Silver Spirit, Silversea Cruises

Seven night cruise from Barcelona to Rome (April-May 2019). This was our first cruise with Silversea and we were very impressed. Our transfer from the airport was good and embarkation (and disembarkation) was well organised. Silversea are at the expensive end of the market but what you get for this is a modern, luxurious ship with relatively few guests that consequently feels very spacious and uncrowded. Most importantly, you get highly professional staff with an almost one-to-one staff to guest ratio. Our Veranda Suite cabin (770) was excellent, with a large bath and a separate, reasonably large shower, which was the perfect combination for us. There was also a walk-in wardrobe, a comfortable sitting area and a decent-sized veranda. We have had 'butlers' on other cruises but our Silversea butler was actually really useful. We ate at both open dining restaurants, Indochine and Atlantide, and particularly liked the former. We also dined at La Terraza (plus all breakfasts and most lunches) and alfresco at The Grill and Spaccanapoli; they were all different and were all very good. Our only additional costs were spa treatments (relatively expensive but excellent) and shore excursions. Like on most other cruises, excursions can be expensive but in all the ports we visited it was also easy to go ashore independently. Overall, no matter how good the cruise infrastructure is, and on Silversea it was very good, it's the staff who make you want to come back, and we did, and we will.

As usual the service is amazing and everyone caring and friendly. HOWEVER We did not like the new restaurants concept. The menus never changed and not all of the restaurants were our taste. The afternoon tea has been stopped and a cafe installed which is not big enough ie people not able to get a chair and certain foods are only available at certain times. Cakes and biscuits not available at all until about 4.0pm. There are a lot of bottles which are taken out to have boiling water poured onto for soup and lots of glass jars which no one seemed to have. That was so disappointing. The cabin was very noisy and it seemed that the cabins were not quite attached in the refit. Ours was extremely noisy, creaking and vibrating. To be fair, we were treated with respect and listened to and we were moved but there was no way I could sleep even with ear plugs. If you put this on cruise critic it would look bad and Silversea do not deserve a poor report when we think of all the other holidays we have had with them. We met 4 couples who have not travelled with them before and no one is coming back. I dont think I want to travel with Spirit again but who knows. Elaine