BWIVince

Ahh! 🙂 There is something tangible to always turning the same direction off the midships or aft stairs/elevators (and consistently flipping it forward), and not having to change it up cruise to cruise. Vince

Congrats! Just out of curiosity, is there something superior about cabins on Serenity’s port side? It’s been years since I’ve sailed on Serenity. Vince

Again, travel agent 101, sales grants exceptions, not reservations. I remain critical about what the policy is, but if the goal is to get the refund, expecting a reservations supervisor to break the rules is just wasting everyones time given there are other avenues that are customary. They neither have the authority to change the policy nor break it, but your agent has access to the team that does. Vince

Part of the design of Umi Uma (on both ships) is the flexibility of the 2-tops (and the reason there are so many of them)... Just as in Waterside (though with check-ins instead of reservations), they can dynamically adjust the inventory as needed in the system to fulfill a different curve depending on the night. On Serenity, the side-by-side tables for 2 by the windows can all be pushed together to create 4-tops, and the 2-tops forward of the round 8-top feature can be pushed together up to 6-tops. In both cases the tables can be arranged lengthwise to go up to 8, as a last resort, but I haven't seen that too often. Most of Symphony's 2-tops go up to 6, and the banquette is also used flexibly. If it works now anything like it used to, they use a "typical" inventory as a starting point with many of the 2-tops already accounted for as 4 or 6 tops, and then just adjust up or down as needed by splitting or combining more tables. Vince

I'm certainly anything but a Crystal cheerleader, but I do have a couple of thoughts... I don't know what Crystal is actually offering anyone, but the reports of how people FEEL about what's being offered here definitely indicates poor form. They should be offered no-penalty moves to other sailings or full refunds in cases where dates and durations are changing. OTOH, I think Crystal is absolutely doing the responsible thing by cancelling the sailings. The Canal Authority is in a bind and the canal is operating at extremely reduced capacity. The canal is a vital link between oceans that carries essential traffic and trade without timely alternatives. With capacity choked down, every slot is precious, and if this persists long enough we can have major supply chain challenges (including with things like fuel). I don't doubt that people have worked hard for their vacations and they may have their heart set on particular experiences, but sailings by cruise ships just going back and forth through the canal for tourism reasons when other lines are returning those slots for more essential traffic to use would just be plain irresponsible. Repositioning sailings are a different story, but transit series sailings should be a no-go. Vince

That’s perfectly reasonable…. I obviously don’t know all the details so I’m not passing any judgement on your agent, I’m just making observations and suggestions. The reservations department at every cruise line is responsible for three things — processing new reservations, processing changes/booking maintenance, and retaining reservations. They are absolutely the first step and first (and second) points of contact in cases like this. They are not the ones to grant exceptions though, they’re not responsible for customer retention or agent account management, and their primary function is at odds with what you’re trying to accomplish. In retail terms, it’s kind of like arguing about a refund or exchange with a cashier at Target. Based on what’s outlined above, it’s probably time for your agent to take this to their sales contact, because this is going to start to become an account management issue for them either at the customer or the agent level if they don’t (understandably), and that is the department tasked with that mission — not reservations. Your agent may not yet have a relationship with the sales department, since Crystal’s sales team (as such) is relatively new, but this is the perfect reason to start forming one from scratch. Someone in sales is going to want this resolved quickly, if they want to be around long. Vince

Legally Crystal is 100% correct about the voyage not getting cancelled (the itinerary can be changed for reasons without their control), and that doesn’t count as a cancellation if they are still operating during the same timeframe, even if the dates and ports change. Cruise line contracts vary from airlines in many ways. THAT SAID, that doesn’t mean you just have to accept whatever they toss out without pushback. If the dates embarkation/disembarkation dates changed before or after your original booking dates, your agent should push back on that point and say you’re unavailable for the new dates. If the per diems are higher now for the shorter sailing, the agent can push back on that for a cancellation as well. Seasoned agents know the points to make to get cruise lines to back down. Keep pushing for a refund if that’s what you want. It may require more than just a supervisor, but agents are used to that if they’ve been around. Vince

I imagine it's probably going to be a case where you'll see the impacted cruise lines pay the premium for a repositioning cruise (unless they can afford to add a South America season), but not for individual transcanal sailings, but that's just a prediction. Vince

...Or maybe I'm the first person to bring up Symphony's modest contribution to Serenity here, based on the quiet? Vince

Another question that I'm sure has come up, but I haven't found in all the thread (yet)... Did they take the loveseats in the regular window and veranda staterooms from Symphony because the Serenity's new loveseats weren't going to be delivered in time, or do they just need so few of them now that they didn't need to order new ones at all, and just decided to split them? Vince

I don't generally decorate with yellow, but I kind of like the accent because it's more vibrant than what Crystal has traditionally used in the carpets. That said, if we had to rule out accent colors in carpets based on what someone might say that color reminds them of being spilled on or done to the carpet, we'd only have black. I'm not saying you're wrong though! 😁 Vince

Thanks Larry -- I missed the pics Terry posted of the wallpaper, but I see them now! I think that's a lot better than the renderings. The lounge, OTOH, I've seen TONS of pics of and have a very strong opinion of. 😞 Thank heavens it's a placeholder. Vince

I don't think I've seen any clear pictures of it yet (just the renderings, or other angles of the room -- I'm still catching up on posts)... But comparing the renderings between the two ships, Symphony's Bistro looks just as subtle color-wise, but at the same time the wallpaper looks even louder, somehow? Of course YMMV with renderings anyway, so who knows. Vince

I agree 100%... This particular case has some unique circumstances around it that I'm willing to cut them a little more slack for, but overall I definitely agree 100%. Crystal normally had a regular marketing partner that came, staged and photographed the staterooms shortly after each refit (and not just Paragon Pixels) when they were updated, and within 6 months or so the whole process would be complete and new photos were in circulation. The 2021 refits were kind of unique since they were more limited in scope, everyone was trying to limit the number of outside visitors onboard in 2021, and everyone was limiting marketing dollar to the highest impact projects across the industry at the time, not just at Crystal. I wouldn't be surprised if that one they posted is the most current publication-grade photo they have at the moment, until the process repeats itself again now. I'm looking forward to all the new photos we'll see in the coming months online, replacing the renderings and historical ones. Vince

I'm used to being in the minority on most things, but I have to admit I'm a little surprised at the nearly universal hatred of the new carpets. 🙂 I know I spend way too much time in US hotels and hospitality venues that have gone all-in on these large organic patterns the past few years, so my perspective has become quite skewed by that... But I actually love the new pattern and colors! 😄 I like it far better than the old geometric suite/stateroom patterns on Serenity, which were interesting in the early 2010's, but are very dated now, and is less busy than the 2018 version. I just had to share that for some reason. haha Vince

I think some of it was the lighting in the pics... I actually loved the colors -- it went well with the existing elements of the room and looked very spiffy while being very soothing at the same time. If that's not your thing, you can always pick one of the other generation of the room with the louder decor. Vince

I feel ya there! 😄 I can just speak to the design of the survey though... 🙂

That's a feature, and not a bug... A lot of surveys, especially for service companies, are moving in this direction because they want to find out what made the biggest impression on you and what was the most impactful. Not that they don't care what went wrong, but those are generally covered elsewhere in the survey. With these types of questions in the mix, they want to know what left you with such an impression that you still remember it weeks later, so they can focus on those things in the future. The stuff you already forgot about, kind of speaks for itself in that regard. Vince

We knew what he meant... 🙂

This is one of the few spaces that gives me a visceral response... I'm really glad they didn't rush to a final deployment of this room given the incredibly short timeline they had and everything they had to accomplish, and I think what they did with it is about the best placeholder you can implement so the space doesn't look abandoned or worse... ...But that said, the same things that make the space PERFECT for a casino (no windows, no daylight, relatively low ceilings, etc.) kind of gives me the creeps as as a place to chill. I'd rather be locked in my cabin bathroom than spend 5 minutes in that space. Given Serenity's design with its higher ratio of "indoor" public spaces, I'd be kind of sad if windowed areas don't get repurposed for other window-friendly uses, so I'm kind of nervous about the new casino location, but I'm holding out hope that I'll be really happy with what they land on for the old casino space. Vince

I just wanted to add that at a minimum, Symphony’s Classic Aquamarines received new carpet, sofas, chairs, coffee tables, artwork and softgoods prior to the 2021 restart, and don’t look like the picture currently on Crystal’s website (from above) anymore — even if nothing was done to them in this refit (which may or may not be the case). Here are some pics from September of 2021… Vince

I watched that on Insta yesterday and was left craving chapter 2…. I hope more comes quickly and consistently. Vince

Same…. They were showing their age in 2019, so I wasn’t surprised they didn’t survive the idle time in SE Asia. We have a local park here that had similar equipment installed about a decade ago, and it was also removed when it was time for replacement, so I’m guessing that trend is over. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Vince

Ahh, thanks for the correction Nancy and Keith! The example I was using was Symphony’s Perth to Auckland cruise in December, and all of the double window cabins I clicked on were $7300, regardless of ether they has a partially obstructed view, a promenade view, or a direct ocean view, but I do see now there are a small number of cabins that are different on deck 7 forward. So to my point, the advertised “from” price for the double window cabins actually covers ALL double and single window cabins on Symphony. Not sure if it works as well on Serenity, but if Crystal has any solos left over on Symphony, they can always add guarantee inventory to the starting grade of doubles and assign a solo cabin to fulfill the guarantee as promised. Vince

Is Crystal still sub-categorizing fares by location within a category, though? All the fares I’ve seen so far have been flat inside each category regardless of being forward/midship/aft, like in Crystal’s old days, and not like they were in the more recent past. With that, the rooms would now be equal. Vince