Silversea Cruises signed the contract to build a brand-new ship

[Chucksta63]

Silversea Cruises

The Fincantieri shipyards in Italy will build the new 540-berth Silversea ship for delivery in November 2009. It will hold 158 more passengers than the Silver Shadow (pictured) or the Silver Whisper, and almost every suite on the ship will offer a balcony. Also, it will offer more cabins in the most popular suite categories like Silver Suites and Verandah Suites. Other features will include a new European-style lobby bar, a larger spa, and several new restaurant concepts.

In other news, Silversea announced that actress Isabella Rossellini will serve again in 2008 as the companys official ambassador and that the Silver Wind and Silver Cloud will be scheduled in 2008 and 2009 respectively for major refurbishings.

[Joanandjoe]

For those of us who like small to medium size ships, there finally has been some good news recently, with new ships of 1,200 or fewer (usally much fewer) PAX planned for Silversea, Oceanea, and Seabourn, and rumored for Sea Dream. Is Regent, our favorite line, next? Will Windstar, our second favorite, go back to being a four ship line (as it was before the Wind Song fire) with a new build? We hope so!

All of these will become alternatives for us. We are not fans of big ships: five of our 11 cruises have been on ships with less than 500 PAX, five 1,000 to 1,500, one 1,500 to 2,000 (and that felt gigantic to us!), none on ships with 2,000 or more PAX. For a while, it seemed as though only monsters were on the drawing board. Thank heaven that has changed!