Silversea ups the adventure

A pioneering Bangladesh adventure and a new range of pre and post expedition tours are among the latest additions to Silversea’s expedition program as that side of the business continues to grow.

Director of expedition cruises Conrad Combrink told media at an event in Sydney this week that although he was faced with derision when he first pitched Bangladesh as a possible new destination, he is confident that it will prove a success after visiting it himself.

“I went into areas not perceived as touristy by the locals and got to know some incredible places, so I am very excited about this new offering,” he said. “These are places that have never had tourism before, that don’t understand the concept of tourism.”

The first-of-its-kind itinerary will see Silver Discoverer visit places such as Moheshkhali Island, the Sundarbans as well as Cox’s Bazaar with in-depth exploration of the area’s rivers by zodiac.

“Our guests will learn about religion, about life in Bangladesh. We don’t want people to sit on a bus behind a window, we want people to experience it,” Combrink said.

“We will make sure it’s safe and comfortable – we won’t do anything that will put our guests in any kind of danger.”

The reaction to the unusual itinerary has been staggering, according to Combrink. Already, 60% of cabins have been sold with the cruise line expecting to see out within the coming weeks.

In addition, Combrink unveiled a new range of pre and post expedition tours designed to round off the program as a true expedition product.

These new features come as Silversea Expeditions prepares to welcome Silversea’s oldest vessel Silver Cloud to the expedition fleet with expansion deemed necessary to cater to “exponential” growth.

“For us, it was a natural development to take one of our bigger small ships out of cruise and put her into expeditions,” Combrink explained.

“It’s very important for us to make sure that the message goes out there that once this ship joins expeditions, it will no longer operate as a cruise ship at all.”

As such, its capacity is being reduced to 200 guests for polar itineraries and 260 for all others. Its hull is also being painted to match those of its new fleet.

The vessel will go into dry dock in August 2017 to become “ice class” before being relaunched as an expedition ship in November 2017.

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