Roland4

Based on what I am reading; The contract on the Crystal website says :"“Destination Fees” mean the fees, charges, tolls and taxes imposed on Carrier by governmental or quasi-governmental authorities as well as third party fees and charges arising from a ship’s presence in a harbor or port." Sounds like the old "port tax" to me. These are what Old Crystal called the "Port, Security and Handling Fees". The other luxe lines for the most part just bury them in the pricing (though they provide TAs with the breakdown as they are not commissionable), but they are there. I am just happy to hear that "Destination Fee" does not equal "Resort Fee"! That would seriously annoy me!

It came up automatically for me yesterday. I will have to plug in US$ to see what the exchange rate is. Most lines are using something in the $1.35 range at the moment.

When I checked the pricing yesterday, it all came up in CAD$. Stickman also noted the local pricing came up in AU$, so it would appear currency pricing on Crystal is consistent with A & K's general pricing policy of quoting in the "local" currency. I have not checked the USD pricing to see what exchange rate they are using, mostly because we have no intention of booking anything until 2024, after we see how things pan out with the initial sailings. Also because we are waiting on the 2024 WC, if in fact they do a WC in 2024.

As a fellow Canadian, be thankful that you can now book in CAD$. That was never an option before.

They must have the information. We didn't do an open booking, or anything else. The Boss got the Feb 13 CS e-mail at her home e-mail, and I got it (for me as a client) on my office e-mail.

The most time we ever spent in the casino was when it was our lifeboat station, so no great loss. I just wonder what they will do with the space.

Having had a chance to take a good look at the revised deck plans, given the major changes on Serenity's Decks 8 and 9, is a July 31 launch realistic?? Be interesting to see Vince's take on this.

You are comparing apples and pomegranates! Keep in mind that many (most) are not driven by cabin size. My best clients (almost 50 cruises in ten years) are perfectly happy in an Inside room as long as it is near the library! Many who post on this board are quite content in a room on Deck 7. Personally, we prefer whatever they now call the PH/PS, but that is just us, and I don't find that pricing that terribly out of line to what we have paid on SS/SB/Regent for cruise of late.

Possibly not, but I would call it sustainable. Fact is, they need to price at a level that at least "pays the bills". Not sure the pre-Covid prices were doing that.

A big chunk of that will be the 2024 World Cruise, which I suspect has not been "nailed down" yet. That is what we will be looking for when it is released. Where that ends will determine the rest of the open dates. Given Serenity will be in Alaska Summer 2024, my best WAG (Wild Assed Guess) is the WC may well end in Miami in maybe April.

Those bags have been packed for so long most of the clothes in them have probably gone out of style!!😁😁😁

Just as an FYI, A&K have been running expedition cruises for many years. We did an Antarctic expedition cruise with them in 2010.

We have friends doing the full 69 day circumnavigation on Moon. Other than the "throwback" Formal night dress code (Tux/suit/jacket, tie mandatory at the three main restaurants) They have been enjoying themselves. Not sure why Silversea has gone more Formal when almost the entire industry is going the other way.

Had my quarterly visit with my GP earlier this week, and mentioned that all three of us have had a a visit from the "Rona" monster. His comment was with three boosters, plus the "real McCoy", we are pretty much "bullet-proof" for the next few months! Hope he is right as we are heading off to Buenous Aires in three weeks for 32 days on the Silver Moon!

Received this earlier today in my office e-mail. Also received a Client Copy in the home e-mail. Thank you for your ongoing support of the new Crystal Cruises. Our teams are continuing to make extraordinary progress in various areas to introduce the new Crystal to the world. Your support has made our Open Deposit Program a huge success, providing thousands of future guests the ability to reserve their preferred voyage in anticipation of our general sales launch. As we continue to prepare for the release of our itineraries, please be advised that our Open Deposit Program will only be available through Sunday, January 22, 2023. As a reminder, Open Deposits provide your clients with an exclusive first access to our soon-to-be released itineraries. In addition, guests with an Open Deposit benefit from an As You Wish shipboard credit of up to $500USD* per suite! Guests may take out as many Open Deposits as they wish and can be redeemed for one (1) reservation, so if they wish to book more than one (1) cruise, please be sure they purchase the needed number of Open Deposits to do so at launch. Please note, your clients who have elected to receive information from Crystal Cruises will also receive notice in the coming days that our Open Deposit Program will be ending. As a courtesy, we continue to encourage past and future Crystal Cruises guests to contact their preferred travel advisor and we kindly ask you reach out to any of your clients who may have interest in our Open Deposit Program as well.

To me, the driving factor in this is the state of the two ships. Until the changes/updates are set, and they release the new deck plans, how can they take bookings? More importantly, as anxious as we all are to be onboard, I personally would rather they take the time they need and do it right. The last thing they need is to start taking bookings prematurely, and then have to change/cancel sailings because the ships are not going to be ready on time.

It actually turned out quite well. A little less thick than in Prego, and I suspect that was from the "missing" bread bowl. Really not that difficult to make. 🙂

We have good friends coming for dinner tomorrow and decided to try to make the Prego Mushroom Soup for the first time. Except for the bread bowls, we found all the "bits and pieces" required, so we shall see how it turns out! 😋😋Wish us luck!!!!

You're probably the only one willing to admit it!!!😁😁😁

It's the same idea, except in individual muffin tins, with melted shortening in each instead of tallow. Done properly, and my BH mastered the recipe years ago, (something my Mom never could, we called hers Yorkshire Hockey Pucks!) you end up with this pillow of yummy that goes great with beef gravy!!😋😋

We had a very nice prime rib with all the fixings this evening, including my Better Half's "world famous" (at least within the family) Yorkshire Pudding!! Everything is all cleaned up and put away, and I suspect we may not make Midnight! Since we are reminiscing about NYEs past........ Our closest friends have two sons, two years apart, and when they were young, 8 and 6 as I recall, Dad built a backyard skating rink. How Canadian is that!! We always got together on NYE at their place, and this particular one was one of the coldest on record! The boys, and my BH, are out on the rink for hours on end, while we, bundled up in heavy coats, tuques on our heads and gloves on our hands, tend to the rib eye roast on the BBQ rotisserie. At one point, the hockey puck skids into the snow beside the rink, so I put my martini down on the local windowsill to go retrieve it. I come back, not more than three minutes later, and the water from the ice cubes in my drink had frozen on the top of the gin in my glass!😁😁 The NYE my martini froze!! A Canadian Winter Memory!!

At the end of the day, we ended up with a far better flight schedule, Toronto/Montreal/Buenos Aires with reasonable connections, but I shudder to think what someone who just trusted the Air Dept. could have ended up with! It was the fact that no one in the Air Dept initially saw anything wrong with the Santiago itinerary that concerned me!

But you, or your TA, do have to keep a very close eye on their Air Dept as that appears to be a weak link. Our original flights from YYZ had us flying out at 6:00 AM, connecting in Miami to a flight departing at 9:45 PM. That was bad enough, but they had us flying into Santiago, Chile, for a cruise departing from Buenos Aires!!! That's one heck of an airport to ship transfer, and no one in their Air Dept saw anything wrong until I pointed it out! Based on some of the posts on the CC Silversea board, this is not an unusual problem!

Except that is only on "select" sailings and "limited time only". I have not found a sailing with the pre-paid fare, but then I have not been looking that hard, so I have no idea what the savings would be.

Those strategies were a post-RCI project as I understand it. No particular reason Crystal 2.0 should follow it as well. Silversea appear to have loosened the "Door-to-Door" policy a bit, at least according to an industry video I saw recently. They now allow you to drop the flights in exchange for an air credit in the same way that Regent/Oceania do. That was not an option when we booked our Silver Moon sailing for this February. They are also now offering something called "Port-to-Port Pre-Paid" at a lower price on select sailings. The catch is it is 100% non-refundable!