wound up with no extra sauce. "Your frowny face emoji just got so much frownier!" my husband told me as we left the restaurant.

[TLCOhio]

Appreciate so much your extreme patience, nice trip postings, enjoyable pictures, etc. You survived!!! Congratulations!!!

 

Enjoying your sharing. Keep it up!! YES, groups can be a "roll of the dice". On our South Africa Silver Cloud cruse a couple of years ago, there was a group of golfers along on the ship. No problems. They blended well, behaved, played nice, shared properly, etc.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

AFRICA?!!?: Lots of interesting, dramatic pictures can be seen from this live/blog at:

www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2310337

Now at 39,770 views for this visual sharing including Cape Town, along South Africa’s coast, Mozambique, Victoria Falls/Zambia and Botswana's famed Okavango Delta area.

[Mudhen]

Wonderful photos and great commentary on everything!

[UKCruiseJeff]

You had some extraordinary experiences on those trips BM. Lovely pics. I wish you had invited us. There would have been more bottles. :):D:D

[Observer]

More Wine Touring Near Trapani + Alas We are Back on the Ship + the Worst Dinner

 

Looking back at the original description, I see that our tour is listed as including "a lunch." Our winery hosts interpreted that to mean "let's relax in our courtyard and chat for a couple hours over a homemade multi-course Sicilian feast with foods from our farm and multiple bottles of wine." Excellent food and company--hospitality at its finest.

 

We started with olives, bruschetta, cheese, and a couple of pates, then this lovely caponata came out:

 

 

Followed by an enormous platter of pasta alla'norma:

 

 

I also recall there was some kind of bread, meat, gelato, and fruit, but I don't seem to have photos. Too busy enjoying myself to remember to take pictures! We had seen a sign with my maiden name on it near to the winery, and in chatting the wine maker told us he knew of some people in the closest town, Alcamo, with the same name; my family hasn't been able to actually locate any of our relatives back in Sicily so that was an exciting surprise. By the time we finished lunch I felt like our hosts were my long-lost family! If we hadn't need to get back to the ship who knows how long we would have stayed. But it was almost 4 p.m., we still hadn't gone out to the vineyards, and we were supposed to be back on the ship by 5:30.

 

If this seems like an alarming number of wine bottles, keep in mind that there were 7 adults, including us; our guide; the winemaker and his wife, who prepared the meal to great acclaim; and the other couple, one of whom commented "this isn't wine tasting, this is wine drinking!"

 

 

So out we went to the vineyards. Here's the winemaker heading over to show us the grapes:

 

This section is mostly planted with Nero d'Avola grapes. He's been focusing more on local varieties lately rather than trying to do non-native styles, which I wholeheartedly applaud:

 

 

By this time our guide was starting to look at a little nervous, and he drove like the wind to get us back on time. With the way we felt about the cruise at that point--I was totally fine missing the ship. ("I didn't bring any socks with me!" my husband said when we were getting back in the car from the vineyards. "There are stores in Sicily!" I replied.) We had a port call in Siracusa scheduled two days later and I figured if we hit any snags that caused us to miss all-aboard, we could find a hotel, rent a car, take our time on a scenic drive across Sicily, and then meet back up with the ship. I was almost disappointed when we made it back with 15 minutes to spare. I'm confident we were the last ones back on the ship because our butler told us security had been looking for us.

 

We were waitlisted for La Dame that night, but had asked our butler that morning for a back-up reservation at the Grill in case it didn't come through. He told us the Grill was taken care of, and we'd hear from La Dame if a spot opened up. La Dame did call, but I missed it. They'd moved down the waitlist before I called back, and we'd had such a big lunch that we weren't sure we were up for a rich menu anyway.

 

So up we went to the Grill at 9, where we received this greeting: "I am very overbooked tonight, but I will find a way to fit you in. Tell your butler I'm going to kill him! After midnight! Make sure you tell him!" I'm sure this was supposed to come across as funny, but . . . it did not. What followed was a fairly painful experience.

 

It took awhile for us to get seated, but no worries, we were told repeatedly that the galley didn't close until 10. Service was a little slow--again, no complaints, they were busy--and perhaps I should have been wearing and watching my watch, because they must have brought our food out moments before they closed the galley. We got small portions of the ends of the fries, and when I had the audacity to ask for more, the response I got was "the galley is closed, we'd have to order them from room service." So was that a possibility? This became a fairly extensive conversation with the staff. They clearly didn't want to do it. Eventually fries appeared. "Check out those [amount we paid for the cruise redacted] sweet potato fries," my husband commented. (By the way, the fries were delicious.) Even worse was when I asked for some more sauce, as I had again gotten a small portion. "The galley is closed, there is no more sauce!"

 

Okay. I appreciate that restaurants have hours, and that people are working hard, and that there is stress. I certainly sympathize with the people who had to deal with the Pool Partiers all day. I know that special requests cannot always be accommodated. But give me a break. This is supposed to a "SIX STAR LUXURY LINE" not the orphanage scene in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. I did get an offer of a different kind of sauce, and under regular circumstances and not day three of feeling like a stowaway, that would have been perfectly adequate. Not on this cruise.

 

I wound up with no extra sauce. "Your frowny face emoji just got so much frownier!" my husband told me as we left the restaurant.

 

A couple of reactions:

 

I know that butlers say they will secure restaurant bookings. But I have always preferred to go to the venue myself, see the MD consult the computer and availability, and confirm the booking myself.

 

I am surprised that you say you had fries at the Grill at night. Was this a special order (requesting an item from the day menu)? Or are fries a starch option on the Grill evening menu now along with baked potato? If the former, it might go some modest distance toward explaining the delay you say you experienced.

[Stumblefoot]

Or are fries a starch option on the Grill evening menu now along with baked potato?

Fries (both regular and sweet potato) are options on the Grill menu now.

[Observer]

Fries (both regular and sweet potato) are options on the Grill menu now.

 

Thanks. I assume you are talking about dinner. Are baked potatoes still available at dinner?

[jimdee3636]

Getting back to the original poster's points, the "partial charter" problem is a real one. But I would think the likelihood of being trapped on one is much greater on seven-night cruises, especially during the summer and/or on warm weather itineraries. You'd never encounter such a situation on a transatlantic cruise or a two-week Baltic or British Isles sailing. I realize the O.P. is still in the work world and longer cruises may not be feasible for her. But for those of us who are retired and can pretty much go when and where we like it's yet another reason to avoid short cruises and high-season cruises.

[BeeMinor]

You had some extraordinary experiences on those trips BM. Lovely pics. I wish you had invited us. There would have been more bottles. :):D:D

 

Ha, thanks Jeff! I'm sorry we didn't cross paths on the ship. I really wish (and hey whatever Silversea person is reading this thread, this is a real recommendation) there had been an "independent travelers coffee break" or something on the first morning of the cruise, or perhaps an effort to put together hosted tables of non-group pax at dinner. We were extremely reluctant to try to strike up a conversation with anyone because we just didn't know who was, how to put it, safe to talk to.

[BeeMinor]

We Don't Really Get Malta, and Some Other Things

 

Again, thanks to all who are following along with this stream of consciousness report!

 

Our next port was Malta for a very generous stay. The ship looks diminutive in a large port:

 

We hadn't been to Malta before and didn't have much of a plan. From the research/Googling I'd done before we left, it seemed like we'd be able to fill our time pretty easily walking around Valletta, seeing sights, having a leisurely lunch, and then maybe booking a little harbor cruise to see more of the island. What I did not consider what that it was Sunday, and many of the main sights are closed on Sunday. We were also unprepared for the heat. Malta is a giant rock. All the buildings are made of limestone. When it is hot, the streets and buildings reflect all the heat back at you. I felt like a chicken in a roasting pan.

 

We walked around for a while, and visited the Fort St. Elmo and National War Museum since it was there.

 

These guys live there:

 

I have an active interest in history, but not so much in military history or World War II, which was Malta's time to shine. Nice views though.

 

 

Then we walked along to the Lower Barrakka Gardens, which are fine.

 

 

We had some okay/overpriced lunch, tried a Maltese beer, and then couldn't figure out the day cruise thing. So we went back to the ship by mid-afternoon. I think I just didn't get Malta; if we went back again, I would maybe book something or even do something we have never, ever done and buy HOHO bus tickets. We had strongly considered sailing on the Celebrity Reflection, which was also in port, and discussed that we were at least glad we'd opted not to do that if Malta was the kind of port we could expect to visit on a larger ship.

 

It was pretty quiet by the pool for once, so I swam and lounged a little bit while my husband took a nap. We attended the first-timers' cocktail party in the show lounge that evening, which was a very brief summary of the Venetian Society benefits and introduction of the future cruise consultant. We talked to a couple of people who attended from the large group, so they must have all been invited, but there were maybe two dozen people at the event altogether. Draw your own conclusions.

 

This must have been the night we were denied reservations at La Terrazza and ate at the MDR. Our first meal in the MDR was unimpressive--my husband hated whatever he got--and we were both a little befuddled by the wine service. Not to keep saying, "On Celebrity, it's like this . . . " but on Celebrity, when you eat in the suite restaurant (I've never eaten in the MDR) a sommelier comes by and at least makes a show of asking what you're planning to eat and suggesting an appropriate pairing. No one ever got much beyond "red or white?" in any Silversea venue other than La Dame. We both enjoy wine and although neither of us would pretend to be a connoisseur, we both know enough to explain what we do and don't like and are open to trying new things. We did figure out that we could ask for something different, but I'm accustomed to asking for and receiving a thoughtful recommendation when I'm at a nice enough restaurant that jackets and nice dresses are appropriate. I'm not sure whether it's an effort to cost-control the "all-inclusive" aspect or whether the ship just isn't big enough to support having more than one kind of red and one kind of white open on any given evening, but that process definitely did not read "luxury" to me. Anyway, on Celebrity, the better wine service is accompanied by some seriously patchy food, and our MDR dinner experience was much better the second time--I had the lasagna bolognese and it was properly prepared, and my husband enjoyed his meal.

 

After dinner we went to karaoke. Lots of people hate karaoke. Dear reader, I love karaoke almost as much as I love room service breakfast. Karaoke is always a train wreck waiting to happen, and this train wrecked from the start! The BoozeCruizers were of course also karaoke fans, and the evening opened with a staff member literally telling the room to sit down and shut up so karaoke could begin because there was so much of a din. Then it turned into a karaoke dance party, which was actually sort of charming, except that meant there was ABBA. And off we went to bed.

[drron29]

Although they only open 1 white and 1 red at each lunch or dinner you can get another wine from the everyday wine list if you do not like the wine offered.indeed if you find a wine you really like 1 day you can ask for that every meal.

[MBP&O2/O]

The issue I had was getting hold of a wine list in the first instance[emoji3]

Perhaps one should be offered as a matter of course?

I did decline the offered wines one day and asked for a specific style of wine ... a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to be precise ( nothing overly complicated I thought?) ... talk about looks could kill !!

 

 

Sent from the magic box!

[Bill B]

We were also unprepared for the heat. Malta is a giant rock. All the buildings are made of limestone. When it is hot, the streets and buildings reflect all the heat back at you. I felt like a chicken in a roasting pan.

 

Here in Vietnam, I met a lovely, retired English couple who live in Malta. We were discussing the total lack of adherence to the 'rules of the road' while driving in Vietnam; and at any given time, around 20% of drivers are on the 'wrong' side of the road.

 

They told me Malta was -

"Same same, but different. In Malta, they drive on the shady side of the road." :D

[dusababy]

BeeMinor -- it appears you might be much happier returning to Celebrity.