Silversea Cruises, Silver Cloud, North America Review

Silver Cloud, North America

This was a hugely underwhelming cruise. Promoted as a cruise to look at Viking history and move from Northeast Canada to the UK via Greenland it was in reality a re-positioning cruise from the Antarctic to the Arctic. It took place several weeks ahead of season which meant two things:
1. Several ports we were supposed to visit did not happen because of snow/ice/fog.
2. Those that did were curtailed because of bad weather or nothing being open. In fact we were asked by guides on at least two occasions "Why are you here when the season doesn't start for at least another two weeks?"
In fact it was only when we got to Scotland [not far from our home!] that things started to improve and a few visits actually happened as they should.

Given its age the Silver Cloud is looking pretty good and the staff were first class. The food was not as good as we have had on previous cruises though.

All in all I felt this cruise was a con as research shows it highly unlikely that we would dock in several of the places mentioned in the itinerary which was therefore misleading to the point of dishonesty. This seemed to be dismissed on board as "well this is expedition cruising". Having been with Silversea previously to the Arctic I know that this is not the case.

I have raised these issues with the Silversea representative in the UK who has forwarded it to Head Office in the US with a promised response within 14 days. As you might expect by now, well over 14 days later and nothing has been heard and makes me feel that Silversea's standards are slipping significantly - and even worse they don't really seem to care.