I sailed on Silversea's new ultra-luxury cruise ship and was blown away by all the perks you get for $650 a day
Silversea invited me on a complimentary five-night cruise on its new 728-guest ship, Silver Ray.
The ship's cheapest 2024 itinerary is a seven-day cruise for $4,550 per person.
See all the amenities wealthy cruisers get on Silver Ray, from caviar room service to butlers.
Silver Ray is not where you go to watch travelers in their mid-20s drink cheap margaritas.
No. Silversea's new 728-guest ship is the cruise to go on when you want to be surrounded by 60-some-year-olds who enjoy Champagne, quiet vacations, and $180, 11-course dinners.
In mid-June, the ultra-luxury cruise line's latest and 12th vessel, Silver Ray, set sail on its maiden voyage. At 801 feet long and 54,700 gross tons, it's markedly larger than Silversea's previous ships. And with it, an equally large price tag, starting at $4,550 for a weeklong cruise in 2024.
A vacation that costs $650 per day might sound outrageous, but wait until you see the ship's amenities.
Silver Ray upholds Silversea's long-standing promises of good food, drinks, and service.
In an attempt to capture the next generation of wealthy cruisers, Silver Ray's design moves away from some "stereotypical" luxury ship elements — which Andrea Tonet, Silversea's vice president of product strategy, told reporters in mid-June includes being "very closed and, to some extent, also boring" — in favor of a modern yet understated flair.
The ship is filled with light, and the decor has stylish and contemporary sensibilities without being too unapproachable. Even the elevators have sweeping ocean views.
No need to fear dingy interior staterooms. Every cabin on Silver Ray has a balcony.
The ship's accommodations range from 357 square feet to 1,324 square feet.
The largest suite on Silver Ray, of which there are two, comes with a private hot tub, a library, and a starting cost of $17,000 per person.
However, even the smallest accommodations still have walk-in closets and marble bathrooms.
Most cruise lines offer butlers to guests who've booked the most expensive suites.
On Silversea's cruise ships, every guest has a butler who helps with tasks like booking restaurants, packing luggage, and setting up the dining table for room service caviar.
No need to stay in your cabin to indulge in fine cuisine.
Silver Ray has eight restaurants. Three — the French, Japanese, and chef's table — are up-charged. But if you can't resist a mid-day sushi and sashimi combo, the Japanese restaurant Kaiseki is complimentary during lunch.
It's not the only place that serves up lunchtime sashimi.
The lunch buffet also features raw fish of Kaiseki's quality, as well as stations of pasta, poached seafood, and freshly carved meats, for example.
In the morning, the breakfast buffet includes customizable smoothies blended to order, classic American breakfast items, and even congee.
In the evening, the dining room transforms into the Italian restaurant La Terraza, serving options like whipped mortadella with pecorino chips.
If you prefer more traditional cruise fare (think steaks and lobster tails), there's Atlantide.
But if you want a dinner experience akin to a jazz club, go to Silver Note. There, guests can dine on small plates of beef tenderloin and caviar while being serenaded by a jazz singer and pianist.
(Pro tip: If you forget to reserve a table at Silver Note, you can still enjoy the live music at the restaurant's bar.)
Like the buffet, Silver Ray’s alfresco dining room also wears several hats.
In the morning, the open-air restaurant serves relatively healthy breakfasts. The menu switches to pizzas, salads, and grilled fare during lunch.
In the evening, it transforms into a casual grill-it-yourself restaurant with tabletop hot rocks. Think Americanized Korean barbecue but with shrimp and steaks instead of bulgogi.
Guests in the mood for a more upscale dining experience can pay for La Dame and SALT Chef's Table instead.
For $160, travelers can dine on several courses of fine French cuisine at La Dame.
Or, for $180, they can book one of the 18 seats at the interactive SALT Chef's Table. The 11-course meal showcases regional dishes and ingredients — all plated in front of diners while the chef explains each small course.
During the day, Chef's Table is home to Silver Ray's complimentary cooking class, SALT Lab.
SALT — an acronym for "sea and land taste" — is one of Silversea's prized programs, putting cuisines local to the itinerary's region at the forefront of the cruise.
This means guests who sign up for the cooking class on a roundtrip Portugal cruise could learn to cook Portuguese tarts with almonds, for example.
There's also SALT Kitchen, a more approachable and complimentary answer to SALT Chef's Table.
SALT Kitchen gives guests a taste of local cuisine without a $180 fee.
The menu is divided into two halves: one that remains consistent throughout the cruise and one that changes almost every day depending on the destination.
After dinner, travelers can have a nightcap at the SALT Bar. As you might've guessed, the venue puts a boozy spin on the SALT mentality, leading to cocktails like dry sherry with mint and sparkling lemonade, as an example from the Portugal cruise.
(I promise this is the last SALT-themed venue.)
It's one of eight bars and lounges on the ship, which include a Champagne-focused one and another for whiskey and cigar enthusiasts.
Bars like Panorama Lounge have an alfresco seating area. But if you're in the mood for some live music, head inside the lounge or go to Dolce Vita, both of which have a small stage for entertainers like pianists and violinists.
The bars are a great antecedent to the entertainment at the two-floor, 370-seat Venetian Lounge theatre.
Expect the typical song-and-dance cruise shows on Silver Ray, although the theater also hosts lectures and entertainment reflective of the ship's destinations.
All of the lounges have non-alcoholic cocktails.
But if you want a truly sober experience, go to the Arts Café.
Many new mass-market cruise ships now have a Starbucks. But who needs the coffee chain when you have a café that serves latte art-embellished espresso drinks and tea from TWG Tea?
The observation lounge also has a brew-it-yourself coffee and tea station.
Like any luxury ship, the lounge has sweeping ocean views, literature, and board games like Monopoly and Pictionary.
If none of the books are catching your eye, look for the door to the hidden library. Inside, you'll find a twinkling ceiling reminiscent of Rolls-Royce's Starlight Headlining. It's the perfect, isolated place to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.
You might need that caffeinated pick-me-up after a few hours at the spa.
Massages start at $299 for 75 minutes, while the cheapest facial costs $199 for 50 minutes.
Feeling wrinkly? The spa also offers dermal fillers and Dysport injections.
But if you want to relax without paying, the sauna, steam room, and thermal pool are complimentary for all guests. It's a great way to unwind after a workout at the adjacent gym, supplied with Technogym equipment.
Like any traditional cruise, the largest pool is on an open-air deck.
But unlike most ships, the pool isn't surrounded by lounge chairs. Instead, it's off-centered and closer to the vessel's edge, giving swimmers a panoramic view of Silver Ray's surroundings instead of sunbathers' toes.
Cruise classics like a casino and shopping also appear on Silver Ray.
The casino is notably small. So, if you get bored there, you can spend your money on the stores' perfumes, jewelry, and Silversea merchandise.
But that's assuming you haven't already blown past your vacation budget just by booking the new vessel.
The cheapest Silver Ray cruise starts at $4,550 per person for a seven-day roundtrip sailing from Fusina, Italy, to destinations in Croatia and Italy.
If you want a fare inclusive of shore excursions, it'll be $5,000 per person. (For reference, a spokesperson for Silversea told Business Insider that a SALT cooking class excursion in Lisbon's Time Out Market would be about $219 per person.)
For an additional $1,500, Silversea will also organize your airfare and airport transformations.
But if all you want to do is wine, dine, and relax, the base fare will do. It may be steep, but that's the price of being on a ship filled with fresh-cut flowers, unlimited cocktails, and room-service caviar.
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