It’s difficult to please everyone and maybe it’s become
difficult to please anyone. But for me
Crystal Cruise line is the exceptional standard that I compare others to. Had
enough of Holland America in decades past, I have more than a dozen actual and
planned crystal cruises to use as the comparison group. If you have the money and the inclination, go
with CRYSTAL. You won’t be disappointed.
That being said, this year we tried a few other cruise lines
to expand our database and experience portfolio. A Mediterranean cruise on Oceania
was half the price of Crystal and probably half as satisfying. Gerri graded it - C; I though it deserved
more - B-. With all of the hoopla
regarding its excellent cuisine, we thought the food was mediocre at best. The service was unequal ranging from very
good to indifferent, the ship was decent and decorated nicely, and the overall
experience and ambiance adequate and even pleasant. Importantly, Oceania was a
decent value for the money. Will we cruise
again on Oceania? – NO! But at least Oceania
didn’t pretend to be a high-end cruise line like Silversea.
My experience with Silversea spans 13 years. Only two of the
six cruises were worthy of any positive mention. To be fair, I was a dance host
(therefore the cruise was provided gratis or almost gratis) on three of the six
cruises. The cruises were on six
different ships. The other three - I was a paying customer. The first cruise in
2006 was fantastic. It cruised from Singapore to Hong Kong; I travelled as a
gentleman dance host. I fell in love with Silversea. Everyone was enthusiastic
and I could really experience what a 5-star cruise line company could
offer. That was when Silversea was in
its heyday.
Another cruise that I want to praise on Silversea occurred
in 2017 when Gerri and I took the Silversea Explorer to the Artic for a 10-day
cruise. It was brilliant! But that was
on an explorer ship that is considerably different than the more extravagant and
overindulgent ships that 5-star cruise lines offer.
My second cruise in 2012 from Tokyo to Seward was really
disappointing. I began to feel the deterioration in service and quality;
everyone seemed to be going through the motions on this cruise including the
cruise director. Silversea was indeed
going downhill. I’ll spare the reader the grim details of what I experienced.
But it was on a cruise in 2017, on the Silversea Spirit, that
was the worst, the absolute worst! Now,
there were circumstances for why the crew was burned out and dissociated, but
never mind, that’s not my problem. That cruise would not have qualified for a
2-star category. Never again on
Silversea I said to myself.
THE SILVERSEA MUSE: On April 2017, a brand-new ship was born
- the Silversea Muse and all of the hoopla surrounding its eight restaurants on
a ship twice the size of its sister ships was too tempting to resist. Wow, the
Silversea folks would learn from their mistakes and build a ship that would
redefine cruising for the future. So I said to myself, let’s give Silversea one
more chance at redemption. Let me just
say that I really wanted to like the Silver Muse and if anything, this review
might be biased in being too generous a review rather than a cup being half
empty type of assessment.
Unfortunately, the experience has been a mixed bag. I liked
the cruise director, Vicki, a lively and refreshing lady who rose from the
ranks of a singer on Silversea to assume the position. Great decision Silversea. I also very much
liked the assistant cruise director, Sandra, another lady with enthusiasm and
sincere interest in doing her job and making the Muse a world class cruise
ship. Our butler, Chetan, was also
outstanding, as were a few crew members on the ship that we met along the way. There
were also a bunch of middle managers trying to make the guests happy by
fielding complaints targeting the lower staff who may be just following
instructions from their superiors, but nevertheless showing inflexibility, or
maybe reacting a little curt with the guests as a matter of habit, a telltale effect
of the declining culture of Silversea that ostensibly the new wave of managers
and middle managers is now attempting to reverse. There were many examples of my
complaints – I can be obnoxious – that were
expeditiously corrected in the
most gracious of ways – I won’t bore you with examples except for the bitch
over not having coffee available until 6:30AM, and thus having to bother room
service for coffee every morning – after the complaint was registered, a personal
expresso machine was delivered to our room that afternoon!
Room service was in fact excellent, which we used quite a
bit until the expresso machine was delivered. The three-piece dance band, the
Silver Muse Contemporary Trio was also excellent as was the guitar player from
Wales – both playing danceable tunes that was refreshing and varied, while deviating
from the typical colony of cruise line bands playing mostly rumbas and cha
cha.
The ship itself was a major disappointment. Take the other sister Silversea ships, double
the size, paint it a drab taupe to make it look like a 1980’s office or doctor’s
building, omit essential components that any high-end cruise line should have
like a decent size laundry room with washing machines (has since been sort of
rectified with ONLY one stackable washer/dryer in a small closet per floor),
build more restaurants some of which cost you a significant amount to
experience, and deemphasize certain aspects like dancing by omitting a
dancefloor in the Panorama lounge while ironically funding the dance hosts to be
included on the ship.
On a positive note, the cabin was a large enough room to
split into two sections; there was plenty of room. The balcony was also large and usable. Another positive note was the abundance of
flowers throughout the ship that were quite abundant and beautiful. There was some muttering going around that
they were not real but I could not tell the difference.
The food was at best average, at worst mediocre, and there
were more take one bite and push away moments than we could count. Breakfast was burdened by having to order
your omelets, toasted breads, pancakes, etc through a waiter which could take
15-20 minutes or more. And nothing they served was worth the wait. It would be
so much easier to just wait in line and order at the omelet station, or avoid
it if the line was too long. As it was,
we avoided asking our waiter for anything that needed special ordering because
we did not want to spend so much time in the restaurant with the day ahead of
us. But in general, there was no catering to individual requests, and some of
the staff responded rudely and snappily to any requests out of the ordinary. The
rules are the rules and fuck you if you dont like the rules. Contrast this to
Crystal where just about every atypical request or outlier is granted as a
matter of customer service principle. And I realize these observations
contradict those offered above regarding the diplomatic engagement of middle
managers. Truth is that service was unequal; sometimes it was excellent,
sometimes it was mediocre and sometimes it was bad!
Out of the eight restaurants, the only one we really liked
was Indochine. Of course, we like Asian
food and the noodles served there, as well as a few other Asian choices were
truly tasty. No other restaurant could
come close, although our second choice was Atlantide. Not even a hotdog was immune from the mediocrity
of the food served on the Muse. And the French fries looked and tasted as
thought they were made at McDonalds and shipped from New York to be reheated on
the ship. The pizza was tasty enough but it was not crisp and could not be
eaten in discrete wedges, it fell apart while eating, and got mushed up into a
soupy glob that you had to somehow work into your mouth. The fish was usually
overcooked and sometimes dry, or maybe just not fresh, the meat was OK or just
a little tough, the crab claws spongy, the lettuce a little lifeless, the
deserts looked pretty but had little taste, and the sushi served at the Kaiseki
restaurant was unequivocally inedible. Plus, there was no hope of any variety in
the restaurants over time since the menu is fixed for each voyage – or maybe
forever.
The gym was rather small for the size of the ship. The Venetian Lounge was large enough but plain
and uninteresting. The entertainment offerings
cannot be commented on because entertainment was usually scheduled at 10pm, a
time that was difficult for us to stay awake for.
The reception area was a large lifeless and amorphous area filled
to the brim with clusters of seats. Looked
like an airline lounge. Overall, while showing the youth of a new cruise ship,
there was truly nothing very interesting about the layout of the Muse including
the layout and furnishings of the eight restaurants on the ship.
My favorite part of the day was before most people were
awake. Room service called for a skim
milk cappuccino, green tea and some fruit, followed by an hour walk on walking
trail just above the pool deck. Music flowing
through my ear pods, a brisk pace of movement circling the perimeter of the
ship waiting for the day to light up with some beautiful colors emerging in the
sky and glistening off the panorama of the ocean.
This Muse cruise has some wonderful destinations in South East
Asia. Looking forward to experiencing Myanmar
next. A week more on the Silversea Muse may
provide some positive experiences to offset the rather negative view of this
cruise ship. I will immediately return
and edit this blog if that should occur. Overall, I think that many of the
negatives have been determined by the architects of this ship although I’m
rooting for the cruise director to make this ship a special one for the
Silversea cruise line in the future.
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