We had been on a previous silversea cruise to alaska and when we and our friends decided to do another cruise, we chose the baltic because none of us had ever been to that area of europe.

While we felt that the food and service in the restaurant was extremely good (kudos to jose our server) and our veranda cabin (#733) was kept relatively tidy by the appropriate staff, our friends found many things lacking in their cabin (#730). they had no air conditioning for two days. while several attempts were made to fix it, finally it was determined that a new thermostat was needed. once this was replaced, the a/c worked fine. considering that i have since read several other comments regarding climate control in the cabins, it is rather disappointing to see that this was not repaired immediately when problems were seen. this was the last voyage in the baltic for silver cloud before being renovated for arctic and antarctic service, and it was apparent that the silversea italian management was trying to eke out every last euro out of their clients for this ship. our traveling companions even noted that the ventilation grill at the bottom of the cabin door was coated in a thick layer of dust (i did not want to look at mine to see if it was the same). my friend and i both came down with allergic reactions probably due to the dust. this is unacceptable.

A number of the port destinations were less than interesting. of course, i take part of the blame for this because i did not actually research the ports, feeling (after our alaska experience) that we could trust silversea to give us the very best in shore excursions. while our guide in tallin,, estonia, was very funny (she should do stand up comedy), the town was not all that interesting. i was sick during the helsinki tour and after the first stop stayed in the bus only visiting the last stop, the rock church, which was a big waste of time. if i would have known that the ship docked at proximity to the city, we would have taken a walk around the city itself (but then silversea did not provide that information as an alternative). i did not visit mariham as i was too sick with my allergic cold but my husband did and said that it was extremely boring. visibly was pretty. gdansk was great and we also like sassnitz for the canopy walk and a visit of the seaside vacation town. needless to say, st. Petersburg was the star of the voyage. Read more