Guests on board the recent Silver Shadow transatlantic cruise particularly enjoyed their charismatic and entertaining guest lecturer John Cleese, by all accounts a most charming man.

Silversea have just announced details of further on board lecturers who include celebrity chef, Noel McMeel who was recently seen on television competing in the Great British Menu programme hosted by Jennie Bond on BBC2. Northern Irish McMeel is the resident chef at Castle Leslie in Dublin, the venue for Sir Paul McCartney’s wedding to Heather Mills, where he provided all the catering for the high profile event. His highly popular cookery school at Castle Leslie will be brought into the galley onboard Silver Shadow departing on 3rd September 2007 on a nine day voyage from Hamburg to London. Guests will be able to learn about and enjoy Noel’s rustic traditional Irish cooking through special menus, tastings, demonstrations and classes.

A literary theme is added to Silver Shadow’s 10 day Caribbean departure from Fort Lauderdale on 26th October 2007. The voyage celebrates the lives and works of Ian Fleming and Ernest Hemingway both of whom had strong connections with the route of this voyage through living and working in Jamaica and Key West during their lives.

John Cork is a published author and expert on both the James Bond legacy and Ernest Hemingway, having written books and short films on both subjects. He will host lectures and special screenings of the great Bond films ‘Dr No’, ‘Thunderball’ and ‘Casino Royale’ and film adaptations of Hemingway’s books ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, ‘Adventures of a Young Man’ and ‘The Sun Also Rises’ as part of Silversea’s Movies Under the Stars programme, where guests can relax on deck in the evening whilst watching films on a big screen. Co-hosting this exciting voyage and the movie screenings will be the son of famous actor, Desmond Llewellyn, who played gadget man ‘Q’ in seventeen Bond films. Our old friend Justin Llewellyn is the roving ambassador for Tattinger Champagne which Ian Fleming chose as James Bond’s favourite marque in his books, and is also the Consul General for Great Britain for the ‘Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne’, the only official champagne fraternity in the world. Llewellyn has inherited his father’s talent for public speaking and his informative lectures about Bond films, his father and the champagne tastings are always highly entertaining and well received.