BWIVince

$500 is a LOT to some of us. 🙂 I clearly need to make more friends in this group! 😄 I actually don't understand this logic, and it's come up again and again. People are treating the $500 like it's the risky proposition, and the full booking like it's safer somehow. It's QUITE the opposite. The $500 deposit is not only fully refundable, but as the program is outlined right now there's no case in which it wouldn't be covered by a chargeback. (I still recommend verifying that with your bank, but under network rules that would be the case.). So there is no practical way to lose money here. A full booking, OTOH, whether you make from your $500 deposit or wait to book later, may be subject to any cancellation penalties or processing fees, and times out for dispute eligibility after 540 (or similar, depending on network) days from when each amount is applied. I'm not rushing out to book anything, on any line, because I don't know what I want to do next, but if I was, I'd feel a LOT more confident about the $500 part than I would about placing a full booking on _ANY_ cruise line. In fairness to A&K, I probably trust them with my money a lot more than some of the larger conglomerates too, while we're on that subject. Just food for thought... Vince

Apples and golf pants. 1. They can ignore “status” (Crystal didn’t really have status tiers, so there isn’t much to ignore), but they paid a lot of money for the CS history. I can’t really see why they would ignore it. There are plenty of other things they needed that money for. 2. They didn’t, and legally can’t, buy Crystal’s financial transaction details. This is easy to ignore. 3. Terry already listed all of the reasons that you can’t surmise an accurate financial loss from the court releases and he’s 100% correct. That data is incomplete, unverified and obsolete at this point. There will be snapshots in time when part of it is sort of correct, but it’s not kept current or anywhere near complete, ever. It’s simply not intended to be a register of what everyone lost — it’s a partial list of debts and reimbursement requests at fixed points in history. Trying to misuse it as such would be a DISASTER. Why do we have to agree to disagree on a statement that’s FACTUALLY INCORRECT? Full information is NOT available. Only a small part of the information is available in a bankruptcy — much of the chargeback and insurance data will be unreported. Having entry level phone agents make outbound calls for new bookings from a qualified leads list is a standard thing in the travel industry. Having entry level phone agents make outbound calls to negotiate open-ended deals with people who may feel they’ve suffered a financial loss is perhaps the biggest disaster of a business plan over ever heard in my entire professional career. The $500 seems to have worked fine, but if it didn’t, up it to $750 or $1000 and go from there. Listening to customers is one thing, and Crystal will soon have plenty of sales management to do that, but wrangling is not what outbound phone agents are for. Vince

What the new (or old, if they go that direction) loyalty program will look like is just one of the myriad of programs and details the new company has to outline before they can start full-scale marketing. They don’t need to have all the details worked out, and they can continue to add to it, but they do need the basics at this point. IMHO, I can’t imagine them ignoring Crystal’s previous guests in the program after spending so much money for that info, but what the new program looks like will be anyone’s guess. It’s a balancing act between being Crystal’s first real chance to make sweeping changes to the program and fix some of the legacy issues with it with less blowback than the previous management teams would have received, and the need for the program to feel familiar and rewarding to previous guests in order to make the transition attractive and comfortable for the legacy clientele. We shall see…. (Probably in the next couple of weeks if reports remain on target.) Vince

Trust me, Crystal isn’t withholding information because they don’t understand the value of communication — things are only quiet because there is nothing final yet to communicate. When they have something to share, you’re going to hear so much about it you’re going to long for the days before you were bombarded with emails and/or mailers. I can see the complaint threads now. Enjoy the quiet while it while it lasts. As for timing, keep in mind that New Crystal has to do about 65% of the work that NYK and Old Crystal took 4+ years to do. Starting with built ships isn’t even as much of an advantage as it might sound, when you’re trying to plan dry docks on both that customarily have taken about 2 years to design, fabricate for and execute. Vince

It also reduces slightly as it sits/holds through service... I'm sure you all ate it closer to immediately, if I can remember what it's like to have a bowl of that within reach. 🙂 I will definitely check it out! Thanks for the tip!! I LOVE steaming mussels -- a (net) bag of them almost called to me the last time I was in Wegman's. Minus the scrubbing/prep, they're super easy to work with, and you can be as creative as you like with the ingredients. Yeah, I know that's true of any food, but you know what I mean. Oh no -- hope you're starting to feel better soon! I had the flu all last week (tested negative for Covid multiple times), with worse symptoms than that, so hopefully you'll be 100% again quickly. In the meantime, we're here to take care of you for a change! I think I have a box of Hamburger Helper around here somewhere... (No, I don't.) Vince

Not surprising at all... People book new products with travel suppliers every day on spec, because there is usually some kind of incentive tied to it. If they don't like the details when they're released they can always cancel, but the incentives to book after more of the details are released are almost always less attractive. It's pretty much all upside. Vince

I’d say it’s a trend in travel in general these days — I can’t think of a hotel booking I’ve made in the past year that didn’t have a nonrefundable option. Besides the obvious advantage of the supplier getting to keep the money no matter what, they get access to the cash immediately regardless of service date, which is valuable in the COVID-area travel industry after years of being squeezed. (Remember the discussions about how travel suppliers have to keep refundable passenger/guest deposits reserved or isolated.) Vince

You took the words right out of my mouth, Rob. 🙂 I just want to add two small points... First, I would verify with your credit card issuer how they count the timing of an open booking. Technically, services to be delivered in the future are defined by and bound by an expected date of service (even if it's just an estimate), so in the case of Visa and Mastercard especially, a booking that would never have an expected date of service could be subject to some weirdness if a particular credit card issuer chose to interpret a guideline how they wanted. (We saw cases like this mentioned on the board.). That's one drawback to the way Visa and Mastercard's network is structured. In concept though, you SHOULD have 540 days for an open booking -- but your issuer is the one that's going to have to argue it with the acquiring bank and merchant, so make sure your expectations are in alignment with your bank's. The only other thing I'd remind everyone is that the timer doesn't reset once you convert the open booking into a confirmed booking. Any money placed as a deposit on the open booking will still time out at a maximum of 540 days from the date of that charge (or whatever the time limit is for your particular card)... So the earlier you place the open booking deposit, the less time you'd have to dispute those original funds. This is the main reason I'm personally not booking right now -- I don't know when they're going to restart service, and when my actual booking would fall... And I'm not booking any services with any travel supplier anywhere (not just cruise lines, or Crystal) that I can't get back via chargeback at this point. Vince

I was so grateful when it hit 40 this afternoon... I went for a drive to run errands for the first time in days. Vince

You’re way ahead of me today, Roy…. My big walk today was TO my cluster mailbox, which was postponed from yesterday. My big adventure only got the green light this morning when I was able to verify the temperature was 6x higher than it was at the same time yesterday. 😁 🥶 It was still painfully cold. Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah on the 8th night! Vince

Definitely... And I was in no way discrediting your post when I was relaying my experience -- the clues are out there and people far smarter than I can definitely make more sense of it than I've been able to with enough time and focus (especially by comparing archived pages). That's just more than I was able to keep up with personally. 🙂 Vince

I stopped trying to read the tea leaves through port reservations for this very reason…. Given that not every reservation that legacy Crystal had this far out was published (they could have been part of a provisional change or backup situation because of the industry turmoil for the months before the shutdown), it was hard for me to figure out what was new and what was old. Even if I compare the previously published itineraries and find differences, I still don’t have 100% confidence that all the differences are new or valid. Vince

Im glad you mentioned it, I didn’t know they opened in Pike & Rose! …Though I feel like there’s a half dozen or more restaurants in Pike & Rose that I need to try. One of my oldest friends lives near there and I should use that as an excuse to go spend time with him. (..and he loves Italian.) I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve driven through there since they relocated Montrose Rd…. I think my greatest fear is Magoo’ing around Rockville (what’s North Bethesda?!?) and not even knowing how to get anywhere, since they moved all the roads/access. I still can’t get the image of Mid-Pike Plaza, which used to be there, out of my head. That was our Toys R Us when I was a kid, one one of my best friends worked at the Linens ‘n Things there when we were in high school. Syms bounced around, but at one point they had the upstairs space, and I can remembering going with my dad to buy suits there, back when dads (generically/stereotypically) had to wear suits to work every day…. Hence why we had to go to Syms. Lol. We couldn’t afford to get all of his suits at Raleigh’s. (I’m not sure I love today’s “just wear a tshirt and turn your camera off” thing, but I’m definitely glad I don’t have to wear a full suit M-F.) Anyway, thanks for the update!! I’m definitely taking notes and creating a list! 😊 Vince

I think this was expected by many (most?) of us given the timing. Given the extremely tight window they're giving themselves to refit the ships (assuming they stick to them), there is no way they're going to be able to blow up the general arrangement to such a degree as to overcome the capacity issues for the former Prego and Umi Uma spaces. They could shuffle the venues and move the more popular concepts to Marketplace or some larger venue, but that would have a seriously negative impact on atmosphere. Until they have a couple of years to plan a proper future refit, or until they build new ships (more likely), it was hard to imagine how they were going to get away from the extra-visit surcharges. Cutting capacity a bit only goes so far, and at least on Symphony, they only have so many more rooms they can combine. Vince

I'd just write them back for verification... I suspect there are links coded for each offer, and either the confirmation was miscoded for that link or the wrong link was promoted somewhere (which may not even have the current verbiage on the page). Verifying the offer with them will also clue them in to the issue. Vince

This was always a fundamental divide in my house growing up. My mother loved eggs. I never knew poached eggs could be a side item for another egg dish until I took a cruise with her. (...Or that you could have more than one egg course at breakfast -- potentially still with said side item of eggs in addition to the egg app and egg main... But I digress.) She loved to cook and hated to bake. A frittata was all upside for her -- eggs without the crust that she didn't want to eat and certainly didn't want to make. I, on the other hand, will eat eggs with no problem, but don't have a passion for them. My mother may or may not have encouraged that lack of enthusiasm so there would be more eggs for her -- I can't prove that. The more that you can add to them or dress them up with, the better. A frittata is an improvement on plain eggs because of the yummy fillings, and a quiche ups the stakes even higher by adding a yummy crust. If I had to give up an ingredient in the quiche, I'd sooner give up the eggs and keep the fillings and crust, and just have a hand pie. This is in no way a criticism of the Chez's menu, just an appreciation for why there's a menu in the first place. Frittata or quiche, there's an audience for both, and a mutual respect for the chef's direction. Vince

Yeah, fall is busy in the events industry, and this year was a struggle. Just about every supplier was short staffed this fall just because conference onsites bounced back pretty much in one season. Not only did hotels and venues not have enough staff, but the staff they did had have had a fractional load (of mostly smaller events) for the past few years, and many/most of them weren't working in those jobs pre-pandemic. It's been a rough fall, but we're almost there. haha. I don't know how that seemed to become the official Christmas song of my generation, I really don't. Vince

I was doing ok in that department until the host of my first Zoom call of the day today played Mariah Carey's video of All I Want for Christmas is You as the lead-in music for the meeting. For the next month subsequent songs will stick in my head -- someone finally flipped that switch.. Vince

Today has to be the most beautiful day we've had since Spring. Supurb choice. Vince

First, bravo. Second, to me, this is sort of the visual representation of one of my biggest struggles in the COVID era — the availability of Martin’s buns in slider vs. sandwich size. Not that the sandwich size bun isn’t perfect here, the protein vs. bun ratio is probably perfect, but I’ve always leaned towards the slider size because I’ve never really needed a higher ratio of roll and 12 smaller rolls almost perfectly suits my week, vs. 8 larger sandwich buns, especially with the smaller sandwiches I prefer. Alas, since the start of Covid, Martin’s has trimmed stock in most of our stores up here to sandwich rolls, long (hot dog) rolls, and sliced bread — the top sellers. I went to Wegman’s last week and used the opportunity to buy things that I can’t get anywhere else, like Martin’s slider rolls, but alas that line of thinking ended up with a receipt over $300 and a half-cart that was less about half-full. 😳😒 I guess I still have to mark the mission as a success though, as I ended up with bags full of items that I couldn’t get anywhere else up here, none of it individually overpriced…. Though speaking of the (now paper) bags, that’s a separate rant. It’s too nice of a day here for me to to be on multiple rants, so I’ll stop here. Vince

I always love their MSC videos! They always start out on a “you get what you pay for” footing, which is really fair when the cruise is that cheap, but then some of the experiences are just shocking no matter how cheap the cruise is. MSC Cruises — Yelling at Passengers Until They Cry, Since 1989. 😳 Vince

That's interesting... MarineTraffic is still showing both ships moored at the pier, but considering the dry dock that Serenity would fit in is adjacent to that pier she's showing at, I wouldn't bet anything on MT's precision. 🤷‍♂️ Vince

Yummy!! Is that a Martin’s potato roll? You weren’t kidding about the weather…. I opened the door this morning and started to panic at just how many weeks I must have been asleep last night. I forgot what it felt like to have air that didn’t feel like you’re swimming through jello as you walk. (The Maryland Office of Tourism Development obviously couldn’t sponsor me enough to make up nice things about summers here.) Vince

I’m better with finding cars than I am with finding Waldo… That shifty SOB. 😒 Vince

So the one with the gray Ferrari in the middle is the alpha of the pack? 🙂 Or just showing off? Vince