Sailing the Silverseas to Adventure

It’s rare to find a small luxury ship that also offers expedition-style shore excursions, but a recent sailing to Patagonia in Chile aboard Silversea’s 296-passenger Silver Cloud offered both.

Shore excursions included visits to Magellanic penguin colonies at Punta Tombo; a tour of the port of Stanley in the Falklands; a boat, bus and train tour of Tierra del Fuego National Park; an overnight excursion to Torres del Paine National Park; and a flight to the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Silver Cloud is spending most of this winter sailing in South America, with an emphasis on cruises around Cape Horn, and will return again at the end of October for more itineraries from Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Valparaiso, Chile.

Silversea and its all-inclusive fares, which include round-trip air fare, transfers, pre-cruise hotel stays, bar beverages, wines and tips, have garnered a lot of favorable attention since the line’s debut in 1994. It competes with Seabourn Cruise Line, Cunard Sea Goddess and Radisson Seven Seas in the ultra-deluxe end of cruising. (Seabourn, in fact, changed its on-board policy last year to provide complimentary bar drinks and wine with meals as the other three companies do.)

The 16,800-ton ship is handsomely designed and decorated, with 75% of the staterooms offering private verandas, the remainder with expanded sitting room areas and large picture windows. The all-outside cabins and suites range in size from 240 to 1,314 square feet. Liquor cabinets and a mini-refrigerator are fully stocked with complimentary beverages, and large-size Bulgari toiletries are placed in each bathroom.

Passengers wanting to splurge can book the owner’s suite, a spacious two-room apartment with a separate dressing room and large bath; a royal suite with two bedrooms and two verandas; or a grand suite with one or two bedrooms and two or three verandas. All these are large enough for entertaining, with the extra bonus of butler service and free laundry and dry-cleaning services.

The pretty dining room has tables spaced comfortably apart and dinner dancing between courses many evenings. There are no assigned seats or dining hours; passengers arrive between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.

On most evenings during the cruise, classic Italian dinners are served in the upper-deck Terrace Cafe to the first 50 guests who make reservations. Menus list dishes from various regions of Italy from Liguria to Sicily, with appropriate wines to complement them.

During the day, the Terrace Cafe serves a casual buffet breakfast and lunch to supplement dining room breakfasts and lunches. You’ll find pitchers with freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juices, smoked salmon and cream cheese, plates of cold meats and cheeses, cereals, yogurt, fresh fruits and fruit compotes, hot meats, eggs and potatoes, as well as omelets, pancakes and waffles made to order. At lunchtime, there is a pizza of the day, a carved-to-order roast, a salad bar and six or eight hot dishes, in addition to a pasta of the day cooked to order.

For entertainment, a small company of singers and dancers offer several fairly predictable productions based on Broadway and Hollywood musicals in the two-deck Venetian Lounge.

Particularly popular on our sailing were cruise director Ray Solaire’s team trivia quizzes in the Panorama Lounge, with competition hot and heavy between the American, British, European and Latin American passengers. Bridge instruction, fitness classes, language lessons, backgammon and golf putting also are scheduled frequently. Exercisers will find a walking track above the pool deck, as well as a pair of Jacuzzis and a surprisingly large pool for a ship this size.

A number of small thoughtful details heightened the pleasure of our South American sailings--two dance hosts who teach the tango, a special five-course South American dinner and folkloric dance shows at port stops where local performers board.

Next fall’s South American itineraries include an 18-day sailing between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso on Nov. 6. Brochure fares start at $12,395 and escalate to $20,995 per person, double occupancy. Early booking and early payment garner discounts up to 10%.

For a free color brochure, ask a travel agent or call Silversea at (800) 722-9055.

Slater and Basch travel as guests of the cruise lines. Cruise Views appears the first and third week of every month.