Silversea’s Silver Cloud has completed an extensive two-month refurbishment at a total investment of over $USD40 million to become an ice-class expedition vessel.
The ship has undergone comprehensive enhancements to bring guests the luxury, style and comfort synonymous with Silversea’s classic vessels while maximising guests’ expedition experience.
The ship is now travelling to Buenos Aires where guests will embark on her inaugural expedition voyage to Antarctica on November 15th.
En route final technical and safety checks will be completed to ensure guests boarding in Argentina will receive the world-class experience that Silversea is renowned for.
Unique to Silver Cloud, guests will benefit from a newly installed Photo Studio which enables content editing on-board.
The Photo Studio will be a vibrant, creative and inspiring space where guests can master the art of digital photography.
With several master classes on offer, a dedicated photo manager and an editing suite, guests can perfectly capture their expedition voyage and print images on board.
The ship will carry 16 zodiacs in addition to 12 kayaks which have been installed to allow guests to experience kayak polar exploration.
Voyages are led by a team of 20 expedition experts in non-polar regions and 22 in polar regions to enhance guests’ knowledge and experience from their voyage.
Daily presentations and lectures by experts in the state-of-the-art theatre will also be streamed live to all suites.
The refurbishment undertaken by Palumbo Shipyards in Malta involved a series of technical enhancements including extensive steel reinforcement to give the ship the strength and manoeuvrability required for expedition cruising.
The bulbous bow was replaced with a reinforced ice-class bulb to allow for navigation of polar waters; new sonars have been installed for underwater detection and new windows resistant to polar temperatures have been installed to ensure comfortable temperatures inside the vessel for guests.
“The successful transformation of Silver Cloud into an expedition vessel following the exhaustive work by Palumbo Shipyards is another milestone for Silversea.
“Silver Cloud was the first vessel in the Silversea classic fleet in 1994 and it is with great pride that we now welcome her to our expedition fleet alongside Silver Explorer, Silver Discoverer and Silver Galapagos,” said Silversea chief executive, Roberto Martinoli.
A guest capacity of 254 in non-polar regions and just 200 in polar regions means that guests will enjoy the highest levels of personalised and attentive service on board.
The limited capacity in polar regions also means that all guests can disembark at the same time to explore each region.