BWIVince

Thanks Adrian! I just want to point out that Adrian was in no way compensated or campaigned for his comment about the Starlight ceiling. 😆 Symphony’s original lack of artwork has always been one of the starkest contrasts with Harmony to me. Harmony had several really high profile original pieces commissioned that really added to the atmosphere, where Symphony always had a much more austere vibe. Subsequent designers attempted to correct that in specific spaces…. (The pieces in the elevator lobby outside the casino added in 2007, the prints Kirk Nix added in the Avenue and the framed art and image panels in the former Prego, Alison Clixby’s coordination of the cast pieces that used to be in Umi Uma and her use of crafted wall textures, like the (former) purple tiled wall in Umi Uma and the mirrored cutout wall in Marketplace, and II BY IV’s additions to the Starlight.). Overall though, lots of finished wall surfaces instead of commissioned pieces. I completely agree about Crystal’s new builds being the future, and their only path to long-term success. I say that with mixed feelings though, because the new builds will likely not fit my needs, and I expect that to be my end of sailing Crystal, as much as I know they will meet the needs of the majority. Vince

Are the shore excursions already open for booking? It does seem weird that they’d be able to be booked without a price, but if they’re not yet open for booking, they may not be finalized yet and they may just be a preview to give everyone an idea of the likely options. Vince

I was just about to say the same thing…. They rolled out sooner on Serenity though — IIRC they rolled out after the 2018 refit as part of the new service in the reconfigured Palm Court. Vince

+1... If they just started the RFP process a couple of months ago, that probably would be completed later this fall, and then have to go through design, procurement, and fabrication processes for the basic furnishings for the room (like the bases for the machines)... The operator, once selected, needs to jump through some legal and regulatory hurdles to start a new operation with a new cruise line, needs to source the equipment that was spec'd out in the RFP process, needs to recruit and train the staff, and coordinate with the cruise line on the construction and installation of the space after all the fabrication and sourcing is done... And of course all of this is dependent on even finding an operator that provides a feasible bid, which honestly I still have some concerns about. I'm HOPING they can scale the operation down to a feasible size, but I'm not positive that's a given. That's a lot to happen with less than 12 months to go... But not physically impossible. The odds just aren't great. Vince

If you re-read my message I did note that it’s not necessarily as off-peak locally, but when your home base is hardly traveling at that time, even half way around the world it becomes harder when you can only sell to a local market. I wasn’t saying that time frame was the travel industry’s only sales challenge, there are others, but it’s clear as day to anyone in a similar seat to Silversea’s sales team why this cruise is on that list. Vince

I totally agree with your point…. As an aside though, this itinerary does perfectly illustrate the point that FlyerTalker was making about the solo promotions generally applying to challenged inventory. The first two and a half weeks of December are on average the hardest period of time to sell travel in the US, and many other countries. We tend to think of months like February as slow periods overall because Christmas saves December’s perception, but the rest of December is global headache for industry sales departments at US-based travel suppliers like Silversea (regardless of where the property, itinerary or route is). Wonderful itinerary though, and a great example of the values out there for solo travelers if you have enough flexibility! Vince

Deleted…. Internet gremlins duped post.

It seems to be more than just North America sailings, but to your point, just as in the past, peak sailings like holiday cruises, world/grand voyages, unique sailings, etc. will either have limited solo inventory or unique pricing. Vince

I think people get hung up on the number of solo cabins being fixed somehow now just because we have specifically marked cabins on a deck plan. The solo cabins are exactly the same as the double window cabins for a reason. Crystal has had a threshold for selling solo cabins at a supplement for as long as I can remember, and that remains true today -- it all depends on the popularity of the voyage. New Crystal will sell as many "extra" cabins beyond that threshold (as guarantees) as they feel balances demand for the double staterooms, EXACTLY the same way Old Crystal did. Unfortunately in this case -- as has always been true -- popular voyages only get so many solo or single supplement cabins. YMMV, but on my Alaska cruise the single supplement for a double veranda isn't double, it's close to 50%. I think the double-across-the-board thing is a misconception. Vince

+1…. I posted this in another thread, but I’m booked on a cruise next year where the solo window cabins were significantly cheaper than was quoted for my last pre-Covid cruise in 2019, and the balcony doubles were roughly the same surcharge as was charged in 2019. It may SEEM more glaring because the solo cabins are now sometimes at a lower surcharge than some sailings in the past, and fares/rates across the entire travel industry are dramatically higher than they were pre-COVID in the US market almost universally, but that doesn’t mean the surcharge itself on the double verandas is out of whack. Vince

Somewhere in Time was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. The Grand Hotel has been on my bucket list my whole life, but I still haven't made it there yet. (One day!) I wish I had been there for that chat, Roy! Vince

The assignment process for a travel supplier can take years in the US -- they would likely have a couple more years before anyone would express any concern about it from an oversight perspective. MM&A is still validating the disputes IIRC, which impacts who gets paid in this advance priority payment period, so how long this takes is variable depending on how many people get their claims disqualified or rejected, and how many people dispute those responses. For that reason the actual disbursement dates can move easily and need to be flexible, no matter what original estimate they gave. Vince

All of that is correct above, but I wanted to point out one other possible scenario that kind off fits what was posted... If someone battled their credit card company hard enough for a dispute that wasn't eligible for a chargeback (or their issuer chose not to go the chargeback route for some other reason), and they got some kind of a credit from their issuer that wasn't a chargeback, MM&A would likely not have a record of it. This would be a complete outlier, but it can happen. As it pertains to the credit card issuers, MM&A is reconciling the claims against the chargebacks of Crystal's money, and wouldn't normally have insight into customer service credits that other banks had issued to their own customers to get them off their backs. Vince

Crystal has done the same at many points as well, including most of their brochures. Vince

This is a collision of low occupancy (number of souls on the ship at the moment of the lunch service) and low interest (think: single digits) in the formal lunch as a venue. This isn’t new, Crystal has had this formula for over a decade, but what’s changed is that fewer people are wanting lunch in Waterside and capacity has been reduced, so now it’s getting harder and harder to meet the viability threshold on port days than it once did…. So where it once was only popular port days that it wasn’t viable to do Waterside lunch service, now it’s most port full port days (with exceptions as Keith noted). Vince

I really wish I could agree with your post, but this is almost offensive and makes me second guess my long standing preferences. 😞 A proper lunch on port days is one of the things I miss most from small ship luxury cruising these days, but I can’t make people want what I want or force people to change modern dining trends and take them back 20 years. Lunch in Waterside isn’t scalable down to an “on-demand” type situation. Based on my experience with catering metrics, with its menu, it takes about 50 diners at a minimum not to make it a scandalous waste of materials and resources, and even at 50 you have a fair amount of waste. We’ve all been on cruises in the past few years where we could count the lunch diners in Waterside on our own fingers. That’s not realistic or sustainable in any way. I’d add that you not only have the ethical and waste problem of the food, you also have the morale problem of labor. It’s demoralizing for the crew to be denied shore leave (or even just a break shift) to be standing around staring at the carpet day after day. 😞 You’re not going to “train” people to want to eat like their grandparents did — if you’re going to be successful, you have to meet people how the majority want to dine today…. Unfortunately for those of us who want to eat like their grandparents did. I know, reality sucks. Trust me. No one here wants lunch in Waterside more than I do. Vince

This kind of hides because we can't see a booking engine (temporarily) like we used to... The guarantees aren't a separate category or listing, they're basically an option for the categories open for sale. In many cases they may be the only option if you wanted to book a particular category, depending on the amount of oversell Crystal is doing in a particular category, if all the assignable cabins in that category had been sold but the category is still open for sale. To put it another way, where it says "Request a Quote," the category is available to book by guarantee and may/likely also have cabin assignments available. If it says "Waitlist," then all the assignments and all of the guarantees are sold out. Until we get an online booking tool though, we won't be able to see when the cabin assignments are gone and we can only book guarantees, like we used to. Hope that makes sense. I had to ask, because I wasn't sure if guarantees were still a thing either... But they work just like they used to. Vince

That's the way it was in 2019 on my last cruise under the previous "full" pricing schedule... I just checked my notes and it was 130% for window cabins, 150% for verandas, 175% for what were PH's and 200% for PS and CP, but of course varied by sailing that era. In 2015 it was a fixed 125% for windows, 135% for most verandas, 150% for the top verandas, 175% for PH's and 200% for PS and CP. (The rates were fixed but capacity controlled and could vary by exception for special cruises.) For giggles, I just checked Crystal's first brochure as well (1990), and it was 160% for all non penthouses, and 200% for all 3 penthouse categories. (The lettering was different back then.) Vince

They did, but only on the lowest grades... It jumped up as you graduated higher in cabin grades, and even though they went with a more flexible schedule by voyage in the last couple of years pre-covid, verandah cabins were a sizable step over window cabins for most cruises. Vince

IME with Crystal, I think the waitlists only kick in after the guarantees are already sold out... But that said, if inventory opens up somewhere else in the ship, and Crystal wants to take reservations from a lower category to backfill them, they can definitely open up inventory as guarantee in a category they want to clear someone from the waitlist, offer them the guarantee at that rate, and then pop them into that higher category as needed... It just happens in conjunction with the guarantee process, just not in place of it. Vince

All the standard cabins had the bar function moved over from the desk to a new unit carved out of the closet. It's kind of a controversial change, but it definitely has both plusses and minuses. Haven't sailed on new Crystal yet so I'll let others comment on whether they hold you to specific spirits on the list now (unlike the past). Vince

My experience parallels Patty's for the Alaska cruise I booked next year. I don't know exactly how they calculated the fare vs. taxes off the top of my head so I can't give the exact percentage, but the veranda double I booked worked out to about 150-160% of the per person double fare. That's a lot more than the solo cabins, but not out of whack with what old Crystal charged for solo occupancy of the verandas in the old days at least. Vince

It vaguely reminded me of my experience of flying the morning of 9/11, and rolling with the couple dozen subsequent plans that kept changing for the rest of that week... I felt bad for y'all being in limbo, but there were definitely worse places you could have been going through that than onboard Crystal at least. 🙂 Vince

I agree with Patty 100%... Interim port calls are not guaranteed in any way, shape or form, and are subject to change. That's just life, and if you lower expectations on that, you'll be a lot less disappointed with cruising. I'll also add that while there are exceptions, the general rule in the travel industry is that it's better not to share the details for advance changes, other than to say it's an operational need. If you go too much further into it with clients or agents, it just creates arguments between the parties that the cruise line shouldn't have given in to the port, or should have sued, or some other unrealistic response that at the end of the day really doesn't matter and is just a waste of everyone's time and money. I know the operational need answer isn't very satisfying, but at the end of the day it's the only thing that matters. Vince

I totally agree about the mock up process, though nothing is foolproof. Haha I can think of three design elements that were all mocked up with sample cabins that evaluators stayed in, and still made it to production: 1 - All kinds of misses in Harmony’s original cabins, especially the windowed models with the angular entry…. The lack of storage space (while wasting square feet on unusable closet depth), the tubs you had to step into for the bathroom doors to swing in, etc… 2 - The glass vessel sinks from Symphony’s first standard cabin refit…. Then a second glass replacement in an oval design that also passed a trial, before they went with the third design (the upright plastic ones). 3 - …and of course, The Chair. Nuff said. All of those got the green light in actual mock up tests. 😊. Stuff happens. Vince