Hi all ... it's been some time since I posted - last time was when we'd returned from a Caribbean trip on the Diamond (which I miss TERRIBLY) ... we had just gotten engaged (and watched the Eagles lose the Superbowl). My fiancee and I signed on for the 4-day Silversea trip to compare the SS experience to what we've found (and loved) with Radisson. Just posted this on Cruise Critic, and thought you'd want to see it here as well.

Terri (and Zach)

Having just returned from a 4-night cruise aboard the Whisper, we must share some thoughts and validate the comments of Blackbird. Sorry Blackbird - we wish we had met you and the other CC posters in the Caribbean.

First, let us provide you with some background info...
After starting our cruising experience several years ago with our kids and parents aboard Royal Caribbean, we moved up to Celebrity and then to Radisson for the last 4 cruises. We selected SS for this short trip to give them a try and, frankly, compare them to the great experiences we have enjoyed aboard Radisson. In a word, we were disappointed.

While the Silver Whisper is a beautiful ship with outstanding accommodations, the staff and service on this voyage left a lot to be desired. Upon our arrival at port in San Juan, the staff seemed to be out of step with our expectations and previous experiences. When we checked in and went to the pool deck for a late lunch, we met a lovely couple from Michigan and placed our order. There were many staff members around and they seemed eager to serve us. After 20 minutes, we reminded the waiter we were waiting for our food and then needed to go over to the grill after waiting another 15 minutes to retrieve our order. We were off to an unpleasant start.

The preferences noted on our pre-cruise forms were ignored. We are not big drinkers but do appreciate other beverages. When we expressed our request for Diet Coke, soy milk and water in our cabin, we found the attendant to be quite responsive - once. Then we consumed our beverages and needed to remind her again on day 2... and day 3. We gave up on day 4. During our first night at sea, we decided not to request in-room breakfast dining the following morning. However, we awoke to knocking at 7:30am despite a privacy sign on our door. The waiter had a tray of food to deliver - but the order was placed by another passenger in another cabin. After reviewing the menu form, we noted the mistake and the waiter argued that the cabin number (537) did not exist. Note: It does - it was down at the end of our floor.

When we learned of the rough seas outside Virgin Gorda, we understood the captain's decision not to tender us to port. So we decided to visit the gym for a workout while other plans were being made for the ship. We were fortunate to find two available treadmills and attempted to turn on the TV sets above each unit. Much to our surprise, these TVs and one other were out of commission. When we inquired with the spa attendant, we were told the sets have been out of service for several months. We later discussed this with a Venetian Society member (with 170 nights under his belt) while on a terrific excursion in Antigua. He told us of his disappointment in the gym equipment and encouraged us to contact the cruise director aboard the Whisper (more on this later). Another passenger on the same excursion told us that she had been on the ship for ten days previous to the start of this trip, traveling from Costa Rica to San Juan, and had noted a marked dropoff in the service provided by the ship staff.

Later that day, when the announcement came that the ship was headed for St. Bart's, we were quite pleased, as it is one of our favorite destinations. But encountering the mess on Deck 3 to get onto a tender nearly made us turn back and stay on board. We have tendered under 'change of port' circumstances before ... but have never found such disorganization. It took an hour from the time that we got on line until we reached Gustavia.

Dinner that evening was lovely ... we chose to dine in Le Champagne, and found the service, the meal and wine pairings sublime. We were also pleased to have the chef come to our table to greet us. Dinner the following evening in La Terraza provided equally fine fare, but slow, disorganized, and somewhat inept service. Requests for something as simple as a green salad with dressing on the side were met with hesitation and confusion, water glasses were never refilled unless requested, and we needed to remind the waiters to provide us with fresh silverware after each course. For those who wondered about the staff's experience, we did ask each waiter ... many were well-seasoned with several years of experience with SS under their belts.

As reported by Blackbird, formal night was anything but. While we dressed appropriately, it was somewhat surprising to find the overwhelming majority of male passengers not in tuxes. The following informal night found men not only not wearing jackets, but some wearing polo shirts and a few in shorts.

When we took a step back and looked at the entire experience, we realized how fortunate we were to be in the Caribbean together, enjoying wonderful weather and taking advantage of outstanding food, and great accomodations aboard the Whisper. Each of our disappointments could be dismissed as insignificant, and there were more incidents which we are not citing here because they became so repetitive and redundant(no answer at room service phone number, no sweeteners of any kind provided with hot tea), but we were most upset about one final point...

During our third day aboard the Whisper, we went to the cruise director's office at the suggestion of several Venetian Society members who were also expressing their dissatisfaction about their experience since departing San Juan (many were aboard before the ship arrived in Puerto Rico for the 4-night segment). We introduced ourselved to Ron, the cruise director, provided some background on ourselves and summarized everything we enjoyed about the cruise. We then expressed our disappointment about the service and asked if this was typical of a Silver Sea experience. While Ron never answered our question, he said he would look into each of our issues and promised he would get back to us. All we were expecting was a note, message or letter of apology - nothing more. However, what we received was nothing - nothing at all.

As we were preparing to leave the ship in San Juan, I saw Ron in his office and approached him. He immediately recognized me, got up from his desk and said he was still waiting for a response from the concierge on why we did not receive a wake-up call the day we had an early excursion. He also referred to his notes and said he would talk to the waiter who ignored our privacy sign and attempted to deliver food we did not order. He had no explanation for the other comments we made and made no apologies.

We have worked with customers for more than 40 combined years in two different industries - and we know good service (and poor service) when we see it. We don’t expect perfection but we do expect a reputable service provider to take responsibility for their mistakes. In our opinion, Silversea let us down and did not live up to their reputation. We hope to have many years of luxury cruising in our future, but we don’t expect to be on Silversea.

Terri - thanks for the review. Like seeing all types of reviews to get more information about people's experiences. :)

Masaki

Terri, is sounds as if this cruise was just a dud all around! Thank goodness you had good company and beautiful scenery!

Thanks so much for posting your review.

I also just posted a note on Cruise Critic suggesting that future SS cruisers contact their TA's and/or Amex Platinum, if appropriate, and express concern. If Silversea's sales department gets enough questions from their "outside" sales force, they may pay attention.

Just a thought,

Jim

Terri, Between your recap and Maria's, it does sound like there were so many things done poorly! I guess it's good you were only on 4 days....enough was enough!

Thank goodness for the nice weather you had!

Terri,

Thanks for your honest review, it just reinforces our desire to sail only with Regent.

:)

Doris

I too had been wanting to try SS just to see how it was (had some good pricing and good itineraries) but now I'm more inclined to stick with Regent. Especially now with free liquor, free internet and free laundry. Unless the price was really really good, I don't think we'd be gaining anything!! I'm with you Doris! If it ain't broken....don't fix it.

Terri,

I appreciate your candor. It's very unfortunate that you, Maria, and others, had a very less than favorable experience on SS.

IMHO, I don't think it matters whether you are sailing on a short cruise or a long cruise. The overall experience, quality and standards should be uniform and consistent. I would expect nothing less from an upscale cruiseline. If I had experienced the many issues you all cited, I would be sending a letter to address those issues to corporate. Upper management needs to know that you've saved and planned for your cruise, only to be let down. It's not acceptable.

I do hope your next cruising experience, regardless of which line you choose, will be all you expect it to be - and more!

Terri,

We have cruised on Silversea six times starting in 1998. Our first 5 cruises were on the two smaller ships, the Wind and the Cloud, in Europe. Our last cruise was this January on the Whisper in the Caribbean.

Our first two cruises were before 2001 and were wonderful. However, we have found that during the last several years Silversea’s service and food has become inconsistent from one cruise and ship to another. Also, our cruise on the Cloud in June 2005 was dominated by a large incentive group, which negatively affected the onboard experience. Our last Silversea cruise which was on the Whisper was very disappointing. It was our first on of their newer larger ships. The ship itself met our expectations but the attitude of the crew and the service was poor, and the food was not good.

We always enjoy ourselves on a cruise and do not get upset about small things, but at this time we would only cruise with Silversea if the itinerary was unique, and long enough to make it less likely that there would not be an incentive group on board.

When I was dissatisfied about our cruise in June 2005, my travel agent suggested I write to Frank Sansone, Manager, Guest Relations & Venetian Society. The address for Silversea is 110 East Broward Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 33301. I do not know if Frank still has this position, but at that time I received a thoughtful response from him. I copied my TA on my letter to Frank, which probably helps to get attention.

I hope that Silversea addresses these problems since it can be an excellent cruise line, and healthy competition in the luxury cruise market is good for those of us who prefer this type of vacation.

Merril

Thanks to all for your supportive responses ... we did spend a lot of time onboard seeking out and talking to previous Silversea cruisers who encouraged us to contact corporate, and that's exactly what we plan to do ... and I think we'll probably copy Regent on the letter as well, because they should know that they're coming out so well in our 'comparison shopping'. Silversea does offer some lovely itineraries, and that was the main reason we crossed over for this trip - to see if we needed to expand our options and whether the service was that far different from what we'd experienced repeatedly on Radisson. It was, but not in the way we expected. On a positive note, it has made future cruise decisions that much simpler!

Terri

Hi Terri,

Thank you so much for your review. I'm sorry we didn't meet onboard. I know all too well that this was a completly substandard cruise experience and the only thing in my case that made it fun was that I was in the company of a fantastic group of people( family and friends). Last night the whole group went out to dinner in SJ and we laughed over all the mishaps( caused by the poor service) on the cruise.

I just got home to NJ so I have laundry to do :( and get ready for work tomorrow but I'll write my review in the next day or two.

Terri and Maria,

Considering your displeasure, you and your family/friends managed to maintain a good attitude and sense of humor over the mishaps. I admire that. Not too many people would react in this manner.

Voicing your experiences to SS corporate is a wise and appropriate course of action. If they don't rectify these issues, it will be repeated. Future cruisers will get just what you did - substandard service, etc. That would be very unfortunate.

Thanks, again, for sharing with us. It helps us make educated decisions for future cruising decisions. Hopefully, SS will take these issues seriously and address and correct them promptly.

Looking forward to your review, Maria. Welcome back to NJ! Sorry that your welcome home involves laundry and going back to work tomorrow! :(

I for one hope Regent is also reading some recent disappointing experiences from a couple of recent Mariner cruisers. There were a couple that were good ones, but it never hurts for them to read the negative ones as well.

With Curiouscruiser (Sue), others, Ida and I on the Whisper's 13 April sailing, am sure we will provide feedback on our return...hoping for the best...if not, will rebook our 12 Nov Shadow sailing to the Navigator...will let u know..r/wes

I hope the good folk at Silversea realize with this bad press that they need to fix any service problems immediately. First-time Silversea cruisers will now be more "alert" to service issues than they were likely to be prior to reading these reviews. I honestly had discounted one poster's review on CC because I recalled previous negative posts from that person. Confirmation that the cruise was indeed that flawed is bothersome.

That said, I still can't wait to go! The Caribbean, an all inclusive ship, time away from the office......I'm ready!

Thanks for posting, Terri. I really appreciate your honest and very well balanced review. Todd and I have toyed with the idea of trying SS. Now I think we'll stay with Regent.

By the way... we're right down the road from you. We live in Blue Bell. How's that for small world? :)

Kathy

Terri, I don't know how I missed this post before - but thank you for posting your candid review. These reports I am reading are so disturbing! I really hope SS gets on the ball and corrects these things NOW. They are no doubt getting plenty of complaints from guests of the 3/28 sailing. We will very carefully read every word of the reviews that come from the Whisper in the days & months to come and then make our final decision about whether to keep our May 2007 booking. But I can honestly say that on our 12/2005 Whisper cruise, we could feel things starting to slip. It's very, very unfortunate.

Thanks again for your candor!

Look forward to reading future SS reports - we are booked on the Whisper for Nov 28 Hong Kong to Bangkok. Maybe we will rethink and do a Vietnam land trip.

It was discouraging that over on cc, a cruiser booked for the future e-mailed SS referencing a link to the thread on cc about this cruise, and got a canned reply that they don't put much stock in "anonymous" internet reviews. I really think the powers that be at SS need to think about what this kind of "bad press" does for them.

We really appreciate your thoughtful replies. We have learned a lot from reading the postings on this and the CC board, and wanted to share our experience for the benefit of others.

We have written a long, detailed letter to the CEO of SS and sent a copy to the head of Guest Relations. We're also copied our TA and will let you know what (if anything) happens.

Stay tuned...

jhp, I saw that "anonymous internet review" posting too, and I was very disturbed to say the least. That was very arrogant of Silversea, and it really seemed quite impersonal - like a form letter! ARGH!!

Terri, I am so glad you are voicing your complaints/concerns to the proper people. I will be VERY interested to hear the response. Thanks for keeping us posted!!!

hi maria, did you get to marmalade?

Hi Arlene,

No, we went to an italian restaurant in Isla Verde. I'll try to go to Marmalade when I go back in the summer.

Sounds like a wildfire out of control and their answer is to fire a squirtgun and point it at the posters instead of the problem! This is really disconcerting!

We certainly appreciate of your comments and are a bit concerned over them. We are anxiously awaiting Wes' comments to see if this a pattern of poor service, or a hiccup in the grand scheme of things. Either way, there was no excuse for your experiences.

We will evaluate our cruise after we hear from Wes. I want to try Silversea but not if I know going in it will be a letdown from the service we received on Regent.

Anthony