When you have such a wonderful place to rest and relax, it is tempting to just stay "in" and order up room service, especially after a long day of sightseeing. Silversea has 24-hour room service, and the cruise line also allows you to have dinner delivered to your suite "course by course" during dinner hours. Therefore, you get the convenience and relaxation of dining in your own private suite and also the treat and exquisite service of "course by course" dining. Of course, you don't have to eat every meal in your suite! Although the Silversea ships are small, they do have a multiple dining options. The Restaurant is open at each meal with open seating. The daily newsletter, the Silversea Chronicles, includes a copy of the tentative lunch and dinner menus so that you can plan your feeding schedule ahead of time. The meals were always imaginative and varied, and I love trying the complimentary wines each day. The Terrace Cafe serves buffet breakfast and lunch either inside or al fresco, and most passengers choose to informally dine there for these two meals. At night the Terrace Cafe is transformed into a small intimate bistro, with a different cuisine each night.
The last dining option is called Le Champagne on the Silver Shadow and Silver Whisper and Saletta on the Silver Wind and Silver Cloud. This new restaurant offers signature culinary creations of renowned German chef Joachim Koerper, one of Europe's finest chefs. His Girasol restaurant, located in Moraira, Spain, has achieved the coveted Michelin two-star rating and is a member of Relais & Châteaux - Relais Gourmands, the prestigious association of boutique lodgings and restaurants. The cozy Le Champagne venue onboard Silver Shadow is an intimate setting of only 24 seats. Several other cruise lines offer specialized themed restaurants aboard their ships but they come at an extra cost - as much as $30 U.S. per person in some cases. Not so at Le Champagne/Saletta. Silversea offers the fine dining experience as part of the cruise price - only the vintage wines one enjoys at Le Champagne/Saletta are added to the bill. Guests can dine in a Relais & Chateaux restaurant and enjoy a Michelin chef's magnificent creations - an experience that would normally cost travelers on average of $200 a couple per meal, excluding wine, on land. Even though Silversea's prices may seem high, this dining option helps makes the line a good value for the discriminating traveler.
Another factor making this all-inclusive luxury line a good value are the excellent, reasonably priced shore excursions and the free shuttles into town at almost every port. For example, the Silver Shadow was at the dock on the Huangpu River just a short ride from the Bund and downtown Shanghai. As with most ports of call, Silversea provided a free shuttle between the ship and the city center for passengers who enjoy touring on their own. In Shanghai, the shuttle dropped and picked up passengers every 30 minutes just off the Bund at the old Friendship Store location. Silversea provided this extra service, even though taxis in Shanghai were cheap and clean--less than $5 to ride almost anywhere in Shanghai--and no tipping. If you take a taxi in China, just be sure to get someone on the ship or at the hotel to write your destination down on a piece of paper since most taxi drivers do not speak or read English. And don't forget to get your return destination written down too! Thinking of everything, the Silver Shadow staff had a pre-printed list of "frequently visited spots" in English and Chinese that included the cruise ship location in Shanghai.
I like to take organized tours in cities where time is limited and you need to see as much as possible in an efficient manner. Silversea offers a good variety of shore excursions at prices comparable to what you can find ashore. We enjoyed all of the tours we did this cruise and thought the guides were excellent. Their command of the English language was especially impressive, as was their knowledge of the culture and history of China or Japan.
This year Silversea began offering the convenience of reserving shore excursions online for its Alaska and Mediterranean itineraries. Guests can visit Silversea's Web site and pre-book their shore excursions with the click of a button. This is helpful if there is a tour that you are especially interested in. Of course, you can still book excursions onboard the ship as we did. One example of excursion you might want to book in advance would be one of the special "Silver Collection" excursions, which usually have a limited number of participants.
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