Cruises: Sailing Again with Silversea on the Adriatic Sea

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

Most travelers who enjoy cruising ultimately find their ideal match. They tend to return to the cruise line they are most comfortable with, the one that fits their personality. It’s partly financial because no organizations are better at building brand loyalties than cruise companies.

Travel writers are not normal tourists. They tend to bounce from cruise line to cruise line like ping pong balls; they need to try as many as possible so they can advise their readers. But they do have their favorites.

One of ours has long been Silversea cruises. We went on that cruise line to Vietnam. It was one of the easiest, best organized trips we’ve made. But even while dining on Silver Cloud in Vietnam we were looking at a painting of Venice! Once you start cruising you are never satisfied; there is so much to see in the world and cruising makes it so easy.

Persons who have not cruised before frequently ask, Why did you choose that cruise? Was it the ship that attracted you or the ports of call? Our answer tends to be Yes! It is indeed often both but for seasoned cruisers new ports of call always fascinate. That’s why cruise lines are always looking for a fresh stretch of water that’s almost undiscovered by the world or a novel destination that’s almost off the map. (Remember that old joke that, as wide-eyed captivated passengers stream into a port of call, they exclaim: “This is wonderful! How does American Express find those places?)

Our Silversea cruise was going to take us to places on the Adriatic Sea we’d never seen before. That made the endpoints bearable: the tedious airport transfer to the Civitavecchia port that is the bane of any Rome embarkation and the hassle of disembarking in always busy Venice. Unless, of course, you choose the ship transfer which makes sense. Why have a harassed start or end to a cruise to avoid a cost that really is a fraction of the total cruise expense?

Our cruise would be on Silversea! Upscale, but you get more for your money: Gratuities, alcohol in your suite, and wine at meals all included. No charge for specialty coffees; drinks on the house at the Captain’s Reception; water bottles provided on shore excursions; detergents supplied in the self-service laundry — all of which many cruise lines have started hitting passengers for. First time we ever cruised, the announcement came over the loudspeaker to say we were leaving harbor and passengers should come up on deck to celebrate. As we stood there waving goodbye, waiters came by with trays laden with pink drinks holding little umbrellas and offering them with a smile. The last time we cruised with the same cruise line nothing had changed except now the waiters were asking for our cabin number. Many cruise lines don’t want to provide free extras, it would require them to charge more for the cabin and the public tends to look at the bottom line.

Plus, Silversea’s courteous service appears more genuine than what many other cruise lines offer (genuine perhaps because it doesn’t have cruise serving staff hanging around awkwardly on the last day of a cruise as they try to have their faces remembered while the passenger tries to apportion tips to relevant crew). In addition, the Silversea style, (which is also very well done at Azamara Cruises): your suite has a butler dressed in morning dress making you feel you are traveling with Masterpiece Theatre.

Silversea shares with most small ship cruise lines the benefit that comes from public spaces built to human dimensions. You bond more with the staff and enjoy discovering the little places on every ship that become favorites: the library, a special lounge, a personal place beside the pool on the sundeck. There aren’t mobs waiting to catch the tender into a port, in fact the ship is often small enough to tie down in the harbor itself. And there aren’t lines waiting to dine at specific times; it’s open seating and there are other restaurants available for your special occasions. It’s easy for passengers to develop pride in a small ship that they feel they know well because its size is not intimidating. On shore passengers almost to line up to take the classic shot of their ship below them (as here in Taormina in Sicily).

OK, what about ports of call if they are indeed one of the big reasons for choosing a cruise? Ideally they are destinations that have a coastal presence – and otherwise are hard to visit by any method other than sea. You can buy a cruise, for example, that takes you to Prague or to Berlin or to Petra but those cruises reveal the destination after a long coach journey; your visit will be rushed. Interesting ports of call should have a long history such that the Old Town lies close to the harbor. Ideally there should not have been much industrial or recent development near the harbor. Passengers crave simplicity and a degree of tranquility. And, yes, passengers seem consumed with the concept: there must be shopping. And ideally the destination is not one you’ve been to before. The cruise industry has its share of “been there, done that” travelers who can be hard to please but that is, perhaps, why God created Antarctica.

Taormina in Sicily, Kotor in Montenegro and Dubrovnik in Croatia are not common ports of call. Next door neighbors have not exactly been showing you slides of those places for an eternity. Those ports are fresh, delightful places for most cruisers and were good choices for most couples on Silver Wind. Sorrento in Italy and its off-shore island of Capri, both famous in songs of yesteryear are perhaps less unknown but are still delightful venues.

The excursion to Capri reminds passengers of the joy of informal Italian dining and how Italians can make a simple staircase a work of art – and how Italians enjoy going to the dentist as much as Americans.

Possibly American passengers don’t know as much about Croatia and its neighbor to the south, Montenegro, as we should though both countries are embracing tourism especially Croatia that now has a more responsive tourism office than Italy itself. Italy, in contrast, say, to Germany, doesn’t make much of an effort to be responsive to tourist enquiries; it seems to feel Italy is so famous it sells itself.

Religious garment photographed in Dubrovnik (L). President’s bedroom in old capital of Montenegro (R).

But Italy does have this: friendly natives who make you smile at times. They love their children, almost to a fault and they have all this magnificent Renaissance art so that even minor government clerks sit all day below magnificent paintings that any millionaire would love to obtain somehow.

Something to remember about cruises is that cruise lines don’t necessarily repeat their cruises the following year. Ships’ captains like variety as much as passengers – so if you see a cruise you fancy perhaps you should grab it as long as it’s available.