Returned Monday from nine nights on the Silver Shadow, Singapore to Hong Kong with ports in Viet Nam. We had two nights in Singapore at the Grand Hyatt, three in Bali at a gorgeous small (seven room) boutique "villa" outside of Ubud before returning to Singapore for two additional nights at the Hyatt before boarding. We ended with three days post cruise at the Sheraton Towers in a harbour-view room.

I had done the same cruise 10 years ago on the Song and was curious to see how Viet Nam had changed. This was Mark's first trip to Asia, other than a day in Eastern Turkey.

We used a one way award on United flying first class SFO-HKG-SIN and returned from HKG on a one way award biz with Cathay Pacific.

This will not be a cruise review just some random comments. If anyone has questions, fire away!

The Silver Shadow is the twin sister to the Silver Whisper which a number of us were on for CAMEL. I found the service to be better on the Shadow, but I did miss my favorite bar waitress Natalya (my cat's godmother)! Food was superior and more consistent than on CAMEL, which was often hit and miss.

The Shadow had recently come out of dry dock where the soft goods, carpeting, reupholstering etc. were replaced, so she looked brand spanking new.

All suites, regardless of level, now have a butler as well as cabin attendant. We didn't get the hors d' delivered every afternoon as on Regent, but he would have brought whatever we wanted. We were rarely in the room. One nice touch was that on the final day all of our luggage was cleaned with a non-toxic solvent and left on our bed ready for packing.

While I missed my free internet, I barely used the small package I purchased as we were so port intensive, so it didn't turn out to be a big deal.

While I find Regent and Silversea to be such a similar product the big difference has to be in the much more international mix of passengers on Silversea. We had lunch one day in The Restaurant with a 30something young man from Moscow traveling solo and I did laundry with a woman from Nairobi. Our favorite trivia partners were from the UK and we enjoyed our final night's dinner with old friends John and Tonya and new ones from Perth, Australia. I really enjoyed meeting and spending time with people from all over the globe!

As usual, we missed every show so I can't comment on the entertainment. The lounges seemed be busy both before and after dinner and the two gentlemen hosts had their hands full with ladies wanting to dance.

We arranged private excursions in three ports which went off without a hitch and allowed us flexibility to move at our own pace as well as saving $$ over the ship's offerings.

John arranged a fabulous dinner as well as lunch the following day in Saigon, so we ended up eating off the ship a number of times. Some of the meals were quite sophisticated and pricey for the area while others were tasty, fun, and cheap (beer and a spicy noodle dish at something like $6 for four people!)

Yes, there was art for sale on board, but it wasn't pushed, instead the "art guy" gave a number of small talks which turned which turned out to be not only informative, but extremely entertaining, and we tried not to miss them.

While I didn't do an onboard booking I would certainly return to Silversea and hope to in the future. Right now I've got Seabourn in my scope!