A Pacific Adventure - Preview

The next cruise for me will be a Pacific adventure on Silversea.  I'll be travelling on Silver Shadow from San Francisco to Papeete.  Here she is docked in Vancouver a few years ago, when I met her for a Pacific crossing via Alaska.

Itinerary

24 Sep 2014	Wed	San Francisco, California, USA		17:00
30 Sep 2014	Tue	Hilo, Hawaii, USA	08:00	18:00
01 Oct 2014	Wed	Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, USA	08:00	23:00
02 Oct 2014	Thu	Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA	08:00
03 Oct 2014	Fri	Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA		14:00
10 Oct 2014	Fri	Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia	09:00	22:00
11 Oct 2014	Sat	Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia	08:00	17:00
11 Oct 2014	Sat	Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia	20:00
12 Oct 2014	Sun	Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia

I'll be back in a Terrace Suite - the same one I had when I sailed from Vancouver to Tokyo a few years ago.

Silversea is a luxury cruise line offering all-inclusive six star service, with personal butler service in every suite on board - a real luxury that you soon learn to appreciate.  With fine dining picking up on the line's Italian heritage and in partnership with Relais & Chateaux, every mealtime is a fantastic experience.

And of course there's nothing quite like a chocolate (or chocolates!) on your pillow when you come back to your suite to retire for the evening.

I'll  be stepping aboard in 8 weeks, so standby for some regular updates during the cruise.

Building Starts on Regent Seven Seas Explorer

It's been reported that building has started today at the Fincantieri shipyard in Genoa of the new luxury Regent Seven Seas ship - Seven Seas Explorer - with a laser cutting the first piece of steel for the ship.

Announced whilst I was aboard her sister in the fleet Seven Seas Mariner last year, the ship is reported to be 54,000 gross registered tons and carries a maximum of 750 passengers, similar in capacity to the existing Seven Seas Voyager and Mariner but larger than the baby of the fleet Seven Seas Navigator.  

It is said to boast the highest space ratios and staff-to-guest ratios in the industry with a hull 732 feet long and a beam of 102 feet and draft of 23 feet with a cruising speed of 20 knots. The contract price for the vessel, according to a Regent press release is approximately USD$450 million, apparently making the Seven Seas Explorer one of the most expensive luxury liners ever built. 

The Seven Seas Explorer debuts in summer 2016.  Hopefully there'll be a few single supplement promos available so I can try her out!

Refloating the Costa Concordia

Every time I go on a cruise, someone will always mention the Concordia disaster to me, mainly to ask if I'm scared that something similar will happen to me.  I've sailed more than 250 days in a relative short period of time (given that I've only been cruising for 5 years) and I've never felt in the slightest bit unsafe at any point.  From the mandatory pre-cruise muster drill (something I've always seen from the very first cruise I took) to the staff and crew training drills that I've seen when I've stayed on board, safety has always always seemed a priority on the ships I have been on.

It's perhaps because of that, that when the Costa Concordia went down it seemed so shocking.  The loss of life in an environment that I've only every seen as a place of relaxation and fun still doesn't seem real.

Since then, there's been a massive effort to refloat the ship.  From the engineering to lift the ship upright or parbuckling to the subsequent attaching of the sponsons, the culmination of all this work starts tomorrow as the refloating starts before the ship is towed to Genoa where it will be dismantled.

Let's hope this operation goes well and we can draw a close to this part of cruise history.

And then perhaps I'll just be asked if I'm bored on sea days...