12 Night Cruise sailing from Port Louis to Cape Town aboard Silver Whisper.

With Silver Whisper, Silversea has taken its award-winning concept of elegant, all-suite ultra-luxury ships to the next level by incorporating technological innovations and guest suggestions to create this extraordinary vessel designed to carry Silversea's tradition of all-inclusive luxury and style into the new millennium.The ships have the highest space-to-passenger ratio in the industry at 74, providing more space per passenger than any other cruise ship. Space ratio is derived by dividing a vessel's gross tonnage, which is a volume measurement of its interior space, by its lower berth capacity.

Silversea's service is simply the world's best. It is a philosophy, an attitude - complemented by distinctive European style and inherent in all that we do. Achieving perfection is driven by our desire to please. To see you smile. It begins the moment you step aboard with a warm welcome and a flute of champagne, and follows throughout your voyage with an unspoken anticipation of your needs. Sailing on Silversea's intimate ships is like visiting a friend's home; you're greeted by name and your personal preferences are always remembered.

Highlights of this cruise:

Port Louis
Located just off the east coast of Madagascar, Mauritius is fast making a name for itself as the tropical paradise of the Indian Ocean. A volcanic island approximately 10 million years old, Mauritius is thought to be the peak of an enormous sunken volcanic chain stretching from the Seychelles to Reunion. In fact, volcanic lakes and inactive craters can be found scattered throughout the island.

Mauritius also boasts a unique marine environment. Surrounded by one of the largest unbroken coral reefs on the planet, conservationists are now campaigning to protect its white coral sand beaches and fragile ecosystem. Though it can be found on the maps of early Arab mariners, Mauritius remained uninhabited until the end of the 16th century. The Portuguese became the first European visitors in 1510, however, they did not lay claim to the island. In 1598 Dutch colonists settled on the island, naming it after Prince Maurice of Nassau. The Dutch colonial period saw the development of thriving sugar cane plantations as well as the decimation of the ebony forests and the extinction of the dodo bird and other indigenous wildlife. Eventually abandoning their settlement in 1710, Mauritius lay unclaimed until the arrival of the French five years later. Renaming the island Ile de France, the French continued the cultivation of sugar as well as indigo, cloves, nutmeg and other spices, retaining possession of the island until 1810 when it was ceded to Britain at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Now an independent republic, Mauritius is a vibrant cultural mix with impressive mountains, boundless sugar cane plantations and some of the most exquisite beaches and aquamarine lagoons in the Indian Ocean.

Richards Bay
Founded in the 1880s, during the Anglo-Zulu colonial wars, Richards Bay was named after British Rear Admiral Sir Frederick William Richards, who landed a naval force here. An early claim to fame came in 1891, when colonial adventurer John Dunn killed a 22-foot crocodile in the estuary-still one of the largest ever documented-but the town remained a backwater with a population of less than 200 people until as recently as 1968. Today, Richards Bay is the major port in the region and is adjacent to significant mineral deposits, which have contributed to the town's massive growth. Visitors may be more interested in what awaits beyond in the hinterland. Richards Bay is the gateway to the land of the Zulu, one of Africa's most fascinating tribal peoples, and from here you have easy access to some of the world's finest wildlife game parks, including the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, which protects the highest concentration of white rhino left in Africa.

East London
As South Africa's only large river and sea port, East London is important for the export of citrus fruit, mineral ores and wool. A considerable amount of goods are imported here as well.

The first documented vessel to arrive in these waters was in 1688 while searching for survivors of a shipwreck. In 1848, a proclamation annexed the area to the Cape Colony. Today, East London serves as the area's commercial centre and is a bustling town with a population of approximately 175,000.

The town's small museum contains the world's only surviving egg of the extinct dodo bird, as well as a mounted coelacanth caught near East London in 1938, a fish thought to be extinct.

Cape Town
Sheltered beneath the familiar shape of Table Mountain, the historic city of Cape Town is instantly recognizable, and few cities in the world possess its beauty and style. A stroll through the lovely city center reveals Cape Town's three centuries as the sea link between Europe and the East. Elegant Cape Dutch buildings, characterized by big whitewashed gables, often a thatch roof, and shuttered windows, abut imposing monuments to Britain's imperial legacy. In the Bo-Kaap neighborhood the call to prayer echoes from minarets while the sweet tang of Malay curry wafts through the cobbled streets. And everywhere, whether you're eating outdoors at one of the country's best restaurants or sipping wine atop Table Mountain, you sense-correctly-that this is South Africa's most urbane, civilized city.