Kittykat52

We are so sorry. Our condolences to you and your wife. It has been a pleasure following your posts.

Referencing the Ossetra caviar, I also went on line to D’Artagnan. The caviar was on sale for 99.99; however, shipping cost was outrageous,  around $25.00 and it was not even expedited. So, I went to Amazon Prime and bought the same caviar from a different distributor for 105.00  with free over night shipping since I am a Prime member.

Looks like you are having a very good time. The food looks fabulous, especially the caviar. Two questions: are the shore excursions included? What about the food on the tour, specifically the hiking tour where you had the orange juice, quiche, and tarts?

We love caviar! Actually the first time I tried it was on the Crystal Debussy. It was served during cocktail hour-unlimited servings!

I have to make a correction to my first post. Our Rhine River cruise this past year was on the Crystal Debussy, not the Mozart. The ship was beautiful and everything was brand new.

I agree with the previous comments about our experience on the Uniworld Bordeaux River cruise. We spent most of our time on busses. It became tiresome to load onto busses every day to visit wineries. I was hoping for more of a River cruise experience. Unfortunately our Rhine cruise was abbreviated due to low water levels, but Crystal did a fine job accommodating us. However, we were disappointed to miss the upper Rhine and the castles.

Thank you for sharing your trip with everyone here at Cruise Critic. My husband and I have been on many cruises but our favorites have been on SilverSea, from Southampton, England to New York in conjunction with the Orient Express from Venice to London, Uniworld river/wine cruise of Bordeaux,  and Crystal Mozart, Rhine river cruise this past September. We are currently booked on Crystal’s Symphony  from Barcelona to Venice in September, 2020. We are looking forward to visiting Barcelona which is one of the reasons we are enjoying your travel blog. We will be reading your posts as you embark on your Seabourn cruise and are especially interested in your comparison of Crystal and Seabourn.

Not sure if this is a permanent itinerary change or just a result of the water levels. I think it was for the Bach. I would be interested to know if the Debussy has reinstated its original Basel/Amsterdam itinerary this week or if she is still sailing the modified itinerary.

Kittykat52 here. We returned this past Monday from our Crystal Debussy cruise. Originally we were booked to sail from Basel to Amsterdam but the river levels drastically changed our itinerary. First, let me say that Crystal did a wonderful job, with a few glitches, in handling our transportation from Basel, our original destination, to Koblenz. Since we were already booked to fly into Basel, our air could not be changed. However, Crystal paid to fly us from Basel to Frankfurt, Germany. When we arrived we were transported to a Motorcoach where we met about 4 other couples who had been sitting in the bus for an hour waiting for everyone to arrive who were going on the cruise. When we boarded the Motorcoach along with 2 other couples, we were told it would not be long and we would be on our way. About an hour later, all of the cruises had been collected from Frankfurt airport and we were on our way- a two hour bus ride to the boat. From door to door we were traveling about 16 hours with a 6 hour time change. That was the nightmare part. After being shown to our suite and quickly checked in, we finally were able to settle in, enjoy a very good dinner, and relax.

Our itinerary, while changed drastically, was okay. We spent the first two days in Koblenz followed by a day in Cochem on the Mossel River, which we enjoyed. Back on the Rhine, we sailed to Cologne and visited the cathedral there. Crystal added Nijmegen and Rotterdam to our itinerary before our final day, in Amsterdam. Nijmegen was very pretty and we visited a winery there. We stayed on the boat in Rotterdam.

To make up for our revised itinerary, Crystal offered everyone $800 toward a future cruise. At first, I was totally against taking another cruise, but when we were informed that we could apply this credit to any Crystal cruise, we booked a Serenity Meditterean cruise for next year.

We were impressed with the ship, the service, the food, and the ambience of our Crystal cruise. Although we missed most of what we wanted to see, including the Rhine Gorge, we understand the conditions on the river were certainly not Crystal's fault, and I think the staff went out of their way to make up for the conditions. I will not do another river cruise, but I am looking forward to sailing the Mediterranean on the Serenity next year.

I know there were other River ships that were able to sail from Basel to Amsterdam, but I just saw that Crystal is advertising a new itinerary from Koblenz to Amsterdam.

 

Kittykat52,

 

 

I am sure Crystal has put some great excursions put together for you. I did not mean to upset you, the Rhine has great vistas downstream from Koblenz and castles, too. They do not match the Rhine gorge, of course. Looking forward to hearing your reports about Crystal's amendments, perhaps in the new thread that deals with the topic of river cruise companies' reactions to the low water situation.

 

 

Safe travels.

 

 

notamermaid

Thank you for reassuring me that we will still have interesting scenery from Koblenz to Amsterdam on the Crystal Debussy 😊.

We begin the first leg of our air tomorrow morning and will arrive in Basel Monday morning and then on to Frankfurt and the ship. ETA on board by 5 p.m. if travel progresses smoothly.

I will post once onboard concerning how Crystal handles our itinerary changes.

Which thread would be best for my posts on board? I have really enjoyed all of your help, notamermaid. I will miss your comments if I have to move to another thread!

😿

Hi there.anxious cruiser here,.just wondering if Crystal offered you any alternatives to travelling, such as rescheduling ot cancelling with a refund? We are travelling on Viking Rhine river beginning of Sept on our first cruise so not sure what to expect from such a significan change to plan.

Hello eal7, aka "anxious cruiser". Crystal took its time getting back to us after sending an email late Friday night about our cruise being drastically changed, and then we could not get any information until Monday. Yesterday, Wednesday, we were finally informed that we were to travel to our intended departure city, Basel, and Crystal would either pay up to $1,000 per person to make changes on our own or choose to let them make our air from Basel to Frankfurt and then transfer us to the ship at no cost to us. Since we were so close to departure day from South Carolina, we chose the second option and then after waiting a total of 5 days, we finally received our new flight info from Basel back to Feankfurt and our Motorcoach transfer to the Debussy in Koblenz. After reading the comments from notamermaid, I really wish they had rescheduled or diverted us to the Moselle as they have done with the Crystal Bach.

I think Crystal is also offering another $800 per couple for compensation for missing the ports from Basel to Koblenz which, in my opinion, is ludicrous since we will be missing the reason we chose the Rhine, the castles.

I will post an update next week concerning how Crystal handled the changes and if we receive any other compensations. By the way, It was my intent to book our next cruise while on board this River cruise: the Crystal Serenity from Barcelona to Venice in September 2019. We will see . . .

Good luck to all of you sailing next week. The weather is going crazy. We have had record rainfall and heat in South Carolina, and the fires and drought in California are devastating. I also heard on the news last night that fires were burning in various European countries as well. In the big picture, our problems seem petty.

Thank you all for this great site and invaluable information. It really helps to know that we are not alone.

Johng75370, my husband and i are also taking our first Crystal river cruise leaving home on Sunday morning. Our itinerary has been changed due to river levels as well.

We are currently flying to Basel on Saturday/Sunday where we were to board the Crystal Debussy. 3 days ago we received an email informing us that our itinerary had been changed. Today we finally received our air info from Crystal to fly us from Basel to Frankfurt and then they will bus us to Koblenz and the ship.

We have not heard anything about new excursions other than an email saying they were diligently preparing for excursions in the 4 new ports we are now scheduled to visit between Koblenz and Amsterdam. They said we would receive information about our new excursion choices once we were aboard.

I have been very upset this week not knowing how we were going to get from Basel to Koblenz, but today we have our transfers. Although it took a few days for them to communicate with us about our upcoming cruise, they seem to be on top of things now.

I am sure there are many anxious cruisers waiting for information from cruise lines who are scrambling to provide an enjoyable experience for their clients.

Thank you notamermaid for responding so quickly. We are still looking forward to our trip even though it is missing much of the sightseeing we were looking forward to.

You have not mentioned any of the new Crystal ships. I am booked from Basel to Amsterdam leaving Minday 8/13. We were just informed the cruise will now leave from Koblenz. Everyone who was flying into Basel now needs to be rerouted to Frankfurt airport and then transferred to ship. Are we able to take the Rhine to Amsterdam from Koblenz?

I am new to this blog. I hope you can provide some information about the Crystal Debussy.

Kathy