“We apologize, we’ll do better” – a Review of the Silver Whisper and Silversea Management

[RLK33853]

We sailed on the Silver Whisper from Venice (Chioggia) to Rome (Civitavecchia) on May 10th to 18th, 2024.  This is our impression of Silversea, the Silver Whisper itself, the management, and the lack of service, let alone luxury provided by Silversea.  It became very apparent to us why some upper management is moving on from Silversea if this is the direction Royal Caribbean is taking this cruise line.

 

A bit of background – we are in our mid 60’s, fit, world travelers, and experienced cruisers (usually take 3 to 4 per year). We started cruising in the 1980’s and until recently utilized the main stream lines, with Princess Cruises being our go to cruise line (51 cruises). Over the past few years we discovered that the main stream cruise lines are no longer for us. We tried Scenic (so-so), and Paul Gauguin (which we loved). We came to realize that our type of ship would be in the luxury category, with a passenger capacity between 350 and 1000. So we booked 3 back to back cruises on Crystal (Symphony), Silversea (Whisper), and Viking (Jupiter). I will be posting reviews of Crystal and Viking on those boards, but suffice it to say that both exceeded our expectations. We had originally thought that Silversea would as well – boy were we wrong.

 

I’ll start with our first impression once on board. The buffet was jammed, so we went to the pool grill for lunch. Unlike other ships where you order at the grill, Silversea makes you sit and order through a waiter. Ordered, waited, waited, and waited some more. After 45 minutes we asked what was taking so long and were told we would have our food within 10 minutes. At the 55 minute mark we asked for the manager and were told our order would be right up. She was right – we had our food delivered, except that the order was wrong………….They then remade our food which took another 10 minutes.

 

Bars – only beers available were Newcastle, Heineken, Stella, and Becks. Were told that they should have Peroni but they were unsure if it had been restocked. The next day Peroni showed up, but only 4 of them…………Bar Manager said that the bar hadn’t ordered enough from the stockroom. He also told us that he would find some IPA in a port (this never occurred).

 

Back to day 1 – we finally were allowed to go to our stateroom – a Classic Veranda. Nice size, walk-in closet, seating area, lots of counter space, but an extremely small shower along with a separate tub. Furniture inside was older but in good shape. Deck chairs were old mesh, and the balcony table hadn’t seen any varnish since it was placed there years ago.

 

We also had a champagne bucket with ice, two flutes, and a note to enjoy our embarkation day with champagne – although there was no champagne. We started to look around more at this point, and realized that the carpet hadn’t been vacuumed, and the first two drawers we opened had hair in one, and I think, sand in the other. Also none of the table lamps worked. We then tried the TV to do the welcome muster – TV didn’t work.

 

I found the butler and the room attendant and were told that these issues would be rectified immediately (after telling us we didn’t know how to run the TV, but then couldn’t get it to work himself). I also asked them to replace the feather pillows and comforter which I’m allergic to. Also where was our welcome champagne? Butler apologized for forgetting to provide the champagne, and the room attendant said he would vacuum and replace the pillows and comforter. Then we requested more ice for the champagne bucket, to which our butler said he would just put it in the fridge – we said no, please fill the champagne bucket with ice.

 

By this time we had to attend muster. Came back to find nothing had been done – drawers still dirty, suite hadn’t been vacuumed, feather pillows and comforter were still on the bed, and table lights and TV still weren’t working. The only thing done was that our butler had indeed placed the champagne in the semi-warm fridge instead of refilling the champagne bucket as we had requested.

 

I went to Guest Services and spoke with the Front Desk Manager and the Hotel Manager. I requested to change rooms but was informed the ship was sailing full and they could not move us into another room. While I was waiting to speak with the two, several other individuals were at the desk with the same type of issues – dirty rooms/lights not working. I was assured that everything would be taken care of and that upon our return from dinner, the room would be clean. By this time we had heard the Silver Whisper motto “we apologize, we’ll do better” more times than you can imagine.

 

So on our luxury cruise – before we could unpack, we wiped out the drawers and cleaned the flat surfaces ourselves. I placed the feather pillows on the floor near the door and pulled down the feather comforter so that they would be replaced.

 

We then went for dinner – by this time it was 8:00 pm. We were served room temperature water and I requested some ice – and 10 minutes later again requested ice – and 5 minutes later requested ice before the waiter realized that I actually WANTED ice. This was a recurring theme for the first 3 days and was only rectified when we pointed this out to the restaurant manager. Other than that, dinner was pretty good.

 

Left dinner and caught the end of the show. Then tired and ready for bed, we returned to our suite to find that it hadn’t been vacuumed, and when I checked the pillows found that the room steward had just put the feather ones back on the bed. Checked the comforter and when I pulled back the cover sheet we discovered that it was stained in numerous places. Called the front desk who informed us that someone would be there to replace the pillows and comforter immediately. 15 minutes later, no one showed so I went to Guest Services and asked for the Hotel Manager. The Guest Services Manager came out of the office area and after hearing about these issues accompanied me to the suite. She had also requested the room steward and butler attend. After showing her the debris on the floor, feather pillows that had not been replaced (so much for their “pillow menu”), the stained comforter, along with the fact that we didn’t have any working table lamps, she quickly apologized and told me that they would do better……………by this time my wife was in tears and wanting to know if we should look at getting off in the next port. The manager said she would be right back with the pillows and a new comforter. This was at 10:40 pm. At 11:05 we decided that we couldn’t wait any longer and went to bed as we had to be up the next morning for an early tour – without pillows, me using a towel, and my wife using her robe as blankets. I placed the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. At 11:07 pm the manager knocked on the door and wanted to start fixing up the room. Unbelievable.

 

We had booked a room service breakfast due to our early excursion – of course it was late by 15 minutes. We rushed to the show lounge to meet our tour group only to find out that even though we were one of the first tours, they were 30 minutes behind schedule. My wife went to use the public washroom while we waited, only to find that the toilets were out of order (and continued to be so for portions of the cruise). Tour was very good.

 

Upon returning to the ship, we again tried the pool grill. Waited another 45 minutes for our food – again the order was screwed up. Other passengers around us were just as annoyed with the wait and the screwed up orders. While we waited we also heard from others about their issues, including one family who hadn’t had a working toilet in their stateroom since they boarded the day before.

 

Returned to our stateroom to find that all our room deficiencies had been rectified – we started to feel that maybe the service was improving.

 

One thing that was outstanding were the bar stewards – personable and friendly.

 

We found dinners in the various restaurants to be inconsistent, although I will say that Silversea does supply premium beef. One meal would be excellent one time, and awful the next. Same with the service. One meal we both ordered steaks, medium-rare. Both came blue rare. When we showed the waiter, he again apologized and said they would do better………….he removed them and had them replaced. Both came as ordered, except they only replaced the steaks to be delivered to the table – we didn’t get any vegetables, sauce, etc. Showed the waiter who said he would get the other items, then went to take orders from other tables and forgot.

 

We tried room service one more time for breakfast – the omelet came so undercooked it was surrounded by a pool of raw egg (it looked like someone had put gravy on the plate).

 

Specialty restaurants – the evening hot rock grill was very good. La Terraza was inconsistent. One meal was over the top good, while the next was not.

 

We avoided the lunch buffet – selections and quality were mediocre at best. In fact in one instance we had returned from a tour that went 45 minutes late, which still gave us about 15 minutes before they closed. We quickly dropped our stuff in the room and got to the buffet 5 minutes prior to closing, to find that they were clearing the hot items, and that the serving utensils had already been removed from the salad bar and cold meats. In comparison, on Crystal they would put out fresh food right until closing and then go around asking if anyone wanted anything.

 

Room comparisons between Crystal, Silversea, and Viking. The rooms we booked on all three were in the 320 to 350 sq ft range. We thought the Silversea room design was better than Crystal, although the bathroom on Crystal was far superior. Viking had the best room design of the three.

 

Balcony size were comparable on all three. Crystal had great wicker furniture, Viking had nice metal furniture, while Silversea was old mesh chairs and a tired wood table.

 

Air conditioning in the Silver Whisper staterooms at our end of deck six quit 2 days prior to disembarkation. Wasn’t fixed for 24 hours. Another day the hallway had buckets that were catching drips from the ceiling.

 

Internet on Silversea was slow and could not handle more than one photo upload at a time. Crystal and Viking were both far superior.

 

Guest laundry rooms on all three lines were comparable.

 

Entertainment was excellent on Crystal, okay on Viking, and sad on Silversea.

 

All three cruises we compared ended in Civitavecchia and took the same shipping route past Stromboli in the late evening between 9 and 10 pm prior to arriving in Sicily.  Crystal announced that they would be slowing so that passengers could experience the lava shooting out of the volcano and it was a spectacular show.  Viking did the same.  Silversea never even announced that they were going by.

 

Included Silversea tours were hit and miss – sometimes they were as described, others not so much – in one instance taxis were to be provided to go up to a castle (the bus couldn’t go up), but were not available.  Another tour we had originally booked (when they became available on-line) was cancelled at the last minute while on the ship.  We went to the tour desk and said that we would then like to book a similar tour. We were told that the replacement tour would cost x amount. We showed them that when we had booked our excursions, the one we now wanted (which would be replacing the one they had cancelled), had been free. We were informed that was unfortunate, but the tour was now x amount of dollars.

 

Staff – Crystal and Viking staff were outstanding. Silversea not so much. Examples include that one morning our room steward knocked on the door and wanted to clean the room. I got up and pointed to the Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the knob, and he said, ohhhh, sorry. Then he asked again if he could clean the room. On another day during a crew drill we left our room to find that he had just abandoned his vacuum cleaner in the middle of the hallway. All the way down the hall the other vacuums were tucked into the side, but not ours.

 

Management – one small issue on Crystal (no coke in our minibar one day and I spoke with the front desk to get it refilled) resulted in the Head Butler requesting a meeting with us to ensure our cruise was not affected. In stark contrast, on Silversea the Hotel Manager and Guest Services Manager requested a meeting the second last day – only to document our concerns due to the survey we had submitted. During the meeting they both acknowledged that they had been informed of our concerns/issues/deficiencies by their Head Office earlier in the cruise (we had emailed a letter of the issues), but they hadn’t followed up.  Silversea has since told us that they would be providing us with a Future Cruis Credit of $1500.  While that may seem generous, it doesn't even cover one day of the cruise fare we paid and we won't be spending another 15K just to benefit from the offer.

 

Suffice it to say that we will never cruise with Silversea again.  Hopefully if anyone does so in the future, they will have a better experience.  Numerous other passengers, some of which were Silversea cheerleaders prior to this cruise all spoke of their dissapointment with this cruise.  Once again, our impression is that Royal Caribbean is quickly cutting back on the luxury experience Silversea was formerly known for.

[jollyjones]

What you describe is absolutely shocking but is to some extent, I think, ship specific.

I have many days cruising post-Covid (which is when most of the service issues started with novice crew) in the newer ships - Dawn, Moon, and Nova - and have not encountered any of these problems.

 

I am sorry you had such a bad time - if I had had an experience like yours I too would not sail SS again.

But my experience continues to be of a luxury cruise line and I am happy to carry on sailing with SS.

 

[MBP&O2/O]

Personally I think it is only a matter of time, and sooner rather than later,  before Silversea is assimilated into the parent company, and the published ethos of the company will disappear. P&O Australia have just experienced this ... their brand name will disappear.

Of course all this is for the customers benefit. 😏

[highplanesdrifters]

Whoa! Travel nightmare for sure. So sorry you had to go through all that. 

[Lois R]

I also want to say so sorry you had so many issues and the difficulty of getting those issues resolved.  

I have cruised many times with SS, both pre and post covid and I will not say every cruise has been perfect (nothing in life ever is) but I cannot recall ever having so many of the problems you experienced.

I will be cruising with SS again in the fall and in my experiences, looking forward to it.

[ChucktownSteve]

WOW what a scary review.  I was beginning to look at SS to supplement my Regent experience now that they have the Celebrity status match program. Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to do so. 

 

What RCG did to Celebrity caused me to stop booking them a couple of years ago.  One of my fears was that they are going to also do the same RoyalCaribbeanization of SS. 

 

I suppose I'll watch further reviews more closely before jumping on this cruise line.

 

Sorry you had the extensively disappointing sailing.  "We'll try to do better" is hollow if it's not backed up by action.  Thank you for sharing.

[tfred]

7 hours ago, jollyjones said:

What you describe is absolutely shocking but is to some extent, I think, ship specific.

I have many days cruising post-Covid (which is when most of the service issues started with novice crew) in the newer ships - Dawn, Moon, and Nova - and have not encountered any of these problems.

 

I am sorry you had such a bad time - if I had had an experience like yours I too would not sail SS again.

But my experience continues to be of a luxury cruise line and I am happy to carry on sailing with SS.

 

Agree. I don't think that is systemic to SSea but rather ship management 

[daddyo]

10 hours ago, jollyjones said:

What you describe is absolutely shocking but is to some extent, I think, ship specific.

I have many days cruising post-Covid (which is when most of the service issues started with novice crew) in the newer ships - Dawn, Moon, and Nova - and have not encountered any of these problems.

 

I am sorry you had such a bad time - if I had had an experience like yours I too would not sail SS again.

But my experience continues to be of a luxury cruise line and I am happy to carry on sailing with SS.

 

The OP are seasoned travelers with a lot experience and there is no excuse for the treatment and service that SS offered.  However, I would never take a cruise on any ship right out of a major dry dock.  Too many different things can go wrong (and they did).  Years ago, when the Spirit was stretched, a regular contributor also had a nightmare trip immediately after going back into service. 

[jollyjones]

When the HD and the Guest Services Manager admit they have been informed by head office of the problem but haven’t followed up, the cause of the issues suffered by the OP and other pax is laid bare. 
When management behaves like that it is no surprise when others lower down the pecking order fail to do their job properly. 
 

SS needs to review the staffing on the Whisper urgently. 
 

And I reiterate that this is NOT normal for SS. I believe it is ship specific. HDs with whom I have cruised over the years on SS wouldn’t tolerate this nonsense for an instant. 
 

Edited June 14 by jollyjones

[fdnycruiser]

Thank you for the review. Sorry your cruise was so terrible. We’ve been fortunate on all our cruises among the different lines. However, our last SS cruise on the Nova, the butler was absolutely useless. We aren’t demanding people either, and really don’t use the butler. However, when you order breakfast on room service the butler shouldn’t try and talk you out of it. Especially when he didn’t even bother to set it up. 

[commodoredave]

I agree with those who say this is ship rather than cruise line-specific. Our back-to-back cruises from Iceland to Norway on the Whisper 2 years ago was fabulous in every respect. However, our last cruise in April on the Muse in Japan had a number of disappointments related to poorly trained crew. The issue with SS is that they are consistently inconsistent. I hope this is more an issue of rapid expansion rather than cutbacks by RCG. We shall see when we sail again with SS next week on the Shadow. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, commodoredave said:

I agree with those who say this is ship rather than cruise line-specific. Our back-to-back cruises from Iceland to Norway on the Whisper 2 years ago was fabulous in every respect. However, our last cruise in April on the Muse in Japan had a number of disappointments related to poorly trained crew. The issue with SS is that they are consistently inconsistent. I hope this is more an issue of rapid expansion rather than cutbacks by RCG. We shall see when we sail again with SS next week on the Shadow. 

Looking forward to your review.  We were disappointed in our cruise on Whisper in January, but only because everything was one notch below our expectations.  RLK's detailed review seems to show a major deterioration even from that level – horrible!  I hope these are transitory problems, but the drumbeat of disappointed reviews keeps getting louder.  Thankfully both my upcoming bookings have refundable deposits and are still outside the penalty period – I'm looking around for Plan B cruises!

[drron29]

I think the issue is more likely to be a ship's management problem. We certainly seen this on 2 occasions with a third incident when the cruise was joined by Barbara Muckermann.

 

The first incident was when the restaurant manager berated a staff the Maitre.D of Kaiseki in front of all the diners. i immediately reported this to those above his level. Two days later and that Manager had left the ship and the problems of service issues in restaurants immediately disappeared.

 

Second was when the then Ceo boarded along with other senior management. Fo some strange reason food quality improved.

 

The third was recently when on our second leg of a cruise there had been a changeover of HDs. The improvement was easily noticed. Again I did put that fact in the mid cruse survey.

[Host Jazzbeau]

@drron29 unless you keep getting unlucky with the same HD, it actually sounds like a serious problem at the HD level across the fleet.

[drron29]

Only one was the HD. One was the overall restaurant manager. I messaged the HD amongst others and 2 days later the Restaurant manager had left the ship so I would say the HD was excellent.

The third occasion it was Barbara M boarding. Things then worked exactly how they should. The lapses before and some after were not major problems.

[RachelG]

So sorry for your experience.  I agree, if this happened to us, we would not be sailing Silversea again.  There is no excuse.  They should have given you a complete refund.  
 

we board Cloud in one month.  Hope things are great—my husband has very high standards.

[Emdee]

1 hour ago, RachelG said:

So sorry for your experience.  I agree, if this happened to us, we would not be sailing Silversea again.  There is no excuse.  They should have given you a complete refund.  
 

we board Cloud in one month.  Hope things are great—my husband has very high standards.

At least on an expedition ship you can enjoy the expedition part even when everything else is a bust. Hope you can eat the bread on the Cloud. When we were on it it was inedible. Fortunately a lot of our ports were in Brittany so we were able to pick up some excellent bread ashore. Even the executive pastry chef said he was unable to bite into a bagel…was like a hockey puck. 
 

[RachelG]

1 hour ago, Emdee said:

At least on an expedition ship you can enjoy the expedition part even when everything else is a bust. Hope you can eat the bread on the Cloud. When we were on it it was inedible. Fortunately a lot of our ports were in Brittany so we were able to pick up some excellent bread ashore. Even the executive pastry chef said he was unable to bite into a bagel…was like a hockey puck. 
 

Well, I am probably better off if the bread is terrible.  Then at least I won’t be tempted.

[Emdee]

We are on Splendor in August. First thing DD plans to do is go ashore in St.Malo and buy local butter and pastries. Got a taste for this on the Cloud when we did Brittany.

As for me I will enjoy the salt stick. 

[JSR]

Thank you for your clear report. I am sorry you had this experience. I also concur that this is ship specific. This is the oldest ship in the fleet, and while this does not excuse the poor service and lack of management responsiveness it might provide some explanation for the shower size and cabin design. 

 

I have taken two Silversea cruises, one on the Moon (11 days) and Nova (71 days). I will say the Moon (still Covid times) was ok, our cruise on the Nova was exceptional in everyway, 

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, JSR said:

Thank you for your clear report. I am sorry you had this experience. I also concur that this is ship specific. This is the oldest ship in the fleet,

 

 

It is not the oldest ship in the fleet.  Cloud was built in 1994, Wind in 1995 and Shadow in 2000.  Whisper in 2001.

 

Don't be so fast to pawn this off as a one-off ship-specific issue.

 

 

[JSR]

@FlyerTalker thank you for taking the time to correct my misinformation.  
 

[Host Jazzbeau]

It's also, at this moment, the most recently dry-docked ship in the fleet.  Another reason it shouldn't get a pass on hardware issues.  [First cruise after a dry-dock may have some staffing issues, especially in terms of team coordination.]

[MBP&O2/O]

Where possible we used to avoid any changes of senior management before a drydock. Those who were on board had ample time to sort out what was what, they could monitor progress and keep an eye on things. Post drydock they knew the situation.

Any required changes of staff were, where possible, made at the beginning of the DD so they had plenty of time to familiarise themselves with protocols etc.

Sounds to me like a case of Digitalum Extractum 😄

[ldubs]

On 6/14/2024 at 4:48 AM, MBP&O2/O said:

Personally I think it is only a matter of time, and sooner rather than later,  before Silversea is assimilated into the parent company, and the published ethos of the company will disappear. P&O Australia have just experienced this ... their brand name will disappear.

Of course all this is for the customers benefit. 😏

 

From what the OP describes, it sounds like assimilation into RCI will be an upgraded experience.