Big & Tall Travel

Well, I haven’t exactly been keeping up with these posts as well as I – or my wife, especially – would like. As too often happens, life – and laziness – got in the way.

C’est la vie!

Although my writing has been dormant for the past few months, our travel plans certainly have not been. In the past few months, my wonderful wife and I have booked not one new adventure but three!

We’ve decided we want to explore a tier of travel that even just a few years ago seemed far out of reach – all inclusive, small ship cruising.

After doing quite a bit of research, we’ve settled our cruising plans for the next three years or so to be focused primarily on Silversea. Silversea is Royal Caribbean’s luxury cruise line. Toward the end of the pandemic, we sailed with Celebrity (Royal Caribbean’s premium line) a few times and took advantage of their loyalty bonuses. Doing so allowed us to earn Celebrity’s Select tier in their loyalty program – the Captain’s Club.

About a year ago, Royal Caribbean introduced loyalty status matching across their three sister lines. Suddenly, our Celebrity Select status also afforded us Platinum status with Royal Caribbean’s Crown and Anchor Society and VS100 status with Silversea’s Venetian Society.

I’m not terribly familiar with what Platinum status offers, but it looks like a laundry list of small and/or token perks (no actual laundry included). Somewhat ironically, the Venetian Society status with Silversea affords a very short list of perks but includes laundry. While we found the laundry perk a tantalizing enticement, what we were most excited by was the 5% discount the VS100 status entitles us to off each and every cruise we take. To be clear, the VS100 status would normally require 100 days of sailing with Silversea; we have sailed fewer than 20 days with Celebrity!

What we found to be an even better surprise is that some Silversea sailings are Venetian Society sailings, which grant a further discount for Venetian Society (VS) members. For us, this meant that on one of the voyages we’ve booked, we saved 10% off the cruise fare instead of the normal 5%.

Silversea definitely requires a larger upfront financial outlay than either Celebrity or Virgin Voyages (the other line with which we’ve travelled). There should be no doubt that the prices we’ve seen for Silversea’s voyages are significantly higher than those of its sister brands; however, a review of the total price of our past trips showed that we may actually get significantly better value from Silversea’s fare.

As we looked at the various options for us, we found that Silversea’s all inclusive model includes in its fares many of the things we had to pay extra for on both Celebrity and Virgin Voyages. You see, Silversea includes:

• Soft Drinks, beer, wine, liquor, cocktails, and, coffee
• One (1) shore excursion per person per port
• Butler service for every suite (all cabins are suites)
• Two (2) full size bottles of liquor in each cabin
• Exceptionally high quality dining experiences
• Very high space per passenger

With all of these inclusions, we think the total price for each of our planned Silversea cruises will be the same as or less than what we would pay for the same number of days on the other lines we’ve been on.

On top of all that, we have learned that Silversea includes a luxury that we haven’t experienced before….champagne and caviar! Now, my wife and I do enjoy the finer things in life, but it would never occur to us to seek caviar among them. That said, we have come to understand that caviar is on-demand. We can have it delivered to our room each afternoon if we’d like, or eat it in the ship’s common spaces, or even with dinner. My dear wife is already planning the ways we can take full advantage of this included luxury!

But champagne, caviar, and all the other luxury trappings are not the main reason we have chosen Silversea to be our cruiseline for the next few years (at least). We’re confident we’ll be satisfied with both their hard and soft product. Reading through the Silversea sub-forum on Cruise Critic or either of the main Facebook passenger pages reveals high praises all around with some relatively minor quibbles here and there.

No, the main reason is that working with them is easy. Whether working with a travel agent (TA) or one of their in-house Cruise Consultants, getting booked is a piece of cake. A simple call or email about an itinerary elicits a clear and concise Voyage Option, which is in effect a firm fixed price contract. There’s no wrangling over the price like you would do with a mainstream line (Carnival, Norwegian, Celebrity, Virgin Voyages, etc.) Instead, the price listed on the website is the price you see on your option, minus any relevant discounts.

For example, if a voyage were to cost $6,000/person on the website, you would apply your status discount to that rate to figure out the final price. In our case, our status – as noted above – is the 100VS level, which affords a 5% discount. $6000*0.95=$5700. That’s the price we would get on our Voyage Option. If the same voyage were a Venetian Society voyage, then we would get an additional 5% off the price, figured multiplicatively and not additively. $6000*0.95*0.95=$5,415.

There are benefits, however, to working with either Silversea Cruise Consultants or Travel Agents. We currently have three voyages scheduled. Two of these are with travel agents. The other is with a Silversea Cruise Consultant. Here’s what we’ve found so far:

Our first voyage is scheduled for August 2025. We booked this one originally with a cruise consultant but quickly moved it to American Express Travel. Doing this allowed us to cash in on the benefits the American Express Platinum Card confers. Typically, the Amex Platinum benefit is $300 of onboard credit plus a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. At the time that we booked this voyage, American Express was also running an additional promotion which added another $500 of onboard credit. Additionally, we will receive 2x Membership Rewards points for the total price of the voyage after it’s completed, which is on top of the regular 1x points when paid. At the time, I thought this was a pretty good deal. And I guess it still is. That said, we will probably not use the American Express Travel Agency again. The two main reasons we’ve been unhappy with Amex are that 1) it took several months to ensure that that extra $500 onboard credit was actually given to us in writing, and, 2) our Amex agent is neither proactive nor responsive. This last point is a deal breaker for us and why we looked elsewhere to book our other two cruises.

Our second voyage is scheduled for late December 2025 to early January 2026. Because of my line of work, my employer closes for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Taking a vacation either during or incorporating this timeframe is ideal for me. My wife’s employer provides her with a very significant amount of flexible PTO, so it works for her too. This one, we booked with the Silversea Cruise Consultant. We actually had one scheduled for March 2026 but decided to move our deposit to this late December 2025 voyage instead. Our Consultant was very accommodating. He was able to get us a room on the voyage despite it being a waitlisted voyage on the website, and he proactively secured us an additional and unadvertised discount. We are extremely pleased with how responsive and proactive he’s been. We will very likely work with him in the future.

Our third voyage is currently scheduled for March 2027, though we are looking to move that deposit to either late December 2026 or January 2027. This voyage was through a Travel Agent with Pavlus Travel. Our agent there has been extremely responsive. She hasn’t necessarily been proactive from what we’ve seen so far, but we’re nonetheless happy with the service she’s been providing. We think she’ll become more proactive as she learns what we like and – more importantly – on what sort of voyages we pull the trigger and buy. Pavlus doesn’t offer any special perks for cruising with them. Instead, they give cashback after final payment but about a month before sailing. Cash is king as much for us as anyone else.