Silversea Cruises has announced it will move its small luxury passenger liner Silver Cloud to its luxury expedition fleet in November 2017.
Destined mostly for polar waters, the elite 296-guest ship that launched the ultra-luxury cruise line will be converted into an ice-class ship during an extensive refurbishment scheduled to start in August 2017.
As an expedition ship, the all-suite Silver Cloud will accommodate 260 guests and also sail on itineraries to non-polar regions. When sailing Arctic and Antarctic itineraries, guest numbers will be restricted to 200.
Silversea is a member of the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) and the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO), and adheres to each organisation’s guidelines to ensure sustainable tourism. These include such measures as limiting the number of guests going ashore in certain areas of the Arctic and allowing for a broader range of Antarctic landing sites for expedition ships with no more than 200 guests.
Silver Cloud will be the only luxury ice-class expedition ship offering five dining options: The Dining Room, the Relais & Châteaux® restaurant, La Terrazza, The Grill, and in-suite dining. The ship will have the highest space ratio and highest staff-to-guest ratio (nearly one to one) among luxury ice-class expedition ships. For the expedition team alone, there will be on average one team member guiding no more than twelve guests each. Plus the ship will be augmented by a fleet of 18 Zodiac crafts for up-close explorations.
The luxury expedition line currently has three all-suite expedition ships, Silver Explorer, Silver Discoverer, and Silver Galapagos. Collectively, they explore over 500 far-flung destinations, from Africa, Australia’s Kimberley Coast, and the Russian Far East, to the Galápagos Islands, the British Isles, and the polar realms.
Guests are enriched by an onboard programme of destination lectures, photo presentations, and daily recaps. Exploratory excursions are complimentary, and led by a team of experts, including marine biologists, ornithologists, geologists, botanists, historians, and anthropologists.
These expedition cruises offer a comfortable, intimate onboard lifestyle where guests can feel at home as they explore secluded lands. Guests enjoy ocean-view suites, gourmet cuisine, the personalised service of a butler, and a generous selection of all-inclusive shipboard amenities, including complimentary beverages, wines and spirits, a stocked in-suite beverage cabinet, and complimentary Wi-Fi for each guest.
Silversea’s 2017 schedule will be announced in the coming days.