As some umpire said years ago, "I just call 'em as I see 'em". It's the huge toddlers in tow (also eating nachos) that make the scene as well. Should have mentioned that. Lunch with friends went super yesterday and introduced Heinz and Ellen to Barbara. We'll do the "dinner under the stars" tomorrow evening. Also saw Richard and Lyn. Except for the beard, Richard looks great. Nice to see them and plan a dinner with them, too, in the next few days.
The Cloud is absolutely full on the new segment with 280 or so revenue guests. Almost all are Americans and ages are either 40s to low 50s or old friends of President Lincoln. The "young" ones are busy on their Kindles, laptops (all Apple), or smart phones, and the seniors are just staring at each other with little to say. There were a number of motorized wheel chairs parked by the entrance of the dining room last night. Very different crowd from the mostly Brits on the last one. But all of a sudden, the dietary problems are very much resolved. Very nice dairy free muffins this morning, fantastic confections at tea, and innovative desserts at dinner, often serious chocolate. I believe I figured out the remaining detail on why it took 8 days of a 9 day cruise to get the confusion between gluton free and lactose free and the low cost combining of the ingredients to "one size fits all" to be scrapped in favor of a "Silversea Experience" solution. The crew trainer (aka Customer Relations Manager) was suddenly rude to me yesterday as she announced that it was her "last day on board" and "glad to be leaving". Whoops!
Again, the Cloud is doing very well indeed otherwise. The "soft remodel" was most successful, the crew is by and large working together very nicely, the food is the best it has been (similar to our last two cruises--which is to say suburb), and the ship is handling the full load very gracefully. Even the first dinner of the cruise last night took only 1 1/4 hours with the full load. Very good for sure.
We are having a super time. Attached is Barbara and Silver Cloud in Grand Turk. We had the 5000 deck chairs to ourselves as no other ship was in port. Big difference from St. Maartin last week. Glad we're not going back there.
Keep in touch and talk to you upon our return.
Mike
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Jim Bisciglia <jim@specialtycruise.com> wrote:
"over 20,000 blue haired, overweight, nacho eating, drunk or very elderly folks"Actually, quite funny.
--
Jim Bisciglia
Specialty Cruise & Villas-A Virtuoso Agency
www.specialtycruise.com
253-857-7379, 888-857-7379
15208 42nd Ave NW
Gig Harbor, WA 98332 USA
**The top selling agency for the World by ResidenSea 2005, 2006**
Mike
ReplyDeleteA book filled with your pithy comments - I think that would be a winner!!
Gerry