Why Silversea’s new Silver Nova is a game-changer for luxurious cruising

Be warned, Seabourn, Crystal and Regent Seven Seas Cruises: One of your top competitors in the luxury cruise space, Silversea Cruises, has set a new bar for just how spectacular luxury ship design can be.

Silversea’s new 728-passenger Silver Nova, which debuted Monday with its first sailing with paying passengers, is full of public spaces that are not just elegant and luxurious but oriented toward the sea (or the destination) in a way that we haven’t seen before with luxury ships.

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This is accomplished in great part due to an all-new, asymmetrical design for the ship’s public decks that reorients their key features toward the sides of the ship instead of the center. Whether you’re floating in the ship’s main pool or dining at its new open-air Marquee restaurant, you’re looking out at the sea (or whatever destination the ship is visiting) like you’ve never been able to before.

Silversea has been talking about this new asymmetrical design for months. But it was hard for me to understand until I saw it firsthand recently during a three-night preview event for the vessel. What I saw wowed me, and if you book a cruise on this ship, you’ll be wowed, too.

In reorienting Silver Nova’s main pool and other public areas toward the sea and the destinations the ship visits, Silversea has created a luxury vessel that, more than any other, has the feel of the great luxury resorts on land. Like these resorts, it’s built to maximize the experience of its setting.

Or, to put it another way, it’s a ship with a sense of place. This ship is built to be part of its surroundings, not separate from them, as is often the case with ocean cruise vessels.

To me, the design of Silver Nova is a game-changer for luxury cruising. Designwise, at least, this is now the luxury ship to beat.

Here is a look at some of the 54,700-ton vessel’s most notable features.

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A stunning pool deck

At the main pool area on most cruise ships, the pool is right in the middle, with lounge chairs lined up in rows facing the pool on all sides. When you’re lounging on one of these chairs, you’re thus looking inward — not at the sea but at the pool and the people in the pool.

On Silver Nova, this orientation is turned on its head. The main pool, long and narrow, isn’t in the middle of the pool area but offset to its starboard side, and it’s oriented to face outward to the sea. Nearly all the lounge chairs around the pool face in the same direction toward the sea, too.

It is an asymmetrical layout that changes everything about the experience.

Whether in the pool or one of the lounge chairs surrounding it, you are facing the sea, not toward the center of the vessel. It creates a sense of being part of your surroundings of the sort you get at a well-designed, high-end beach resort.

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Part of what makes this new outward-facing orientation so magical is that no structure rises from the starboard side of the pool deck. Passengers floating in Silver Nova’s pool or lounging on a nearby lounge chair get an unobstructed view of the sea off the ship’s starboard side.

This is highly unusual. On almost all cruise ships, elevated walkways line both sides of the main pool area, one deck above the pool so that people can walk between higher-level venues at the front and back of the vessel.

On smaller ships, which are by nature narrower than bigger ships, these walkways can result in a feeling that the main pool is sunk into a canyon between structures on both sides of it. In other words, the area feels less open.

By leaving one side of Silver Nova’s pool deck free of structures, the ship’s designers have created a staple-shaped space with the open side facing the ocean, something that never has been done before.

If you know anything about naval architecture and ship construction, you know that this new pool area design is a true engineering marvel. Due to the enormous weight of water relative to other things you find atop ships, the placement of pools on vessels must be done with great care. Put one in the wrong place, and a ship can be off balance. This is why ship pools typically are centered in a pool deck (and relatively small compared to pools at land resorts).

To make this asymmetrical pool deck work, with its off-center pool and lack of walkway structure on one side, the ship’s designers had to rethink other elements of the ship’s top deck to make sure the vessel would be balanced. This included placing the ship’s smokestack off center — another of Silver Nova’s striking features. It’s offset to the port side of the vessel in part to compensate for the pool being offset to the starboard side.

The pool deck is also spacious for the ship’s size, with 280 lounge chairs spread around it on decks 10 and 11. The pool itself is bigger than any other on a Silversea ship.

A striking new ocean-facing eatery

Silver Nova’s main pool area isn’t the only area at the top of the ship where an asymmetrical design has resulted in a space that is strikingly open to the sea. Just steps away, near the back of the same deck, is The Marquee, a new open-air eatery that is oriented to the port side of the ship and offers commanding views of the ocean — or whatever destination the ship is visiting.

The mostly shaded but otherwise open-to-the-elements dining venue is a casual eatery during the daytime that combines the menus of Silversea’s signature The Grill eatery and Spaccanapoli pizzeria. At night, it takes on an elevated feel and is home to Silversea’s signature “hot rocks” dining concept, where passenger cook their own meats on heated rocks delivered to their tables.

When Silver Nova is in warm locales such as the Caribbean, dining at the Marquee will feel like dining at an outdoor beach resort, thanks to its location perched along the ship’s port side. You’ll be able to see the waves in the ocean, smell the salty ocean air and, at night, maybe even see the stars above.

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GENE SLOAN/THE POINTS GUY

While some of The Marquee’s tables are under a shading canopy, others are lined up in the open air next to the glass railings along the ship’s port side. It’s a spectacular viewpoint.

Silver Nova isn’t the first luxury cruise vessel to have a decktop eatery with at least some open-air seating at the edge of the vessel, of course. Many luxury ships have casual eateries at their backs that have terrace areas with outdoor seating. But The Marquee eatery feels different, in part because it’s along the side of the ship and not at the back, and also because the entire eatery is outside and open to the breeze.

There is, notably, no deck above it, just a partially open slatted ceiling. It’s just enough of a covering to keep the eatery shaded and cool during lunchtime, as I experienced firsthand while ordering a handmade pizza in the venue.

Just beyond The Marquee, at the back of the ship, The Dusk Bar is an off-center, open-air bar that offers 270-degree views over the portside corner of the ship. It’s another asymmetrical space designed to bring passengers closer to the sea.

Light-filled interior spaces

Silver Nova’s unusual openness to the sea extends to its interior public decks, which are filled with lounges, restaurants and bars lined with large glass walls that offer a connection to the outside.

It is an openness made possible by more asymmetry in design. At the heart of these interior spaces is a soaring, three-deck-high atriumlike space offset to the ship’s starboard side. A multifloor glass wall bathes the center of the ship’s public decks with natural light — something that we haven’t seen in a significant way on luxury ships.

It’s not a brand-new design feature for the industry, of course. A growing number of large mass-market ships, such as Carnival’s new Excel-class ships and the soon-to-debut Sun Princess, have been debuting in recent years with large glass walls spanning multiple decks. But it’s notable in the luxury space.

At the base of this atriumlike space, on Deck 3, is a Champagne bar called The Shelter. One deck up, on Deck 4, passengers will find the Arts Cafe, Silver Nova’s European-style coffee bar and lounge. One more deck up from that, on Deck 5, is Dolce Vita, Silversea’s signature bar and lounge and a central gathering place for passengers for pre- and post-dinner cocktails.

All of these venues either are directly below the wall of glass or adjacent to it.

Among other venues along these public decks is the Panorama Lounge, another central gathering spot at the back of Deck 5 lined with glass and offering views off the sides and back of the ship.

The openness to the sea of these public decks (and Silver Nova’s cabin decks, too) is further enhanced by the bold placement of the ship’s elevator banks in glass towers along the vessel’s sides instead of at its center, as is customary. These elevator banks — one on the port side of the ship toward the front of the vessel; one on the starboard side of the ship toward the back — flood the ship’s interior with even more natural light.

Some ships in the past, such as Royal Caribbean’s Radiance-class ships, have had showcase elevator banks that faced the sea. But never before has every elevator and elevator waiting area on a ship been ocean-facing.

On the Radiance-class vessels, for instance, only a single set of elevators face the sea, and they aren’t as close to the outer glass walls as they are on Silver Nova. Depending on which floor you’re on, you’re sometimes looking through public walkways or even seating areas to the ocean when riding up the ocean-facing elevators on the Radiance-class ships.

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The switch to all-ocean-facing elevators for Silver Nova may seem like a small detail, but its result is extraordinary. No matter where you are on the ship, when you are waiting for an elevator, as you often are on a cruise ship, you are looking out to the sea, not trapped in a windowless interior hall. Once you step aboard one of the elevators, you have what may be the best vantage point on the ship. The outer walls of the elevators (three in each elevator bank) are glass, too.

Seriously, they’re so cool that you may want to ride them just for the view.

The asymmetrical design of Silver Nova isn’t the only reason the ship feels more open than many other luxury ships. The openness also is a result of a change to a “horizontal” format for cabin and public area decks, something that Silversea has never done before on one of its traditional ocean ships.

The definition of a horizontal design for a ship is when entire decks are devoted either to cabins or public areas. This is common on big, mass-market ships but less common on smaller luxury ships.

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Many luxury ships have a vertical design, with cabins spread across the fronts of every deck and public areas spread across the backs. This is the case for nearly all of Silversea’s ships (all but Silver Nova and the recently launched Galapagos vessel Silver Origin) as well as all the luxury ships operated by Seabourn, Scenic Luxury Cruises and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. Luxury line Regent Seven Seas Cruises also has one ship with such a layout.

The vertical arrangement for ship cabins is a layout style that makes it difficult structurally to offer soaring spaces. By going horizontal in the design, Silversea could insert more high-ceiling venues across the public interior decks of Silver Nova (decks 3, 4 and 5). This included not only the atriumlike space in the middle of the ship but also the space occupied by Silver Nova’s main showroom, the Venetian Lounge.

The Venetian Lounges on other Silversea ships are typically just one deck high and feel a bit cramped. On Silver Nova, this lounge — built for theater and music shows, films, lectures and seminars — soars two decks high and has an airy feel. Offset from the center of the front of the ship, it also has expansive windows along one of its sides that allow in natural light (through curtains) during the day.

A spacious test kitchen

Yet one more soaring interior space on Silver Nova is the S.A.L.T. Lab, a test kitchen at the top of the ship used for cooking classes and an elaborate chef’s table experience that is new for the line.

With a double-height ceiling and a glass wall overlooking the sea, the S.A.L.T. Lab may be the most spectacular cooking venue ever built. It has a gorgeous, marble-topped, horseshoe-shaped counter that envelopes a large cooking station where Silver Nova chefs lead classes by day. At night, it transforms into a venue for the new chef’s table experience (called the S.A.L.T. Chef’s Table) — a nearly-four-hour, 11-course, $180-per-person culinary marathon that involves Silver Nova chefs preparing the meal right in front of diners, explaining what they’re doing as they go (see the photo gallery below for scenes from the experience).

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The S.A.L.T. Chef’s Table experience on Silver Nova. GENE SLOAN/THE POINTS GUY

S.A.L.T., which stands for Sea And Land Taste, is Silversea’s new immersive culinary program that focuses on the regional cuisine in the places its ships go. It’s found only on the newest Silversea ships. Former Saveur editor-in-chief Adam Sachs designed the program, which encompasses special regional food-related land tours, onboard cooking classes and special dining experiences.

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Silver Nova is the third ship with S.A.L.T. programming, joining the 2-year-old Silver Dawn and 3-year-old Silver Moon. All three ships have dedicated S.A.L.T. restaurants and bars serving regionally inspired dishes and drinks.

The tours available as part of the program are extraordinary, as I saw firsthand during my visit to the ship during a small-group S.A.L.T. tour focused on the wine and food of the Friuli region on the border between Italy and Slovenia. The six-hour outing from Trieste, Italy, included a private tasting at the family-owned winery Le Due Terre, which was opened just for us, followed by a three-hour, nine-course lunch with wine pairings at chef Antonia Klugmann’s L’Argine a Venco.

Klugmann, one of Italy’s star chefs, cooked for us personally with her team at the small venue, nestled in the vineyard-lined countryside.

Elegant and repositioned rooms

As is typical for Silversea ships, Silver Nova offers “whispered luxury” in its suites (and all cabins on Silver Nova are suites, in keeping with its luxury positioning), with finishes and furnishings that are elegant and expensive but not flashy.

In bedrooms, you’ll find ridiculously comfortable beds topped with custom-made luxury mattresses and Egyptian cotton linens from Italian luxury purveyor Rivolta Carmignani, marble-topped side tables and built-in desks, soft lighting and a neutral color palette throughout. Overall, the look is clean, modern and residential in feel.

Suite bathrooms are spacious and marble-lined, with generously large walk-in showers and Italian-made Nobili fixtures.

Bigger suites have separate living rooms in some cases, plus bigger bedrooms and bathrooms.

In addition, every room on the ship comes with butler service, complimentary in-suite dining around the clock, a minibar stocked with whatever you want (no extra charge), plush bathrobes and slippers, a pillow menu, luxury bath amenities and complimentary unlimited Wi-Fi.

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A Deluxe Verandah Suite on Silver Nova.
GENE SLOAN/THE POINTS GUY

This is all par for the course for a Silversea ship. Luxury is the line’s trade. But what’s notably new with Silver Nova is that the ship has more categories of suites than Silversea ships in the past — and suites that are better located on the ship for those who can be sensitive to motion.

This is another benefit of Silversea’s switch to a horizontal design for Silver Nova’s decks. Because its cabins aren’t all clustered at its front, as has been the case for Silversea’s bigger ships until now, Silversea was able to build huge aft-facing suites onto the vessel — something that Silversea fans long have wanted. It also was able to add more suites clustered around the middle of the ship, where the effects of motion are less noticeable.

The giant suites at the back of Silver Nova include two massive 1,324-square-foot complexes called Otium suites. Inspired by Silversea’s new wellness program, Otium, they feature spacious living room areas, separate large bedrooms, large walk-in closets and a showpiece bathroom with a whirlpool and walk-in shower, with floor-to-ceiling windows throughout.

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Located at the aft starboard corners of decks 6 and 7, the Otium suites also have huge outdoor wraparound decks with private whirlpools. Each of the suites has 270-degree views.

The large suites at the back of the ship also include six Master suites, another new category of rear-facing suites for the line. Measuring from 721 to 826 square feet, they also boast living rooms and bedrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows offering stunning views. All six suites are at corner locations at the backs of decks 6, 7, 8 and 9, and they thus have 270-degree views similar to what is found in the Otium suites.

Rounding out the biggest suites on the ship are two middle-of-the-ship Owner’s suites that measure 1,055 square feet — perfect to book if you’re looking for a giant suite but are prone to motion sickness. They’re right at the sweet spot at the middle of the ship, where motion is the least noticeable.

Two large Grand suites measuring 915 square feet are located at the front of the vessel, offering spectacular forward-facing views.

Even the smallest cabins on Silver Nova measure at least 357 square feet, which is unusually large for an entry-level cruise ship cabin.