Silversea Cruises
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Death of a once great cruise line
The Royal Caribbean bean counters have nailed shut the coffin of once great Silverseas. I have spent over 500 sea nights with them, and after our last two cruises the bean counters have now driven me away. This is meant to be an Ultra Luxury, all inclusive cruise, but recent and continuing cuts have turned Silversea into "Celebrity with a bit more room per passenger" Others have covered the list of parsimonious cuts that have removed "ultra luxury" from the brand. Here is (part of) my list #On a recent NW Passage cruise, costing over $40000, they wanted $100 for boot rental. You cannot do the expeditions without boots #The free wifi has been downgraded to something that does not work, in order to get you to pay $30 a day for something that is usable #The cost of eating in La Dame has tripled to $180. If you add on the $50 or so that you are already paying for a meal, at $230 a head this is 2 star Michelin territory, this food is no 2 star Michelin #The quality of wine in the restaurants is what I can get for $3 to $5 a bottle in Spain. Their wine is worse than that , and from obscure vineyards in Italy and South Africa. And the sommeliers are untrained #They abolished butler greeting and champagne on boarding #They abolished Bulgari toiletries and have a cheap own brand instead #they have even halved the size of the bar of soap from 75gm to 45 gm #They have taken away Heidseck champagne and now use a cheap unknown brand #The measures poured in the bar have halved. The range of drinks in the bars has been cut substantially #Food has been downgraded in quality. Basically Celebrity food now #The only "free shore excursions" are now a standard packed bus round the area with one guide. All others are now $100 plus. We recently ended up with 42 people going all together round an underground cave system for over an hour #Butlers are now just room attendants in fancy dress with no idea of buttling #Expansion of ships by Silversea has led to around 50% of the staff being new to cruising. They are untrained. Hence long waits for food in restaurants There is no point in contacting "Guest Relations", they do not reply - I have tried many times The Bean Counters killed British Airways with their cuts, and now it is being done by another group of heroes to Silverseas. The gadgetry is that these bean counters are probably being promoted by RC for the "saving" that they made