The Silver Wind is the same size as the Silver Cloud, but has not been adapted for expeditions, so has more passengers than the Cloud. Mind you it seemed very empty most of the time, and we rarely felt crowded..
The Silversea "Classical Fleet" appears to attract a different type of punter to the "Expedition Fleet" which all our previous voyages have been on. The "Cruise Director", Allan, was more an "Entertainments Manager" than an "Expedition Leader" -. His charges were a group of 6 vocalists/dancers, 3 musicians and a guitarist/singer. Basically the ship was not big enough to hire better acts. Allan himself gave a couple of "off the shelf" talks on trans-Atlantic liners and his years cruising - they were talks that he could, and doubtlessly did, give on every cruise he directed.
There was also an odd character, Corey Sandler, who had a grandiose title of Shore Destinations Consultant. The talks were designed primarily for Americans, and were not particularly helpful to us when we went ashore. He was very keen to promote his blog and his website. Give me the informative talks on the Expedition ships any day.
I had a spat with the Maitre D in the Terrazza on a formal night. He believed that I should have been wearing a jacket, even though the code there was "informal". Next night in the Terrazza, billed "informal" for the main restaurant, a number of men were not wearing jackets. When I challenged him on this, he had a long convoluted tale that Terrazza was one down on code to "Casual" that night, but scouring the ship's daily newspaper failed to show this nugget. Two nights later in the main restaurant, again "Informal" we caught sight of men in sweaters,not jackets. I saw the insipid Hotel Director and told him that they were not enforcing a rather infantile dress code uniformly: and that Matre Ds needed training in coping with punters like me appearing with no jacket, but in obvious evening dress with waistcote and bow tie : I emailed Silverseas when I go home, and currently the matter is under investigation by Guest Relations.
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About the only announcement made from the bridge was that there was an iceberg to port. It was on the horizon, and visible with telephoto lens
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We reached a remarkably different ways of passing the afternoons. Chris had bridge followed by afternoon tea with me then she went on to Trivia. That left me with spare time to enjoy coffee and cocktails in the Panorama Lounge
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Click on any of the thumbnails to get a bigger version of the picture
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