A horrible experience

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 61

Review summary

Having spent over $26,000 on a twelve-day trip on Silversea’s Silver Moon, we were extremely excited to board our trip yesterday, March 30, 2022. We were told by our travel agent this boat was one of the shining stars of the Silversea fleet. Covid required significant protocols. Being blessed to have not gotten Covid and being triple vaxed and extremely healthy, we were fully supportive of all the precautions required. Silversea communicated numerous times with the requirements to board the ship. One was that we needed to be tested within three days of boarding and provide negative results or we would be forced to take a test at the port before being allowed on the ship. We spent the previous four days in Santorini and chose to be tested the day before boarding. The test results, as have been the same as the multiple times we’ve been tested, were negative. Arriving at the Port of Piraeus at 1:30 (we were told boarding would open at 2PM) guest were already in the process of boarding. Organized chaos would be a forgiving way to describe the scene. Outside, in a windy parking area under a freeway overpass guests were being shuffled from one line to another. The Silversea staff managing the process (again-think $26,000+) provided no clear direction on which line we were expected to que based on where we were in the process. Upon completing our initial Covid related disclosure we found our way to a table where a “medical” staff member was checking paperwork. After reviewing our paperwork and test results, and seeing we were tested the day before, she told us we would need to be retested. She stated the rules had changed and the expectation was to be tested within twenty-four hours. Our test was twenty-seven hours earlier. We were then shuffled to another table where a very rude group of Silversea staff was registering people for testing. Seems we weren’t the only irate guests, as we were surrounded by other guests in the same situation and with the same understanding of the protocols (and equally angry). Again - $26,000+. Now an hour into the registration process, we waited an additional 30 minutes to be tested. after another 30 minutes my results came back negative, while my wife’s results came back inconclusive-she would have to be retested. We both agreed that the first test seemed as if they simply waived the swab in front of our nose versus the probe we were accustomed to in the US. We questioned whether the personnel were qualified to conduct testing. After another 30-minute wait my wife’s second test (both tests were rapid/antigen) came back positive. The staff then told us that she would need a PCR test if we wished to proceed, which we choose to do. After the test #3 she was shuttled over to a concrete bench in an open area away from the swarms of guests which we had been forced to cohabitate for the previous two and half hours. While in “isolation”, a Silversea staff member visited and explained to us the process of quarantine if the PCR test came back positive (five days solitary confinement in a “Five Star” Marriott hotel, possibly ten). A black van pulled up and the Silversea staff member “asked” if she would like to sit in the van. Upon replying no, she preferred to sit outside, the Silversea staff member demanded she sit in the van. What was day seven of a thirty-day retirement celebration was about to blow up. After another very anxious forty-five minutes, the Silversea staff member sauntered over to inform us that the PCR test was indeed negative. We were “allowed” to board at that point. The incredibly amateur way ($26,000+) way this process was managed was mind blowing. From rude and unprofessional Silversea staff, unqualified medical testing process and thorough lack of clear communication, this beginning to what was expected to be a wonderful trip will be forever etched in our minds. It will also define the Silversea brand no matter how comfortable the trip is going forward. …and no one from the Silversea crew has reached out to apologize for the three hour boarding process that made the beginning of this $26,000+ journey a horrible experience.

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