Segmenting across the South Pacific WC Valparaiso to Sydney 15/02

[Silver Spectre]

About to head off to Heathrow for our flights to Santiago via São Paulo and a couple of nights in the Mandarin. Looking forward to joining the Whisper on Saturday and meeting up with old friends.

[Stumblefoot]

Have a great trip and hope that you get to enjoy beautifully warm and sunny weather throughout your voyage. 

 

Your itinerary is intriguing.  Have you ever done it before?  And, what are looking forward to?

 

Will be interested to hear how welcoming the WCers are.  We've never taken a segment on a WC because multiple friends have indicated joining in the middle of a WC can be quite difficult as passengers tend to have developed cliques and often ignore / fail to interact with new passengers.

[dusababy]

3 minutes ago, Stumblefoot said:

Have a great trip and hope that you get to enjoy beautifully warm and sunny weather throughout your voyage. 

 

Your itinerary is intriguing.  Have you ever done it before?  And, what are looking forward to?

 

Will be interested to hear how welcoming the WCers are.  We've never taken a segment on a WC because multiple friends have indicated joining in the middle of a WC can be quite difficult as passengers tend to have developed cliques and often ignore / fail to interact with new passengers.

We experienced that a couple of years ago.   We were on the first segment - San Francisco to Auckland - 19 days and the cliques were there from the beginning.   We enjoyed the journey, but it wasn't quite as expected based on past SS experience.

[spinnaker2]

Bon Voyage Mr Silver!!

[Silver Spectre]

1 hour ago, Stumblefoot said:

Have a great trip and hope that you get to enjoy beautifully warm and sunny weather throughout your voyage. 

 

Your itinerary is intriguing.  Have you ever done it before?  And, what are looking forward to?

 

Will be interested to hear how welcoming the WCers are.  We've never taken a segment on a WC because multiple friends have indicated joining in the middle of a WC can be quite difficult as passengers tend to have developed cliques and often ignore / fail to interact with new passengers.

Hi Stumbles,

 

This is our 5th segment set, usually a back to back, but once did the last leg and then stayed on. We probably know about half the regular WC’ers and we play bridge, trivia and my DW meets the lepers. Basically we are sociable.

 

There is only one clique onboard that ignores us and to be honest it’s no loss at all!

 

We have done almost all of the first half of the itinerary, except getting off at the Pitcairns, which we would love to do. The second half is mostly new and that’s what we are looking forward to.

 

Hope the Internet holds up and is good enough to post photos.

[Silver Spectre]

21 minutes ago, spinnaker2 said:

Bon Voyage Mr Silver!!

Thanks Spins.

[brimary]

Stumble foot......Our experience of doing a 35 day back to back cruise 50+ days into a World Cruise about 10 years ago was extremely negative and led us to the decision not to do it again on our annual SS cruising.

The main problem was being excluded from anything on board which was designed for World Cruisers only.This included bars closed ,theatre nights for World Cruisers only,excursions for WC,s only ,Special events on a regular basis for World Cruisers only.

We felt that Cruisers not on the WC were treated differently and excluded from many things on board that would not happen on a normal SS cruise.Hope things have changed but suspect they will not unless they assign a small ship in the fleet to provide a World Cruise exclusively for World Cruisers only.

[Silver Spectre]

16 minutes ago, brimary said:

Stumble foot......Our experience of doing a 35 day back to back cruise 50+ days into a World Cruise about 10 years ago was extremely negative and led us to the decision not to do it again on our annual SS cruising.

The main problem was being excluded from anything on board which was designed for World Cruisers only.This included bars closed ,theatre nights for World Cruisers only,excursions for WC,s only ,Special events on a regular basis for World Cruisers only.

We felt that Cruisers not on the WC were treated differently and excluded from many things on board that would not happen on a normal SS cruise.Hope things have changed but suspect they will not unless they assign a small ship in the fleet to provide a World Cruise exclusively for World Cruisers only.

Over the last 5 years our experience has been somewhat different, ok there are WC only events but their impact is minimal. We have had the option to pay to join WC events and sometimes we have been included at no cost. For us, it’s still a great SS experience.

[Silver Spectre]

Just seen the WC notification in the Whisper Chronicle, “Stringent screening and enhance questionnaire will be in place for embarking quests and crew” for the voyage embarking in Valparaiso. So we will be “estimated” and “enhance(ed)”. Lucky us!

[Stumblefoot]

Thanks dusababy, brimary, and Mr. Silver for the feedback on cruising just segments of the World Cruise.  

 

2 hours ago, Silver Spectre said:

Hi Stumbles,

 

We have done almost all of the first half of the itinerary, except getting off at the Pitcairns, which we would love to do. The second half is mostly new and that’s what we are looking forward to.

 

Hope the Internet holds up and is good enough to post photos.

 

Fingers crossed for all of us that the internet holds up for you.  After nearly 3-feet of snow over the past 5-days and forecast for more of the white stuff tonight, I'd love to be heading toward the south pacific right now.

 

1 hour ago, Silver Spectre said:

So we will be “estimated” and “enhance(ed)”. Lucky us!

 

😁😁😁

[jpalbny]

Have a great time! The MO in Santiago was quite a nice property. The Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurant was particularly good. Enjoy!

Edited February 13, 2020 by jpalbny

[Silver Spectre]

9 minutes ago, jpalbny said:

Have a great time! The MO in Santiago was quite a nice property. The Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurant was particularly good. Enjoy!

Thanks JP, we have stayed there before, when it was a Grand Hyatt, and are looking forward to seeing how it has changed.

 

Currently at GRU having arrived at 06.00, passport stamped in at 06:40 and then stamped out again 40 minutes later!

[Master Echo]

Hello Mr & Mrs Silver Spectre

 

Hope flight to GRU was good, and now of course you must be in Santiago by now?  Hope the second leg was uneventful.  Now you can relax at the MO and reacquaint yourselves with Santiago.  Are you sailing from Valparaiso or San Antonio?  The latter is basically a huge hanger with no facilities or was a year ago, so I hope you will have the benefit of sailing from the former.  The only asset from sailing out of San Antonio, it is marginally nearer to Santiago.

 

I will be avidly following all your posts and your comments on the various ports, and hope that all the WC'ers treat all you segmentarians with charm!

 

Wishing you a fantastic cruise with good company, sunny skies and smooth seas.

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo

[Silver Spectre]

3 hours ago, Master Echo said:

Hello Mr & Mrs Silver Spectre

 

Hope flight to GRU was good, and now of course you must be in Santiago by now?  Hope the second leg was uneventful.  Now you can relax at the MO and reacquaint yourselves with Santiago.  Are you sailing from Valparaiso or San Antonio?  The latter is basically a huge hanger with no facilities or was a year ago, so I hope you will have the benefit of sailing from the former.  The only asset from sailing out of San Antonio, it is marginally nearer to Santiago.

 

I will be avidly following all your posts and your comments on the various ports, and hope that all the WC'ers treat all you segmentarians with charm!

 

Wishing you a fantastic cruise with good company, sunny skies and smooth seas.

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo

Hi ME, we have arrived at the MO, which is still not completely finished, but is generally lovely. Slight shock for DW, they took all the bath tubs out during the remodel. Only suites will have them and they are still being worked on. We will be joining in Valparaiso and will be taking the SS transfer on Saturday.

 

The overnight BA flight to GRU was excellent and the Latam Lounge and 4 hour hop over the Andes were both good. We have done our exercise for the day with extensive route marches around GRU and on arrival at SCL.

[DCCruiser57]

SS - good that you are returning to The WC.  There are about 240 WCs.  Duplicate has been light on this second segment due to the numerous expedition team lectures.  Generally only 3 tables and many times both Roseanne and Jerry are playing.  Food has been excellent and the service outstanding.  An Arctic was truly amazing.

[Silver Spectre]

1 hour ago, DCCruiser57 said:

SS - good that you are returning to The WC.  There are about 240 WCs.  Duplicate has been light on this second segment due to the numerous expedition team lectures.  Generally only 3 tables and many times both Roseanne and Jerry are playing.  Food has been excellent and the service outstanding.  An Arctic was truly amazing.

We will definitely be adding to the Duplicate

[Master Echo]

Lovely to hear from you SS and glad that your flight from old Blighty was good.  Hope the DW has got over the lack of baths, and you are all geared up for tomorrow's embarkation. Looks like the segmentarians are well out numbered!!

 

Raise a glass of champers for me.

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo

[Silver Spectre]

1 hour ago, Master Echo said:

Lovely to hear from you SS and glad that your flight from old Blighty was good.  Hope the DW has got over the lack of baths, and you are all geared up for tomorrow's embarkation. Looks like the segmentarians are well out numbered!!

 

Raise a glass of champers for me.

 

Kindest regards

 

Master Echo

She is bearing up. Apparently there are 14 of us on the transfer bus tomorrow and another 2 couples in a private van. I see that the Whisper waved at the Shadow as they passed earlier today.

 

Looking forward to that first glass of champagne around mid-day.

[CruisinPashmina]

This is another frequently brought up subject so I feel I must join in with a very different experience with sailing a segment of a World Cruise. When we booked Cape Town to Ft Lauderdale it never occurred to us that World Cruisers wouldn’t be welcoming. This was the last segment so the sailors had been together for months. From the first minute after embarkation, we were treated like celebrities. People made a point of coming up, chatting, asking us to join Trivia, telling us about the lecturers and we had a few invitations for drinks and dinners. As long time SS sailors we thought all this attention was extraordinary....after a few days on board, we figured it out. We were exotics..new folks who were bringing them new experiences, new conversations, and we  new and just might be interesting.

I think the grimness of the West African ports might have changed the atmosphere too. At night the bars were packed and everyone jumped in to share their excursion experiences. As an aside; we were anchored off of Cameroon and were scheduled to be there for about 5 hours. We were met by dirty shuttle busses...no big deal...and driven about a mile to the “downtown”. This was one huge area of stalls, a few buildings, some ramshackle houses, and a dire looking restaurant on the waterfront. One of our fellow passengers absolutely loved exotic jewelry and shopping in general. She presented her choices to the lady proprietor and was told by this lady that she would only accept local currency. Of course this was not an option...a five hour visit, to a small very poor country..no banks or ATMs in sight. My new friend gently put her choices  back down and the shop owner went ballistic. She screamed that we, evidently tourists in general, were nasty pigs. It would have been funny if we hadn’t been so shocked. Definitely another bonding experience.

 

Ironically besides all the acres of stalls, there was an amazing Large Primates Sanctuary. You had to have local currency to enter, but the Sanctuary’s Director was persuaded to take US dollars from at least 50 people. We figured out later that the exchange was not even close to the legal exchange..but no one minded as the cause was totally worth it.

‘

The long (sorry) and short of this is that I wouldn’t worry about taking a segment of the WC.

[Stumblefoot]

14 minutes ago, CruisinPashmina said:

The long (sorry) and short of this is that I wouldn’t worry about taking a segment of the WC.

Thanks CruisinPashmina for sharing your perspective.  Playing the role of "exotics" could be quite fun for us simple folk.

[Silver Spectre]

Officially ‘back home’ after an easy 1 1/2 hour bus journey from the MO to the port of Valparaiso. One of the ladies I met this morning nearly had a nasty accident with the step down in her room, so you are not alone Stumbles.

 

My considered opinion is the the MO is quite a step down from the Grand Hyatt and Mandarin have missed a trick in their ‘upgrade’. Those who love showers will be happy, but tub lovers will not. In addition the concierge floor is no longer as good, the Thai restaurant in the garden is closed, their electronic paper delivery system is not working and the staff don’t have a clue.

[Silver Spectre]

Dockside Valparaiso from deck 6

 

[les37b]

Have a great cruise Mr Spectre. Particularly looking forward to Easter Island, which is somewhere that's always fascinated.

[Silver Spectre]

6 hours ago, les37b said:

Have a great cruise Mr Spectre. Particularly looking forward to Easter Island, which is somewhere that's always fascinated.

Cheers Les, fingers crossed that we can land.

 

Somewhat of a change in weather this morning, it’s overcast, 65F and we have a long swell. I believe we finally left after 5am this morning once the bunkering was completed.

[Fletcher]

40 minutes ago, Silver Spectre said:

Cheers Les, fingers crossed that we can land.

 

Somewhat of a change in weather this morning, it’s overcast, 65F and we have a long swell. I believe we finally left after 5am this morning once the bunkering was completed.

 

Easter Island is a bit of a challenge without zodiacs.  Pitcairn is almost impossible without zodiacs unless the islanders' own boat can get alongside the Silversea ship. But the ocean might just play ball and 400 passengers is probably within the visitor limits on that island at any one time. 

Edited February 16, 2020 by Fletcher