dhmjdds

I am surprised to hear that you received no pre-dinner briefing on your sailing. We just returned from the Crystal Mahler Sept 1-Sept 16 sailing and our (really superior) Program/Excursion Director Jessica held one every night in the Palm Court at 6:45pm. She went over the docking schedule, and detailed descriptions of every tour for the next day. She also held one on the second or third day of the cruise where she went over every single excursion that was going to be available for the entire cruise, to try to help people choose.

Our sailing was an amended itinerary, though. We were supposed to sail Amsterdam-Budapest and it had to be changed to round-trip Amsterdam with mostly completely different ports. Even Jessica did not know the exact itinerary and what tours would be available until the very very last minute. All of those things are arranged by corporate and the on-board people have absolutely no power to change them.

However, it was an absolutely wonderful cruise. The tours were excellent and there was a lot of variety, with several bike tours, short local walking tours in almost every port, and a few all-day tours to interesting cities about an hour away from the river. We only had 60 people on our sailing; the cruisers who felt that only the original itinerary would do all cancelled. The rest of us were very pleased with the amended one.

Diane

Thanks for the responses! Interesting that the two were so different. Maybe on Mighty Quinn’s cruise the tours tended to run longer, into the dinner hours and people felt quite rushed?

Sounds like I should bring dresses, and tell my husband to pack nice pants and collared shirts.

Diane

With all the problems and changes due to the low water situation, I have not even thought about packing. But now the amended itinerary is firmed up, and we have decided to stick it out.

We leave in 6 :o days for a 16 day Mahler cruise in the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Belgium. We have no idea what excursions are going to be offered; we always choose the most active ones available—hiking, biking, zip-lining, river boarding (OK, that was a bad idea), etc.

I read through the “Before You Cruise” booklet today. Not particularly helpful, but they seem to indicate that we should dress up for dinner. But I’ve also read on these boards that people don’t actually dress up for dinner, even on Crystal.

If anyone is now or has sailed on these boats, what is the real story about dinner dress? And what, if anything, do you wish you had brought, but did not, or did bring, but realized you needn’t have bothered?

Diane

OH! It sounds like you guys are all cancelling. :(

We have decided to stay on board. I guess it will be a fairly “Private Yacht” “All Exclusive” experience.

We are going to fly to Budapest on the 16th (a day before the cruise officially ends) and spend two nights there. We were going to stay one night in Budapest after the end of the cruise anyway, so now Crystal will pay our way from Amsterdam to Budapest, and we will pay for one more night in a hotel. Not ideal, but still should be a wonderful vacation.

My TA came by today and gave me all the info in person. Still a little peeved that I heard about it all here first... You guys are amazing!

Diane

Thank you sarasotascott for continuing to post. Your information is very reassuring.

Assuming that our “refund” offers will be similar to the ones Roland4 described, it sounds like our best bet is to continue on with the cruise. Though I do hope there is some allowance for air changes since right now we fly back starting in Budapest, not Amsterdam.

Diane

Three days in Bernkastel? Wonder what there is to do from there? And then looks like we don’t have an overnight in Amsterdam at the beginning of the cruise, but two overnights at the end. Hmmm.

And we are not going to Cologne.

Should I be excited by this? Not sure.

Diane

P.S. Still haven’t received my cruise documents, but my TA says he has them and will bring them to my office tomorrow. Also have not gotten an email about the new itinerary either from my TA or from Crystal. Frustrating!

I am currently on the Mahler and we are having a Faboulous Cruise. Currently we are about to dock for an over night stay in Bernkastel. Good tour choices from here, we picked a full day in Luxembourg. Tomorrow a full day tour to Trier. We had a great visit to Koblenz and Cochem....great places and wonderful tours. It’s like a private yacht experience due to cancellations. Great food and super staff...I’m loving it!!

 

Scott

Thank you for posting, Scott! This is just what I was hoping to hear about. How many guests are on the boat would you say?

Since we will most likely be on the next iteration of this amended Mahler cruise, any further info you can post would be most appreciated. If you possibly could take pictures of the excursion list and post that, it would be terrific.

Diane

Susan--

Wow, now we are up to about 10% of the passengers! That's pretty darn good.

I do think we will take the cruise even if it is sailing the amended itinerary and staying north. We've never been to any of the towns or areas where it will be going, so I think it would suit us. No, it's not Vienna and Bratislava and Budapest, but the ship will probably not be full since a fair number of people will choose to cancel; it might be like a private yacht. :D:D

What would make us cancel was if it turned into a bus tour-cruise or if it was shortened from 16 days to 6, like at least one cruise on the (I think) Bach. Then we'll get that Eurail pass and make our own way from Amsterdam to Budapest.

No word back yet from my TA on our documents. I know we paid our fare on time; the PCPC let me make reservations for things.

Diane

Dianne,

 

We received our documents for the Sept. 1 Mahler Cruise over a month ago. Surprisingly early, even for an ocean cruise.

Oh shoot! That worries me even more than the possible changes to the itinerary! Contacting TA right away.

Diane

We were notified a week ago with the following new itinerary.....the format is not copying correctly, sorry.

 

Aug 16Amsterdam, Netherlands OvernightAug 17 Amsterdam, Netherlands-1 pmAug 18Cologne, Germany 2 pm7 pmAug 19Koblenz, Germany 9 am11 pmAug 20Cochem, Germany 8 am9 pmAug 21Bernkastel, Germany8 amOvernight pmAug 22Bernkastel, Germany-1 pmAug 23Dusseldorf, Germany1 pm8 pmAug 24Nijmegen, Netherlands6 am6 pmAug 25Maastricht, Netherlands10 amOvernightAug 26Maastricht, Netherlands-12 pmAug 27Rotterdam, Netherlands1 pm6 pmAug 28Ghent, Belgium8 am8 pmAug 29Antwerp, Belgium8 am4 pmAug 30Dordrecht, Netherlands1 pm7 pmAug 31Amsterdam, Netherlands8 amOvernightSept 1Amsterdam, NetherlandsDisembark am

Hey sarasotascott—

Since you are on Mahler right now, could you possibly post about your trip? How is the amended itinerary? Are there interesting things to see and do? What excursions are available?

I’m particularly interested in the active excursions. On the original itinerary we were signed up for all of the biking and hiking ones. Are there still plenty of those? I hate riding on bus tours of anywhere.

Diane

Mrs. Claypool—

Good to hear from someone else on the same boat, and in the same boat! I agree we should hear something this week. Have you received anything at all from Crystal? Usually for an ocean cruise we would have gotten our documents before this.

My guess is that the Mahler will be sailing the same itinerary that it has done the last two cruises. It doesn’t sound great, but it doesn’t sound awful either.

Diane

Bigrhode, you did pretty well on future cruise credit compared to the Bach rescheduling, which was only $250 per person. Once onboard, we got a nice apology card and a gift certificate for an extra $500 onboard credit. But in one of the most classless moves ever, when we went to exchange the certificate they tore it up, said there was a mistake, and we should have only gotten $250 OBC. There were a lot of mistakes made by Crystal (like docking right next to a waste treatment plant in Trier), and almost all of them could have been prevented if Crystal really thought through what they were doing. IMHO they didn't try to go out of their way to make up for fully changing our whole itinerary a few days before departure. This lack of "heart" is why we won't cruise Crystal again after this very bad first experience with them.

Oh, lord. We are booked on the Mahler leaving Amsterdam on 9/1. Haven’t heard a word from Crystal about alternatives, though it certainly seems that there is no chance that we can do Amsterdam-Budapest. I wonder when we will get our options? Perhaps once we are in Amsterdam.

Well, we will pack light and if the boat’s not sailing, I’ll buy a Eurorail pass and make the best of it, I guess. Always wanted to backpack through Europe, so this might be our chance.

Trying hard not to freak out.

Johng75370–You seem to have every reason to be P.O.’d Cannot understand why they did the (very very) classless move of tearing up your certificate. Obviously you deserved the amount on it; even if they made a mistake they needed to honor whatever it said. When we make a mistake like that in our office we bite the bullet and go with whatever we originally said. That’s just business 101.

But I hope you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. We have been extremely pleased with Crystal up to this point; try to look past this crappy situation and if a Crystal cruise fits into your plans in the future, consider them again. Maybe for an ocean cruise...

Diane

I read about the changed itinerary here on Cruise Critic; it was actually in one of the articles on the board written by the editorial staff, not in the forums. But all that said was a general statement that the itinerary had been changed to round trip Amsterdam. Then I searched online and found other references to the cruise being changed to sail on the rivers of northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Finally, I looked on MarineTraffic.com and found out where the boat currently was and where it had been recently. Apparently it even was in the North Sea at least briefly, according to that site (!).

The poster above is obviously on this next cruise and has the new itinerary. I’m sure it will be interesting, but it certainly isn’t anything like the originally booked itinerary. And assuming their flight goes into Budapest, it will be challenging to have to get to Amsterdam to start the cruise.

We are on the cruise that follows; leaving Amsterdam on Sept 2. So we will start out in the right place, but who knows where we go from there?

Diane

This cruise is supposed to be Budapest-Amsterdam. However, they completely changed the itinerary for the preceding cruise from Amsterdam-Budapest to round trip Amsterdam, on rivers in Germany and Belgium. Unless they have a really big Star Trek transporter, that boat ain’t gonna be in Budapest on August 16.

Interestingly, the Crystal website still lists it as Budapest-Amsterdam, along with shorter segments Budapest-Regensburg and Regensburg-Amsterdam. As if you could still book it.

All these tomato haters and no one has said passion fruit! Lord, how can anyone scoop that goo out with a spoon and eat it?? Can't even stand to look at it.

But really, any tropical fruit is disgusting to me: papaya (plus that weird feeling that your mucous membranes are being digested by the papain), mango, and BANANAS as stated by a couple of posters above. And pineapple and coconut.

Cottage cheese, after I was traumatized by it in preschool 50 years ago.

Pudding, custard, and especially flan. And please don't even think about lumpy puddings like tapioca and raisin.

Diane

Why would there be a problem getting back to the ship on time? The whole thing is only supposed to take 4.5 hours. Does it (the actual Amazing Race) start at noon or something? I admit, I didn't see a start time on the website. Might have been there, and I missed it.

Celebrity implies in their excursion materials that they have a separate "race" from the one that is available in Cozumel. "Inspired" by the Amazing Cozumel Race, or something like that. Has anyone done the Celebrity one?

Should I book independently for the best experience, or just go with Celebrity's version? The prices are pretty similar.

You can also ask the cabin Steward to empty the contents of the mini bar to have use of the fridge for the whole sailing. This also insures that they not charge you for anything from the Mini Bar. From my experience, they check the mini bar daily and re-stock as needed, with the appropriate charges....

Our experience on the Eclipse recently was that when we asked them to remove the items from the minibar/fridge, they did so--and put them in a bag in the closet!! And stacked the cans of Coke etc. on the desk.

Since this was in our kids' room (ages 15 and 12) we were certainly hoping they would take them out of the room completely. We had kind of an odd steward, though, so maybe others have had a different experience.

Diane

Deck 6

Cabins 6131 and 6123

Class 2B (I think)

Port side

Bed near bath in both cabins

Generally very quiet cabins; can hear music from the theater below during shows or rehearsals, but these shows never went later than 11:30pm, and usually much earlier

Balcony size: normal

Balcony views: there is an extension out about 4-5 feet at the floor level of these balconies, so you can't see down to the water right below. The balcony for 6123 is right up against where the cabins forward of it stick out farther, so this balcony has no view forward at all

Wind: no problem, but if you don't latch the balcony door all the way it plays an interesting tune!

Problems: Common to all cabins on this ship, the closet doors are almost impossible to slide. Makes it very annoying to try to hang things and keep shoes organized (I resorted to just throwing them in, and feeling for them to get them out).

Bathroom is fabulous, excellent water pressure

No "funny smells" were detected

Convenient to the fitness center and spa, far from the food (an excellent arrangement for me!)