Silver Wind sailing Iceland to Vancouver August 11th--October 2nd, 2023
We had booked a cabin with a balcony on the starboard side of deck 7 and paid $49,700 USD for this 52 day cruise not including any air travel. This was for the cruise only......
We boarded the ship at 3pm and began our sailing from Reykjavik Iceland as scheduled at 7pm. We sailed 3 miles or so, dropped anchor and spent the next 36 hours or so looking at Reykjavik as one of the 2 engines on board needed to be repaired....this was only the beginning of a 52 day cruise aboard the newly christened "SILVER-SCRAPYARD ship".
Over the next 52 days our experience was as follows with respect to the ship's public areas:
Constant smell of sewage and urine in our corridor....and numerous other interior areas.
Our corridor flooded on 3 occasions with broken "water lines and fans to circulate air"....
Deck 8 and 4 corridors were also flooded...
Pool deck "hot tubs" never worked....Jacuzzi pump never worked. They were filled with lukewarm water at best and were shut down about half the time with repairs being "attempted"
The pool was no better and was shut down even more frequently....over 50% of the time. Ironically, the pool temperature was higher that the "hot tub" temperature on numerous occasions.
Sauna was not working at all 8 days during our cruise.
Overhead space heaters at the pool grill were horribly nonfunctional....they would not even be adequate in Phoenix on a cool fall night, never mind anytime in the Arctic or Antarctic. There are no functional wind shields or screens and heaters for the pool grill on the "SILVER-SCRAPYARD ship". Having sailed on the Silver Dawn last year....it has wind screens and heaters that are adequate and functional at both the pool grill and Pizza restaurant.
Public address system volume was for the deaf....the volume level was ridiculous and invasive. I asked both the Captain and Hotel Director about the volume issue which they acknowledged....nothing was done.
The underlining issue for the interior of the ship that we never got used to was the constant smell of sewage, urine, mold and rotting decaying carpet. There was a constant presence of fans trying to dry out the flooded areas inside the ship. There was constant painting going on....unfortunately it was white paint on top of rust...not even cosmetic as layers of paint was flying off the rust.....
Our cabin issues included the following:
There is zero soundproofing. The cabin door and walls have no sound insulation whatsoever.
The cabin door has no seals and rattled constantly. The cabin walls creaked constantly.
Room ventilation system did not function at all...We had the engineering team visit at least 10 times with no solution. The balcony sliding door provided some air circulation otherwise it felt like we were sleeping in a closet.
The hallway outside our cabin flooded numerous times with the usual drying fans and sewage-urine smell...
PA system in our cabin was for the severely deaf...the only way to deal with it after numerous requests to turn down the volume was to disconnect.....
Expedition Issues:
Amongst our newly found shipmates we decided after about 5 days or so christen the Expedition Team as the "FRAUD SQUAD", led by the chief clown.
Thank god for Wikipedia....with the exception of 2 or 3 speakers who had "some knowledge" on their subject, the rest of the "Fraud Squad" were well versed in reading the Wikipedia script sheets. Having personally worked in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic on and off for over a decade, it became immediately evident that these "Expedition morons" had little if any knowledge and experience. As a matter of fact, some did not even know where they were!!!
WOW..... 24 zodiacs....30-34 members of the "Fraud Squad". During our 52 day cruise the zodiacs were launched about 40 times. Of those 40 launchings, 6 or 7 trips were to "wet landings" or closeup views of glaciers. The rest were to a small dock or pier where a tender would have been more that adequate and significantly more efficient and pleasant and significantly safer. In other words over 80% of the stops had piers or small docks where the ship's tenders should have been used, "Expedition Illusion at its worst.. Additionally, the zodiac drivers had limited or no knowledge in driving a zodiac. I personally crashed into a dock on 2 occasions....yes, a dock....the clown show was clueless in how to drive a zodiac.
Hotel, Food and Beverages issues:
After 52 days I can honestly say that there were no service issues, the staff were excellent in the venues that we frequented, the Pool Bar and Grill, Panorama Lounge, La Terrazza and La Dame. We never ate in the main Restaurant. The food was well prepared and the chefs were very accommodating in preparing any special requests.
Another point of interest is that we had met 3 or 4 crew members on previous Silversea ships. They all said that they would never come back to the Silverwind. Overall I polled about 15 crew members that we got to know quite well...of those F & B crew members everyone was a "first timer" on the Silverwind and all but one was a "last timer". Some even said they would not finish their contract as they were in the process of interviewing with other cruise lines.....HMMMM!!
One last question.....why are there only 3 bartenders and 8 servers on a ship with 3 bars who work 12 hour days 7 days a week? Why are there 34 "Fraud Squad" morons who for the most part know nothing, read Wikipedia and can't even drive a zodiac on board? The Silverwind has 4 lifeboats which can also be used as tenders to go to a dock.....HMMMM!!!
Oh yes, why are the F & B crew members paid half of what the Fraud Squad members get paid???? Maybe, the answer is that all the "Fraud Squad" idiots were all Caucasian and the F & B crew members were almost all Asian and dark skinned. HMMM......Racism????
HMMMM.....we did not meet a single American crew member in 52 days on an American owned cruise line.
The ship is allegedly headed to dry dock next year..... the Silverwind needs to go to the scrapyard at the earliest....it is worth about $500 per ton.....the ship is almost 30 years old.....
Before I forget we broke down a second time. We left Dutch Harbor, Alaska on September 22nd went 3 miles, dropped anchor and sat there for the day so that one of the engines cylinder heads could be replaced.....
I wonder when we will hear about the Silver Scrapyard on CNN or Fox. The illusion of "Expedition" at $1000/day.
And one last item of interest, we talked to at least 5 other couples who cancelled future "Expedition Cruises"...wonder why......
As per Silver Sea website:
"A major upgrade in December 2018 saw Silver Wind looking better than ever. A second refurbishment in November 2021......" REALLY!!!!!!!!!!! as quoted from the Silver Sea website. Another dry dock is scheduled for next year.....Stupidity has no limits......
