travelberlin

Could you please remind me where to refill the bottles ?. I like the idea more than buying plastic bottles (and further contributing to additional waste). What I did not like at the MSC ships however is that not everyone would use refill stations carefully. I mean they would just put their water containers on the machine touching it after drinking their water directly from the containers. Is at Royal ships similar?

Sorry to read you are facing cancellations and rebooking problems again. The cancellations were the reason why I have left Explora without booking another cruise with them independently of how generous their compensation seemed to be. I hope Explora will improve this. On the mean time we are happily booking other cruise lines including MSC. Today we are just finalizing our booking for Spring 2025 with the MSC Seaview.

Thank you. No offense was intended. Ivi

Trip advisor

Thanks Keith for your answer. Same as you, I try to write reviews from my cruises and from hotels and restaurants to give others an idea of what to expect. I benefit a lot from reviews from others when searching hotels and restaurants. I have to say, I benefit more from the lower rated reviews than from the 5 star reviews. If posters write something negative, I see if the negative things are very important to me or not. For example if someone mentions a security and safety issue in a hotel, it doesn’t matter how many others write 5 star reviews, I do not book on that hotel. I have indeed written a review of my cruise with the Serenity. I have given the experience 5 stars, not because every thing was perfect and better than ever from my point of view. But because I appreciate the efforts that the new company is making and I have given my honest review with some suggestions for improvement. Nothing is perfect but I did not find the issues that I did not like to be a problem in order to diminish my 5 star rate of my experience. I do not recognize the names of the other reviewers because they do not post on this board. This is why I was wondering. Thanks again for your explanation. Ivi

I find it also interesting that when looking at the reviews for the ships on Cruise Critic, we hardly find people who post on this board. For example for the Serenity there are several reviews now, and I can only recognize Keith, who writes 5 stars reviews of all his cruises with Crystal. Other reviewers I do not recall having see them posting on the Crystal boards. Are they travel agents or travel journalists just coming to Cruise Critic to write reviews? On the other hand, other Crystal loyals here, who have already sailed with Crystal, and seem to love the product do not write reviews of their cruises, although their opinions might be helpful for the new company. Ivi

We find curious that so many people are just standing around in the water for hours as if it were another hot tub. And this was actually the subject that the OP mentioned: safety in terms of hygiene of the hot tubs. As long as people are standing a long time in the swimming pools also, those pools are not hygienic either. As I have said before, it seems to be a cultural difference. We would never consider to go into a public pool with an alcoholic drink in the hand (although this is not allowed) to “socialize”. However others seem to find it the right thing to do. Enough for me about this subject.

We have been swimming in all our cruises. You are not correct. I wonder where you got the information that pools have not been designed to swim. Best pools for swimming you can find on Regent and Crystal. Of course they are not olympic sized pools, but large enough to do laps. Pools at Royal Caribbean ships are large enough to swim. Pools on ships are used for several purposes for example to do aqua classes or to play games at certain hours. But most cruise lines do not allow people to drink while on the pool.

Thanks. Interesting. It did not occurred to me that just standing around in the swimming pool for long periods of time was kind of acceptable behavior because people were on vacation. I have thought the pools were there to be able to swim. It must be a cultural difference. We usually swim on our pools and chat outside. By the way, we have heard so many times using the “I am on vacation” line to justify lack of consideration for others that it has become also something to wonder about it.

Thanks for all the advice you give here. Do you think it will be a good idea to visit the Gothic Quarter and El Born on a Sunday? Are those areas safe to walk on your own even in the evening? Not late at night and in the Sommer season. I have seen also some wine tour outside Barcelona visiting a couple of wineries in Penedes. It is quite expensive though. It is about 6 hours including some light lunch. Do you think it is worth it to spend a Sunday that way instead of walking around in Barcelona? I do not like hop on hop off buses either.

Thanks Keith for your answer. In relation to guests stealing, fortunately it hasn’t happened to us. In many cruises with different cruise lines from Royal Caribbean to Crystal, we have encountered honest people. My husband tends to leave his sports jacket at different places on the ships. I don’t remember how many times he went to the guest relations of ships to get again his jacket. He was able to recover it because honest people (passengers or crew members) delivered it there. Only once his jacket was definitely gone. This was an MSC ship. Ivi

I have to wonder about those suspicious of fraudulent claims. We are talking about Crystal cruisers who I didn’t consider to be deceiving or wanting to be fraudulent. I don’t believe that those rejections to claims are caused by fraudulent past cruisers. I think that there is something else going on (i.e credit cards or insurances paying after the claim was submitted and this information not being properly processed). I also think that Moecker is making some mistakes while verifying the claims and taking unnecessary time for those payments. Not intentionally probably, but still there are clients waiting to receive the checks or transfers without being fraudulent. For the record, we are not fraudulent and have not received any payment from the credit card company or travel insurance after my husband submitted the claim and despite this, are still waiting for the transfer from Moecker despite notification that this would happen.

MS Artania (Phoenix Reisen) will go through Red Sea with passengers. Those passengers who do not wish to continue onboard in this route have the option to Fly from Salala to Cairo and to wait there for the ship.

Adrian, I am sorry to hear you lost your cat. The poor Tonto is resting now. Why did you call him Tonto? Tonto means in Spanish dumb/stupid… Thanks very much for taking us along during your cruise. Well done Adrian 👍 Ivi

Excuse me, could you please explain what you mean? Unable to open and download the files you posted.

Not only that, this poster makes generalizations about things that he doesn’t even know. For example „every body at Crystal have got their money back”. He discusses and discusses and wants to have the final word and the absolute truth. Tiring really.

I do not think they have expired. This was at the time when those certificates did not have a requirement of booking within 6 months. They did not have an expiration date.

Do you get the double solo points if your booking is for 2 people but for any reason about 40 days from your cruise you have to cancel one passenger? A friend and I are looking at a cruise for next year but she can’t commit that far in advance. We could book the cruise now, but if she can’t come, it will be just me. We don’t intend to make it a no show. We would cancel just one passenger in case she cannot come.

I have a couple of next cruise certificates for Celebrity, which were made on board before the pandemic. Each of the certificates is a deposit of US 100. I don’t remember the benefits attached to those certificates. Am I entitled to reduced deposit when doing the actual booking? To OBC?

The people I mentioned are not swimming. They are just standing around chatting not allowing others to swim.

We do not use hot tubs. However we use the swimming pool to do our routine swimming. It is annoying to have in the pools groups of usually big people just standing there talking for hours. We heard one passenger calling the pools in ships “hippo pools”. Those of us who just want to swim are not able to do it. Some of those standing passengers just won’t move and look to swimmers as if they are invading their own pool. I guess the swimming pools are also not free of germs because of these practice of standing for hours on the pools, using them as if it were another hot tub.

It looks very nice as an entry level cabin. Much better than the balcony cabins at Azamara or the solo cabins at Crystal. If this is an important criteria, I guess Explora wins. What I like is that all cabins at entry level at Explora, are balcony cabins. I am finding very difficult now to cruise without a balcony. Not because I need the balcony to spend time there, but I need the fresh air in the bedroom. Specially after the pandemic this has become very important to me. Ivi

Some Europeans seem to have received their US 2225 pp already. Others have not. We are still waiting.

Thanks we are still waiting.

Thanks for letting us know. One question, you got US 4450 for one claim? This will be US 2225 per person. Are others also getting this amount? How much shall we expect from Moecker? US 2225 per person? Ivi