Silversea Cruises
Silver Wind is one of the first duo of ships entering service for Silversea Cruises in 1994.
The company Silversea Cruises was formed in 1993 by the Lefebvre family of Rome in Italy with their headoffices located in Monaco. They work closely together with the company V-ships, the former owner of Sitmar Cruises which was sold to P&O in 1988. V-Ships, that is based in Monaco, offers now ship management to several companies and Silver Cloud and Silver Wind were the first two passengerships managed by V-ships since the sale of Sitmar. At this time, V-ships manages Regent Seven Seas Cruises and Silversea Cruises, as well as some other cruiseships in recent history like Phoenix Reisen's first Albatros and Swan Hellenic's Minerva.
Below is the new Silversea funnel marking, a change from the beginnings of the company when the 'S'-logo was presented on the funnels.
In 2001, the two-ship fleet of the company was doubled by the introduction of the 28.000-ton sisterships Silver Shadow and Silver Wisper. They are significantly bigger then the first pair, but only take on 74 passengers more. These few more passengers are looked after by 110 crewmembers extra. The passenger to crew ratio on these new ships is one of the highest in the cruising industry, with every 4 guests served by 3 crew. No wonder these ships were rated among the highest scoring passengervessels by Berlitz, recieving the 5-star plus rating.
Silver Whisper and Silver Shadow look a lot like their two forerunners, resembling the same profile, only bigger. Silver Whisper was named by Marzia Lefebre D'Ovidio, wife of Silversea Cruises' CEO. The ship made her first cruise in june 2001 and two years later she was used as an accomodationship for the celebrations of the 300-year anniversary of St.-Petersburgh. This charter was signed by Vladimir Putin himself. Also, in 2004 she was used as a hotelship in Athens for the Olympic Games, as were her older sisters.
Below, Silver Whisper is shown on a 2005-picture. She is an enlargement of the earlier two ships, offering larger scale bu the same intimicy as the earlier two ships.
Silversea Cruises is a very upmarket line, offering next to one of the highest passenger to crew ratio's in the industry a lot of extra's for their passengers. All beverages are included in the fare, except for specialities from the Conoisseurs List. Also included are things like port charges, travel insurance and complimentary shore-events during every voyage. Passengers can choose from nine different pillows for their use in the cabin and also it is possible to give your preference for the soft or the firm side of the matrass. Those matrasses and pillows are of course also custom made for the company. All ships have been updated between 2008 and 2010 to match the companies newest ship Silver Spirit that was again an enlarged version of the Silver Shadow and Silver Whisper, measuring 36.000 tons and she entered service in 2009. In 2017, the line added their ninth ship, which is now also their largest with a tonnage measurement just above 40.000. Her name is Silver Muse.
In june of 2018, Silversea Cruises became a part of the Royal Caribbean family when the industry giant bought 66,7 percent of the company. Silversea keeps running under its own management, but will be able to grow more intensively with the investment of one of the industries largest companies. Of course it also means that Royal Caribbean can start tapping into the luxury market.
Silversea Expeditions
Next to those larger cruiseliners, Silversea also operates two smaller expedition cruiseships. At the end of 2007, Silversea Expeditions was started up as a seperate brand using the Prince Albert II, a 1989-built 6000-ton expeditionship that was renamed in the Silversea cruises style to Silver Explorer in april of 2011. At the 18th of june 2012, Silversea bought the Equadorian company Canodros and its single ship Galapagos Explorer II. As in the name, the ship operates around the beautifull Galapagos islands. From the 28th of september 2013 onwards, the ship is also renamed in Silversea tradition as Silver Galapagos and placed into the Silversea Expeditions brand. She will continue her Galapagos cruises and will also be managed by Canodros, who have a wide range of contacts with travelagencies and tour operators. That the expedition part of Silversea Cruises is now going really well is very clear. A thirth ship had been added to the fleet in the beginning of march 2014 when the former Zegrahm Expeditions ship Clipper Odyssey was added to the Silversea Expeditions fleet under the name of Silver Discoverer. The new ship will mostly be sailing the Pacific Ocean in the near future. In 2017, the line's first ship Silver Cloud was rebuilt into the fourth member of the expeditionfleet, sailing mostly Arctic and Antarctic cruises for the selected number of 200 passengers. From march of 2020, Silversea will take delivery of the first purpose-built expedition cruiseship in the fleet when Silver Origin will be delivered for cruises in the Galapagos region. She will take the place of the smaller Silver Galapagos, that will be sold.
