Silversea Cruises
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Since Royal Caribbean has taken…
Since Royal Caribbean has taken ownership the company is no longer 6-star; at best it's a 4-star cruise line for the moment. Welcome onboard no longer offers a butler greeting or champagne; instead you get handed a face towel - thats it! RCCL has cut everything; all the extras in the suites, and in fact, the Silversea ships are now instructed to use at least 30%+ frozen fruits and vegetables onboard; in dishes where it will not be noticeable; drinks, smoothies, desserts, steamed veggies, stews, soups. RCCL appointed a new CEO, and many new SVP's across the Silversea fleet in all departments. They are replacing all Silversea procedures with RCCL procedures in an attempt to aggressively cut costs and create revenue. Cheaper brand of champagne onboard now. Many previous in-suite amenities have been eliminated or must now be requested. The only water you get in your suite now is the filtered water called Vero which they refill the bottle onboard. Food portions are getting smaller. For proteins in the buffet, they are offering more cheap fish and less premium meats, roast beef, hams etc. They are moving away from included excursions to where all excursions will be chargeable. And to save money, Silversea is tendering more and more each cruise, instead of docking to save the port fees. This means docking further away from the centre of towns and having to use limited shuttle bus services. It's cheaper for Silversea to hire 1 or 2 buses than to pay docking fees. And don't be surprised if they add more tendering ports as your cruise progresses. It was happening every cruise. It's an ongoing attempt to cut costs at the expense of the guest experience. But they're not worried because they've now grouped the RCCL, Celebrity and Silversea loyalty programs into ONE! As such, whatever Silversea guests they lose as a result of all the cutbacks, they can easily replace them with guests from Celebrity and RCCL because their loyalty level at RCCL /Celebrity will be recognised equally with Silversea Cruises. For the money you are spending on Silversea cruises, you should expect a luxury experience without compromises or excuses.