Our last tour day today. We are going to the Canterbury Cathedral. Tomorrow we arrive in London and fly to Johannesburg for our two safaris.

OVERVIEW OF THE CRUISE
We have been incredibly fortunate with the weather. A few drizzly rainy days at the beginning of the first trip and a couple of drizzly rainy days on the second leg. Only one day where it was raining a lot when people were returning to the ship in zodiacs. But out of 22 nights that is not a lot of rainy days. The two bird cliff zodiac cruises offered the weather was not co-operating. I did not do either of those zodiac cruises. We have many glorious perfect days with sun and no wind, and today again the sun is shining. As far the seas go we had two nights of a little rocking but overall very calm seas. Amazing weather. Far superior weather than I had anticipated.

Overall tours have been good. With this many days you will hit some that are not as great but really ours have been excellent. There were some that people were not thrilled with a tour which to be expected. Lunga island the Puffin day was a highlight for me.

The Silver Cloud.
The positives. I love this ship. The ship is large enough to have great facilities but small enough for the small ship experience. There have been no issues getting out the zodiacs with this larger passenger size. In fact worked better than the Explorer. Not jammed up in a small space waiting to board the zodiacs as we did on the Explorer. The theatre for recaps is fantastic, More room than necessary and you can see so well from almost every seat. There are multiple dining options. The food has been really good with a ton of variety for everyone’s taste and a large room service menu. The cabin is very comfortable with lots of drawer and hanging space. Two cocktail longes with enough space for everyone to find a seat. There is a forward observation lounge that is not used much as you have to go outside to reach it. Four elevators centrally located that come so quickly. The two rocky nights the ship handled the seas very well. My “windy” website said 10ft waves and large swell and considering that I expected more motion on the ship than we experienced.

The negatives are on this trip people were expecting a classic ship experience and totally unaware that zodiacs are often used for the transfer to the shore. They were not happy and many should not have been booked on this trip. But I think overtime this problem will go away as the realization of what these new expedition ships are really all about. One thing many of us do not like is that most dining venues don’t open until 7.30 pm, only the main dining room opens at 7.00 pm and service can be slow so it makes for late dining. The bathroom does not have enough storage space and if you have a tub it is hard to get in and out. Some of the true expedition type people miss the intimacy of the Silver Explorer which I understand. You do get to know the expedition staff better.

But for me I am so glad this is our ship for Antarctica. Nothing is perfect but this ships positives far outweigh the negatives and I will always prefer to sail on this ship if I have a choice. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Silver Explorer and always will. I definitely would sail on the Silver Explorer if it has the itinerary I want. Really looking forward to January Antarctica even more now. I want to be back onboard the Silver Cloud.